The Butterfly Keeper

20

TWENTY

LATER NEVER came. Sebastian stayed quiet for the rest of the day, and for the days that followed after, and didn't bother to make me go anymore with him. Although he was distant, he didn't act like how he has times before, he still lingered around me.

Today, he began speaking to me again.

Sebastian interrupts my thoughts as he walks into the bedroom with cans of paint and other painting materials in his hands just as I'm smoothing out the wrinkles on the sheet thrown over the bed. Huffing, he sets down everything against the wall and quickly runs out again without giving me a look.

I glance over my shoulder at the things and frown once realizing the paint he brought in is for walls, and the other items are paint brushes and a roller along with some tape, tack rags, and paint trays.

He returns, fast, with a drop cloth propped underneath his armpit and giant plastic cover draped over both hands.

His eyes flicker towards me, "It's not everything but it's enough to work with."

I pull at the bottom of my shirt and gaze over the stuff again as Sebastian places the plastic on the floor and begins to unfold the drop cloth.

"What are you doing?"

He doesn't respond to me right away. He takes his time to put the cloth over the bed and pushing it to the farthest wall from us. He then grabs the plastic cover and spreads it over the exposed floor.

Sebastian looks back at me and lifts a shoulder, pushing the front of his hair back. "We're going to paint the room."

"For what?" I say somewhat bothered while dipping my eyebrows forward and scurry my eyes across the walls.

"Well, I heard you say before that the house is...boring, I guess." That wasn't the word I used. "Just help me cover that space behind you."

With a faint exhale, I plod to Sebastian and take the corner of the plastic he's holding up to me and drag it until my back hits the wall. Sebastian hums a song under his breath as he pulls out a screwdriver and bends down over the cans of paint and preys each lid open.

"They're different colors," I say as if it wasn't something he knew already.

He continues humming while nodding his head. "For fun."

Sebastian then reaches for the tack rags and tosses one towards me. I step back and let the cloth fall onto my feel before reaching down for it.

I flicker the corner of the rag and sigh loudly, "Do I have to do this?"

"Of course." He briefly stares at me as he straightens his back and looks at the wall in front of us. "We're going to clean the walls with these. I'll do this wall and you can do the one behind you."

Without delaying, Sebastian gives me cold shoulder and starts to wipe his wall while I stand there, both confused and slightly annoyed. I watch him struggle to clean the high part of the wall for a moment before noticing he looks different today, maybe he actually tried to put some work into his appearance. His hair is clean and sits back in a light, messy poof. It also looks like he tried to groom his beard but really didn't give it much effort because the only difference is that it looks shorter. The scratches on his arms have also healed, only leaving one pale scar.