Right?
But it’s not fair. I finally find someone amazing, and we like each other, and I can kiss him and touch him (and he actually seems to want to kiss and touch me), and I have to let him go because of something neither of us had anything to do with. This feels like my one chance. This feels like it. What are the odds I’ll ever find a guy like him again? What if I never figure out my condition and I’m alone for the rest of my life?
God, this sucks.
I don’t let myself fuss in the mirror with my hair or makeup. I wear what I wore all day and the only vain thing I let myself do is brush my teeth. No sense in my breath smelling like my mom’s mac and cheese. I head out, heartbroken but determined.
Zenn is sitting on the church steps when I get there, his long legs stretched out in front of him. He stands when I approach and raises an eyebrow when I open the door with my dad’s keys.
“Are we going to get in trouble?” he asks quietly, even though we’re completely alone.
“What’s the matter, Bennett? Not much of a rule breaker?” It comes out a little flirtier than I intended. I’m supposed to be gearing up to end things, not flirting.
He shrugs. “Well … it is a church. Isn’t God watching us? Or something?”
“It’s okay,” I say, holding up my other hand with my fingers crossed. “God and I are like this.”
I knew no one would be here tonight and that we’d have privacy to talk. But I may have also chosen this place because it feels safe. In spite of all my skepticism about God and religion, church has always been a safe place for me. I close the door and lock it behind us.
He follows me to the nursery, the playroom where the quads spend a good part of their Sunday mornings. I flick on the fluorescent lights overhead, but the sudden brightness is so jarring that Zenn reaches past me and flips them back off. For some reason, I find this incredibly sexy.
Pull it together, Eva!
When my eyes adjust, I gesture to one corner of the room that is stacked with pillows and we sit on the pile next to each other. He’s being very polite and patient. I realize I need to speak first.
“So …” I start, my voice quiet and serious. “I need to talk to you about something.”
“It’s the scholarship, isn’t it? You are mad.”
I shake my head quickly. “No! I’m not mad about that. At all.”
He looks so confused that I can’t help smiling, which makes him grin back at me, relieved, his face lighting up like I’m sunshine or … candy. Something that he can’t resist. I’ve never had a guy look at me like that before.
I can’t ruin this. I can’t. And he’s right there, just inches away and I still remember the soft vanilla taste of his mouth.
“I’m sorry I blew you off this weekend. And didn’t meet you for lunch today,” I say, pulling at a thread that has come loose from the pillow I’m sitting on. “I can see why you’d think I was mad. But I wasn’t. I was just feeling … a little overwhelmed.”
He still looks confused.
“I’m kind of new at … all this.”
He places one of his hands on mine, stilling it, and I hold my breath, just in case. But no fractal.
“It’s kind of new to me, too,” he says.
I shake my head, wanting him to realize without me saying it. It’s more than just the fact that I’ve never had a boyfriend.
I look at him but the words pile up in my throat. And before I can get them in order again, he leans closer and his mouth catches my lips. Gently at first, and then more firmly like he’s making a statement with his kiss: I missed you and maybe I want you. Like he’s telling me that he doesn’t care if I’m virginal and inexperienced. Like he’s telling me that no matter what secrets I’ve uncovered, he’s willing to make this work. Though he can’t make that promise. He has no idea what I’ve uncovered.
I try to resist. I really do, but he tastes and smells and feels so good that I quickly forget all about what I need to tell him and my lifelong aversion to touch and wrap my arms around him. I deserve this. Everyone deserves this: to love and to touch. Why should I deny myself what everyone else has?
It’s funny how, after years of guarding my hands so carefully, they reach for him instinctively. It’s also funny how, after years of getting fractals when I touch just about anyone or anything, this fractal actually startles me. For once in my life I’m not ready. I gasp a little, open my eyes and pull away. No. None of this shit, not from him. Not now.
Then I realize I’m touching his jacket again. That damn army jacket of his dad’s.
Now that I know the fractals belong to his dad, I touch the jacket again out of curiosity, but the fractal is too strong, too dark. I realize that the terror and fear are maybe less from any war and more from the accident, because he must have been wearing it that night. The fractal is like the spiderweb of a shattered windshield. God, I can’t think about that right now. I remove my hands from Zenn.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
“Can you take this off?” I ask. He looks surprised and more than a little intrigued by my request, but he obeys without question, sliding it off and tossing it aside. He kisses me again and now I can once again touch him with no consequences other than my own hammering heartbeat and liquefying insides.
Almost immediately Zenn pulls away. “Hey, I never asked you. What was that thing the first day we met?”
“What thing?”
“Remember? How I caught you picking my jacket up with your foot?”
Oh, crap. Yeah. How to explain that? How to explain any of this?
The truth? The truth about my fractals seems easy compared to the bigger, harder truth hanging over my head.
He’s studying my face, his hand on my thigh, his thumb stroking gently. Fractal or no fractal, I can barely think when he’s touching me.
“What is it?” he asks again. He probably expects my answer will be something silly, like I’m a peace activist and have an aversion to military clothing or something, but he sees from my expression it is not.
Well. I guess I have to tell him something.
“So … I have this thing.”
He nods, listening.
I clear my throat. “When I touch … anything, really … I have this … reaction.”
“Reaction?”
I nod.
“Like an allergic reaction?”
“Not exactly.” I hesitate, thinking of how to best describe my fractals. “You know those paintings you do? The fractal art?”
He nods, barely following.
“It’s kind of like that. But, like, in my brain.”
“In your brain,” he repeats. He sounds skeptical. “You see … fractal art? When you touch things?”
I wag my head in a kinda-sorta motion. I’ve got to give him credit — he doesn’t look entirely incredulous. I mean, I realize how crazy it sounds.