I Love You Like the Stars Above

[Chorus 1]

I walked out of Verona High and into the courtyard, laying down my skateboard and stepping onto it. I rolled across the courtyard and stopped at my usual hang out spot, waiting for my best friend to come out and meet me. I had a free period and I usually spent it hanging out with my best friends Abigail Escalus and Charlie Benvolio. Abigail was an underclassman, one of the few I could tolerate. She was short, with shoulder length brown hair. She always had this almost angellic innocence that shone from her, and she was overly obsessed with flowers. My other friend, Charlie was a tall, attractive guy. Well, I say he's attractive, I'm gay so I'm not the best judge of a male's attractiveness. But either way, I could tell he was a handsome guy. He was black, and always dressed very smartly. His hair was shaved close to his head. He radiated intelligence, not to mention... Chivalry? Gentlemanly-ness?

Anyway, my free period lined up with Charlie's, and Abigail had her lunch at this time so we usually all three met up in the courtyard. I sat cross legged in the grass, and undid the latches on my guitar case. I pulled out the light-colored acoustic and closed my eyes, strumming each string to test the tuning. After adjusting it properly I began plucking out a song I had written a while ago and hummed along with it. When I opened my eyes Charlie was striding across the courtyard from one direction and Abigail was jogging over from the other. I smiled and waved at each of them as they approached, "Hey guys!" I said brightly.

"Afternoon." Charlie responded with a small, almost dismissive wave. Charlie might come off as rude or cold to those that don't know him well, but really he's just exceptionally polite and somewhat quiet. Once you got to know him he was lovely to be around. Oh, I forgot to mention, he's gay too.

"Hey, Victoria!" Abigail smiled back as she sat down next to me, starting into her lunch hungrily.

"What were you working on a second ago?" Charlie asked softly, "It sounded really good."

"Oh, that was just a song I wrote a little while ago. I'm still trying to nail down a couple of the chords in it." I explained, biting my lip and focusing as I tried a couple of the more tricky chord progressions.

I shook some hair out of my face and set the guitar aside as I looked over and watched Abigail eat, "Wow, you must have been hungry." I laughed, noticing that her sandwich was already gone, "I'm not sure where you put all that food in such a tiny body." I laughed, patting her head as I looked around the courtyard. I looked up through some of the second story windows and something caught my eye. You could see into the library from the courtyard and I saw something unfolding that, needless to say,  I didn't appreciate.

There was a big looking guy that seemed to have backed a short-ish girl against the window. I couldn't help but notice the girl was pretty attractive, in a sort of... unconventional way.  I shook my head, now is NOT the time Victoria. I mentally slapped myself.

Charlie noticed I was staring up at the window and looked up himself, "Whats going on up there? Isn't that... Julie Capulet? I think." He guessed, hesitating on the name.

I shrugged, "I don't know her... but she looks like she might be in trouble."

The guy gripped her arm tightly and seemed to be demanding something of her. I didn't like the look of it. He shoved her roughly against the window when she evidently refused whatever it was the jerk wanted. He seemed to threaten her then he walked off angrily. When Julie turned to the side I could see her cheeks were wet with tears. I frowned, I felt bad for her. Clearly she had been being bullied somehow. I looked over at Charlie, "Wait a minute, how do you know her?"

Abigail interjected, "Don't be ridiculous, everyone's heard of her! She's the first student ever to be admitted to this school on an academic scholarship. I hear her family is really poor. I feel bad for her..." she trailed off, souding worried.

"Yeah, I know a lot of the guys have been messing with her. Simply because she's poor. Pretty messed up if you ask me," Charlie added. I almost detected a hint of anger in his voice, which never happened, "The guys at this school are such pricks."

I nodded slowly, trying to decide what to do. Quickly, I jumped up and sprinted off toward the building, leaving my things and my friends behind with no explanation. I burst through the doors and bolted up the stairs, toward the libary. I hoped to cut the girl off before she left the library. Luckily, I got there just in time. She was struggling to push the door open just as I made it up to the entrance. I could tell she was having a hard time because she was pretty small, and she had a big bag on her shoulder. I pulled the door open for her, breathlessly, and held it as she walked out.

"Th-thank you." She stuttered out between sniffles. Now that I saw her up close... she was even more beautiful. She had blonde hair much like mine except hers was cut short, almost boyishly. She had a small smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. She seemed a little... gaunt? But still full of life. Her cheeks were still wet with tears, and I walked after her quickly as she tried to walk off.

"Here, let me help you with some of those books," I offered, holding my arms out. She must be an avid reader because she had a huge stack of library books in her arms, plus some in her bag. She shook her head,

"I'll be fine, thank you." She said quickly, looking down at the floor. She was probably scared of me. I looked closer at her, and she was actually quite pitiful. None of her clothes fit properly and I could tell a lot of them were probably quite old. Her shoes were on their last legs, almost completely destroyed. She had glasses but they were bent and looked pretty dirty. They sat crookedly on her nose. I pitied her, as if her life wasn't hard enough without the jerks at this school messing with her... I gritted my teeth and clenched my fists.

I cleared my throat, "If you insist. Um... anyway, I'm Victoria. Victoria Montague," I introduced myself with my ever present smile, "And... I uh... saw what that guy did to you and I just wanted you to know... that I'm here for you. Not EVERYONE at this school is a jerk. I like to think I'm pretty kind sometimes." I grinned, laughing a little.

"It's nice to meet you, I'm Julie..." The girl said, sniffling a few more times and moving one hand to dry the tears off her cheeks with her oversized hoodie sleeves. In the process she dropped some of her books. Before she could protest, I immediately stooped down and picked them up, carrying them for her.

"Where you headed Julie?" I asked her kindly.

"Um... I've gotta get to my calculus class..." She said softly.

Wow, this girl WAS smart. I nodded, "Alright, well lead the way. I'll walk you there."

She nodded her thanks and we walked to her class together. I stopped near the door and handed her her books.

"Hey, I'll tell you what. Do you have a phone?" I asked.

She blushed brightly, "Well... uh... yeah I do... it's kind of crappy though."  she said, embarassedly digging around in her satchel and pulling out an old school flip phone.

"Do you mind if I put my number in? That way you can call me if you ever need it? And we could try to meet up again sometime... If you wanted to that is." I offered my hand out, ready to take her phone if she handed it to me. I tried my best to hide that I was pitying her for her crappy phone. I smiled brightly, trying to appear as friendly as possible.

She seemed to hesitate for a moment, beginning to hand the phone over and then pulling it back quickly then once again, slowly extending her arm until her phone finally hit my hand. I took it gently, "Thank you, Julie." I entered my phone number.

"You're welcome..." I could tell she was still very nervous around me, to be fair for a first encounter it HAD been a little awkward so far.

"Text me, ok?" I told her, "We should meet up after school today."

She nodded slowly, "I... I don't know how to thank you." She said softly, suddenly breaking down again into tears.

I quickly pulled her into a hug, despite having only known her a few minutes, I was just a really huggy person. I rested my hand on the back of her head and she cried harder until she finally managed to calm herself down, and she pulled back.

"Th-thank you, again... I uh... I'll see you later!" She waved, sniffling and running off into her classroom.

I managed a small smile as she ran off.