Chapter 2: Not What I Asked For
It's not like I was angry, I wasn't sad either, but try as I may, the tears wouldn't stop coming, making it rather difficult to drive home, not that I particularly wanted to go home, but there was one place I could go where my father couldn't get to me, where my mother was too afraid to go and where Gabe hadn't been in years. As I pulled into the driveway I could see it, the old tree house that my father and Gabe built long ago, long before dad became a drunk, long before my back was the same shade of purple as a plum, long before anything could even make me think that something was wrong. Long, long before anything.
The old rope ladder that led to the entrance seemed to groan in protest to my weight. When I reached the top I immediately smiled, the old boards that were keeping this thing together still smelled of sawdust and the root beer that Gabe spilled all over the place when he was twelve. The old mattress that Gabe and I had, after many failures, finally hauled up here when I was ten, stood in the corner, our prized Digimon and Pokemon posters still hanging above it by the bent nails we hammered into them when I was eleven. This was home, this was before Uncle Bobby died and dad never seemed to find the bottom of the beer keg.
I leaned against the postered wall, wiping at my face, trying to erase how I felt, to no avail. I almost screamed when my phone suddenly vibrated in my pocket. I half smiled when I saw Anna's name on the screen and answered.
"Hey, Anna." I sniffed, still wiping at my face.
"Cas? Hey, are you crying? Cas, what happened?" Anna sounded concerned, but distant, the way she always did, because no matter how hard Anna tried, she could never seem to really care about anything.
"What? No, it's just my allergies, dust and stuff. What's up though? You never call unless you need help with homework, and we didn't get homework today." Right now, changing the subject seemed to be the only way to avoid having to find some other lie to tell. As much as I trusted Anna, I couldn't tell her about what my dad does to us. The only reason Jo and Ellen knew about it is because they after Uncle Bobby's death they would come by our house often and one night dad was in the middle of a fast ball when they walked in.
"Oh, so a friend can't call another friend just to talk anymore? I see how it is." Anna's sarcasm was both misplaced and not appreciated at the time.
"Anna, honestly, can you drop the sarcasm? What is it?" I didn't know why, but my temper just wasn't having any of her shit today, and to be honest, I didn't mind giving my temper the reigns for a little bit.
"Whoa, Cas, calm down. I was just going to ask what you were up to tomorrow. No need to piss all over the place." Anna sounded offended. I couldn't care less.
"Nothing, why?"
"Adam's having a party at the pool, I was gonna ask you if you wanted to go, but god don't come if you're gonna be like this all the time."
I took a deep breath. Okay, time to calm down.
"Sorry, I just, not a good night. I'll be there tomorrow. I'm sorry Anna." That's about as nice as I was going to get.
"Don't worry about it, Cas, I'll see you tomorrow." The line went dead.
I was about ready to settle down on the mattress for the rest of the night when a shout emanated from the house.
"Oh god, not again." I said, practically leaping at the rope ladder.
By the time I reached the house my father was in full swing. Arms flailing, things breaking. It's not like it didn't happen often, there were many occasions where my father was so drunk that he lost most of his sanity.
"Bobby! Where's Bobby? He was right there!" My father took a swing at me as I tried to get close enough to him to try and wrestle him to the couch. I barely dodged, probably saved by the fact that my father was too damn drunk to stay on his feet. Luckily his intoxication and momentum floored him for me. Before long I was able to get him on the couch and pin him down.
"Dad! Dad, stop! Calm down." Tears were streaming down my father's face.
"Bobby. Where's Bobby?" He tried to resist, tried to free himself, but he was too weak from the alcohol, too woozy to know what was going on.
"He's dead, dad. He died fifteen years ago. Don't you remember? He was shot. You were too. Dad, please just calm down." I recited the lines like I have so many times before. My mother refused to take get help for him. All the doctors would do is throw him in the asylum, and as lovely as that would be for me, more specifically for my back- which, right now, felt like it was on fire from wrestling my dad down- my mother couldn't face the fact that we'd be better off without him. So every night it was my job to calm his drunk ass down, while my mother cried in her room.
A look of questioning crossed my father's face, almost as if he was asking Is this really the truth? His grip on my arms loosened and soon enough his arm was around my shoulder, most of his weight resting on my back, and we were walking to his bedroom, where my mother sat crying.
If you were to ask me now what the biggest mistake was that I had ever made, I'd probably say it was going to this party. That's where everything really started.
The most suitable shirt I could find for this kind of pool party thing was my only white t-shirt. I knew I wouldn't be swimming, I couldn't take my shirt off and let people see my bruises. I didn't have many other shirts to wear anyway, and most of them were lying in my laundry basket, waiting for me to decide to wash them some day because my mother just stays in her room all day.
Anna seemed happy to see me, as I walked up to her she smiled and hugged me. I didn't do much at the party, just talked with Anna and some of our other friends. It was when Anna went running after Sam to go talk to him when I decided to go talk to Adam, the guy I liked, but of course couldn't tell. As I made my way towards him, walking along the side of the pool, I heard a voice that I dreaded to hear.
"Hey, Cas!" Lisa's shrill voice scratched at my eardrums like nails on a chalk board. I honestly couldn't understand why someone like Lisa liked me, but it seemed like whenever she could, she was all over my personal space.
"Hey, Lisa." I said, halfheartedly. Lisa practically ran at me, and exactly then is when all hell broke loose.
Lisa slipped when she was almost a foot away from my and crashed into me, subsequently making us crash into the pool. There was water, hands and curses all over the place. The curses mainly came from me. It was the shallow side of the pool, so we weren't in any danger, but as I stood in the stomach high water I realized just exactly how screwed I was.
"Dude, what the hell is wrong with your back?" Came some guy's voice from behind me. You see, water plus white shirt, equals see-through.
"Yeah, what is that? Why's your back so purple?" came a girl's voice from the same direction. Soon enough people were crowding around me as I tried to climb out of the pool and leave. Hands pressed against my back as I pushed past everyone, I practically had to shove a guy to the ground when he tried to take me by the shoulders and spin me around.
"Cas! Cas, wait!" Anna called at me as I stormed off. It was then and there that I wished I had come with my motorcycle, but for some reason I decided to walk. My eyes stung from the chlorine and tears. I practically ran as fast as I could, I just had to get away.
By the time I was half way home I was too tired, and quite plainly, too emotional to run anymore. I simply stared at the ground, walking at whatever speed my sore feet would take me.
When suddenly, thud.
"Shit, I'm so sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going." I mumbled, trying to recover from having bumped into what seemed to be a rock soling wall, but what turned out to be some guy walking in my direction.
"Don't sweat it man. Hey, you okay?" his face went from surprised to concerned. Only then did I realize that there were tears lying shallow in my eyes. I wiped at my eyes, frantically trying to erase them from existence.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm okay. Don't worry about it." Only then did I get a good look at him. His emerald eyes seemed soft and concerned, something about his lips just looked sexy. Then I looked at the rest of him, his chest, his stomach, his legs. I almost laughed. Only moments ago I was crying and now all I could think was Hot Damn. A smile crossed his face as he seemed to notice my admiration of his sexy.
"I'm Dean Winchester." He stuck his hand out for me to shake. I almost forgot how to speak, I simply looked at his outstretched hand. After what seemed like forever, I finally remembere that I should shake his hand.
"I'm Castiel. Cas." I said.
Oh hell, was that one mistake I'd make over and over again.