Tank and I have texted back and forth a few times to set up a date to work on our English Lit project. Well, not a date date, but a date to meet. It wasn’t easy between my two jobs and both our classes, but we managed to find a time after our morning classes and between my late shift at the hospital.

I quickly eat a meal bar in the car and wash the dry cardboard taste away with some water. Traffic is a nightmare, as usual, so I arrive ten minutes later than planned.

“Sorry, traffic,” I say when Tank opens the door to his apartment.

“Okay,” he merely says, as he lets me pass him. With the other boys, I always hug or get a sweet kiss—that would be Pixie, who is so affectionate he’d should’ve been born a dog—but with my grizzly bear here, I don’t quite know how to act. Judging by the way he stares at me for a second or two before stuffing his hands in his pockets, he doesn’t know either. Somehow, that helps me relax.

“Hi,” I say and I step in for a quick kiss on his cheek.

“Hi.” He hesitates, then gives me a sort of pat on my shoulder. Fuck, we’re like two awkward teens on prom.

Shaggy was apparently napping, but now comes running at me, licking my hand and demanding a belly rub, which I can’t refuse of course. That little fur ball has got to be the cutest ugly dog I’ve ever seen.

“Where do you want to sit?” I ask.

“Right. I cleared the dining table.”

I follow him into his living room, where an almost empty dining room table is waiting for us, with only a laptop and Tank’s notes.

“Can I get you something to drink?”

“Do you have tea?”

He nods and retreats to the kitchen to make tea. I wander around his apartment again, Shaggy following me closely. He’s changed some of his Lego models, I notice. On his coffee table, there’s a huge book with some fancy building on the black-and-white cover. I perch on the edge of the couch and carefully open it, as it looks like it might have been expensive.

It’s a photobook with page-filling pictures of all kinds of buildings and structures. There’s a chapter on skyscrapers from around the world, one with office buildings, then there’s bridges and even tiny houses.

Tank walks into the room with our drinks.

“Show me something you love,” I ask him.

He hesitates for a second, but then takes a spot on the couch next to me and flips through the book until he stops at a picture of a modern bridge. “This is the Erasmus Bridge in Rotterdam, in The Netherlands.”

I study the picture that shows an asymmetrical bridge, spanning a river. “What’s special about this bridge?”

Tank points to the left side of the bridge on the photo. “See what they did there? The pylon has cables that support the bridge, but because they made the shape so unique and gave it that bright blue color, it also makes the bridge look sleek. It’s nicknamed the swan, because in combination with the broad base of the pylon, it has the stylistic shape of one from a distance.”

I squint my eyes and see what he means. Huh. That is cool. “Why didn’t they make a same pylon and cables at the other side of the bridge to make it symmetrical?”

Tank smiles at me. “There’s always a tension in architecture. On one hand, people tend to gravitate toward symmetry, because it creates a sensation of structure and order that we like. But symmetry is also often boring because it is what’s expected. Creating asymmetry, a well-thought out disruption of the norm, results in a tension that’s deeply satisfying on an aesthetic level. If they had created the same pylon on the other end of the bridge, it wouldn't have been as beautiful.”

I look at the picture again and try to imagine it symmetrically. He’s right that it wouldn’t have stood out as much. “I never realized that,” I say.

“In this case, there was also a practical reason. The Port of Rotterdam is the largest in Europe and the city gets a lot of water traffic from big ships, some of them too big to pass under the bridge. The other half of the bridge is therefore a bascule bridge that can open a few times a day to let big ships through. It’s actually the largest bascule bridge in Europe, and it has the biggest panel of its kind in the world. It fascinates me that something so practical and strong can be so beautiful at the same time.”

I’ve never seen Tank this animated and passionate. He’s usually a taciturn guy, but now he’s gesturing and speaking with such enthusiasm it’s like he’s a different man. “That’s super interesting,” I say. “Have you seen a lot of these in real life? You know, to inspire yourself or something?”

“It’s my dream to go to Europe and see all these amazing designs in person. Western Europe is such an exciting place for modern architecture, especially Germany and The Netherlands, but also France and Spain…”

The deep longing in his voice hits me. “Maybe after you graduate, you can take a trip?”

The joy on his face dims a little. “Maybe. It’s expensive.”

“You’ll just have to fuck your way to Europe, then,” I tease, hoping to get another smile from him. “If your videos get any more popular, that may just work, and admit it, fucking me is not exactly a hardship…”

Tank’s brown eyes focus on me, something indecipherable flashing over his face. “No,” he says. “It’s not.”

He stares at me for a second or two, tension simmering between us, then abruptly turns his head away. “We need to start working on our project.”

“Do you have any ideas for a theme?” I ask him when we’ve installed ourselves at the dining table, Shaggy dropping down on his little doggie bed again. We’re supposed to find four books with theme in common and discuss how each shows the theme.

Tank rubs his beard with a slow gesture, a frown between his eyes. “I was thinking we could do something with medicine? Like, doctors as characters, or a disease, maybe?”

My mouth drops open a little before I catch myself. “That’s...that would be awesome, thank you. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather do something that interests you?”

He shrugs. “Engineering and architecture are not that interesting to read about, I think. They’re more things you have to either do or see. Do you know of any books that would fit a medicine theme?”

I really like the idea of choosing books with doctors in them. Not that I’ve read much literature, because I’m more of a thriller kind of guy, but if I have to read, doctors would make it way more interesting. “Not off the top of my head, but we can Google.”

Tank hums in approval and we stick our heads together behind his laptop to see what we can find. “Catch-22,” Tank says. “I actually read that one. It was interesting. And I haven’t read One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but I’ve seen the movie.”

“I haven’t read either but sounds good to me. Doctor Zhivago, that rings a bell, too. Do you know it?”

Tank frowns. “Isn’t that the one that’s set in Russia? I know it’s made into a movie.”

An idea pops into my head. “What if we do a little extra? What if we choose books that have also been made into movies and compare both the books and the movies? We’d have a double theme we could work with, medicine and movie adaptation. You’d like the movie part, right?”

Tank flashes me an unexpected smile. I don’t know why that makes me happy, but for some reason it does.