forum In Fair Verona // Modern Romeo and Juliet // Private RP - CLOSED

Started February 05, 2019 by @blue_topaz

tune

I must have typed and retyped my reply a billion times before I finally managed to send it.

JULIET: I don't like hearing it because it makes both of our jobs infinitely harder. But……. I understand what you mean. Fuck, am I the only one of us crying right now?

ROMEO: Nope. I feel like I cry about everything lately. I have a sudden craving for gelato too, which isn’t helping.

JULIET: Same…… can I admit something? That you're not allowed to tell anyone? Which is really stupid of me to tell you, but I'm going to do it anyways?

ROMEO: Of course. Ill keep quiet.

But all of a sudden, I was frozen. Why was I doing this? Why was I going to tell him something I'd even kept from Marina?

The answer was stupidly, stupidly clear.

JULIET: I tried to kill myself last year.

I froze. The few teardrops slipping from my eyes came down in a cascade. My blood turned to an icy slush in my veins as I stared. It seemed impossible. But was it really? At the same time, I understood why. To escape. All she wanted was to escape.

I couldn’t even handle it. Process it. I didn’t know what to do or say.

ROMEO: I love you.

I hit send before I could second guess myself.

As soon as I hit send, I curled up into a tight ball under my sheets, pressed my phone to my chest, and cried my eyes out, struggling to stay silent. At some point, I'd pressed my hand against my mouth to muffle the quiet sobs, but it was shaking so badly that the broken noises were barely suppressed.

I didn't know how much time passed before I dared to look at his reply, and when I did, it made my heart stop. Tears blurred my vision, blending the dimmed colours of the room with the light coming from my phone screen.

JULIET: Why?

ROMEO: Because you deserve to be loved.

It seemed so cripplingly obvious to me. How broken we both were. I doubted she needed me as much as I needed her, but even if it helped, just a little bit. Then I would say it. Scream it from the rooftops.

JULIET: I don't, though. And you deserve someone who isn't supposed to shoot you in the head one day. You also deserve someone who isn't broken.

He was only hurting himself—why couldn't he see that? Not only was he loving someone who didn't love him back, he was loving someone who he couldn't afford to love. This was dangerous, and could quite literally get us both killed.

ROMEO: You absolutely deserved to be loved. And I don’t have a choice as to who my heart chooses. It hurts a lot, but so does everything else, right? Doesn’t make a difference.

JULIET: It does make a difference, why can't you see that? It's one more thing burdening you. It's one more thing tying me down.

I took a deep breathe already regretting my next sentence.

ROMEO: Then cut me loose.

My blood turned to ice.
Fingers flying over the keys, more tears spilling out—was this my reality now?

JULIET: Please don't tell me you're saying what I think you are.

((I’m like in tears over here yet here I am about to cause so much more drama than necessary lmao))

I looked at her message, feeling guilty. Five minutes passed. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty.

ROMEO: Goodnight, Juliet.

I shut off my phone and stared at the ceiling, feeling more alone than ever.

(same, rip us)

JULIET: No, Romeo, wait

JULIET: Fuck, please come back

JULIET: Romeo, I'm begging you

JULIET: Please, for the love of god

He wasn't replying. He wasn't even reading my messages.
I felt like I'd been doused in a bucket of icy fear.

I held my phone to my chest and curled up like the weak coward I was.
My whole body was shaking by now—what had I done?

I didn't think it was possible to cry this much…

skip to the next morning because I'm highkey considering having Juliet break down in front of the whole field because she thinks Romeo just went and killed himself)

I didn’t sleep and it showed. The natural olive glow to my skin grew sallow. For the first time, visible bags hung under my eyes. I didn’t eat breakfast this morning, nausea spoiling my appetite. I sat in the back of the bus on my way to school, hating myself for what I’d done to Juliet. Mercutio texted me about 1000 times and I left him on read. My heart felt exposed. Raw. All defenses down.

I crept off the bus, my head hanging low. Even my glasses began to slide off the bridge of my crooked nose.

I didn't sleep that night. Didn't close my eyes for a single second, except to try (and inevitably fail) to block the tears from pouring down my face more than they already had.

Eventually, I'd run out of tears. It was four in the morning, my mouth was sucked dry of moisture, and my arm was festooned in bleeding, crescent-shaped marks from where I'd dug my nails into it to stop my hands from shaking.

And I was cold, so cold, that I'd pulled on a pair of leggings.
Romeo still hadn't replied, so I'd snuck down to the kitchen for a drink of water. The glass had slipped from my shaking hand and shattered against the floor. Fragments of clear crystal had scattered everywhere. From upstairs, I'd heard the sound of a door opening.

And I'd ran. Barely having the wits to grab my backpack and a pair of shoes, pure panic spurring me on, out the door, across the front lawn, down the street, all the way to Marina's house. I hadn't even realized where I was until I was hallway through her bedroom window, collapsing on her bed.

She hadn't asked a single question, only held me as tight as she could as I sobbed into her shoulder, my whole body trembling.
I was a mess.

By the time morning had come, she had cleaned me up as best she could, leant me a pair of her clothes, wiped up my face. She'd let me grip her arm as we walked to school, let me lead her the long way around so that we wouldn't go past my house. I'd given her only a few details about my father's beatings, my assignment, Paris, and the broken glass, and miraculously, she'd understood.

The whole night, I couldn't stop thinking about Romeo, about his cold, lifeless body on the floor of his bedroom. There was no telling where he'd gone after saying goodnight, but I knew. And it was all my fault.

So now, Marina was doing her best to make excuses to Tybalt as we sat with our backs to the exterior wall of the school. I was unmoving, unresponsive to anyone but her. Just sitting there, with my eyes firmly shut, my hands shoved deep into the front pocket of my hoodie.
There was nothing else left for me to do but wait.

I was having a shitty day. No doubt about that. My best friend, the dramatic and enigmatic Romeo Montague, had been MIA since we left school yesterday. He hadn’t responded to any of my texts, which was worrisome considering I usually had to beg him to stop talking. When he finally graced me with his presence he was a complete and total disaster. The hollow look in his eyes shook me to my core. All I could do was rub his back when he pulled me into a bear hug in the middle of the hallway.

This was, quite obviously, the work of Juliet. But Romeo refused to say a single word, continuing to sulk in silence. Eventually he mumbled a lame excuse and stumbled off to the washroom, probably to go cry for awhile. I sighed and leaned against the wall. What did I do to deserve this?

(I’m back really briefly, but then I’ll have to go again, and I’ll be back in another half hour, sorry! How long are you staying up tonight?)

Other voices slowly began to enter the conversation between Tybalt and Marina—Joe, Matteo, Jamie, Andreas. Marina gave them a bare-minimum explanation, and through it all, I just sat there.

With about fifteen minutes left until school started, I finally opened my eyes—and my heart stopped. Romeo. Alive. Hugging himself and entering the school building. I tore my eyes away from him, hands beginning to tremble, but the softest of whimpers escaped from between my lips.

Marina’s eyes flew to me, then to the closing front doors, and before I could fully grasp the situation, she was telling Joe to keep an eye on me and running towards them.

(Basically, she’s running inside to where Mercutio is so they can do the thing we planned in PMs)

(I’m not sure yet! Probably until sometime around 11/12:30ish)

Today could have been fine. It had potential to be fine when I first woke up. I had a plan and everything. Get up, get to school, coax Romeo in spilling why he was upset and then hang out. Head to football practice and then sleep. But no. It needs to be on the record that I never asked for any of this.

Just as I thought my day couldn’t get worse, a girl I knew to be a friend of the Capulets strode towards me with vehemence sparking in her eyes.