When I was little, I was convinced I was an alien. 100% sure. Who else could have a double-jointed elbow that nearly turned 360 degrees, whose tongue could do that squiggly thing — you know what I'm talking about — and whose one eyes was brown while the other was blue. Like I said, alien. My parents weren't too convinced — Mom thought her explanation of "I have the scars to prove your mine" worked, ⁴even though I always countered it with "Well, anyone can switch a baby, Mom". She ignored me by that point.
I grew out of that phase when I got common sense, thankfully. I bled red, I ate junk food, I didn't melt in the sun or in water. I was human. A weird one, with a freaky elbow, but still human. Besides, aliens aren't real.
Weren't. Weren't real. Or, at least, so I thought.
I slapped a playing card down on the shag carpet with more force than really necessary, faced down. My elbows dug into the floor, my knees bent and my feet angling into the air. “This is it,” I said in a serious voice, leveling a glare with my opponent. “My last card. And it will beat yours, and I will make my comeback. You don’t get to beat me again, you little cretin.”
The cretin in question smiled at me, displaying a wide array of gapped baby teeth. “I wouldn’t be so sure,” came his reply, and delicately pressed his card down. “One…”
“Two.”
“Three!” he yelled, and in unison, we flipped our cards over. My measly four was nowhere close to capturing his high-powered Jack, which stared up at me with a serious expression. Underneath the poker face, he was definitely laughing. “I win again! Ha-ha, you lose!”
With a groan of defeat, I buried my face into my arms. “You cheat. You definitely cheat.”
From the other room, I heard the back door creak open. It was quiet over his gloating, but I caught it, as well as the sound of keys jingling together. “What’s going on in there?” a light voice asked.
“Oh, your son is just cheating at cards,” I called back, lifting my head to glare at the little boy. He still had on a wide smirk, his dark hair catching in his eyes. It had grown out exponentially since he decided he was no longer going to cut it, and now fell near his shoulder blades, curling at the tips. “I thought you raised him better than this, Mrs. Michaels.”
“No, I taught him to win,” she said with a tired grin, walking into the room. She wasn’t wearing the nurse scrubs she’d left in, but hospital issued ones, a set of ugly mustard yellow top and bottoms that looked two sizes too big on her. Her gait was slow as she walked over to us, reaching down and ruffling his hair. “Cheating or not. He’s a winner, my Cassian.”
Cassian reached up and swatted her hand. “You’re going to mess up my hair, Mama.”
“My apologies,” she said, and I pushed to my feet. “How many rounds did he get you by?”
“You mean beat her ass?” he quipped, lightly enough to make his potty mouth funny.
“Cassie,” his mom and I said disapprovingly. I dusted off my jeans. “Four. Four games of War and he creamed me. I’m not a good warrior, apparently.”
Mrs. Michaels reached into her scrub pocket and protruded a wad of cash, folded up so tight that I couldn’t see what the bills were. Not that I would’ve counted them in front of her anyway. “I’d say you’ll get better, but you’ve been babysitting Cassie for almost three years now and he still beats you.”
