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

Started February 05, 2019 by @blue_topaz

tune

I bit my lip hard, unwilling to show vulnerability in front of my classmates. I rested my head against the desk, my breathing growing unstable. It was her father who did this to her. Broken her spirit like the shitbag he was. Fuck this war. Hell to all of it. Anything that ruined lives like this was wrong. But how was I supposed to stop it? Rat out my father to the cops? Half the cops in this city were already corrupted. Running away was an option, but I couldn’t bear to leave Mercutio and Juliet behind to suffer. I’d lose everything. My family, my friends. I wouldn’t finish high school so I’d never find a job… Maybe that was the solution? Finish high school and then run away like a coward?

As soon as the stall door was locked behind me, I just… broke. Tears, an ocean full of them, poured from my eyes despite the fact that they were squeezed shut, my shaking hands muffling the choked sobs that escaped every few seconds. I pressed my back to the wall, trying to stop myself, trying to rein in the shitstorm of emotions raging inside of me, but my attempts crumbled to dust.

I felt like a cracked vessel, something broken to be cast aside just like Angelo had. I felt broken, and finished, and defeated, and done with everything. There were the bruises decorating my body like some sort of twisted medals from a battle I had never wanted to fight in. There was the fact that my father wanted to marry me off at eighteen right after I finished school. There was the assignment that he'd handed me yesterday. And on top of it all, there was Romeo Montague.

Fuck everything was all I could take away from the situation. Mr. Rizzo had even asked if I wanted to see the nurse. I declined, choosing to suffer and wait for Juliet. I couldn’t go home and face my parents right now. I was weak and useless to them. I never wanted to be apart of this. My father knew that. Yet still he trained me for it. But now that I had allowed myself to get injured? Well, forget about me then, right? Because he wasn’t concerned for me. All I am is damaged property right? He could choose to wait until I was fixed, or discard me and take the loss. The best part was that I don’t think he’s even decided! He might show up at any moment and end me! What could I do about it? Nothing!

(why did it hurt me to write that?)

(I’m in physical pain from writing this too send help)

(afsgdhfjgkhjl same why do we do this to ourselves)

I still remembered exactly what Angelo had said to me yesterday when he'd pressed the file into my hand.
"You're ready."
I had never known two words could hurt that much. You're ready. He thought I was ready. To hold a gun in my hand, to press it against someone's forehead and pull the trigger. To watch the blood as it splattered over the pavement. He thought I was ready.
And there was nothing I could do about it.

After a good five minutes, I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, having emerged from my stall to furiously scrub my face clean of tears. I couldn't return to class in a state like this—everyone would know I'd been crying. But eventually, my puffy, red eyes calmed, my features hardened once more, my hands grew still. And as soon as that happened, I was slipping away, back into the class, back into the dark. I sat down in my seat without a word, without a glance at Romeo.

I couldn’t look up at Juliet, everything aching. I was suffering from some kind of sensory overload, my skin paled. My hands clammy and shaky. I squeezed my eyes shut, my head pressed against the cool desk, trying to block out the lights. The sounds. What if he did it? Killed me? Mercutio might care. Nobody else would. Juliet would probably celebrate that the biggest nuisance in her life was gone. I wouldn’t have a real grave, that was for sure. The mental image of my own funeral were cripplingly graphic. My father and mother the only ones present. My mother would take her blade. Carve the word traitor across my lifeless chest. My father tossing me into a tub of wet cement without a single tear. Doing the honours by covering me with the rest before dumping the solid block at a construction sight somewhere. No one would even know. They’d just assume. Maybe that was the worst part…

(I think I might cry oml Romeo)

Romeo didn't try to speak with me, didn't make any attempts at interaction. I allowed myself to be grateful for five whole seconds, then snuck a glance at him through my curtain of hair……. and all of a sudden, I was falling apart again. He looked so…. broken. He looked exactly like I had felt just a few minutes ago, biting back sobs in the last stall of the girl's washroom.

Being carved up by his family…. he must have been through hell and back before he returned to school. Absolute living hell. And now, he was just as afraid as I was. When I'd come into class, and he'd seen me…. Romeo had said he was sorry. I hadn't said a single word to address his situation, to address what he'd been through…….. because I couldn't. I was afraid, yes, but after my current assignment, Angelo would give me another one. And another one. And eventually, he would hand me a file with Romeo's name stamped across the top in ink as red as blood and I would have to do it. It was him or me—if no bullet went through Romeo's head, my father would put one through mine. So I couldn't afford to befriend him, and he couldn't afford to befriend me. But the sight of him, so lifeless, trying to keep himself together…. it put a crack right down my decimated carcass of a heart.

So I waited until no one was looking. I shifted my chair closer. I picked up my fallen pen, and began to draw a rose on his cast.

((You just RUINED me omfg))

I flinched at the scraping sound of the chair moving closer, but seconds later I felt something on my arm. My injured arm. But it didn’t hurt, and my overactive senses picked up on the gliding movement. I opened up my eyes and shakily lifted my head to see Juliet drawing a single rose on my arm. And I immediately broke down in tears. Silent tears. In front of the entire fucking class like the idiot I am. I willed myself to stay as still as possible, hiding my face while Juliet drew so she didn’t have to see me cry.

(you ruined me first!!)

Panic welled up inside of me—what the hell was I doing?? With everyone watching?? My hands began to tremble, causing one petal of my rose to come out sloppier than the rest. But it was too late to stop. Inhaling shakily, I continued to draw, struggling to keep my expression neutral. That particular battle, I failed, just as I failed to keep my eyes away from Romeo's face.

He was crying. Actual tears. In the middle of class, while I drew on the cast of his injured arm.
I had never seen a Montague cry before. I'd never touched a Montague before, not in a way that wasn't intended to cause harm.

I didn't know how to comfort him, didn't know why comforting him was even an option at this point, and the sight of his tears only wore me down further. So I tore my eyes away and kept on drawing roses until his whole cast was covered in careful line art. Then, I drew back, fixed my eyes to my notebook, and read over my notes as if nothing had happened.

((I’m actually on the verge of tears, holy shit why))

I wanted to hug Juliet as tight as I could, but that would take too much strain, physically and emotionally. Instead I let the feather light touch of her pen soothe me. I slowly calmed down, feeling flower after flower inked onto my arm. By the end I was more shaking than crying. I felt her pull away after she finished, leaving me to cope with my unstable breathing. God, I felt so drained. So exhausted. I could just pass out right here. And I did about five minutes later, having successfully cried myself to sleep in the middle of drama.

Psh, and Juliet said I’d be bad at drama? If this isn’t dramatic I don’t know what is.

( s a m e
holy shit are we only on page 16??)

His breathing had changed, so I took that to mean he was asleep. I did nothing for the rest of the class but read my notes, over and over again, barely blinking, barely breathing. I had no other way to cope with the colossal fucking mess of emotions balled up inside of me, tangled like the string of a kite that was never meant to be set free.

The bell rang after what seemed like a millennia. I snuck a glance at the other students in the room, but none of them seemed particularly surprised. Maybe…. no one had seen?
Oh thank god.
I could have cried from relief, but I'd done too much of that already. After everyone else had filtered out of the class, I shook Romeo awake. All I could bring myself to say was "If anyone asks, you drew the roses," before I left the room, pace measured, footsteps soft.

(That honestly seems impossible, but yes)

I awoke to Juliet, shaking my shoulder. I lifted my head, disorientated at being woken up so suddenly. I blinked and nodded at her words, but she had already left. I sluggishly grabbed my bag and slung it over my shoulder. I couldn’t stop staring at my arm. How was I supposed to? A garden of roses was stretched out across it, far more beautiful than the wilted one I planned to give Juliet a week ago. I stumbled out of class, still emotionally drained. But I could feel my heart beating. This was proof I couldn’t give up yet. Proof I had something left to fight for. Proof I had something left to live for.

(welp)
(Romeo, stop making me cry, goddammit)

I could barely function throughout the whole of lunch. While my friends chatted and laughed around me, I only stared numbly at my uneaten meal, thoughts wild. Marina sat next to me, the side of her arm pressed against mine as a silent show of solidarity. Eventually, my spinning head got the better of me, and I leaned against her shoulder, rubbing at my itchy, red-rimmed eyes.

"Juliet?" Joe ventured tentatively for the third time in the past half hour. I only lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug and cast my eyes downwards. Words couldn't explain the void that had opened up in me, so I didn't bother trying, didn't bother speaking at all. I could barely care enough to breathe every few seconds, and when Andreas reached over to offer me a chocolate bar, I shook my head.

"You know, you can all stop treating me like I'm a wounded puppy." It was the first thing I'd said since I'd left Romeo behind in the drama classroom, and it had an immediate effect on the group. Everyone's eyes widened slightly, and Matteo took the silence as an opportunity to speak. "Juliet… you can't blame us for being worried. You haven't acted like this since….." He didn't need to finish the sentence.

"Since my mother died?"

(Its all payback for Juliet making me cry lmao)

I sat at a table full of football players. Well, at the very end of the table with Mercutio shielding me from most of them. After a chorus of “what happened, man? Are you gonna be at our games still?” I forced myself to speak up.

“It was Juliet. Saw her outside school. Didn’t expect a girl to wail on me so hard. Snapped my arm like a twig. Head thing was insane. I was doing some training with one of my cousins after the fight. Recover some pride, you know? And he tackles me! My head slammed into a rock! There was blood everywhere!” I faked excitement as I told the story. To be honest, I felt like I wanted to throw up. I’d only eaten a few bites of the school pizza, and that was because Mercutio was forcing me to.

“And what’s with the roses?” Someone at the other end of my table sneered. I traced one of the roses on my cast with my finger fondly.

“My girlfriend drew them. She doesn’t go here. Her name’s Aurora. She uh… came to visit me in the hospital, spent the whole day at my bedside trying to take care of me. You know how chicks are.” My voice softened, already caught up in the fantasy of Juliet at my side in the hospital. Worried. Concerned. Safe. It was a little too much for me to handle at the moment.

(keyboard slams)
(oml Romeo 'her name is Aurora'. Also, that was the name of Juliet's mom)

My words were met with dead silence. I detached myself from Marina, too exhausted and drained to fake the slightest smile. "Alright, please stop worrying about me. I'm sorry for ruining lunch and the mood." But even so, I didn't allow the tremor to enter my voice, did my best to show the least amount of weaknesses as possible…. though at the moment, there wasn't much I could do. "I'm going to go to the washroom. Please don't do anything stupid, like worrying, while I'm gone."

What I'd said, strong, soldier-like words, tumbled out of my mouth in a half-hearted mess, not nearly as ironcast as I'd intended it to sound. Before anyone could object, I stood and left the cafeteria.

Mercutio noticed the shift in my tone and immediately began to talk, distracting everyone from me as I picked at my food. After some teasing about finally getting over Rosaline, I was left alone. Lunch ended pretty quickly, although I didn’t see Juliet anywhere, which concerned me. Hopefully she would be okay… The rest of the day went by in a blur, and soon enough I was on a bus, since I couldn’t drive my motorcycle and my parents refused to drive me.

I avoided my father for the rest of the day, avoided my phone, which was blowing up with texts from Marina, Joe, Tybalt, and the others, avoided that awful, heart-breaking file sitting on top of my desk. The hours were a blur of pain and silence, of fixing my eyes to the wickedly sharp steak knives in the kitchen but having neither the energy nor the courage to press one against my skin. In short, the period of time between 3:30 and sunset was hell.

At the end of it all, I flopped down on my bed wearing nothing but an oversized hoodie and some underwear,seeing as the night air was crisp and bitter, and pulled out my phone. I stared at the worried texts from Marina, and my heart broke a little because of what I was putting her through. I texted her a reassuring message and closed my eyes for a moment. Mari and I always told each other everything. So why wasn't I telling her about this colossal secret?

After texting similar messages to everyone else, I found myself selecting the chat I had with Romeo. Too drained, both physically and emotionally, to stop myself, I sent a simple 'Hey.'

At this trying moment in my life that will clearly be omitted from my autobiography, I was hiding under the covers on my bed. School had finished alright. I was tired and in pain, but tracing the roses on my arm became a soothing technique whenever I felt a sensory overload coming on. It was what I was doing at the moment. Trapped in my room, hidden under the covers like they could protect me from everything outside, unable to sleep from pain and in nothing but a pair of shorts and boxers. Pink shorts, a gift given to me by the hockey team last year when I lost a bet. The closest color to red I owned. A mockery of a Capulet color I used as a comfort at the moment.

It was while I traced the delicate web roses on my cast that my phone buzzed. Putting on my glasses, now by habit due to Mercutio’s constant scolding, I picked it up, expect said best friend to be texting me. But to my shock it was none other than Juliet. I reread the message almost ten times. ”Hey.” What does it mean? Was it a secret message? Was I supposed to respond with something in code?

After several moments of intense deliberation, I replied back.

ROMEO: Hi

I stared at his reply for a long, long time, the tide of emotions within me ebbing and flowing. Thumbs hovering over my screen, I shifted deeper beneath my covers, casting a fearful glance to the door. Why was I doing this? Out of all the stupid things I’d done, I was pretty sure that 99% of them had happened, and were about to happen, today. Finally, I decided on a simple enough answer.

JULIET: How are you?

I grew nervous at her lack of response, but sighed in relief when I finally received her next message. It was almost funny how she did this to me. Had me instantly hooked as soon as she texted. At her beck and call like some sort of addict. Looking back on my actions from the past couple of days, I had sort of become an addict when it came to Juliet’s attention. I craved the feeling of invincibility she gave me. The security. The warmth.

ROMEO: Promise not to make fun of me?

More than anything, I craved the sheer joy that shot through my veins when I knew I made her smile.