Break-Up Club ⓄⓃⒸ ②⓪②① ✅

14

As soon as we entered the gym, I felt like I couldn't keep myself up. I set down the paint can, which I learned was not a marshmallow after Indy thrust into my grasp, and I let myself sink to the floor, closing my eyes. 

"Alright! I finally got this can open, so if you could just pass me- Oh geez, did I kill him?" I heard her say right as my vision faded at the edges, and I gave in to the sleep. 

                              ｡☆✼★━━━━━━━━━━━━★✼☆｡

"Oh, look, he's finally awake," Indy said and grunted with the force and vigor in which she painted with. I blinked a few times, rubbing the sleep from my eyes as I glanced around at the gym. It was almost completely painted... but there were no painters.

There was a layer of blue plastic tarp under me that rustled when I moved, and the light switches were taped off with masking tape. 

"Where's the...?"

"They left before we got here. When I told you that we were going to paint this place ourselves, you fell asleep," she said, tsking as she looked at me from head to toe. "You better grab a damn paintbrush and start painting the wall behind you," she warned.

I pulled my phone out of my hoodie to glance at the time. We had less than thirty minutes to finish painting the wall I was leaning against. 

"Do you think we'll get it done in time?" I asked Indy, who was finishing up the top of the wall adjacent to mine from a ladder. She turned back to glare at me, still making strokes with the roller brush. 

"Maybe if you stopped yapping and grabbed some damn paint," she said. I got up, prying open the last can of paint as I stared up at the dirty wall. I grabbed a paintbrush from the corner of the room, and I slathered a thick stroke of cream paint onto the wall before I felt Indy's presence behind me. 

"That's not how you do it."

I spun around with a cocked eye and a snarky remark on my tongue, but every argument died on my tongue when her hand closed around mine, which was still holding the paintbrush. She guided the bristles against the scratchy surface of the wall, smoothening out the thick clot of paint from before. 

"There. See?" she said, smiling at me before resuming her own roller brush. I blinked rapidly, trying to clear my mind of the odd thing that just happened. It was almost like I was getting nervous around Indy. To be fair, I should have been, especially with her yielding a long, metal pole. 

We continued to paint in silence, and time flew by. Before I knew it, the minute hand struck ten, and Indy looked back at me with wide eyes to see where I was. Dipping my paintbrush in the can of paint, I smiled at her as I brushed the bristles against the last empty part of the wall. We did it. Well... technically, Indy did it while I was passed out on the floor. 

"You get to swim in your competition next week," she whispered, setting her brush down and rushing to squeeze the light out of me. I nearly had the wind knocked out of me as she crushed me in a boa-constrictor hug. When I realized what she was doing, my arms wrapped around her as well, but my hands were awkward, and I didn't know where to place them.

Indy drew away partially, but, since my hands hovered over her back, she stayed in the embrace. Under the amber, artificial lights of the gym, her eyes shined with a gleam of copper, but the color of tree bark. 

"Ahem."

We sprang apart faster than two bolts of lightning as we glanced at the door, spotting Principal Garcia's stern expression as he crossed his arms over his chest. 

"I see that none of the painters are here. How did you manage to get the whole gym painted on time?" he asked, scanning us like a barcode. 

"We painted it ourselves," Indy said, giving a small smile.