ALTERED SAGA: Cas's Origin Story

CAS

You know what five broken bones, three cracked ribs, and a broken eye socket feels like? Like someone steam-rolled your nuts and filled your head with PopRocks.

I jammed my only working thumb down on the pain meds button. A machine beeped behind me. I jammed again.

“Son of a bit—”

Grandma shuffled in. “What are you saying?”

“Nothing.”

“What?”

“NOTHING GRANDMA!”

Pain shot up my back. I clenched my teeth, squeezed my eyes shut. No more shouting. No more mother loving breathing.

“Do you need something?” Grandma made her way around the hospital bed and eased into the chair to my left. A raggedy canvas bag hung from her forearm, knitting needles poking out the top.

“I need more pain meds.” I jabbed at the button again. “This is torture. Torturing good looking seventeen-year-old boys is against the law. Did you know that?”

Grandma grinned. “Maybe it’s not even attached to the machine. Maybe the nurses have bets placed on how long it’ll take you to figure it out.”

“Not funny.”

“Maybe this’ll serve as a warning.” Her eyebrows pulled together with a frown. “This kind of thing happens all the time to those fancy athletes.”

I closed my good eye. I just wanted to pass out for a month. Wake up good to go. Stuff my face with some BBQ ribs. Then try the triple backflip 360 again. Because I knew I could make that jump my bitch. And way better than that ass wipe Parker Branson.

“I told you that board thing was dangerous,” Grandma went on. She dug out her knitted square that would turn into a sweater or a sock or a tea cozy. The yarn was the color of baby puke. She’d been color blind her entire life. Which would explain the hot pink hat she knitted me last winter that she swore up and down was red. I wore that thing all season and I wore it with pride. I wasn’t scared of looking like a pussy. Actions speak louder than…well, in this case, hot pink hats. And my action was badass. 

I tossed the pain killer pump to the side. “I’m not quitting snowboarding. Or skateboarding. Or BMXing. Or anything else you think is dangerous. I get in the car with you, don’t I?”

She sneezed and her fake teeth clicked together. “I drive better than you spell, boy.”

I couldn’t stop the laugh from shoving its way up my throat. It quickly turned into a grimace and a string of curse words, which made Grandma bug out her eyes and smack me on the back of the head.

“Ouch!”

“You may be broken six ways to Sunday,” she said, “but I will not have you speaking that language, Casper Benedict VanDean.”

When she used my full name, she meant business, lean, mean Grandma business. I pulled in a breath. “All right. I’m sorry.”

“Huh?” She squinted at me over the top of her half-moon glasses, several wisps of gray blonde hair hanging along her face. Grandma may have been half out of her mind, colorblind and deaf, but she didn’t eff around when it came to appearances. She and a bunch of women from Wednesday night bingo, A.K.A. Old Lady Vegas, went to the hairdresser every Friday morning. Considering I bit the shit Thursday night, she must have missed this week’s do.

And it made me feel like an ass. She was always harping on me about dying, or rather not dying. “And for what?” she’d say. “A fancy gymnastics move on one of those board thingys of yours? It ain’t worth it. And I will not have you dying on me.”