After the strange encounter with the PO Box man, PT walked back to Zach’s place. While on his street he saw a car pass him. Some kind of Volkswagen. He swore he saw the same car pass him on his walk to the forest. It was too dark to tell what color the car was exactly, but if he had to guess it would be blue or green.. The last photo Jasmine and him had yet to follow through with was the one of the car. He was mad at himself for not taking a cellphone picture of the photo of the car earlier since it had been destroyed in the apartment fire. But he was pretty sure it green, but he could not recall the make and model. It was long though, longer than just a regular sedan. He decided he’d take a different route back to Zach’s through alleys and walkways that way if he happened to cross paths with the car again, he’d know for sure someone was following him.
He thought about Jasmine as he recalled the events in the forest. He had been replaying it over and over in his mind on his walk back to Zach’s. Well, exciting things were happening to him now, where was that the last week. Did Jasmine have such a short attention span that she couldn’t bare to hang out and lie low. She just had to have the chase. The excitement. He missed her already and her contagious energy. She had told him they weren’t close at all and didn’t even know each other. He was certain there was a spark there though, that he’d been vulnerable and empathetic. Was that all in his mind. Was he that self-absorbed, he couldn’t tell she “wasn’t feeling it.” She did have sex with him and was attracted to him a bit at least. Perhaps she judged him for not having a place and hardly working. Also, he barely had any money or savings and still had a lot of unpaid student loans. Maybe he was the shallow one, he did enjoy walking around with her and introducing her to people. It inflated his ego and made him seem more worthy. In fact, looking back on it they had only really known each other a couple months and yeah, they had some deep conversations, but he still didn’t really know a whole lot about her. It always felt like she was keeping something from him a side to her personality that she saved for her close friends. He had been a little more open with his life, but there wasn’t much to see, like a second rate picture book while most people were like a densely layered novel. It seemed like the same story had played out in all his previous relationships and his incompleteness couldn’t sustain love. Only Jasmine sniffed it out much faster than the others.
When he got to Zach’s he walked up to the front porch then remembered the green car he had seen. He looked around, but there were no signs of it. Perhaps it was all in his head. When he got into the house it was nearly midnight and Zach was fast asleep. He climbed the stairs to the second story where there were 3 identical empty rooms. His room was the far one to the right. It contained no windows, hardly any belongings, and Zach’s small childhood twin mattress. It had ugly tan carpeting with several stains and a ceiling fan that did not work. He turned off the lights and laid down. “Find. Him.” He remembered the mysterious man saying. “Find. Him.” There was something different about the way the man said this. Different in how it compared to the other things he said. His whole demeanor and voice changed as if devoid of any human substance. Like he was transmitting a message from another place. It could have referred to Todd, but it felt like it was also directed to him. Like he was being reminded to do something. To find someone. He remembered the old woman in the hospital and how she told him he was friends with her son, Trevor. The person he supposedly knew. And during their last encounter he thought he caught a glint of recognition in the PO Box man’s eye when he mentioned Trevor’s name.
He walked over to the closet and grabbed the blue box from the back. He examined closely just like he had done many times before. He tried opening the top, but it would not budge. There was a small hole in the front where a key might go. But for some reason it didn’t seem like a regular key hole and there didn’t appear to be a lock mechanism of some sort attached. Out of the blue he held the box up close to his face and said “Find. Him.” Just like the man had said in the forest. Nothing happened. “Find Trevor” he said. “I want to find Trevor” he repeated a little louder. He tried opening the lid again but nothing happened yet again. Why would that have worked anyways he thought. The box hummed slighty and he got very excited for a second, but it soon stopped and nothing happened once more. He tossed the little blue box back in his closet, took off his clothes, and hopped into bed. This was all fruitless he thought. He needed to change something in his life. He told himself he would buy new things and clothes tomorrow and then work hard for 8 hours. It was also time he looked for new jobs and a new place. And if just wasn’t motivated he’d force himself. He’d carve the will out of thin air. Suddenly he felt extremely tired as if he’d swallowed a whole bottle of Benadryl. His eye lids felt super heavy and pulled him into a deep deep sleep.
