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but I have to go soon I’m working part time at the mill. We make coffins and pallets and planter boxes for flowers. My boss sucks but I can use the money my truck guzzles gas and it needs some work but old trucks are still the best.
    Thanks for the info about the junior college but after gradation I’m going to work full time at the mill. I can’t wait. Not that working at the mill is so great but at least I get payed. School just seems like a waste of time (no offence.) I mean its okay for people like Jennie but I’m not that type I like to work with my hands and stuff. I could maybe work in my dad’s body shop but he’d probly drive me crazy.
    272 words! That’s all folks!
    SHADOW MAN
    Gabriel :
    If you put as much time into your writing as you do into counting words, you could be another Hemingway !
    I think the junior college offers classes in auto mechanics .
    Interested ?
    C.S .

11
    Jennie Harding
    He’s dead.
    I know he’s not coming to get me. There’s no use pretending or making up stories. But when I hear the words Gabriel’s dead inside my head, my mind starts running down this long dark hallway, and all I can think is, No no no, we’ve got so many plans, we could be so happy—
    Dear God, please help me. I am so alone. I am trying to feel you with me. I am trying to feel Gabe’s love. The sun is hot, but I cannot stop shaking. I am shaking so hard I could fall off this rock and drown in the ocean and no one would know.
    My parents don’t want me to go out with Gabe. They think he’s a bad influence on me. As if I am a blank wall and Gabe is graffiti. We fight about this all the time.
    â€œHe’s a very nice boy. We’re not saying he isn’t. But anyone can see that he’s got problems.”
    By problems, my father means Gabe’s family; his blood. The alcoholism and the violence. Mr. McCloud used to get real drunk and beat the boys until he passed out. Sometimes their mother hid them in the woods. She’d hang up a red rag meaning Stay Away. When it was safe to come home, she’d take it down.
    That’s not Gabe’s fault. He didn’t choose his family. My parents have even tried to bribe me. “We’ll send you back east to a wonderful school,” they say. “You can stay with Aunt Ruth and Uncle Henry.”
    They’re afraid every time I go out with Gabe, sure that the phone will ring with news that I’ve died. They’re over-protective; I’m their only child. I try to please them, but it’s my life.
    They must be going crazy with worry. I should have left a note this morning, but what could I have said? I’m going to meet Gabe . Where? In heaven? Am I going to kill myself? I couldn’t have imagined that before this morning. But I never knew breathing could be so painful, that life could change so much in one second, one day.
    Tears are rising from my heart to my throat. If I start, I will never stop crying. My tears will flood the oceans and cover the mountains.
    Oh, brother, Gabe would say if he were here.
    I must pretend that he is here. I must close my eyes and see him. Nothing bad has happened. He will hold me tight. I can feel him all around me. I love you, Gabe told me; I will love you till the day I die.
    Lying on my back, all I see is blank blueness. The sea whispers in my ears. How can I believe that Gabe is up in the sky now when I know he’s probably at the funeral parlor, being dressed in the suit he was supposed to wear to high school graduation? We picked it out together. He looked so handsome. Then he decided to drop out. Don’t drop out, Gabe! I begged and pleaded. Don’t quit school! How can you be so stupid?
    He punished me for saying that. He wouldn’t see me. I heard that he was going out with Susie Richards. My parents were ecstatic. I was dying inside. But Gabe came back to me; he always comes back. None of this is real. I’m at home