Catch Me (Synacky)

Chapter Thirty-One: Brian

~Johnny~

I wish I could read good. I wish I was smart and stuff. The kids here can all do everything, but I don’t know nothing. But in art, I do know how to use watercolors. We painted pictures today, and since the snow is beginning to melt outside the pictures gotta be about spring.

Zacky is about as good as me. He did a rainbow and I did some flowers and a sunshine.

I don’t like spring, though. I don’t like when the snow melts, even if it means the flowers come out. I like to build snowmen and have snowball fights with Brent, and make snow angels with Zacky.

But I guess I did like flowers. And birdies. Because birdies hibernate all winter long like bears and fish, and then in spring they wake up all the sleeping animals. It’s true. I saw it in a movie once.

Zacky used black and painted hard all over his page, turning it into a mushy gray. The teacher was disappointed.

Brian told me Zacky’s mommy came to the institution. He said she told him he couldn’t go back home with her. That was why Zacky was sad.

He didn’t look sad to me. He looked the way he always looked.

I don’t know if Brian ever told you about Zacky’s face, but I will. It always looks the same. When he’s happy, it looks the same as when he’s sad. ‘Cept for when he’s actually laughing or actually crying, or smiling at you just to be nice.

Right now, I didn’t know if he was happy because he liked painting, or sad because he ruined his painting. But Brian could tell. Brian always knew what Zacky was thinking.

I asked the teacher if I could give my painting to Mommy next time she came to visit. She said that that would be a splendid idea.

Someone accidentally bumped Zacky when they went up front to hang up their painting to dry, and it caused Zacky to accidentally paint on his stuffed dog. Zacky froze and he dropped the brush. I covered my ears. I knew what was going to happen.

I was very happy to let Brian out when Zacky began to scream.

~Brian~

I blinked stupidly for a while, staring at the Ms. Limberg for a while as she tended to Zacky. Then I saw his pet, and the ugly gray smudge on its paw. Quickly, I scooped it up, rushing to the sink at the corner of the room. It was just watercolors, it wasn’t a big deal, it’d come right out.

Ms. Limberg was helping another student with their painting, ignoring Zacky. They did that sometimes. Apparently, if you ignore the one throwing the tantrum, they will realize they aren’t getting attention for it and it will go away faster. That’s what Steph told me.

I grabbed some paper towels to try and dry out his pet’s paw, then brought it back to Zacky. “Zee, hey, shh, look. It’s all fixed, see?”

He looked at me, then he looked at his pet, fingers slowly wrapping around it. “Fuck.” He whispered. “I am very upset.”

He pressed the paper towels to his pet’s wet paw, and took a shaky breath. I went and sat at my seat, frowning down at the muddled mess of paints Johnny had created. ‘This is very good, Jay!’ I praised him, and I knew he was beaming.

I hung my painting up, and offered to take Zacky’s too, which he handed over. It was a good thing, too, because then Ms. Limberg was packing up her things and telling us it was time for math. Zacky stood up to go to advanced. I gave him a weak smile and a wave. He didn’t even acknowledge me.

After supper we all had to go to the rec room and do a group activity, which made my blood boil. But, it wasn’t actually something horrible about talking about your fears or any shit like that.

They had set up a long table down the center of the room, and we decorated sugar cookies.

Everyone got two cookies to decorate with their own allotted amount of frosting and sprinkles. The catch was, we couldn’t keep them for ourselves. We had to give each of the cookies to a different patient in the institution.

Zacky had a good time, I can tell. He slathered his star shaped cookie with blue frosting, picking out all the blue sprinkles to place them in very precise locations. He murmured softly to himself as he worked, something about blue being a good color, and something about his pet, and I smiled.

I wish I could tell you that I’m some great Picasso of cookies, and that my frosting smothered pastries blew everyone away, but they were basic, at best. I just put green frosting on both of them and put some sprinkles on them. Zacky made me take the yellow sprinkles off.

Giving a cookie to someone other than me was nerve-racking to Zacky. He clung to me, whispering, “I don’t know anyone here. All I know is you.”

You wouldn’t think that something that minor would tick someone off, but within minutes, Zacky was rocking and groaning, cookies a mess on the floor, his hands over his ears. When I reached out to touch him, he jerked away, looking up at me.

It took me a moment to actually register that he had swung his fist, even longer to notice that my mouth was bleeding. He looked at me with something I couldn’t quite place, and then he was screaming and he covered his ears. “I can’t!” he cried, “I can’t! I can’t!”

Then aids were pulling him away, and someone was pressing a cloth up to my lip. I was still in shock. Surely Zacky hadn’t truly done that. Why the hell would he hit me? What the fuck had I done to him?

I told the aid that was looking at my mouth, “He-He’s just confused, you gotta make sure he doesn’t get into trouble. He’s gone through so much lately and-“

“He punched you.” The aid said, and I shook my head.

“Not that hard, and he just doesn’t really know how to deal with his feelings, that’s all. He’s just got all this pent up anger and sadness inside him because his dad died recently and his mom chose to leave him her to pursue her career. He’s just all alone and he needs someone and I don’t blame him one bit. Please keep him out of isolation, I’m fine, really I am.”

The aid looked at me. “You sure do like that Zachary boy, don’t you?”

I nodded. “Yeah, he’s really important to me.”

He sighed, “Okay, I’ll talk to Mr. Todd. But listen, if you ever feel threatened by him-“

“I’ll let you know, I promise.” I smiled at him then said, “I think I’ll go to bed now, if that’s okay.”

“Fine, fine. Zachary ought to be in soon.”