Chapter 1: Discussions in pyjamas
The living room smelled like stale popcorn and bad decisions.
Nico slouched on the couch, one arm draped over the back, the other idly flicking through channels on the TV. The screen flickered with static between shows, casting jagged shadows across the walls. He hadn’t bothered to turn on the lights—why bother when the glow from the TV was enough to make everything look like a low-budget horror movie?
Across the room, Lisa sat perched on the armchair like a queen surveying her kingdom. Her blonde hair was pulled into a neat ponytail, and she had a textbook open on her lap, a highlighter poised like a weapon.
She glanced up at Nico, her blue eyes sharp with irritation.
"Can you at least pick a channel?" she said, her voice clipped.
Nico didn’t look up. "I’m not the one who wanted to watch TV."
"Right, because you’d rather stare at the wall."
He smirked. "At least the wall doesn’t judge me."
Lisa exhaled sharply, flipping a page in her book with more force than necessary. "You know, for someone who’s supposed to be an artist, you’re not very creative with your insults."
Nico finally turned his head, raising an eyebrow.
"Oh, I’m sorry. Did you want me to come up with something more original?"
Lisa snapped her book shut. "I want you to stop being a jerk."
"Wow," Nico said, stretching his arms behind his head. "That’s harsh. I was just getting comfortable."
She rolled her eyes. "You’ve been ‘getting comfortable’ since the second you walked in here. It’s been three hours."
"Time flies when you’re having fun," he muttered.
Lisa stood up, crossing her arms. "You know what? I don’t even know why I’m trying. You’re clearly not interested in being civil."
Nico shrugged.
"Civil is overrated. Besides, you’re the one who started this."
Lisa scoffed. "Oh, please. You’ve been glaring at me since the second our parents announced this whole *blended family* thing like it’s some kind of punishment."
Nico’s fingers twitched against the remote. "Yeah, well, forgive me if I’m not thrilled about sharing a bathroom with someone who leaves wet towels on the floor."
Lisa’s eyes narrowed. "And forgive *me* if I’m not thrilled about sharing a house with someone who acts like a sulking teenager."
Nico smirked. "I *am* a teenager."
"Barely," she shot back.
"And you’re not exactly a shining example of maturity either."
Nico let out a dry laugh, finally sitting up straight. "Oh, I see how it is. You get to be the perfect little golden child, and I’m just the problem kid who needs fixing."
Lisa’s jaw tightened. "I never said that."
"Didn’t have to. It’s written all over your face."
She exhaled sharply, running a hand through her hair. Fine. You want to play this game? Let’s play. Tell me why you’re so determined to be miserable."
Nico’s smirk faltered for a fraction of a second before he schooled his expression.
Lisa and Nico sitting in a dark living room that is only lighted by the television. Lisa sitting on the sofa reading a book while being annoyed by Nico. Nico is sitting on the couch watching television
Nico’s smirk faltered for a fraction of a second before he schooled his expression. “Determined? That implies effort. I’m just naturally gifted.”
“At being a pain in the ass,” Lisa muttered, but some of the fire had gone out of her voice. She sank back into the armchair, the textbook sliding to the floor with a soft thud. For a long moment, the only sound was the distant, tinny laugh track from a sitcom Nico had landed on.
He watched her. The perfect posture had collapsed. She was staring at the worn pattern on the rug, her shoulders slumped.
“You think I wanted this?” she said, so quietly he almost didn’t hear it over the TV.
Nico blinked. He’d been braced for another volley, not… this. He muted the television. The sudden silence was thick, heavy.
“What?”
“This.” She gestured vaguely at the room, at him, at everything. “The forced family fun. Uproooting my life to move into a stranger’s house with a stranger’s broody son who hates me on principle.”
“I don’t hate you on principle,” Nico said, the automatic retort leaving his lips before he could stop it. “I hate you on merit.”
It was a weak line, and they both knew it. She didn’t even look up.
“My dad left when I was eight,” she said, picking at a thread on the armchair. “Mom worked two jobs just to keep us in a shitty apartment. I got perfect grades, got the scholarships, got the ‘drive’ everyone praises because the alternative was… nothing. Was staying there.” She finally looked at him, and her blue eyes weren’t sparking with anger now. They were just tired. “This? This nice house, your dad who seems… solid? It’s my mom’s happy ending. And I am not going to be the thing that screws it up. So I have to be perfect. I have to get along. I have to like you.”
The raw honesty of it hit Nico like a physical blow. It stripped all the clever sarcasm right out of him. He’d painted her as this privileged, ambitious robot. He’d never considered the engine of fear that might be driving her.
He looked away, his own defenses feeling cheap and flimsy. The flickering TV light played over his band t-shirt and the worn knees of his jeans. “My mom died,” he said, the words coming out flat. “Three years ago. This house… it’s just the place she isn’t anymore. And now it’s being redecorated.”
Lisa didn’t say ‘I’m sorry.’ He was silently, fiercely grateful for that.
“And you think I’m part of the redecorating,” she said, understanding dawning.
“A very annoying, blonde throw pillow,” he confirmed, but there was no bite to it.
Another stretch of quiet. It felt different now, not hostile but… shared.
“I’m not trying to replace anything,” Lisa said softly. “Or anyone.”
“I know.” And he did, suddenly. He’d been fighting a ghost, and taking shots at a fellow prisoner. “For the record, the wet towel thing is actually a legit complaint.”
A small, almost imperceptible smile touched her lips. “Noted. And your ‘brooding artist in a crypt’ aesthetic is kind of draining the energy from the room.”
“It’s part of my charm.”
“It’s really not.”
He found himself smiling back, just a little. It felt strange on his face. “What are you studying so hard for, anyway? World domination?”
“Pre-law,” she said, rolling her eyes at his question. “And before you make a joke about lawyers, save it. I’ve heard them all.”
“Wasn’t going to,” he lied. He nudged her fallen textbook with his foot. “So you’re one of those people who actually has a plan.”
“Don’t you?”
He shrugged, the familiar restless feeling coiling in his gut. “Plan implies a future. I’m more of a ‘day-by-day’ guy. Sketch. Play guitar badly. Annoy my new stepsister.”
Lisa watched him for a long moment. “You said you sketch.”
“Sometimes.”
“Can I see?”
The question surprised him. No one asked that. They asked what he was going to do with it. “Why?”
“Because,” she said, leaning forward, her voice losing its polished edge and becoming genuinely curious, “it’s probably the only honest thing you’ve shown me all night.”
Nico stared at her. The challenge—and it was a challenge, wrapped in curiosity—hung in the quiet air between them. His usual arsenal of deflections fizzed on his tongue and died. She wasn’t teasing. She was just… asking.
He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “Fine. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
He pushed himself off the couch, the springs creaking in relief, and padded down the dim hallway to his room. The space was still a chaotic half-boxed mess of his old life. He found the black hardbound sketchbook under a pile of laundry, its cover worn soft at the edges. For a second, he just held it, feeling the weight of it. This was stupid. She’d probably flip through and make some polite, empty comment before going back to her highlighted perfection.
But he’d said he would.
He came back and dropped onto the couch, closer to her chair this time. He didn’t hand it over. Instead, he opened it on his lap, angled away slightly, a final, feeble barrier.
“Just… don’t touch the pages. The charcoal smudges.”
Lisa nodded, shifting to the edge of the armchair to see. The flickering blue light from the TV washed over the first page.
It was a detailed study of the old oak tree in the backyard, but not as it was. Nico had drawn it as a gnarled, monstrous thing, its roots cracking through the foundation of the house, its branches clawing at the bedroom windows. The shading was dark, intense, almost violent in its strokes.
Lisa didn’t speak. He flipped the page.
A series of hands. A close-up of his dad’s hands, grease embedded in the lines of the knuckles from fixing the sink. His own hand, skeletal and tense, gripping a pencil. Then a woman’s hand, delicate and blurred, resting on a hospital bedsheet. He flipped past that one quickly.
A graphite portrait of a stray cat from the alley, its eyes wide and feral, back arched. A bleak, rainy cityscape viewed from a bus window, the buildings melting into grey tears.
He turned pages slowly, the silence between them deepening. This wasn’t a hobby. This was a world. A dark, messy, beautifully observed world.
“Nico,” Lisa finally said, her voice a soft exhale. “These are… incredible.”
He glanced at her, wary, looking for the pity or the false praise. He found neither. Her eyes were wide, moving hungrily over each image, her professional polish completely gone. She looked captivated.
“They’re just sketches,” he muttered, but the dismissal lacked its usual force.
“No. They’re not.” She pointed a careful finger at the cat. “You got its fear. Not just its shape. The feeling.” Her gaze lifted to his. “Have you ever drawn people? Like, portraits?”
He shrugged, a tight, defensive movement. “Sometimes. They’re harder.”
“Do you have any in there?”
“A few. Old guys at the bus station. My… mom. A while back.”
He saw the question about his mom form in her eyes and deftly steered away from it. “People are complicated. Easy to get wrong.”
Lisa seemed to consider this. She looked from the sketchbook to his face, her head tilted. The calculation in her expression wasn’t cold now; it was appraising, thoughtful.
“Draw me.”
The request landed between them, simple and audacious.
Nico barked a short, surprised laugh. “What?”
“You heard me. Draw me. Right now.” A faint, challenging smile touched her lips. “I promise not to be a complicated person. I’ll just sit here.”
“That’s the problem,” he said, but he was already reaching for the pencil case wedged between the couch cushions. “You’re very complicated. And you won’t sit still.”
“Try me.”
He shook his head, a real smile tugging at his own mouth for the first time all night. This was insane. But the sketchbook was open, and his fingers were itching, and the weird, heavy understanding from moments before hadn’t dissipated. It had just changed shape.
“Fine. Don’t blink. Or breathe. Or… be so damn blonde. It messes with the light.”
“I’ll do my best,” she said, and settled back into the armchair, turning her body slightly toward him. She didn’t freeze into a statue. She just… stilled, her hands resting in her lap, her gaze drifting to the window, the ghost of that smile still on her face.
Nico selected a pencil, tested the point against his thumb. He looked at her—really looked—seeing not his annoying new stepsister, but a subject. The sharp line of her jaw, the way the TV light traced the curve of her cheekbone and gleamed in a single strand of hair that had escaped her ponytail. The quiet, unexpected vulnerability in the set of her shoulders, now that she wasn’t holding them rigidly perfect.
The only sound was the gentle scratch of graphite on paper. He started with the eyes, losing himself in the familiar, merciful rhythm of it. The tension of the evening, the anger, the grief, all began to funnel down, quieting, through the point of the pencil and onto the page.
The tension of the evening, the anger, the grief, all began to funnel down, quieting, through the point of the pencil and onto the page.
He worked quickly, blocking in the basic shapes—the angle of her head, the line of her shoulder. The silence stretched, but it wasn’t the hostile quiet from before. It was full, charged with a new kind of attention.
“You’re staring,” she said, her eyes still fixed on the darkened window.
“That’s kind of the job,” he said, his voice low, absorbed. He shaded the hollow at the base of her throat. “You can talk. It won’t ruin it.”
“What if I move?”
“Then I’ll draw you moving. It’s fine.”
She was quiet for another minute, listening to the sound of the lead scraping. “Does it help?” she asked finally.
“Does what help?”
“The drawing. Does it… take the stuff in your head and put it somewhere else?”
Nico’s hand paused for a heartbeat. He glanced up at her. She was looking at him now, her expression unguarded, genuinely curious. It was a better question than anyone had ever asked him about it.
“Sometimes,” he admitted, resuming his work on the curve of her jawline. “Sometimes it just gives it a shape so I can look at it. Which is worse.”
“Yeah,” she breathed out, as if she knew exactly what he meant. “I do that with lists. Five-year plans. Course schedules. It’s all just… giving the fear a shape.”
“What are you so afraid of?” The question left him before he could filter it. It felt too direct, too intimate. But the dim light and the focus of his hands created a space for it.
Lisa didn’t flinch. “Being left behind. Being unprepared. Ending up like my mom, scrambling forever.” She picked at a thread on the arm of the chair. “What about you? What shape is the stuff in your head?”
He darkened a shadow, pressing harder with the pencil. “A hole,” he said, the word simple and devastating. “A big, fucking hole where something used to be. And now everyone just expects me to let them fill it in with new stuff. New wife. New sister. New happy life.” He let out a short, humorless laugh. “Sorry. That’s dramatic.”
“It’s not,” she said quietly. “It’s the truth. My dad didn’t die, he just left. That’s a different kind of hole. It’s one you keep thinking might get filled back up by the same person, but it never does.”
He was capturing the exact look in her eyes as she said that—a specific blend of hardness and yearning. He’d never tried to draw something so subtle before.
“Is that why you’re so… driven?” he asked.
“Probably. Control what you can, right? Grades, goals, law school. You can’t control people.”
“Tell me about it,” he muttered, blending a shadow with his thumb.
“You don’t try to control anything,” she observed, but it wasn’t an accusation now. It was an analysis.
“Feels pointless.”
“Is that why you draw? Because you can’t control the real world, so you make your own?”
He looked up, met her gaze. “That’s a little too psych 101, don’t you think?”
She shrugged, a small, real smile playing on her lips. “I’m pre-law, not a therapist. I’m just guessing.”
He found himself smiling back, just a twitch at the corner of his mouth, as he looked down to add detail to her ponytail. “Maybe. Or maybe I just like the way a pencil feels. Maybe it’s the only thing that doesn’t talk back.”
“It’s talking back right now,” she said. “Every line you’re making is saying something.”
He felt strangely exposed, but in a way that didn’t make him want to bolt. It was like she was seeing the drawing, and therefore seeing him, and wasn’t running from either. He worked on her mouth, trying to get that not-quite-smile right.
“What about you?” he threw back. “If you’re so in control, what’s the one thing you can’t control? Besides me being a pain in your ass.”
She was silent for so long he thought she might not answer. He focused on the delicate shell of her ear.
“The loneliness,” she said finally, so softly the words almost dissolved into the hum of the fridge. “You can have a plan, a path, a perfect GPA. You can make everyone proud. It doesn’t stop you from feeling like you’re in a glass box, watching everyone else live. Especially now, here. I don’t know how to just… be. I only know how to achieve.”
Nico put the pencil down for a second, flexing his fingers. He’d never heard anyone say that out loud, but he recognized the shape of it instantly. It was the inverse of his own chaos. They were both stuck, just in different kinds of cages.
“Yeah,” was all he could say. It was enough.
He picked up the pencil again, his movements less frantic, more deliberate. The drawing was coming together now—not just a likeness, but a moment. The quiet of the late hour, the vulnerability in the slope of her shoulders, the intelligence in her eyes that was no longer shielding itself.
“Can I ask you something else?” she said.
“You’re full of questions.”
“Indulge me.”
“Go for it.”
“What’s the best thing you’ve ever drawn?”
He didn’t even have to think. He flipped back a few pages in the sketchbook, carefully, and turned it around. It was a detailed study of his mother’s hands, not from the hospital, but from memory. They were planting herbs in a clay pot, soil ingrained in the lines of her knuckles, the sunlight dappling across her fingers.
Lisa leaned forward, her breath catching. “Nico… it’s beautiful.”
“It’s just hands.”
“It’s her,” she corrected gently. “You can feel her in it.”
He swallowed, a sudden, sharp ache in his chest. He nodded, unable to speak, and turned the book back to her current portrait. He worked on the final details—the highlights in her eyes, the texture of her sweater.
“I think,” he said, his voice rough, “that maybe you’re not a throw pillow.”
She laughed, a soft, surprised sound. “And you’re not just a broody pain in the ass. You’re an artist.”
He finished with a few final, light strokes, then sat back. He looked from the drawing to Lisa and back again. He’d captured her. Not the polished, assertive stranger from earlier, but the real, tired, complicated person who had just shared the weight of her loneliness with him.
“Done,” he said.
He turned the sketchbook around fully, holding his breath.
Lisa stood up and came over, sitting on the edge of the couch beside him to look. She didn’t speak for a full minute, just looked at her own face rendered in his careful, gritty lines. He saw her eyes glisten in the flickering light.
“Oh,” she said, a single, exhaled word. She reached out a finger, stopping just short of the paper. “You saw that?”
“Saw what?”
“All of it.”
He nodded, his throat tight. “Yeah. I think I did.”
She finally looked at him, and the distance between them on the couch felt insignificant. The entire hostile world of the house had shrunk to this shared, illuminated space.
“Nobody ever really looks,” she said.
“I know.”
They sat there, in the quiet aftermath of the conversation and the completed drawing, the earlier argument now feeling like a forgotten, foreign language. The front door clicked open in the distance, followed by the sound of their parents’ voices and footsteps in the hallway.
The real world was coming back. But something had shifted, irrevocably.