CON MAN

CHAPTER THREE

Rain. Dark. Faint music in the background.

Where am I?

Wait. WHO am I?

The panic floods in and consumes every fiber of my being. My eyes crack open but my body is unable to move. My face is against the blacktop, my cheek scraping against wet gravel. The moisture from the road below joins forces with the deluge from above and soaks me to the bone.

Cold.

I open my eyes a bit more. Smoke? Fog?

Someone's running toward me. Just a silhouette at first. His face comes into focus, worried but kind. It calms me. He kneels down beside me, places a hand on my back. I flinch.

Pain.

"The ambulance will be here any minute. You just hang tight, son. You're going to be alright."

His voice is distressed, horrified. But it soothes me anyway.

Shards of metal near my hand. Glass. Something sticky on my head.

Bright lights. Loud voices.

Everything goes black.

I woke up in a cold sweat yet again, my heart racing. The same nightmare had plagued my sleep before, but it had been a few months since the last time. The details sometimes changed, but the outcome was always the same: A twelve-year-old me, lying on that wet street, bloody and bruised, my father in a panic at my side.

The vague pictures disappeared into non-descript images with every second I was distanced from my sleep. But even while dreaming, the details always eluded me. I tried to grasp onto them, but the further I was separated from the nightmare, the quicker it vanished into the ether. It was like trying to grab a handful of cloud.

I lay in my bed, confused and frustrated yet again as I attempted to put the jumbled puzzle pieces of my dream into some sort of cohesive timeline:

It's always raining. I know that much.

What I can't remember is how the accident happens. I can see the car in a heap of twisted metal, a semi truck turned on its side, Lenny Kravitz playing on the radio. I can practically feel the gravel under my cheek, the damp blacktop seeping through my clothes, the sticky blood dripping down my face. My father, so worried, running toward me, checking for injuries along my body, afraid to scoop me off the ground. The terror in his voice as he tries to make small talk, keep the conversation light.

Thing was, the vision wasn't just a bad dream. It was also a memory.

The very first memory I have of my life, to be specific.

Oh, yeah. While I was so busy filling you in on what a swell-looking guy I am, I forgot to mention the most important thing about me: My brain is a mess. I have a condition known as Profound Retrograde Amnesia. Basically, I have no memory of my life before the accident; no memory of the child I once was.

From all accounts, it would seem better that I forgot.

I pulled back the covers and hopped in the shower. My domain was the junior suite in the house, seeing as my father occupied the master.

Yeah, yeah. I still lived in my father's house, but I don't think you can blame me. Not only did he like the idea of keeping me close, but the "house" in question was actually a humongous mansion. I had a separate entrance that led to a separate wing, so it was almost like living on my own anyway. The two of us had plenty of room to lead separate lives.