Gabrielle Gatto
Professor Hrebik
Intro to Creative Writing
Final Workshop Piece
The view is still there, but it isn’t ours anymore. It belongs to new people who don’t lay their blankets out and inhale Taco Bell as the sun creeps down the horizon. Everything is different now. Trevor is dead and I’m not the girl who laughs with the sun anymore.
The last time I was there was a four years ago, before his parents moved out and someone new bought the house. I can’t blame them though. I can’t imagine parking your car on the same slab of tar your son died on because his friend was too drunk to put his lights on, and impaled your only child between a truck and your garage. You can’t get that image out of your head, especially not when you’re me watching from the roof.
“Damn it. Damn it,” I whisper as I start to slightly shake. I need to calm down but my lighter is missing and the nasty nicotine is the only thing that will allow my body to relax.
“Need a light?” I recognize the voice as the guy with great hair from the third row.
I swallow hard before I can make a fluid, coherent sentence leave my lips. “Um, yeah, thanks,” I say as I accept the yellow Bic lighter from his hand.
“Edie, right?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, what’s your name?” I light my cigarette and look up at great hair guy. If I wasn’t trying to avoid everybody all the time, I might have noticed how handsome he was.
“Angus Ackerman.” He extended his hand for mine and as I shook it, a light went off in my head, I know that name. I dropped my cigarette on my foot, but I barely felt the burn. I couldn’t move. I let Angus pick up the Marlboro 27 and graciously slipped it back between my fingers. I could still feel his name stinging my ears, why does it sound so familiar?
“Did you say Ackerman?” I said as my voice slightly quaked. Where do I know that name? Ackerman. Why can’t I look up?
“Are you okay? You look kind of out of it, and you had the same look on your face during lecture too.”
I frantically tried to change my disposition. “So, you watch me while our professor discusses the bile in the human body?” I tried not to sound awkward while my brain filed through the new information that smacked me in the face. I looked up at him again, too late to catch myself gawking. I looked straight into his eyes. I was almost relieved, they were nothing like Trevor’s, not even close, yet there was something there that felt familiar. The way his eyelids framed his irises? Was it the way he was looking at me?
“Well, no, but, hey, why are you looking at me like that?”
I was staring like he was the bearded lady in the circus. I fought to unlock my jaw, shook my head and smiled like I had just won a freaking Oscar. I looked up again and said, “Oh gosh sorry, you just kind of remind me of, that, um, actor, you know the one with the great hair that won best supporting role in a drama?”
Back to the information I had memorized since the night Trevor died:
With each organ came a name, a name I seared into my brain before stuffing the file back into the screeching cabinet in the dusty records room in the hospital. I couldn’t help myself; how couldn’t I sneak in and find where the parts of my friend were fleeing off to? Angus Ackerman got Trevor’s corneas, Vincent Trello lungs, Regina Lauterman heart, Thomas Sullivan liver, Rayyan Alaman kidneys, Oliver Portman skin. Is this the Angus Ackerman? I needed more time with him.
“I-I’m sorry. I’m Edie Masterson, is E.I.M. your philosophy requirement or are you pre-med?” I desperately needed to buy time with him, look at his eyes more. They seemed a lot greener than five minutes ago, but of course they did not compare to the blue mosaics that used to dance in the sun on the roof.
Angus took a long drag of his Menthol (Trevor used to say menthols were for pussies) shoved his left hand in his pocket and leaned against the tree we were standing under. Once he exhaled, he turned his head back at me and smiled. I think he thought I was interested, and I mean I was, but not like that and besides, he smoked menthols for christ’s sake.
“My last philosophy requirement, what about you, you’re pre-med right?”
“Yeah, but I’m taking two years off before med school, I feel obligated to do the whole “backpack through Europe, meet grungy people in hostels thing.” Obligated, no, but saying I’m taking the trip I was supposed to go on with my dead best friend wouldn't sound so great. Angus laughed. Wait was I funny, or is he laughing at me?
“I want that very much too, but law school comes first.”
The whole time I heard Trevor in my head, talking about Armani Jackets and pale blue scrubs, and in that moment I felt at home. I saw the eyes that used to see me. Suddenly I was on our roof again.
“Trevor, we have all afternoon to talk, stop talking with your mouth full!”
“No, it’s just, I was really craving Taco Bell, but I have all these thoughts in my head since second period and you were the only one I could tell, you know?”
I remember how wonderful I thought he was in that moment. I laughed and begged him not to eat too much because I knew he would get a stomachache and whine the rest of the night. “Now what did you want to tell me?”
“So, we’ve both got these big legacies to continue. Your father will probably have a heart attack if you don’t go to into medicine, when you really want to be a photographer. I’ll be forced to be the next vice president of a company that pollutes the environment as their job instead of opening a bar in Jamaica, and eventually our dreams will turn into three day old Taco Bell.”
“So your point is three day old Taco Bell is never a good idea?”
“Never,” he whispered as he tickled me softly.
“Trevor, you know that inevitably I’ll be wearing scrubs and you’ll be in a two thousand dollar suit, and we’ll be miserable and meet at a bar equidistant from our jobs to bitch about our bosses, and your kids will know me as Aunt Edie and mine will know you as, well, Uncle Idiot seems fitting.”
“Wait, I don’t get to be the father?” He chuckled and then turned toward me. “I’m serious, Edie, we’ll wear the suits and the scrubs, but we’ll go around the world first. We’ll go far and go for long, see things we’ve only wondered about; connect with something, someone, somewhere.”
“Boys talk like this?” I giggled and put my hand on his cheek and stroked his pale skin lightly. His eyes told me how genuine he was about it. “Okay. I’m serious too. The year before med and law school we’re going to get really drunk in a really ridiculous amount of places, and we are going to see the world in the clothing of our choice.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
I started getting nervous, what happened when we finished our cigarettes? He would leave and I would be left here, a mess on May twelfth. It was May twelfth, and today of all days I meet Angus. I almost chuckle because I feel like Trevor’s playing a sick joke on me laughing at me from another roof somewhere. So I look up, smile, and decide I’m somehow getting Angus to my roof so Trevor could see the sunset he’s been cheated out of, and I can sort of, maybe, share a moment with him again.
I ran through everything I knew from Musical Theatre in 8th grade and started acting. “So Angus, its only 1,320 steps to my house from Tempest Hall, you want to go study before the review session and grab some food?” Please, buy it, I thought as I bat my eyelashes for effect.
He looked flattered. Perfect. “Sure I need to walk by the tobacco shop anyway, and oh gee could you help with that packet on DNR’s maybe?”
“Yeah of course, no problem. What are you in the mood for to eat?”
“Well I know there's a Taco Bell three blocks down, we can just grab something quick it you want.”
Fucking Taco Bell.
“Yeah dude what’s up? Well Edie’s coming over but I can come pick it up later before we go to Jack’s.”
I wasn't sure who he was talking to, but I forgot we had to go to Jack’s tonight, it was his birthday and we were having a bonfire on the beach for him. He must be talking to Bobby who we were picking up later once we got the beer from The Shack; the only place in town that didn’t card.
“Oh okay, you sure man? There’s room in the car? Yeah I know I need that thing anyway, but you can handle the beer? Thanks man I’ll see you later.” Trevor fidgeted with his phone another moment then ran his fingers through his surprisingly silky black hair.
“I thought we were driving tonight. I don’t mind not drinking.”
“Nah, Bobby said he’d do it, I want us to have fun tonight, and besides Bobby’s got some of my stuff in his car anyway. Easier this way.”
“Alright, in that case I plan to kick your ass in pong tonight.”
“Over my dead body.” God I hate that he said that.
“Fine asshole, we’ll see.”
But this time we already reached the final steps of our walk. I’ll tell him on the roof I thought, it’ll be better that way.
“Nice house Edie, I wish we became friends earlier. I would kill to study somewhere else then that musty building they call a library.”
“Wait until you see the roof!”
Was this weird? It felt so nice though, I made a friend that would watch the sunset with me over casual conversation on complex medicine ethics, and he liked Taco Bell. He still smoked menthols though and there was still the whole question of, “Hey do you have someone else’s corneas?” But I won’t go there, not now. I would let the wine and nacho burrito talk now.
“Oh wow, great view! This where you study then; the roof?”
Yes, silly Angus, I study here, I think here, I wait here for the colors of the night.
Edie, my treasure, my best friend,
For years we watched the sunset, but why stop there? I want to watch all the colors of the night with you. At Prom specifically, and at Taco Bell, and on my roof, and when I tell you I love you tonight. You in?
Love,
Trevor
Professor Hrebik
Intro to Creative Writing
Final Workshop Piece
Trevorland
Trevor lived exactly 609 steps from our high school. I looked forward to each of those 609 steps everyday while my hand cramped scribbling notes, while I waited for the bell for next period, and when the slamming of lockers rejoiced at the end of the day. There wasn't much beauty in the walk home though, just some withered trees and cracked concrete. The street looked less than majestic, the sky not as blue as it should have been. When we reached his house we fell into our routine of opening the door, the refrigerator, or our arms in an embrace. Then we ascended the 17 steps upstairs, carefully avoiding the stale parts of the green floral carpet. The door to his room had a plaque that read “Welcome to Trevorland,” an art project his little sister came home with one day. The doorknob was cold sterling silver and sometimes it made me shiver just thinking about it. After opening and closing so many doors we finally reached the window next to his bed. Trevor would immediately crumple the white sheets and wrinkle and crease the edges while unlocking the window. The window was made of a large sheet of warped glass and was cut into nine perfect squares like a tic tac toe board. It wasn't anything special, but it wasn’t the window that was beautiful, it was the roof I longed for each day, it was what lay beyond the window that was so breathtaking, what the 626 steps led to. Trevor would grab my hand and I would grab a blanket and we would bend our bodies to slip through the window frame. The blanket was for the rough black sandpaper like roofing that cut us too many times before, and when it was finally laid out we waited. I would walk a million steps for the sunset on that creaky roof, to feel the shingles sharp and grainy against my fingers. On that roof, this town wasn’t so bad anymore. The sky was bluer, the trees were full of life, the people looked happy. I appreciated everything more when I was on that roof, and I was never more sure that I loved Trevor when he would look at me and say, “This view wouldn't be the same without you.” I would give anything to go back there and sit with him, to just talk and laugh and smile at the sky while it turned from light blue to yellow to orange to red and then blue again, but this time a deep sapphire that beckoned us back inside. The view is still there, but it isn’t ours anymore. It belongs to new people who don’t lay their blankets out and inhale Taco Bell as the sun creeps down the horizon. Everything is different now. Trevor is dead and I’m not the girl who laughs with the sun anymore.
The last time I was there was a four years ago, before his parents moved out and someone new bought the house. I can’t blame them though. I can’t imagine parking your car on the same slab of tar your son died on because his friend was too drunk to put his lights on, and impaled your only child between a truck and your garage. You can’t get that image out of your head, especially not when you’re me watching from the roof.
***
I am twenty one now, about to graduate college, and I feel incredibly lost and put together all at the same time. It is already May twelfth again, and I’m reliving the worst day of my life for what seems like the hundredth time. I try to breath as I leave my Ethics in Medicine class, and I slide a cigarette out of its flimsy cardboard house and search for a lighter. “Damn it. Damn it,” I whisper as I start to slightly shake. I need to calm down but my lighter is missing and the nasty nicotine is the only thing that will allow my body to relax.
“Need a light?” I recognize the voice as the guy with great hair from the third row.
I swallow hard before I can make a fluid, coherent sentence leave my lips. “Um, yeah, thanks,” I say as I accept the yellow Bic lighter from his hand.
“Edie, right?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, what’s your name?” I light my cigarette and look up at great hair guy. If I wasn’t trying to avoid everybody all the time, I might have noticed how handsome he was.
“Angus Ackerman.” He extended his hand for mine and as I shook it, a light went off in my head, I know that name. I dropped my cigarette on my foot, but I barely felt the burn. I couldn’t move. I let Angus pick up the Marlboro 27 and graciously slipped it back between my fingers. I could still feel his name stinging my ears, why does it sound so familiar?
“Did you say Ackerman?” I said as my voice slightly quaked. Where do I know that name? Ackerman. Why can’t I look up?
My mind flashed back to an image of Trevor’s wallet. His license poked through the withered plastic slit. It was adorned with a little red heart and a terrible picture of him in a blue plaid button down I gave him for Christmas. The little red heart. Those two words placed under the heart, two words only used in death. I had the image of myself grasping at cold metal, the sensation lacing my fingers like a phantom reminding me of the past. There was a list I read in the file room of the hospital the night Trevor died; the document regarding his organ harvest. Angus’ name was on it. I was almost positive. If Angus was who I thought he was, if I slightly lifted my head and looked up at him...too late. I was staring. I had my answer. Ackerman, Angus new corneas. Organ harvest from Watson, Trevor.
I remember now. I remembered being so mad at Trevor for donating every possible organ. If donating his skin wasn’t radical enough, I couldn’t stand the fact that his corneas were floating around on someone new. And potentially, here they were. “Are you okay? You look kind of out of it, and you had the same look on your face during lecture too.”
I frantically tried to change my disposition. “So, you watch me while our professor discusses the bile in the human body?” I tried not to sound awkward while my brain filed through the new information that smacked me in the face. I looked up at him again, too late to catch myself gawking. I looked straight into his eyes. I was almost relieved, they were nothing like Trevor’s, not even close, yet there was something there that felt familiar. The way his eyelids framed his irises? Was it the way he was looking at me?
“Well, no, but, hey, why are you looking at me like that?”
I was staring like he was the bearded lady in the circus. I fought to unlock my jaw, shook my head and smiled like I had just won a freaking Oscar. I looked up again and said, “Oh gosh sorry, you just kind of remind me of, that, um, actor, you know the one with the great hair that won best supporting role in a drama?”
Back to the information I had memorized since the night Trevor died:
With each organ came a name, a name I seared into my brain before stuffing the file back into the screeching cabinet in the dusty records room in the hospital. I couldn’t help myself; how couldn’t I sneak in and find where the parts of my friend were fleeing off to? Angus Ackerman got Trevor’s corneas, Vincent Trello lungs, Regina Lauterman heart, Thomas Sullivan liver, Rayyan Alaman kidneys, Oliver Portman skin. Is this the Angus Ackerman? I needed more time with him.
“I-I’m sorry. I’m Edie Masterson, is E.I.M. your philosophy requirement or are you pre-med?” I desperately needed to buy time with him, look at his eyes more. They seemed a lot greener than five minutes ago, but of course they did not compare to the blue mosaics that used to dance in the sun on the roof.
Angus took a long drag of his Menthol (Trevor used to say menthols were for pussies) shoved his left hand in his pocket and leaned against the tree we were standing under. Once he exhaled, he turned his head back at me and smiled. I think he thought I was interested, and I mean I was, but not like that and besides, he smoked menthols for christ’s sake.
“My last philosophy requirement, what about you, you’re pre-med right?”
“Yeah, but I’m taking two years off before med school, I feel obligated to do the whole “backpack through Europe, meet grungy people in hostels thing.” Obligated, no, but saying I’m taking the trip I was supposed to go on with my dead best friend wouldn't sound so great. Angus laughed. Wait was I funny, or is he laughing at me?
“I want that very much too, but law school comes first.”
The whole time I heard Trevor in my head, talking about Armani Jackets and pale blue scrubs, and in that moment I felt at home. I saw the eyes that used to see me. Suddenly I was on our roof again.
***
May twelfth was a normal Monday. Trevor and I went to the roof and let the sun wrap around us while Trevor rambled on about philosophy.“Trevor, we have all afternoon to talk, stop talking with your mouth full!”
“No, it’s just, I was really craving Taco Bell, but I have all these thoughts in my head since second period and you were the only one I could tell, you know?”
I remember how wonderful I thought he was in that moment. I laughed and begged him not to eat too much because I knew he would get a stomachache and whine the rest of the night. “Now what did you want to tell me?”
“So, we’ve both got these big legacies to continue. Your father will probably have a heart attack if you don’t go to into medicine, when you really want to be a photographer. I’ll be forced to be the next vice president of a company that pollutes the environment as their job instead of opening a bar in Jamaica, and eventually our dreams will turn into three day old Taco Bell.”
“So your point is three day old Taco Bell is never a good idea?”
“Never,” he whispered as he tickled me softly.
“Trevor, you know that inevitably I’ll be wearing scrubs and you’ll be in a two thousand dollar suit, and we’ll be miserable and meet at a bar equidistant from our jobs to bitch about our bosses, and your kids will know me as Aunt Edie and mine will know you as, well, Uncle Idiot seems fitting.”
“Wait, I don’t get to be the father?” He chuckled and then turned toward me. “I’m serious, Edie, we’ll wear the suits and the scrubs, but we’ll go around the world first. We’ll go far and go for long, see things we’ve only wondered about; connect with something, someone, somewhere.”
“Boys talk like this?” I giggled and put my hand on his cheek and stroked his pale skin lightly. His eyes told me how genuine he was about it. “Okay. I’m serious too. The year before med and law school we’re going to get really drunk in a really ridiculous amount of places, and we are going to see the world in the clothing of our choice.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
***
There is another roof I often go to. I sit there by myself usually, getting sick over my Taco Bell leftovers that are never a good idea, and I wait for the night. Sometimes I wish so terribly that Trevor could see it and my MCAT review book could be next to his LSAT review book and we could laugh at how we almost never told each other the truth. Thats just a thought though, and I needed to focus on Angus. I started getting nervous, what happened when we finished our cigarettes? He would leave and I would be left here, a mess on May twelfth. It was May twelfth, and today of all days I meet Angus. I almost chuckle because I feel like Trevor’s playing a sick joke on me laughing at me from another roof somewhere. So I look up, smile, and decide I’m somehow getting Angus to my roof so Trevor could see the sunset he’s been cheated out of, and I can sort of, maybe, share a moment with him again.
I ran through everything I knew from Musical Theatre in 8th grade and started acting. “So Angus, its only 1,320 steps to my house from Tempest Hall, you want to go study before the review session and grab some food?” Please, buy it, I thought as I bat my eyelashes for effect.
He looked flattered. Perfect. “Sure I need to walk by the tobacco shop anyway, and oh gee could you help with that packet on DNR’s maybe?”
“Yeah of course, no problem. What are you in the mood for to eat?”
“Well I know there's a Taco Bell three blocks down, we can just grab something quick it you want.”
Fucking Taco Bell.
***
I never told Trevor I loved him, but I almost did on that day, before we made it to the roof. First I tried at step 85 in the parking lot but the guzzling engine of a school bus ate my voice up. I tried again under the little birch trees at step 279, but I thought the flowers near the blue house at step 345 would be better. When I reached the blue house, the lawn didn't look right to me and that was no place to tell someone you love them. Step 523 would be perfect, the rock where we studied for our SAT’s and witnessed Mrs. Windham cheating on Mr. Windham with the guy from down the street that had a pet bear. We never laughed so hard, and it was then I knew the little things were so much grander with him. Step 523 came but Trevor’s phone rang instead of an “I love you” in his ear. “Yeah dude what’s up? Well Edie’s coming over but I can come pick it up later before we go to Jack’s.”
I wasn't sure who he was talking to, but I forgot we had to go to Jack’s tonight, it was his birthday and we were having a bonfire on the beach for him. He must be talking to Bobby who we were picking up later once we got the beer from The Shack; the only place in town that didn’t card.
“Oh okay, you sure man? There’s room in the car? Yeah I know I need that thing anyway, but you can handle the beer? Thanks man I’ll see you later.” Trevor fidgeted with his phone another moment then ran his fingers through his surprisingly silky black hair.
“I thought we were driving tonight. I don’t mind not drinking.”
“Nah, Bobby said he’d do it, I want us to have fun tonight, and besides Bobby’s got some of my stuff in his car anyway. Easier this way.”
“Alright, in that case I plan to kick your ass in pong tonight.”
“Over my dead body.” God I hate that he said that.
“Fine asshole, we’ll see.”
But this time we already reached the final steps of our walk. I’ll tell him on the roof I thought, it’ll be better that way.
***
Angus and I talked steadily the nine blocks from school to Taco Bell and Taco Bell to my place. We shared a cigarette and bitched about our Professor until we reached my porch.“Nice house Edie, I wish we became friends earlier. I would kill to study somewhere else then that musty building they call a library.”
“Wait until you see the roof!”
Was this weird? It felt so nice though, I made a friend that would watch the sunset with me over casual conversation on complex medicine ethics, and he liked Taco Bell. He still smoked menthols though and there was still the whole question of, “Hey do you have someone else’s corneas?” But I won’t go there, not now. I would let the wine and nacho burrito talk now.
“Oh wow, great view! This where you study then; the roof?”
Yes, silly Angus, I study here, I think here, I wait here for the colors of the night.
***
Bobby was clearly drunk. I broke my ankle when I jumped off the roof. I ran to Trevor, my poor, sweet Trevor imbedded between the grill of Bobby’s F-150 and the garage door. Blood, so much blood...pulse, find the pulse. Weak pulse. Stop bleeding. Fuck you Bobby, fuck my ankle, fuck the stupid Shack for selling you too many PBR’s. Too much blood. Slight pulse, no pulse...no pulse. Screams, cries, sirens. The sunset. Flowers? Flowers and a letter and a beer bottle under Bobby’s seat, squished under passed out Bobby. A Wild indigo, forget me not’s, belladonna blue bouquet? My name on a letter attached?Edie, my treasure, my best friend,
For years we watched the sunset, but why stop there? I want to watch all the colors of the night with you. At Prom specifically, and at Taco Bell, and on my roof, and when I tell you I love you tonight. You in?
Love,
Trevor
***
On the roof, with the sapphire sky about to signal us back to campus, I smiled at Angus. I wouldn’t tell him now because I wanted to be selfish. I wanted to pretend I got to go to Prom with Trevor, that I put those flowers in a vase after he gave them to me, that we saw the sunset under a hundred countries skies. I wanted to pretend I told him I loved him at step 85, and he told me the same at step 86 and I wasn’t ever alone when the night crept in on me as I lay on the roof. For a split second I felt like I was sharing it with him, I felt him there with me, I felt that we had one more sunset together. 
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