Last Wish Part # 3

Below are the links to the two previous parts
Last Wish #1
Last Wish #2

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Brenda wasn't picking up. Stupid babies and their stupid neediness. Tory realized that he was being needy, but at least he didn't need to suck on Brenda's boob every other hour. Anymore.

Tory sighed, and stretched his arms up to hang off the doorframe as he thought. He was aware it was probably pretty arrogant, but he admired his own arm muscles. Mostly he was just slim and healthy, not too thin and not fat. He didn't work out, but he guessed lifting heavy canvases and balancing bulky easels built his biceps. Girls gave him a lot of compliments on his arms.

Tory did a few pull-ups. It was also probably arrogant to think of himself as good-looking, but he knew he was. Maybe not as good-looking as Jodi's new boyfriend, but he knew he was above average. He was proud of his looks and wasn't complaining. Still, Tory had a sinking feeling he'd gotten as far as good-looks could take him in life, and they hadn't been able to offer him anything substantial: not love, not career--nothing.

Letting go of the doorframe, Tory decided it was lucky underpants time. He needed something good to happen. Sure, it was silly, but Tory had developed a superstition that most good things that happened to him, happened when he wore a particular pair of teal boxer shorts: getting into his first choice school, selling his first painting, the sorority strip poker night... He held onto that last image with a smile as he went into the bedroom to root through the lonely dresser--it seemed strange in the almost empty room. The dresser was technically Jodi's but filled with his stuff, and she'd never liked it, which explained why she'd leave it. The small desk with the computer was his. But that was it. She'd even taken the bed, leaving behind only a few marks in the carpet. He guessed he'd have to get an air mattress.

Tory riffled through the drawer. No teal boxers. He checked the dirty clothes. No teal boxers. He checked the other drawers. No teal boxers. In a fit of panic, he even checked under the bed that wasn't there.

Tory finally sat down in the empty rectangle where the bed had been, heart-racing, a sick feeling in his stomach. He remembered where his boxers were. He and Jodi had a weekend getaway to San Francisco, a last ditch effort to save the relationship. When they'd been packing, Tory had found his boxers on the floor at the last minute, and Jodi's bag had been closer.

Tory considered calling Jodi, but that was a big steaming cesspool of blood-sucking worms to open over such a little thing.

Still, he wanted them back.

The teal boxers had also been what he'd been wearing when he met Jodi. This, of course, suggested they weren't really lucky at all, but Tory wasn't willing to see it that way. He'd lost two years to her, he wasn't about to lose his boxers to her! Plus, he didn't like to think what she could be doing to them. Voodoo? Could she right now be drawing his face on the crotch and holding it over an open flame? Tory shook his head. Most probably she'd just throw them away--like she threw him away. He thought he preferred voodoo.

Tory took out his phone to search for an understanding mutual friend he could call and noticed he had a voicemail from his mother. He dialed in and listened. It was short: "Dad had a bad day."

Tory put the phone down and wished the boxers were his biggest problem. The boxers were fixable.

He knew he should phone his mother back, or a friend, or at least go out and buy a bed. But suddenly he didn't have the energy. Instead he lay down on the carpet in the empty rectangle of an absent bed and turned his face to the wall. The cool blank white was comforting and confining all at the same time. It was too late in the day to catch transit out to see his parents, and he didn't have a car or the money for a taxi. Mom couldn't leave the house to drive, and Brenda would already be asleep. If it was an emergency, mom would have said, and he would wake Brenda. But this wasn't an emergency. It wasn't anything to inspire activity. It was just purgatory while he waited for the elevator down.