Lonely Thoughts

binary planets

So I wrote this for extra credit in English but then realized I was supposed to format it like a script and had to re-do the entire thing. I decided to post this here anyway- mostly because it's so cheesy it's funny. Enjoy!

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After their story leaked, the townspeople started calling them "Star-Crossed Lovers".

But Romeo was too stubborn to believe in faith, and while Juliet did, she never said so out loud. Instead, he told her they were binary planets: two beings of stardust that were so powerful they tripped over each other and became inseparable. When he put it that way, it sounded very romantic, and Juliet had no problem saying yes, they were exactly that, before succumbing to the urge to take his hand.

Dates were very difficult to wrangle; she was busy marrying into a multi-million company and his loving parents kept him on the run, but they always made time to go to his art shows. Romeo was always painting, so, therefore, he was always poor. His bedraggled and hungry state took some getting used to. Juliet was accustomed to full, flat bellies and ring fingers dripping with diamonds. Money had never been a problem, so her parents bought her all the dolls and clothes they thought she could ever want, and now it seemed as if they had bought her a husband she had no need for either. All she wanted was Romeo; Romeo and his cracked apple peel lips, Romeo and his nimble, shaking fingers, Romeo and his galaxy eyes when he talked about their future.

For two weeks they cashed in every scrap of freedom to buy time together. They stargazed, they went dancing, they cooked, they saw movies, and sometimes, they talked late into the night until only the cosmos were still listening. For two weeks, they were happy. On the eve of the last day, Juliet was just about to retire when her nurse burst into her bedroom.

"You're getting married tomorrow! Isn't it exciting?" Can you stand to wait to become his property?

And that was that.

Distraught, she flung her engagement ring into the farthest corner of her bedroom and just about flew to Romeo. It took her fifteen minutes of angry crying into his chest for her to calm down, and once she had, Romeo sat her down on his couch, made her Chicken Ramen Noodles, and proposed to her.

All knowledge of English fled from Juliet's mind and left her gaping. Flushed, happy, and in shock, she stared at him.

Her answer was obvious.

"Yes!" she breathed, and he grinned and grabbed her hand, and they rushed to the Town Hall. She wore his sweatshirt, and he had paint streaked across his cheek, but they had never been so beautiful. Midnight closed over them like a makeshift wedding arch as they whispered vows into the darkness. The galaxy showered stars over them because there were no doves to spare, and the kindly old Friar who married them might as well have been an alien. Nothing in the universe could keep them apart.

Months later, their escape is still Verona's hottest gossip. Juliet's nurse is confused, her father is angry, and Paris is more ashamed than he would care to admit. Nobody knows where they are; the two practically disappeared off the surface of the Earth. In a year, Juliet's mother will stop crying. In a year, her nurse will be let go, and move on. In a year, their pictures will fade from the newspapers. They will be forgotten. 

But in Mantua, in a crappy apartment building falling apart at the seams, with shaky electricity and rumbling plumbing, two binary planets spend the rest of eternity together.

And stars hang from their ceiling.