Immortality isn’t easy. Especially if you’re still in the closet about it. You might find love, but at least once a century you have to fake your own death to escape being found out. That is, until the day you discover you might not be the only one…
“Ron, listen. It’s not you, it’s me.”
A scream like thousands of gray brain cells suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. 611 years on the planet, and Julie still hasn’t been able to come up with a better line.
“Please understand, Ron. I need to focus on my career right now.”
She hated breaking up. She hated it even more than the job she just quit. In fact, she hated it so much that the last five relationships she faked her own death rather than have this conversation. The first time it actually happened by accident. Since then, she had gotten quite good at it. Admittedly, that doesn’t mean much if you can literally throw yourself under a bus and wake up 24 hours later without a scratch. It just hurt a lot.
“I like you more as a friend.”
Did she really just say that? Ron’s eyebrows went up an inch. Apparently she had. A gas explosion was making its way up her list of things she wished were about to happen. The sad truth was that it was probably true. Ron was loyal, sincere, but not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer. In terms of cutlery, he probably would have been more at home when soup was served.
Ron had gotten seriously agitated. “Listen, Juliet. I know we can fix…”
What had he just called her? Ron seemed to have noticed it as well. He stopped mid-sentence with a deer-in-headlights look on his face. A common phenomena whenever he had seriously messed up. Not that it was a rare occurrence.
What didn’t make sense is why the misspoken name would spook him so much. Happens, right? Except. It used to be her name. A long time ago. That explained why her spine felt icy. It didn’t explain though why his irises suddenly seemed to have gone into anaphylactic shock. Unless he knew as well. Which means…
“It’s you. Isn’t it?”
It was the first thing Julie said tonight that wouldn’t be found on a Huffington Post article on worst break up lines. Ron’s slow nod confirmed what had already dawned upon her. Who ends up dating the same guy without noticing? In her defense, the last time around was a while ago. Still, the awkwardness when the breeches, or well, this time the skin tight jeans, came off could have been an indicator. Oh well.
Still shaking her head in disbelief, she grabbed her coat and headed for the door. On the way out, Julie turned around.
“Don’t give yourself such a hard time. You’ll get over it. Just don’t kill yourself over it again, Romeo.”
Very well done. A great piece of writing. The preface has you hanging on and so does practically every paragraph. It’s a great twist on an old classic. SPOILER: it still took me until the end to realise it was Romeo and Juliette – though for those of us who aren’t as slow perhaps you might refer to her as “Julie”? Haha…. I mean times have changed.
If you were to continue this kind of writing into book length I would hope you would be able to keep these mini cliff-hangers on until a grand finalé? However, i would still be satisfied if it remained as this short article. Bravo!
Thanks, George! I really appreciate your feedback. It’s not often that I get pointers by such an experienced writer 🙂