Do you remember, Nick?

Do you remember that moment your life changed, that instant your car jumped the curb and took almost everything with it?

Nick Williams doesn't hesitate. He knows the answer. He can spend all day searching his mending, 17-year-old memory, but he won't find anything.

''Not at all,'' he says. "The day of the accident is a complete blur.''

Actually, it's more like a blank.

Smashing the street sign and then the tree? Gone.

Lying comatose for weeks, while family and friends sat bedside? Not there, either.

Only the evidence remains -- the scratches, the surgical scars, the shattered bones and, most frighteningly, those near-lifeless legs that confine him to a wheelchair at University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center. That's all that tells him what he faced -- the ventilation tubes, the rapid weight loss, the amnesia -- and what he faces -- months of rehab, maybe years of uncertainty about his education, his future, everything.

But wait.

There is a memory lurking back there.

''The only thing I think I remember,'' Nick says, "is when we beat St. Thomas. That sticks.''

ON THE COURT

In a Fort Lauderdale gym in early May, he soared above the volleyball net, slamming kill after kill at the feet of his opponents.

That was Nick: athletic, determined, dominant. A junior at Fort Lauderdale Cardinal Gibbons High School, he was a star. All-County on the court. All-American in the hallway. If his skills as an outside hitter didn't land him in college, his 4.0-plus grade-point average certainly would.

In the meantime, though, he was busy helping coach Marcy Meyer's Chiefs drop heated -- and hated -- rival St. Thomas Aquinas on May 1 for the district championship. Regionals were next.

Then state. Then, the Junior Olympics near Salt Lake City, where college coaches would see him play.

That was the plan when May 1 ended.

But that was the last day Nick would play competitive volleyball.

EARLY MORNING

Nick wasn't out late on May 3, a Saturday. He was up early May 4, leaving his father's house for his mother's to give his uncle a ride to the airport.

Somewhere along the way, on Federal Highway in Fort Lauderdale, Nick, then 16, lost control of his Ford Explorer. Maybe by dozing. Maybe by taking his eyes off the road. Nobody knows. One of the few certainties is, according to the Fort Lauderdale Police Department, no drugs or alcohol were involved.

Nick was rushed to North Broward Medical Center in Pompano Beach and treated for fractures in his left ankle, left foot, left elbow and one of his ribs.

He was placed on a respirator. He was barely conscious, his brain rattled from the impact.

His mother, Donna Pappas, and his father, Jim Williams, stayed glued to his side. Scores of people -- friends, family, teammates and even rivals from other schools -- flocked to the hospital, making shirts, banners, ribbons and offering other shows of support.

People worried. They wondered. They prayed. The volleyball team even won its regional before losing in the state quarterfinals, clearly missing its difference-maker.

Meanwhile, Nick slept.

A BAD DREAM

It wasn't until he woke up that anyone realized he was paralyzed.

Now most of Nick's upper-body weight has returned, rekindling visions of that well-conditioned athlete. His memory is on its way, too, and no longer does he ask questions again and again, in a manner all too reminiscent of movies such as Memento and 50 First Dates.

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