Quit Bugging Me

Chapter 17

When Taylor lifted the canvas, thick chunks of mud rolled down the painting. Lively greens and vibrant yellows had disappeared under a sea of brown, leaving only the chaotic blackness of the swarm untouched. No matter how frantically she scrubbed at the mud, nothing could remove the filth from the project she had spent countless hours on.

Jack winced at the damage. "I'm so sorry," he said.

"It's okay," Taylor said with a trembling voice. "It's not your fault."

"It was really brave of you to try and distract the gator like that." His boar snorted in agreement.

"Thanks, but anyone would have done that, especially since Gus is tame." Taylor shuddered at the memory of the snapping jaws and those cold, hungry eyes. "At least, he used to be. I had no idea he could be so scary."

"He seemed about as tame as a wildfire back there, but I guess everybody gets a bit nasty sometimes." He sighed. "Goodness knows I've been terrible to you. Sorry for being such a huge jerk about your flies."

"Thanks." She offered him a shaky smile as she loaded her ruined painting onto the wagon. "Do you need help getting Harry home? I'd be glad to give him a ride."

The boar's ears perked up, but Jack hesitated. "You sure? My house isn't too far from here."

"Of course. The last thing he needs is to risk making his leg worse."

Taylor quickly texted Aunt May to let her know she was helping one of her classmates get home and that she'd be back soon. She left out the incident with Gus. Thinking about the mud splattered across her painting was painful enough without sharing it with anyone else.

The wagon creaked as Harry climbed in. His soft snores echoed through the bayou.

As the pair slowly pulled the wagon over tangled roots and shoe-sucking mud, Taylor sniffed and wiped tears from her eyes.

"I bet Mr. Woods will give you more time if you tell him what happened," Jack said. "He saw you working on that painting, so there's no way he'd give you a bad grade just because of an accident."

"I'm not upset about the grade. It's just that after how long it took me to get used to these," Taylor waved at the flies hovering around her face, "I still managed to screw up. These flies made something beautiful, and I ruined it." She let out a noise halfway between a laugh and a sob. "I'm so lame!"

"Anyone who can deal with a gator like that is anything but lame. Besides, Eliza doesn't think you're lame. She's been feeling real bad about avoiding you."

Hope fluttered in her chest like a butterfly, but Taylor wouldn't let herself believe it. "I'll believe it when she tells me herself. Everyone kept telling me my flies are awful, but I'm the real awful one."

"You too, huh?"

That made Taylor stop in her tracks. "What?"

"Ever since I got Harry, people've kept saying how terrible he is and how awful I must be to have a so-called pig." He spat out the word as if it was the meanest, ugliest insult anyone could ever say.

"Some days, I think they're right." He ruffled the boar's hair gently, careful not to wake him up. "Not about him, but about me."

"But you have so many friends. They don't seem to think you're awful." Her stomach twisted as she thought of her former best friend. "Do they?"

"Some friends they are. They're always calling him a pig and never stop when I tell them to." He slapped a mosquito off his arm. It left a dark smear on his palm. "I know they mean well, but it still hurts, you know? Then again, with how I've treated you, I kind of deserve it."

"Nobody deserves to be treated like that," Taylor said. "People do mean stuff sometimes when they're upset, like when Anna attacked you with her bees. That doesn't mean they're always mean though."

They continued their walk, dragging the wagon's wheels out of the mud. "I guess you're right."

After they walked in silence for a little while, Jack stopped the wagon. "I can take things from here." He grunted as he hoisted the sleepy boar onto the ground. "Mom doesn't like visitors much."

"Hope Harry heals fast. Let me know if you need help with anything."

"Actually, hang on a sec." Jack reached into his pocket and pulled out a packet of Skittles. "Emergency Skittles?"

Taylor gaped at him.

"These are your favorite, right?" Jack rubbed the back of his neck. "Eliza said you used to do this all the time to cheer each other up."

"Yes, but why do you have them?" It wasn't just something friends did for each other. It was a ritual she and Eliza had shared. It had been special, yet here Jack was offering her Skittles as if he too had been doing it since kindergarten.

Jack bit his lip. He stayed silent for a long moment, and when he spoke his voice was as soft as Pitch's belly fur. "My mom—" He took a deep breath. "I told Eliza how my mom's been treating me ever since I got Harry. She'd been... not great for a while, but it started getting bad. Really bad."

Keeping emergency Skittles as something only she and Eliza shared didn't seem important anymore. "Let's share. You could definitely use some too."

Jack opened his mouth to protest, but thought better of it and smiled instead. "Okay."

As Jack walked off into the firefly-lit darkness with a fistful of Skittles, Taylor began the slow trek back to Aunt May's with her shoulders slumped but her heart not quite as heavy as it had been.