The Mystery Fighter III

The Mystery Fighter III (19)

It wasn't that long ago since life began appearing to me as memories.

My father wiping the sweat from his forehead in the car garage when I was eleven, leaving behind a streak of black grease in its place. Then, my sister as a toddler laying on the floor crying as my mother yelled at my father for something I was too young to understand; one after the other, the scenes appeared in my head, one event spilling into the next like a theatrical play without a plot.

Sometimes the memories played like a broken record, a single scene from my childhood repeatedly acting out in my head for hours, sometimes days. They usually played when I least expected them, during my day-to-day activities, where they would never leave when I wanted them to. They were briefer, and more vague: My father on the ground, deathly still with a wrench in his hand; the blood slowly spilling from the gunshot wound being the only movement pictured. The polka-dotted bow holding Celine's hair tightly up in a ponytail on her first day of school, the same one that had held my hair up in a ponytail nine years earlier on my first day, lightly fluttering as a gust of wind caught it. Then, the worst one of them all, Celine being held by one of Mike's faceless men, a knife to her throat. And me immobilised by fear, watching her eyes clench in fright, her body too small, too delicate, to be held by a man in such a way.

Then, as time went, the dreams I had started having began playing out before my eyes as well, interlacing with the memories from my past and making it difficult to recognise what was real and what was just a figment of my imagination. The University graduation ceremony that no one showed up to, Julian smirking drunkenly at me under the neon lights of a Christmas party, Zayden holding a gun to my stomach, Celine blowing out the light on her birthday cupcake, the silver pendant resting right underneath my collarbone.

After the memories presented themselves, I always found myself disoriented. There was a brief moment after every flashback, every theatrical show, where I had to remind myself that what they showed was the past, not the present. Where some were real, and others were not. Although it helped to dedicate a few minutes to collect myself and gather my thoughts, it made it difficult to focus on my mission with Pete.

The night I had slept on the couch in the house with the rest of the crew, my conversation on the phone with Celine had been playing in my head. Over and over again, it repeated like a scene from a movie that just wouldn't move on to the next scene.

I don't want to be by myself.

I won't get in your way.

Unexplainably, a memory of my father came to me as I replayed the conversation. 

My father had been on a call with an important client from the garage, and I had just gotten home from school where one of my few close friends at the time had told the teacher that I had cheated on last week's test. As a punishment, the teacher assigned me extra homework, wrote a note to my parents, and gave me a warning. The same girl later invited every girl in class to her birthday party, except me.

When the bell rang, I had gone straight to the garage. At least there I wouldn't have to be alone with my thoughts. There, my father would tell me how stupid that girl was, and put me to work. Making me feel useful in a time when I felt like a waste. 

But my father had been busy with the client, and presumably stressed, because upon my arrival he barely had time to listen to my explanation before ushering me out the door and telling me to go home. He didn't have time for me today.