The Cult of Romeo

XVII. Et Tue, Brute?

Act 2, Scene 7

Julien was in my English class when I walked in. Sitting on my seat in the back, he talked to a few of the girls with a wide grin painted across his face. Then, as I approached, his eyes zoned in on me. My cousin's beanie was a luminous yellow today and I hated it.

"Lottie!" He jumped up. I eyed Julien warily. Neither of us had spoken since the argument. When I didn't answer though, his large smile dropped slightly. It was almost unnoticeable but I saw.

"This isn't your class," I spoke slowly.

As the teacher had yet to arrive, students sat on tables and messed around with the papers left out. They talked loud enough so that Julien and my voices would go unheard and I was glad for it. I couldn't guarantee that the girls he'd left weren't eavesdropping, though.

"I came to see you." Julien extended his arms out into an exaggerated shrug as though it were the most obvious thing.

"Well, listen," he began. "Since Christmas is coming up, I've decided to forgive you for what you said. Do you forgive me too?"

I snorted and walked to my seat by the window. "As if."

He crouched in front of my desk to get eye level, I refused to meet his gaze though. "Aw, come on Lottie. Gran would be so pissed if we're arguing during Christmas dinner."

I didn't respond, only grabbed my notebook from my bag and placed it on the desk in front of me, ready for the lesson to begin.

He huffed. "I know you don't like what I said but I still stand by it. Khaleel's...weird."

I kept my eyes down and allowed the strands of my hair to come forward and be used as a barrier between Julien and me.

"Stop ignoring me," he whined while dragging out the words like a child. "Whenever I want you to shut up, you don't. But now that I'm asking you to talk, you won't." Julien sounded beyond frustrated by now and I smiled inwardly. Good, I wanted him to feel annoyed because I was too.

He grabbed my pencil case and dropped the contents onto the table as my pens and pencils fell to the floor and scattered in front of me. Still, I didn't give a reaction. I knew he wanted one and I wouldn't do it.

He wrote stupid phrases on a blank piece of my notebook with a smirk, expecting my explosion like usual but I didn't give in. I was proud of myself. Instead, I kept my eyes to the window, only flickering my gaze to what he was doing every other second when I knew he wasn't watching me.

Finally, he gave in with a deep sigh. He got up to his full height and walked away. Just as I was about to breathe a sigh of relief, a shoe was thrown at my desk, bouncing against the window and just narrowly missing my face to settle on the paper in front of me on the desk.

I snapped my head around to see Julien still stood in the classroom, looking guilty and wearing only one shoe. I jumped to my feet and his eyes flickered with satisfaction that he'd finally gotten a rise out of me.

"That's it!" I grabbed his shoe and pushed the window open beside me. The wind whistled roughly and so powerfully that my hair rustled. I extended my arm and dangled his shoe by its laces above the puddle littered, soggy grass outside.

His eyes widened and he gasped. "Wow! Lottie, please don't do that. You know my dad will kill me if I mess up these shoes. Remember when I scuffed my last pair? It was like I'd killed a kid." He approached me slowly, as though I were a wild animal he was trying to tame.

The wind swung the shoe back and forth outside and I saw his chest rise and fall with panicked breaths. "Let's speak about this like mature adults, yeah?"