Rosemary and Juliet

The Beginning of Their Story

Rosemary

"Don't mind him, that's just Nathan." Waiting to enter the school auditorium, Rosemary was trying to get to know the cast. A guy was trying to say something to her, but this girl had cut him off.

"Nathan, eh?" She turned and looked at him. He smiled a little, but it was the sad sort of smile, one she was familiar with. She could feel the pang of loneliness hiding in his brown eyes, and something about him made her feel like they were similar, somehow. "My name is Rosemary. Rosemary Montague."

****

Rosemary sat alone in her room, sulking about the girl named Sidney.

"Perfect brown hair, hazel eyes behind wire rimmed glasses. Ugh, even Hazel who I loved for nearly five years does not compare! The kindness, the compassion for me, the new girl who has no friends that I cannot credit to her, skip maybe Nathan..." She paused her rant to consider her boyfriend, and then continued in further exasperation.

"Nathan, who loves me, and I feel nothing for him but the love a girl has for her older brother! And yet I fake it as his girlfriend, I am good to him, I swear, but whenever I see her I just want to die because she can never be mine! How have I gotten myself into this, my god! Thirteen years, I lasted without dating a guy, leading him on, but now where are we? I can't do this, oh, poor Nathan..." Rosemary was a little over dramatic when she ranted to herself, but it was a rather stressful issue, as far as issues go for thirteen year olds.

Sidney had been Rosemary's first friend in her new school, and it was now April, seven months since meeting and falling for her. She hated it so much, it was so unfair that she could only like girls, and the girls who would never return the feeling because they were straight. It wasn't like she could've prevented this one, though.

As for Nathan, she had, for some possessed reason, agreed to be his girlfriend. Even though she already knew it was impossible to feel that way for him. It wasn't even necessarily that she wanted to, either. Just, something about them was so fitting, somehow.

The next day, though, thoughts of Sidney vanished.

****

At theatre club, Rosemary spoke with her boyfriend backstage. Looking through the cracks in the curtain to the opposite side of backstage, she saw a girl and she couldn't take her eyes away. She wasn't one to believe in love at first sight, but this girl . . .

She had straight, honey blonde hair, and an adorable face framed by big glasses that were perfect on her. If this isn't beauty, I've never seen anything gorgeous and never will, she thought to herself, still unable to tear away her gaze.

Nathan was a sweet boyfriend, but the truth was that she was only comfortable dating him because she knew her mother approved. She could never come out of the closet to her mom, so this content relationship would have to do. But how long would it last...?

Except this girl across the stage... When she came on and sang with the other two with whom she shared a part in the chorus, it was the most beautiful sound she'd ever heard. She was only support cast but the lighting in the room was drawn to her. This girl was born for the stage. Her exit from the scene was directly to Rosemary, and there was no objections on her part.

"Hi, you must be Nathan's new girlfriend," the girl said suddenly with a bright smile. "My name is Juliet!"

"I am Rosemary... It's a pleasure to meet you." Rosemary paused, realizing she'd seen this girl before. "You're in my science class, aren't you?"

"Oh yeah!"

The friendship was instant.

****