I'm sitting here on the edge of my new bed, unable to sleep, with the only possession from my past life sitting next to me on a cheap end table. It's a portrait of a young, beautiful woman I've never met before. But those shocking green eyes and that brilliant red hair are strangely familiar.

Familiar because I see them every time I look in the mirror. It's a portrait of my mother.



That's me as a child. Knee-high white socks, shiny shoes, and an expensive, sticky suit no ten-year-old should have to wear. That was my room as a kid. It wasn't how a kid's room should look, at least from what I remember of it. No kiddie posters or wallpapers. No bedspread with cartoon characters. I had a bookshelf and a couple of expensive pictures.



I spent most of my childhood in my room reading books. No Batman, Superman, or Spiderman. My books and novels were educational. I spent so much time alone in my room because according to my father, Jason Wyndham the Second, I wasn't smart enough for the public eye. He was worried if I went outside or into town I would end up doing something that would embarass myself. Or worse, the family name.

So I stayed in my room and I read my books. But I always had one thing to keep me company.



The only thing my father had ever given me. A portrait of my mother, a mother I had never met. She's young in the photo, posing casually and with a bottle of expensive wine just peeking into the frame. It could have been a joke, a woman my father made up to shut me up when I asked about my mother. But somehow I knew it was her. Despite the vivid red hair and the deep green eyes behind stylish glasses, I knew this was my mother. I didn't hate her for leaving my father. I wondered why she didn't take me with her but I knew she must have had a good reason. That picture and the thoughts of my mother were the only thing that kept me sane through my childhood.

But soon not even that picture was enough.



There was no room in my father's house for toys. They were there but I was forbidden to play with them. They were gifts from the celebrities and politicians my father was friends with, but they were simply decorations. Books were my playthings. My only playthings.



Everything about my father was gray. Gray suits, gray hair, grey eyes. Just gray. The only emotion my father exhibited was when he was angry with me. His hands fisted at his hips and those cold eyes stared down at me with disgust. All the while my mother watched me from her picture frame. Somehow I knew if she was there she would stand up to my father. She would kiss me goodnight and tuck me in and tell me she loved. Imagining she would do that made the nights less cold and helped me endure my father's looks of disdain.



My nights consisted of laying alone in my room and listening to my father and his newest wife Lillian go at it in his office. My father rarely left his office when he was home so that was where Lillian and my father spent their time when he wasn't working. I hated her, just like I hated the rest of the women he dated or married. Much younger than he was with tight jeans, busty tops, and thick make-up. I hated to think that my mother had been one of those women. She must have been better than the other women, tricked into his bed or something.

That had to have been it. She couldn't have been just like all the others...



In the late years of my childhood I found the nerve to stand up to my father. My mother hadn't taken it and neither would I. Unfortunately there was a difference between standing up to my father and walking out the door. I was still too young to make it on my own and my father only needed to lock me in my room.

And that was exactly what he did.



With my teenage years came my rebellion. He might have locked the doors but there was always windows. I could sneak out and get the necessities. Cigarettes and beer. My room tranformed around me. I taped posters to the wall as the stench of cigarette smoke and stale beer soaked into the expensive wallpaper. Why did I disguise myself when I went out? Why did I wear dark sweaters and pants? Who was I protecting? Maybe I thought no one would believe I was a third generation Wyndham.

Maybe I thought my mother would watch the news and see my long hair and dark make-up...



Alone in my room I drowned myself in alcohol and cigarettes. I neglected my studies and never spoke to my father. My long hair and dark clothes were a testament to my rebellion, my refusal to accept the ways of my father and his father before him. I knew my rebellion was hurting him. I was his only son, the last of the Wyndham legacy. If nothing became of me there would be nothing left of the Wyndhams. My father was getting up in his years and all the young women and medication in the world couldn't keep him youthful forever.



I might have hated the taste of alcohol but I loved the effects. It made me forget. I could get lost in a drunken stupor and forget all about my miserable life, a life that was going nowhere. It was my escape.



Awaking with a hangover, the stench of vomit and stale beer hanging in the air, I'd pull myself off the floor and there she was. My mother was always watching, I could see the sorrow in those green eyes. Or maybe it was the sorrow in my own eyes.



The realization of what my mother would say if she ever saw me like this was horrifying. I wanted to hurt my father but at the same time my actions would be hurting my mother. Maybe she didn't know what I was doing but I knew what I was doing and I knew it would hurt her.



That was the final straw. My shoulders shook, my eyes teared up and I broke down. I cried for the first time in years. I cried for my mother and I cried for the direction my life was taking. Or lack there of, for that matter.



So I buzzed my hair, cleaned up my clothes, and washed the black make-up from my face. Then I stood up to my father. I told him where to go and how to get there. Then he did something that shocked me.

He hit me.



It was just a shove, square in the chest, but I could feel the imprint where his hands had pressed. I was shocked, if not slightly terrified. But then I saw the look of shock, of fear, in those normally emotionless eyes. The ball was in my court.



That was it. I told him I was leaving, that I never wanted to see him again. I was leaving Veronaville and all of this bullshit behind. As far as he was concerned I wasn't his son and he wasn't my father. I was estranging myself from this family.



So I strode out of the house and walked confidently to the taxi, the picture of my mother and the clothes on my back my only possessions. That cab took me straight out of Veronaville and dropped me off in the small town of Arbordale, a neighboring town I hadn't known existed. The people here gave me strange looks when I told them my name but they didn't push it and my face wasn't recognizable. I could become someone new.

So I got a job. I worked my ass off from 9-5, 6 days a week to earn my slice of the pie. I managed to get an apartment, taking any shifts I could at the fast food joint in town. I didn't need friends, I didn't need women. I had myself and that picture. My mother kept me sane. Those green eyes and that long red hair kept me going.



So here we are. Here I am. Jason Wyndham. But my name has no meaning to me anymore. It's just a name. It's not who I am. I have a house, I have a job. I have my mother. At the age of 25 I'm just starting my life. I wasted 16 years of my life and I've vowed not to waste another minute.



It's Autumn and the leaves are changing, falling off the trees only to renew in the Spring. I'm one of those leaves, ready to start over, to prove to everyone that I'll keep coming back every year. I'm ready to change the meaning of the Wyndham name, to bring to it something more than money and fame.

No more wasted days, hours, or minutes. It's time to do something with my life.