Breaking The Rules: Book 2

Chapter 23: Casting... Our Emotions

𝚃𝚞𝚎𝚜𝚍𝚊𝚢, 𝙹𝚞𝚕𝚢 𝟸𝟼𝚝𝚑
Griffin POV

Rrrrrrrr...

"Okay Griffin, just hold still," the nurse, Avery, murmurs as she walks over with the spinning hand saw. The blade glints in the sunlight, making me squint and look away.

"I don't give a fuck, there's nothing you can hit that will make my leg look any worse," I reply. With my head turned, I flick my attention to Roselyn who's currently burying her head in her hands on the other side of the room. "Dude, are you good?"

"I can't watch!" Roselyn squeaks.

"Jesus. It's not like we're doing a vasectomy over here."

"Ew, Griffin!"

Avery's lips twitch, whether from refraining laughter or scolding me, I'm not sure. She snags the blade expertly into the old cast and it makes a rough scraping sound as the jagged teeth of the blade cut the cotton apart. Tiny loose pieces fly in the air.

For a moment, I consider feigning a gasp and pretending that she cut me, then immediately decide against it.

"Keep holding your breath. We're almost done," she says and makes a long, stretched out, thoughtful noise. "There we go!"

Avery didn't have to say a word because I feel the relief immediately. After twelve days stuck in that stupid thing, it feels like a boa constrictor has finally stopped squeezing the life out of my leg. The muscles in my thigh and calf throb with the new freedom.

"Are you sure that I can't keep my leg like this? I promise that I won't go to the gym or do any of the shit that Gessel warned me about." I flex my left toes as I talk. A sliver of pain rockets down my leg.

Avery shakes her head and picks up the cast pieces, throwing them in the garbage can near the side of the hospital table that I'm laying on. "Sorry Griffin, but rules are rules. And unfortunately for you, you have some very specific ones in this case."

"Bullshit."

She sets her mouth together but doesn't comment on my language. I'm sure that it's not a surprise, considering last week when Ira set her case clipboard near my bed, I was able to see the notes she made about me. Underneath the general section, she wrote: potty mouth on this one.

The chair Roselyn is sitting on scrapes on the floor as she stands up and wanders over, her hands tucked in the pockets of her shorts. She crinkles her nose as she comes closer, eyes sharpening as she takes in the scene of my leg. "Is it supposed to look like that?"

The comment, did you say that to Forrest during your first time? builds on my tongue.

Avery replies faster than I can. "Yes, this is typical. You both have to remember that this leg went through a traumatic surgery and has been wrapped away for nearly two weeks." She smacks my hand away as I begin to pick at the bandage wrapped around my knee. "It won't look this terrible for forever."

"I'm sorry, but that's hard to believe. Man alive." Roselyn surveys the leg as if it's roadkill on the side of the highway.

I can't argue with her. Not when she's right. The entire length of my skin that was once perfectly tanned and muscular is now dry, flakey, and a weird bruised color. The hair that didn't get shaved off for the surgery seems darker than my other leg, and the muscles are disproportionate when compared. It nearly makes me sick to look at.