Romantic - Enemies to Lovers - Forbidden Love
•✦───✧✦✧───✦•
In the peacetime following World War II, Jean Ward loses everything and is sent to live with her best friend, Clyde Mayberry, and his brood of brothers on his family's cattle ranch.
For a...
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•✦─Summer, 1950─✦• Sally Jean, age 12
In April, an angry storm tore through town, leaving Mayberry Ranch a mess in its wake.
Several fences had been knocked over, the roof needed to be repaired, the windows were leaky, and a tree had fallen on the old shed next to the chicken coop.
The day after the storm had been a flurry of hammers, nails, and complaining Mayberry boys.
Everyone was helping with getting the ranch patched up, including Sally Jean. She had been tasked to help Clyde and one of the field hands put up a fence, handing them nails when they needed them and making sure the boards were straight.
It wasn't a hard job, but Sally Jean was antsy for it to be over with, her mind back in her bedroom where her current novel laid on her bed.
She was in the middle of it, the door to the story not yet closed, fiction bleeding out into reality. She felt like she was a part of it, the rolling hills and grassy pastures of Mayberry Ranch falling away and becoming fair Verona. Her work clothes were gone, too, a long gown of dark, moody colors and ornate jewelry in their place.
Sally Jean had been reading an abridged version of Romeo & Juliet and was completely swept up in the romance. Her heart fluttered as she thought about the book, her mind pondering how the story would end. She couldn't wait.
It felt like it had been ions when they finally finished the fence and Sally Jean was dismissed.
She bounded inside with butterflies and quick feet, picking up her book and flopping across her bed with it once she was by herself. She hardly moved as she finished off the book.
Books had become fascinating to Sally Jean ever since she found out how much detail they held, and how much longer they lasted than films. Her favorite novels to read were romances, for she could fantasize that it was her being kissed and married and in love.
But she would soon find out that Romeo & Juliet would not fulfill those fantasies.
The poison was downed.
The dagger was plunged.
They had killed themselves. All for love.
It was achingly beautiful but equally as shockingly terrible.
And Sally Jean was left with a dull pain in her chest, one that grew sharp as the dagger wedged in Juliet's ribcage as she truly began to think.
