Tommy Boy: A Panty Whisperer Prequel

by Sloane Howell

  ···

  Joel and I have a good night. We laugh and play video games—eat way too much pizza. It’s just what we do and I start to feel like maybe I can have it all—a friendship and an awesome girlfriend. What more does a guy need?

  I haven’t been able to stop thinking about CC, though. What’s she doing? What’s she wearing? How can I make her laugh next? All I ever want to do is make her laugh and smile.

  I try to call her apartment but there’s no answer. What the hell? I just want to hear her voice before I go to bed.

  I walk into the living room and Joel is watching Boondock Saints on the television.

  “So I’m going to—.” I point at the door.

  “Yep. Tell her hi for me.” He smiles.

  “I will, buddy. Tonight was fun.”

  “It was, wasn’t it?”

  “Yep.”

  “Be safe.” He stares.

  “I’ll watch for creepers in the bushes.” I laugh.

  “No I meant be safe.” He glances down at my crotch and waggles his eyebrows.

  “Jesus, I’m leaving.”

  He laughs at his own joke like a teenage boy. “Bye, sweetie!”

  “Night, hon.”

  When I open the front door I decide to walk to Crystal’s place. It’s not that far and it’s nice outside for mid-November. The semi-cool air washes over my face and there’s just something about college towns that smell different. I can’t put a finger on it, but it’s just an experience, like you can feel it through every one of your senses.

  I walk around the corner to CC’s street and there’s an ambulance out in front of the apartment complex. Red and blue lights swirl and cut through the trees and flash off the walls of the buildings. What the hell is going on? I start jogging in that direction. It’s a big apartment complex and it’s not just college students, so I’m guessing an old lady fell and broke her hip or something or maybe someone had a heart attack.

  Regardless of my rational thoughts, something in my chest tightens and I can’t jar my mind from going to the worst possible places. My jog turns into a sprint as the anxiety rushes through my bloodstream. I’m panting and running at a full sprint once I’m about a hundred yards away.

  I freeze in my tracks when I spot CC’s roommate. She’s clutching her mouth and tears stream down her cheeks. She looks over at me and all the blood rushes out of my face. Pale as a ghost, I stand there and stare at her, praying in my mind that nothing is wrong.

  Chapter Eight

  JOEL GRIPS ME by my neck, hard.

  I can’t move.

  Can’t speak.

  Things happen all around me but nothing registers. I stand there while my best friend hugs me and CC’s roommate sobs into her palms.

  “Tommy. Tommy.”

  Joel’s words sound like they’re coming from a mile away in a tunnel. I can’t do anything but stare at the stretcher in the ambulance with CC’s body zipped up inside of a black bag.

  This can’t be real.

  I’m dreaming.

  It’s. Not. Real.

  Wake the fuck up, Thomas. Please!

  I finally turn to Joel and tears stream down my cheeks. Joel grabs hold of me around the shoulders and squeezes the air from my lungs. “I’m so sorry, bro.”

  My voice is calm and steady, unbelieving. “I just. I walked. And—.” I hold my hand out toward the ambulance.

  “Just breathe, Tommy. You need to breathe.”

  Police officers are talking to her roommate where we can hear. I try to listen but everything is still just noise. She was just here. I just held her hand earlier. We just kissed this afternoon. She has to be here. I shake my head at the body in the ambulance, refusing to believe that’s her.

  “Someone in the building brought us some cookies,” her roommate says. “She ate one and then she started gagging and choking.”

  “Is she allergic to anything?” asks the police officer.

  Her roommate nods. “Peanuts.” She pauses. “But they were chocolate chip cookies.”

  “Doesn’t she have an epi pen?” Joel asks, his hand still on my shoulder.

  Her roommate sobs again. “I couldn’t find it. I looked everywhere. It all happened so fast—” Her roommate clutches her mouth and freezes up.

  “Is she gone?” It’s the only three words I can get out. I already know the answer. They don’t stick someone in a black bag that’s still alive. For some reason my brain won’t accept it as truth. Not until I hear it from someone else.

  Her roommate nods at me with her puffy eyes still squinted shut and tears sluicing down the curves of her face.

  The saliva in the back of my throat gets thick and salty, and nausea turns my face pale. It’s like walls are closing in, the sky is beating down on me, pushing me into a tiny box. I can’t breathe. I can’t physically take air into my lungs. My head goes numb and fuzzy stars appear in my vision before everything just disappears.

  Chapter Nine

  I HAVEN’T BEEN to class or eaten for two days, despite what the paramedics told me I needed to do when I’d come to. I’d passed out from shock. That’s what they told me.

  Joel hasn’t let me out of his sight, almost to the point of annoyance. But it’s not surprising. We’ve been through a lot of shit together. I don’t know that anything comes close to this, though, other than his dad passing away when we were younger.

  Her smile. Her face. She’s everywhere. One month ago—just a little over one fucking month ago, I ogled her in her Galaga tee shirt for the first time. The best month of my life and it’s come to a crashing halt in the blink of an eye.

  Her funeral is tomorrow and I don’t know how I’m going to do it.

  “You need anything, buddy?” Joel stands in front of me.

  I’m not a mopey person at all. I’m always smiling and joking and I don’t remember so much as feeling one ounce of happiness since I turned the corner to her street two nights ago.

  “No, I’m good.” I want to lash out—punch the fuck out of something. It’s not fair. This is not fucking fair. I never get to hold her hand again, touch her hair, kiss her—a tear starts to form in my eye and I blink it the fuck away, because it only brings more looks of pity from Joel.

  Joel cares about me and I don’t want to take it out on him, even though he’d let me. I’m not going to be that guy who sits around and brings everyone down with him. I don’t want pity, I want CC back in my fucking arms.

  I look up at Joel and fight back some tears. “You should go out and do something fun, man. Just forget about me for a little while, seriously.”

  He rests a hand on my shoulder. “You know that’s not gonna happen, dude. Not a fucking chance.”

  A knock at the door jars us from our moment.

  “Be right back,” Joel says.

  I hear some mumbling and then an older woman walks around the corner with Joel. She’s the spitting image of CC and all the feelings roiling inside of me magnify times a thousand. It’s like I’m looking at her, twenty years from now. The version of her in the future, if we’d gotten married and had kids that are my age now.

  She looks at me and smiles before her eyes water and she covers her mouth. “Ah-are y-you Thomas?”

  I nod and try to fight back more tears, but I know my eyes give in to my pain and show her all of the hurt inside of me.

  She rushes over and wraps me up in a giant motherly bear hug. I grip her shoulder and my tears soak into her shirt.

  She leans back and rests her palms on my cheeks. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

  She’s wanted to meet me?

  With a confused look I ask, “Y-you know who I am?”

  CC and I were close. I love her and I always will, forever. But we weren’t exactly at the parental introduction stage in our relationship. At least that’s what I thought. I never even got to tell her I love her and I sniffle at the thought, fighting back another sob.

  “Oh yes. She called me and told me all about you the first
day she saw you.”

  Joel shrinks away and for the first time in two days I smile at that fact. He must be worried that she also told her mom about the hot, cocky asshole hitting on her.

  I glance back to CC’s mother. “Sh-she did?”

  She nods her head. “She never talked about boys with us. But you were different. Her father and I were just waiting for her to come out of the closet. We didn’t even think she liked boys.” She chuckles underneath the pain in her face.

  I smile again at the thought. It makes sense that they’d think that. CC was gorgeous and could’ve had just about any guy she wanted I would imagine.

  “But she found you. She’d never been so happy as this last month.” She smiles.

  “I want to hear more about her.”

  “I figured you would.” She clutches her face and her eyes well up again. “You two didn’t get all the time that you deserved. I will tell you everything about her in time.”

  I pull her back in for a hug because it just feels like the right thing to do. She trembles against me and I feel her tears soaking the shoulder of my tee shirt again.

  “I told myself I’d keep it together, and look at me.” She leans back and wipes her eyes, doing her best to compose herself in front of me. “We want you to sit with us at the service, if you’re up for it. We’ll fly you out.”

  “I-I don’t know. It just doesn’t—”

  She clutches my hand. “Please. You’re the closest thing to a son-in-law we will ever have now.”

  How can I possibly say no to that? “Okay.” I nod. “Okay, I promise.”

  “Thank you.”

  Chapter Ten

  IT’S THE DAY of the funeral and I have no fucking clue how I will keep it together. I hate funerals and I’ve never even been to one for someone close to me. Joel came to San Francisco with me and we’re staying at her parents’ house because we’re poor college students. I still don’t know how Joel could afford the plane ticket, but he told me not to worry about it.

  I take in a huge breath. Today is the day. I’ll have to stare at CC, lifeless, in front of me. Nausea rips through my stomach at the thought. I rush to the toilet and hurl the tiny bit of food that I’ve choked down in the last twenty-four hours.

  Joel knocks on the door. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Just—be out in a minute.” I stand and look at myself in the mirror. Suits are the worst; weddings and funerals are all they’re good for and they’re always uncomfortable.

  My tie feels like it’s strangling me, punishing me for all the things I never got to tell her and do with her. I tug it away from my neck a little as I walk out of the bathroom. Joel claps a hand on my shoulder.

  “You’re like a mother, you know that?”

  “Indeed. At least I’m a MILF, right?”

  It gets a grin out of me. He doesn’t overdo it with the joking but manages to get a smile every now and again.

  “The limo is out front waiting for you guys.”

  “Already?”

  He nods. “They’ll understand if you can’t go through with it. I promise.”

  It’s like he knows everything I’m thinking. “I have to. I’d hate myself if I didn’t.”

  “I know. I’ll sit right behind you guys. Okay? And I’ll follow the limo in the rental car. If you need to leave early, we’ve got it covered.”

  I nod. “Thanks for being here.”

  “I’ll always be here, bro.” He wraps me up in a hug.

  We walk out the front door and CC’s Mom and Dad are on the front porch. They’ve been nothing but kind to us the entire time. She must have called her Mom and Dad a lot. I can’t stop my mind from going to the worst possible places, though. They must think I was just some schoolgirl crush, and now they have to share this intimate family moment with a complete stranger. They don’t really want me here. They’re just doing it because CC would’ve wanted it.

  In my heart I know it’s untrue. My brain refuses to give in. That they’d be open to the idea of their daughter falling for someone in such a short period of time.

  “Thomas.” Her dad pauses and turns to Joel. “Herbert.” He shakes both of our hands.

  “Mister Clark,” we both say in unison.

  He’s holding it together for Mrs. Clark and it’s pretty obvious. The guy looks like death washed over him but he somehow maintains his composure.

  Mrs. Clark takes me around the arm and we follow Mr. Clark out to the limo where the driver holds the door open.

  ···

  Joel’s hand clutches my shoulder again from behind. It hasn’t really left me through the whole service. I keep staring at CC, but it’s not her. She’s not the same. Her skin is ghostly pale and her lips are tinged with dark purple. I have to fight the urge to get up during the service and touch her, kiss her, anything that could bring her back to me. That shit always works in the fairytales. But life isn’t a goddamn fairytale. I had one for a month and this is where it ended up.

  It’s hell. This is what fucking hell feels like.

  A million razor-sharp knives stab me at once from every angle and I don’t fight them. I stare at CC and take every bit of it. She could’ve been my entire life, and now it’s all been taken from me in a nanosecond. An entire lifetime of happiness snatched away over goddamn cookies. The police had found out someone made them in a bowl next to a jar of peanut butter.

  How could I let this happen? It’s my fault. I chose to hang out with Joel instead of her. It’s all my fault. Joel’s hand tightens on me, like he can feel the tension battling through my body. I know it’s not my fault. It was an accident. I blame myself anyway.

  The man at the podium talks about God and all I can think is, fuck God, and fuck everything else. Anger mixes with sadness and pounds into me like waves on a beach taking turns against the shore. Each one of them stealing a little more until I erode into a hollow, empty shell.

  Wake up, CC. Please! I need you back. I can’t breathe without you here.

  She can’t hear me. She won’t feel it if I touch her. She’s gone.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper into Mrs. Clark’s ear.

  I stand up and take one more look at CC, and then I walk out of the room and never see her face again.

  Chapter Eleven

  JOEL AND I walk halfway out onto the pedestrian path of the Golden Gate Bridge. A fog lingers from the ocean out to our west and I turn back and gaze at the city where CC grew up. I’ve never been to San Francisco before and it’s beautiful. It’s her. This place is her. It’s probably where we would’ve ended up because I would’ve gone anywhere she wanted me to, followed her anywhere her dreams took us. Not that it would’ve mattered, because I love it here.

  People smoke weed openly on the sidewalks and you can smell sourdough bread baking no matter where you walk. I look out at Alcatraz on the little island and it feels like what I’ve been reduced to. An inescapable prison sitting out in the water, isolated from everything. All kinds of beauty along the shore, fun to be had, memories to make—and I’m trapped behind the concrete walls, alone.

  I can’t do this to myself. I can’t be pigeon-holed into a career choice. I’ve already lost the only woman I’ve ever loved after only having her for a month. My life is that fucking prison I’m staring at and I’m breaking out of it.

  “I can’t do it anymore, man.”

  Joel turns and stares at me. “What?”

  “I just can’t go on like this.”

  Joel grabs me by the shoulders, practically shaking me. “Now, I know you loved the girl. But you can’t talk like that, Tommy. You have a lot going for you. You need to talk to someone. I will make you if I have to!”

  “Huh? Why are you freaking out on me, man?” I’m so confused. Joel looks like he might vomit.

  “You’re not killing yourself. I won’t let you. Don’t be an idiot.”

  I smile and slap my hand on the back of his neck. I grip it tight and move his face closer to mine. The fog creeps under t
he bridge below us and the wind picks up.

  “I didn’t mean that, dipshit. Jesus.”

  The wind turns biting cold and I let go of Joel. I grab my elbows with each hand and shiver a little. My teeth chatter when I speak.

  “Oh. Well, umm, good then.” He stares at me a second longer. “What the fuck are you talking about then?”

  “I mean I can’t do this.” I motion out to Alcatraz like he knows everything I’m thinking.

  “I’m going to need a little more information here. I mean, I’m trying and all.”

  “I’m not going back to school. I mean, I’ll go back and live with you. But I’m not going to program computers for the rest of my life. I’m not going to classes.”

  He looks up at the giant steel cables and reddish beams that rocket above us, then shrugs. “Okay. I mean, you have to do what makes you happy.”

  “That’s what I’m saying.” A warmth rushes through me, through the biting cold. It heats my heart the way CC walking into a room used to. She’s here with me, listening.

  I’ve never believed in the afterlife or anything silly like that. But I can’t help but go against my scientific mind for once in my life, because I can literally feel her presence around me. Like she’s waiting for my happiness to set her free. A huge grin spreads over my face and I look up, down, around—gazing into the fog as if it’s her spirit wrapping around me.

  Maybe she’s here to set me free as well.

  “I’m done taking life seriously. I mean, we goof off and stuff. But everything is always working towards some goal—trying to please someone else, or do what society tells us we should do. Fuck that, man. Fuck it. I’m going to have fun. We only get to live once, dude. One time and it can be over tomorrow. And I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to spend another minute of it doing shit I don’t like, working toward something that’ll just make me more miserable.”

  Joel stands there, trying to absorb everything I’m saying to him. “I mean, I’m not usually the responsible one. And don’t get me wrong, your plan sounds awesome, dude. But, we have to live in reality. You need a job to make money to pay for fun things. Jobs suck, but they’re necessary.”