I'm A Walking Disaster (jalex)

Count Me In

Chapter nine

Title from Dear Maria Count Me In, by All Time Low

As we walked Into the recreation room for recreational therapy there was a woman I haven't seen before, she gave everyone a bright smile as we walked in. Jack walked in after me, I looked over and found an empty seat next to Vic, he was waving me over but I glanced back at Jack and realized that I wanted to hang out with him a little more. I looked at Vic with an apologetic look and motioned for Jack to take a seat at the square table in the middle, there were four chairs at each table and there were only three tables. Jack sat down and I sat across from him as Andrew was already seated beside us and Tony was the last one in, forcing him to sit beside us. Vic was looking at me with a confused look.

I looked down at my hands and remembered my short sleeved shirt, my scars were risen out of my skin, the pink of them contrasted with my skin in a disgusting way. I uncomfortably put my arms in my lap under the table.

Seconds later Dr.Grace pranced in and smiled at us, thanking the woman standing in the front of the room. Her eyes quickly hit Jack as she spoke "hey guys! Half of the hall is with Dr.Corgan in the therapy room with this activity so we have a smaller group today" she announced as if we didn't notice the lack of people. "Everyone should have a set of paints in the middle of their tables, and there should be twelve rocks in the middle of each table" everyone nodded as we eyed the items in the center of the table. "Everyone gets three rocks, I want you to paint on each of the rocks..it doesn't matter what you paint but when you finish I want you to describe your rock to your group" she spoke happily, Jack sighed as the rest of the group was clearly not happy about the activity either.

At least we're all on the same page.

"Okay, it's okay to talk during this activity, you can get started" she dismissed us. I never understood recreational therapy. it's really jut a bunch of patients in a mental ward doing kindergarten activities.

I picked out three rocks from the pile, all of the rocks were smooth and about the size of the palm of your hand, probably picked out of a creek or stream somewhere. "Jack, can you hand me the red" I was the first out of the group to speak, he nodded and pushed it towards me since the physical contact was still forbidden. I smiled at him as he stared blankly at the rock

"we should all just make animals or bugs, it doesn't require much thinking" Tony spoke up, I smiled at him

"I call a lady bug" I said, agreeing with Tony. Andrew nodded and smiled lightly at him

"I'll make a cat" Andrew said lightly, I looked over to Jack and he gave me a thoughtful look.

I chuckled at him "make a lady bug with me, it's easy" when I said that he smiled back at me and all of the Ice between us seemed to melt. Ever since he started talking to me after my attempt we've been like friends, I just now realized that he talked to me so he could distract me from the thoughts I was obviously going through after he caught me trying to strangle myself with the sleeves of my shirt. I internally thanked him for that.

I picked up one of the brushes and dipped it into the black paint, I made a circle around the top of the lady bug for the head and dotted white in the middle for eyes before painting around it. When I finished with black I saw Jack looking at mine so he could make his similar "Alex, you've stained that shirt" he said simply as he took three seconds to glance up, I looked down at my shirt and saw a black glob of paint on my chest.

I chuckled "how did that even get there?" I looked at it confused. Jack laughed a bit and I noticed both Tony and Andrews stunned look at Jack talking.

"it just appeared, Gaskarth, because nooooo! you wouldn't accidentally unconsciously paint on your shirt" he said sarcastically, making Andrew and Tony chuckle.