The Divided Rose

Chapter 18 (Juliette)

“For never was a story of more woe

Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”

(Romeo and Juliet, 5.3.309-310)

            The light of the church penetrated through the fog of my forty-eight hour sleep. I blinked my eyes wearily, trying to clear some of the sand, so that I could better glimpse my surroundings. I clenched and unclenched my fingers. I appeared to be holding flowers of some kind. I wiggled my toes. Everything seemed to be in working order. What now? As my eyes cleared, I glimpsed the blurry and familiar shape of Romayo seated at the end of my bed. Bed? I suppose it is actually not a bed, but a coffin. The thought seemed rather odd. I was lying in my coffin, in my church, and everyone thought I was dead. Dead! Everyone thinks I’m dead… that would include Romayo… Romayo! My mind was working faster now. Romayo was wanted for murder, he was not supposed to be in the city. He was supposed to have gotten a letter from Sister Frella that I was pretending to be dead, and that he should stay put. So why is he right here with me? Something was horribly wrong, I could feel it. If only my retched eyes were working well enough to see him clearly!

            I reached one hand up and dug my knuckles furiously into one eye, then the other. There! Now I can see! However, what I saw was not something to be pleased about. Romayo’s faced was streaked with tears and he had just uncorked a small bottle and was about to drink from it. The liquid in the bottle looked exactly like one of the deadly poisons I had learned about in school, though I couldn’t remember the name.

            Reflexes kicking in, I sat bolt upright and knocked the bottle out of Romayo’s hand, causing it to fall onto the marble floor and shatter. If the situation had not been so dire, I might have laughed for the dumbstruck look on Romayo’s face. And then I was shaking him, and kissing him passionately all at the same time.

            “Heaven,” he whispered. “I’m in heaven.”

            “No you most certainly are not!” I practically hissed. “You are in Verona in my church, and you are wanted for murder! What on Earth are you doing here? Did you not receive Sister Frella’s letter?”

            “Juliette… Juliette! You are alive, not dead!” He grabbed my face with both hands, sapphire eyes wild, and kissed me full on the mouth. “Wait, what letter?”

            “Clearly,” I say, taking a deep breath, “there has been some miscommunication. When I returned home two days ago, I learned that I was about to become pregnant. Desperate, I told Sister Frella that I would only consent to having children if you were their father. So, she and I concocted a plan to fake my death.” And so I told Romayo of how Sister Frella started a fire in the Reproduction Lab, I drank a potion that would make me appear dead for about forty-eight hours, and how Sister Frella sent a letter to inform him of all this.

            “Benito came to me a few hours ago with news from Verona. He must have beaten the letter to me. He told me you were dead, gave me that poison, and I came straight here. Oh Juliette, I could simply not bear to live life without you.”

            “Me neither,” I replied, realizing the enormity of that truth. “We should leave the city, get out of here for a couple of years, maybe forever. We’ll send letters back, explaining what happened. Right now I don’t think there is a way we could be together living in this god-forsaken place. We should go to another city. Sister Frella told me about a wonderful place called Venice, it’s not too far from here in fact. Maybe someday we’ll return, but right now, I’d rather just live and travel with you.”

            Romayo smiled. “You know, I think that is the single most genius idea I have ever heard.”

            And then we were kissing again, but this time it was better, far better, because even though there were a lot of problems we still had to solve, the most important one was out of the way: we were together again. And the best part was, where we were going, we wouldn’t have to hide it.