You're Not Enough

Chapter 64

I am sitting beside my mother, who is beside my father. Josiah and Evelyn are sitting across from us. Ryder is seated in the seats facing forward. He is close to the window, staring out of it. He hasn't said a word, and we've been driving for about 20 minutes; the Lincoln Center Theater isn't far from the hotel, but the traffic has made our trip longer.

"So have you guys ever seen the play before?" Evelyn asks us.

"No, we haven't." My mother answers.

"But we have been to the lincoln theater before. When we came out here for our anniversary, we saw Romeo and Juliet there." My father says.

"Ahh, one of Shakespeare's greatest creations," Josiah says.

"I've been hearing a lot about that play lately. How did you all feel about that teacher assigning the kids that for their senior project? Are you letting Jayda do it?" Evelyn asks.

"Oh, no. It's a great play, but we didn't feel comfortable with Jayda studying a play that glorifies suicide. Or that makes it seem like suicide is ok if you're doing it for the right thing." My father explains wrongly.

That is not what it's about; the story does not glorify suicide.

"Suicide isn't something we want her reading about." My mother adds. A small laugh comes from Ryder. I look over at him. He is staring directly at me. I hope he doesn't say anything. I'll be in so much trouble if my parents find out he knows.

"We agree. If Ryder weren't nineteen, we wouldn't let him do it either. But he wants to; it's his choice. A book that praises something like suicide should definitely not be read by hormonal, emotional teens in high school." Josiah says.

"Romeo and Juliet don't glorify or praise suicide," I say, finally bursting. Everyone looks at me.

"Oh?" Josiah says, question my statement.

"It's not a romantic play. The story isn't about two teens who love each other, but they can't be together, so they kill themselves." I explain. "That's not at all the point Shakespeare was trying to convey. The play is a tragedy, not a love story." I clarify.

"If Juliet had woken up a second faster and Romeo saw she was alive, they wouldn't have killed themselves. They would've run far away from Verona Beach, never looking back. But that couldn't be because once again, this story isn't a romance story or a fairy tale; it's a tragedy." I emphasize the word tragedy; I feel like most people forget that.

"The story doesn't praise suicide. The story's point was to show how other people's actions affected the ones around them, even when they think it doesn't. The story was a tragedy because the two families couldn't overlook their feud with each other for the ones that they love. It took something as tragic as suicide to bring the two families together. That's why the last line in the play isn't, 'And they lived happily ever after, even though that there dead' The last line in the play is 'For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.'"

Josiah and Evelyn both look at me with a shocked but pleased expression. Josiah smiles and says, "Smart girl, you have here," to my father.

"Too smart." My father replies.

...

We are standing in line, waiting to be let in. The line is so long it wraps around the corner; we are upfront close to the door. When we first arrived, my eyes scanned the long line looking for Alexander, but then I realized he would be inside. If he were a part of the show, he wouldn't be standing outside. If he's even here at all, he never told me exactly what he goes to Julliard for. I'm sure not everyone who goes to Juilliard is participating; he's probably not here. I hope he is though I would like to see him again.