Super Over You

by Jamie Knight

  I don’t remember any of what happened, though. Floating in midair for thirty seconds? Seems like that’s something that would stick in your mind.

  The doctor told me that case studies of amnesia are usually associated with damage to the medial temporal lobe. It can take days, weeks, months – years, even, to recover your memories. Sometimes, though rarely, I’m assured, the memories never come back.

  All the technical medical talk is Greek to me, and that is exactly where the word “amnesia” derives from, the Greek language. And the type that I have is the retrograde variety, where I can’t recall memories from before the accident.

  Everything still feels a bit fuzzy. I need to be able to focus so that I can piece my life back together, but I just can’t seem to do so. It’s all very frustrating. I have to show patience. Because if my mind won’t cooperate, what else can I do?

  The nurses tell me that I’ve stayed here long enough, and I’m well enough to continue recovering at home. I think this means that they don’t know what else to do for me, and that I should quit taking up a bed that someone who needs it more could start occupying.

  They also tell me that someone named Charles Williams is coming to pick me up. But who is that? And where am I going?

  I don’t even know where “home” is. It’s all very discombobulating. Ever since I woke up, every move I make is monitored, recorded, analyzed, processed. I am given instructions, poked by needles and prodded by hands.

  I’m sick of people showing me things and telling me what to do. I want whatever life I had back. If only I knew what that life was.

  I just have a small bag with me when the orderly arrives to escort me out. He wheels me down to the lobby in a chair. It feels awkward.

  Despite the bandage on my head and some cuts and bruises elsewhere on my body, I am physically fine. The wheelchair must be for insurance reasons. But I have to say, I feel like a jerk, letting someone push me around when I’m perfectly capable of walking.

  At the nurse’s desk, they ask me to sign some paperwork. I put down the name they told me I have – that Devon Dennington one. But it feels unfamiliar as I move the pen on paper to scribble as I’m told.

  Is this my actual handwriting or a facsimile? All of this is freaking me out a little bit.

  “Your friend is here to take you home,” one of the nurses says.

  She points over to a man with sandy-blond hair who is wearing tan slacks and a white button-up shirt. He definitely works out and has a confident air to him. I can tell he gets his shoes polished, since the fluorescent lights from above reflect off of them.

  I thank the nurse and walk towards him.

  “Hey there, Devon,” he says.

  My name still sounds odd to me, when I hear it spoken aloud.

  “Hi. You’re Charles?” I ask.

  I say his name in an unfamiliar way. As if he’s an Uber driver who just arrived to pick me up at the airport.

  “Yeah, buddy. It’s me,” he answers.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I really am, but it’s just not registering.”

  “It will.”

  He gives me a look that is a mix of sympathy and reassurance.

  “They tell me we’ve been friends for years?” I ask.

  I have many more questions, but I know I won’t get them all at once.

  “Ever since elementary school,” he confirms. “We practically grew up on the same street.”

  “As far back as being little kids?” I ask, rather astonished.

  I wish he would just give me a piece of paper with all the bullet points of my life on it. Instead, he is delineating the information slowly.

  “Yep, we used to build forts together. Ran around all summer, from sun up to sun down. We even had a treehouse. We were practically inseparable.”

  “Wow.” I’m somewhat taken aback by this vision of our youth. It sounds lovely, if only I could fucking remember it. “Okay. Well, I believe you. Wait, we had a treehouse?”

  “It was pretty sweet,” he starts to explain.

  He pulls his glasses from his face and thoughtfully chews on the ear piece. It seems like a common gesture of his; one that I feel I should remember, but I don’t, just like the rest of what he’s telling me about him and us.

  “You climbed a ladder up and entered from a cut-out hole in the bottom,” he continues. “We even had a top-level look-out post. No way would they let kids build something like that today. Eventually, lightning hit the tree though, and we had to tear it down.”

  “That’s a fucking shame,” I lament.

  “Sure is.”

  Charles produces his phone, swipes to bring a photo up on the screen, and shows it to me. It’s a tall oak tree in a backyard. It must be over a hundred years old.

  From the base, a wooden ladder is nailed into the trunk and runs up to a sturdily constructed treehouse made out of plywood 2 x 4s. And up in the look-out post the two of us, who were just young boys back then, are waving down.

  “I had my mom find pictures of us hanging out as kids and she scanned them in. Supposed to help with…” He pauses for a moment. “Well, you know. It’s to help you restore your memory and get back on track.”

  “Well, hopefully I’ll be able to remember everything one day,” I mumble.

  This Charles guy, who seems like a cool dude and is my best friend, after all, even if it doesn’t feel that way because I can’t remember him one bit, looks a bit sad for a moment. His eyebrows crinkle together as he sighs.

  This has to be hard on him, seeing me this way. If we’ve been friends forever, and he’s the one who showed up to pick me up from the hospital, then surely, we have a powerful bond.

  “It will all come back to you,” he reassures me, putting a gentle hand on my shoulder.

  As we head to the door so that we can leave and go to… well, who knows where… I can only hope that he’s right.

  Chapter Two

  Devon

  The nurse at the desk waves Charles over.

  “Just a sec, Devon,” he says.

  Again, my name. I’ll have to keep repeating it to myself, so it eventually sticks: “Devon.”

  It makes me wonder. We’re never really given a choice as to what our name is going to be when we’re born. In a way, I’ve sort of been born again.

  So, can I choose a different name now? Do I get that right, having amnesia? Maybe Brock, or Alex, or Samson, or Logan.

  You might say it seems like I have an affinity for these monikers, but really, I’m only listing them because they were on some name generator app I downloaded to my phone. You can get rather bored sitting in a hospital bed for days.

  You watch medical dramas and play with your phone and think about what you should name yourself if you get to choose, since you have no memory or attachment to your current name anyway. Finally, though, I decided Devon is an okay name, and that I should keep it.

  Charles walks over and meets a doctor in front of the desk. The nurse goes back to looking at her computer. The doctor shakes Charles’ hand and starts talking.

  It all seems very routine. Just a medical practitioner explaining to a guy’s best childhood friend that he has some memory issues.

  I step forward a little bit and I can hear some of what the doctor is telling him. How it is going to take time for me to regain that memory. How I need to slowly acclimate again to my daily routine.

  And then, after a very dramatic pause, this one exactly like those that are used in TV shows when it’s about to be a particularly suspenseful part, a scary sentence is spoken: “He might not be the same ever again.”

  What does that mean? If I don’t know who I am, if I can’t cohabitate in my own head with the person I was before, and I might not remember who that was anyway, so does it really matter?

  All of these thoughts flood my already jumbled mind. It might sound confusing, but it makes sense to me, or at least as much sense as it can, under the circumstances. I have to be someone; I might as well be the p
erson I am here and now.

  Maybe I should just choose a different name after all, and then get in a car and drive somewhere, and then just be that guy. Go into the nearest store and say “Hi, I’m Bob. Are there any job openings in town?”

  Wait, I don’t think “Bob” was one of the names generated by that app. But it sounds rather pedestrian, yet vaguely trustworthy. I could blend in somewhere as a Bob. That would be just fine.

  These philosophical and existential thoughts don’t seem on par for a cliff diving, jet skiing, off-roading, adventure seeking dude. So, I must have another layer or two to me.

  Do I secretly go to poetry slam night at the local coffee shop? Or do I drive thirty minutes away to another one, so I don’t get recognized?

  Maybe I have a journal I write down all my thoughts in? Like the one they gave me in the hospital to help me remember. Except, this one would be filled with details of exciting events, rather than just my confused thoughts.

  The thing is, they told me I’m just renting a furnished apartment month-to-month. All my stuff is in storage. If I did have such a thing as a personal journal, it would probably be buried deep in some box in there.

  The items I do have at my place, day-to-day things such as toiletries, my laptop and some clothes, they went ahead and had brought over to Charles’ house, where they’ll be waiting for me when I arrive.

  So, I must not want to be tied down, then? Am I the kind of person always moving onto the next thing? If a good thing presented itself would I, first, know it, and second, would I embrace it and not push it away in a vain attempt to search for something supposedly better?

  I have so many questions about myself. I hope Charles doesn’t try to pull any punches when he answers all of them, because I plan to ask him. If I’m an asshole, he has to tell me I’m an asshole. Not that I’ll really want to go back to normal, if that’s the case.

  Charles shakes the doctor’s hand, waves goodbye to the nurse, and walks back towards me. He smiles, but it feels like one out of obligation and pity. As if that pursed action would elicit any comfort at all. But at least I know he cares.

  At first, I was a bit worried that he was up to something. Why else would he want to come pick up a stranger at the hospital and give him a place to stay?

  But I keep having to remind myself that I’m not a stranger to him, even though he seems like a stranger to me. He must be a good friend. Hell, his mom put together pictures of us as kids. Someone looking to take advantage of you probably doesn’t go to such lengths to deceive.

  I decide to give him a chance and trust him. It’s not as if I have any other choice, anyway.

  “Ready to go?” he asks.

  “I am if you are.”

  And I am. I want to step out into the world and see what I’ve been missing. To rediscover what I once knew so well.

  We walk towards the parking lot. I can feel the bright sun on my face. It feels new, although I know I’ve been on this planet 8,796 days according to this other app I used on my phone.

  All these apps – what was life like before we had them? I supposedly grew up in a time that was fully immersed in technology, already. But the smartphone really propelled everything forward.

  All these devices… I am going to have to keep relearning how to use them and also eventually get my laptop and figure out just what I used to do to make money. I have so many things to do – mainly, try to remember other things.

  When I put it out there as a number, 8,796 days doesn’t seem like that long. But if I only count the days after I woke up, which were seven, then it seems like an eternity and that I might never recover.

  Was it stolen time? Is this a second chance? All these questions. With no fucking answers.

  “Hmmm,” I say out loud.

  “What’s that?” Charles asks.

  “Oh, I was just thinking,” I muse.

  “Well, that’s good!” he laughs. “Thinking is good. Very good, indeed.”

  I laugh too.

  But am I doing it to agree, or do I really think it’s funny?

  Again, more questions, but relearning humor with a supposed best friend is a bit confusing as well. After a moment, I laugh a little harder.

  “Wow, just wow,” I say. “You know, I have been thinking too much. I needed that.”

  “I bet,” Charles says. “Look, we’ll get you sorted back at our house and then we’ll have a drink and talk and think.”

  He chuckles. From what I can tell, he seems like a good guy. And from the way he says, “our house”, I know that means he shares it with his wife Amanda. At least that was what I was told.

  Charles clicks a button on his keys and a beeping noise emits from a 2016 Aston Martin DB9 GT.

  “What are you, a drug dealer?” I ask.

  Somehow, I know what that is. It’s funny, the things I instinctively recognize, without being able to remember much of anything.

  Charles laughs.

  “You really don’t know, do you? I’m obsessed with cars. My grandfather left me quite a bit of money in his will and I’m ashamed to say I spend too much of it on fancy cars.”

  “Well, I’d think I’d remember something like this,” I say, incredulously. “What a beautiful vehicle.”

  It really is. Aluminum-intensive. Built to hug the road and pick up speed fast. To give you the advantage out there in the wild thrall of city traffic, but let you loose on the open highway, should your dreams take you there.

  It’s a sleek coupe with a long, long hood. Aggressive rims, carbon-fiber accents, and a grill that compliments the Aston Martin logo: White wings outlined in black, with a rectangle sporting the company name in all capital letters. It is definitely a fucking masterpiece of a machine.

  “This is the last of its kind. Just like you, good buddy,” he says.

  I’m not really sure what he means by that. It’s possible it’s just a nice way of telling me I’m important to him. I must be, right? Not everyone comes to pick up their amnesiac friend from a hospital in the middle of the day.

  We get in. The seats feel like you’re sitting in the cockpit of a spaceship. It has a leather and walnut wood interior, with what appears to be hand-stitched accents.

  The black micro-suede steering wheel rim looks like you’re ready to hit the racing track, like all you’d need is a helmet, some gloves, and gallons upon gallons of high-octane fuel. Padded headliners, capacitive-touch buttons on the dash, knurled knobs –– the attention to detail shows a love of craftsmanship.

  This isn’t some slapped together assembly line import.

  I have another realization: I must know quite a bit about cars!

  Charles presses the engine start button and the engines fire up. He puts his foot down on the gas pedal with the beautiful piece of automotive history still in park and revs it up a bit.

  Maybe he thinks the sound and vibrations might jog something in my memory. And for a moment, a piece of memory flashes by, something about racing down a coastal highway in the night, but then it’s gone.

  We pull out and onto the street. As we drive away from the hospital, the Aston Martin DB9 GT, one of the last of its make on the face of the Earth, heads down roads half-populated with older houses and open fields. We’re on the outskirts of the city.

  “Hey Charles, I really appreciate you letting me stay at your house for a while,” I say.

  “No problem, buddy,” he says. “You would do the same for me.”

  Would I? I hope so. But since I have no clue what kind of person I am, I guess I wouldn’t know.

  But Charles, who is apparently my best friend, seems to be sure that I would. So, I suppose I’ll just have to take his word for it.

  Click here to continue reading I Hate You, Remember Me

  She hates me.

  But I can’t remember why.

  An accident nearly takes my life and does take my memory.

  I can’t remember who my temporary roommate is.

  But I do know she’s the hottes
t woman I’ve ever seen.

  A single mom, she’s a redhead with tempting curves.

  Being with her would help me heal, body and soul.

  But she hates my guts.

  I guess we knew each other in high school and have quite a twisted past.

  No one knows exactly what happened between us and she won’t tell me.

  She just wants me gone, until she needs my help.

  I agree to babysit but I’ll need her to do me a favor in return.

  One little hate f*ck never hurt anyone, right?

  We’ll get it out of our system.

  And it might even help me remember some things.

  But do I want to know what made me hate this feisty beauty?

  Are some things better left in fantasy?

  Or could I really have a happy ever after with someone I started off hating?

  I Hate You, Remember Me is a full-length standalone romance novel. Jamie Knight promises to always bring you a happy ever after filled with plenty of heat. And never any cheating or cliffhangers!

  Click here to continue reading I Hate You, Remember Me!

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  Your dirty little secret romance author <3