Earth, As it is in Heaven - Chapter 1
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Earth, As it is in Heaven
By: Roman Genesis
Epilogue
Hello. My name is Trevor McClain and this is my story. I'm sure you all want to hear about Sebastian and the beautiful life we had created, but sometimes I just get tired of talking about it. I could go on and on about the love we shared, but I just don't have the strength anymore.
I remember those days after his death as just one endless day that never seemed to end. I could no longer sleep and the pain inside me was quite literally killing me. I was questioned by the police and then by the whole town. Of course I didn't tell them anything. I hated them all for what they had done to us.
When I finally went back to school, the eyes that once stared at me with disgust and bitterness now stared at me in pity. People were always crying for the boy they never knew. It made me sick to see them and anyone that tried to offer me their condolences I blew off quicker than a solicitor. They were hypocrites. Where was their sympathy when Sebastian and I needed it most?
My mother tried to tell me that tragedies cannot be diverted, but they can be weakened if we learn from our mistakes and become a better person because of it. She didn't understand anything. She probably now carried with her a secret pleasure in knowing that my boyfriend was dead. I'm sure the first thing she thought of when she heard the news was "I told you so."
Mike and the guys all tried to be there for me, but I wouldn't let them. I pushed them all away and I guess it really hurt Mike that I would do that to him, but I just couldn't face anyone again. I no longer had the strength to wear a facade of leadership that they had all once admired in me. That Trevor McClain was dead and buried right along with Sebastian and neither one of them would ever be coming back.
The emptiness that I felt after his death has always been with me and the bitterness that I used as a defense has also become a permanent fixture in my ruined persona. It's not that I want to be a horrible person, it's just that I know I'll never be able to live up to the time when I was with Sebastian and I had it all.
I remember the funeral like it was yesterday. It was a beautiful ceremony and if it wasn't for the reason we were there, it would have been an uplifting experience. I guess that was what his family had intended when they set it up, but that wasn't what I got out of it. I stared at Eric who was sitting up by his parents the entire day. A lot of things passed through my head as I stared at him, but mostly it was about how much I hated him and wanted him to pay for what he had done.
He wept silently at the funeral, but it wasn't enough to faze me. A few times I would look over and imagine that he was Sebastian. That just made the funeral so much worse because the realization that he wasn't Sebastian was always lurking just beyond the horizon of my mind, waiting like a predator to kill Sebastian all over again.
There was a reception after the funeral, but I wasn't going to stay for it. None of these people knew Sebastian like I did and there was really nothing to say to any of them. None of them, that is, except Eric. I was making my way across the snow covered cemetery away from the ceremony on that clear winter day when I stopped in my tracks. Eric was standing right in my path up against a tree. He was waiting for me.
I walked the rest of the distance to him and stopped right in front of him. He was looking down at the snow quietly. Perhaps he was waiting for me to say the first words, but there was no way I was going to say anything to ease the pain in his heart. He deserved this.
"Trevor," he said slowly and quietly the way Sebastian used to. "If I could go back and change this..."
"Don't," I said.
He looked up at me and I saw that tears were forming in his eyes. "You think I hated him, don't you?" I didn't say a word. I just glared down at him in disgust. God, why did he have to look just like Sebastian... "I probably loved him more than you ever did," he said, becoming more upset.
This was too much. I couldn't listen to anymore of his ranting. I turned and began to walk away. "Maybe I did hate him," he said. I stopped and slowly turned around to look at him. He was staring off at the assembly of people around Sebastian's grave. "How couldn't I? He ended up with everything I was too scared to go after." I just stood there looking at him for a long time. "Do you remember that first day we met at Nathan's party?" he asked distantly.
I followed his gaze to the assembly and nodded my head. "I was so infatuated with you," he said, almost unable to say it. "And then Sebastian once again ended up with the one thing I wanted most in this world. God," he said, tears once again rolling down his smooth angled face. "How could I not hate him?"
Everything was slowly becoming clear to me. Eric wasn't the uncaring brother who had taken down his brother for pleasure. He was just like all of us. We all go through this lifetime trying desperately to fill the holes in our lives. Eric had failed every step of the way and had reacted the only way he knew how. With rage.
"And when I finally got my chance to be happy... That day in the weight room. You were still whispering his name in my ear. I hated both of you." He was crying out of control now. "And look what I've done." He was still looking off at the grave site and sobbing openly. There was nothing left to say. I wasn't going to tell him it would be okay. I was not going to comfort him in his time of need. Eric had to live with this for the rest of his life just like we all did. This was a product of all our behavior and now we all had to suffer silently in our personal world of hurt.
I turned around and continued on my way out of the cemetery without looking back once. I didn't need to because as I got further and further away I was still able to hear his cries in my ears as well as in my heart. I never spoke to him again.
I used to go out to the grave site all the time. I usually ended up just staring down at the tombstone the whole time before breaking down in tears. I tried talking to him a few times, but when I realized that I was talking to nothing I usually gave up. I tried to be a good Christian and started going to church, but I ended up giving that up as well. No amount of spirituality seemed to do anything to ease my suffering. I was a lost soul and no one could help me.
I try to imagine sometimes what it would have been like if Sebastian was still here. I close my eyes and imagine that we were able to share the holidays together and go all the way through high school together. I dreamed that we were able to go to the prom hand in hand to a proud and accepting student body. We would walk out onto the ballroom floor and I would take my prince in my arms and kiss his right there in front of everyone. These were my dreams and this was as close to perfection that I was ever going to get again.
I didn't try out for the varsity football team the next year like everyone had wanted. I broke from the social scene and basically stayed to myself the rest of my high school life. Shannon and I attempted to hang out a few times after Sebastian's death, but it ended up being too painful for both of us and soon we too lost touch. Mike ended up trying out for the Varsity football team and he made it in. If I'm not mistaken, I believe he ended up going off to play for some high profile college.
Chad made a few more unsuccessful passes at me the year after Sebastian's death, but there was no way I was going to fall in love again anytime soon. Just thinking about what happened to Sebastian made me close myself off even further. There was no way I was going to allow myself to hurt another soul.
Believe it or not, even Vanessa tried to go back out with me, but I guess you can imagine how that ended. I think she made a few more rounds through the football team before being diagnosed with some sexually transmitted disease. After that she finally settled down and ended up dating the same guy for the rest of high school.
As the years went by, I found myself hating this town more and more. The same town that Sebastian and I had forced to accept us was now turning back into the same intolerable place to live as it was before. I guess it was human nature to reject things you can't understand. I guess it didn't help that we no longer had a winning team to gather around. The Varsity and Junior Varsity teams never went to the championships again. I believe Stillwater did, but I can't be certain.
I just wanted to get out of this town and never look back, but I was going to have to wait until graduation for that dream to come true.
A day never goes by when I don't stop to think about Sebastian. Those months I spent with him were the best of my life, through the good and the bad. I've never been alive like I was back then and I doubt I ever will be. Our relationship may not have been perfect, but it was the best we ever knew.
I love Sebastian more today than I ever have before. I never told anyone this before, but I convinced his parents to bury him wearing the ring I gave him homecoming night. They reluctantly accepted and it made me feel good to know that he had taken a part of me with him. I can only pray that the Christian myths about heaven are true, because the only thing that keeps me going in this life is the possibility that I will see him again.
Until then, I'll just have to keep reliving the same memories of our time together over and over. It's all I have these days. To close my eyes and remember the time that god sent me an angel with a broken wing is to really live.
Until the day that the last breath passes through my lips, I will continue to live the life in my head that I was only able to live once. That time when everything was perfect and nothing could ever go wrong. Every kiss that Sebastian and I shared will be replayed a thousand times in the mind's eye.
So I move forward through the snow covered fields of life, endlessly replaying the time when the lives of two people collided in a beautiful tapestry of events and my world was touched by the hand of god, Sebastian.
FIN
Author Afterwards
One of the greatest joys of writing is being able to create worlds and give life to characters. They become as real to you as the people in your life. You share their joy and their pain. The death of Sebastian was planned from the beginning and not something that was thrown together at the last moment. I wrote the last three chapters back when I was writing Chapter 7 because I knew if I didn't, I would be unable to go through with it because I was falling in love with Trevor and Sebastian. All I had to do from that point was connect Chapter 7 to Chapter 21 as best I could. You may have sensed the shift in mood between Chapter 21 and 22.
The story is a tragedy and the ending was never meant to hurt anyone, but to shed some light on the triumphs of the human heart, and yes, mostly on our very human frailties. Trevor pointed out that his relationship with Sebastian was never perfect and I hope everyone saw that. A lot of you picked up on it from the beginning about how dependent the boys were on each other. How could a love so powerful end in anything other than tragedy? Call it the gay man's "Romeo and Juliet" or "Titanic."
Some of you sensed that the last chapters came during a tough part of my life and that it somehow played a factor in the ending. This was not the case, but as I said before, the beauty of writing is being able to create. The other beauty of it is being able to destroy. The lives of these very human characters were always in the hands of a somewhat insane god. If you read "The Dreamer" and "Survivor" you should have seen the conflict within this writer. The war between the lover and the hater that Alex so beautifully explained at the end of "The Dreamer" was always there. He won in the end, but sometimes I wonder if I ever will. Perhaps it was impossible for Trevor to live happily ever after because he possessed something I could never have and maybe deep down I hated him for it. Some of you asked if I was the Trevor or the Sebastian in this story, but maybe the whole time I was the Eric in this story. He took everything away from Trevor because Trevor had everything that he himself never could.
I was thinking a few days ago about Sebastian's character and I found myself comparing him to the boy in the dining hall that I had a crush on. All of the guys I've ever been infatuated with have been shy and reserved individuals. They're the types of people who hide their true selves and for some reason I find them so fascinating. Perhaps I project myself on to them and say underneath that veil of mystery is a person just like me. I will tell you this... Every single one of those boys ended up being someone I could never love. We never really knew Sebastian because he died before we ever could. Perhaps I was afraid of what I would find if the story had continued. Perhaps he died during innocence in order to preserve that quality for all of eternity.
You are probably aware that all of these are simply speculations. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure why it ended up the way it did. There is so much of myself in these stories I write that I think they speak more that if I rambled on and on for hours about myself. I wrote these stories, specifically "The Dreamer" and "Earth, As it is in Heaven," for myself and I'm glad I was able to share them with you all.
I hope you all are able to find the real beauty in this story and can learn and grow from it. I love you all and can't wait to hear from you. I know I let some of you down and I'm sorry for that. Let's just hope that the darkness in my life masks a beautiful and yearning heart and not the other way around.
Roman