We are Belmonts

- 4 -

(briars fit is #3 on the pin board)

The four of us sit side by side on the dock. My tangled, salty hair drips down my clean dress and sand has gotten in my fingernails and it's impossible to get it out. But despite our uncomfort. The world seems incredibly peaceful.

The sun began to sink into the depths of the ocean like liquid gold spilling over the horizon. It was like a thousand glowing embers that been lit for the first time since winter. Now that I think about it, this is the first sunset of sixteen.

Our feet dangle in the clear waters below, splashing each other gently whilst the waves lap at our toes. Since Juliette has returned, Theo has become more and more distant as the day has gone on. They laugh and make jokes about stuff I 'wouldn't understand'. I guess they had always been more of a duo but I'd never really noticed before.

She's all over him. Grabbing his hand and laughing in a fake high-pitched laugh when he says something funny. He returns the favour by splashing water in her painted face, she screams and cries and he laughs and flirts with her. Juliette has barely talked to me all day.

Since when were they so close?

Year sixteen has brought Theo and I closer than we had ever been, even when we were really little and It's probably just the shock of having to share him. He doesn't even glance at me or ask me if I'm okay.

But Juliette has changed too. Her smile is less lightweight and her eyes seem clouded over at times, lost in her own mind when she's around me. But when Theo comes back she's dancing around and spinning her new silk dress. I have changed too, I suppose. It's harder to laugh and it sounds fake even though I feel like it's real.

I feel like it's real, but sometimes I don't feel like anything's ever real anymore. Like this sunset, how could it be real? Whilst horrible, terrible things happen everyday. People do horrible, terrible things, you know. But the sun never fails to rise and set. Every. Single. Day.

I stare at Theodore and Juliette. They are so beautiful together. Juliette's long, bronze hair blows in the light breeze into Theo's face. He brushes it off and they laugh together. Beautiful, perfect laughs and smiles. Happy and pretty children. They swing their feet in unison. Mine don't match.

Juliette angles her body away from me and towards Theodore. I've listened enough in my psychology classes to know that whoever someone's body is angled towards, even slightly, is who they like most in the group. I pull my eyes away from them. I can't deal with third wheeling anymore.

"I think I'm going to go now, I want to get ready for the party" I say, I'm practically already walking away from them. "See you later."

Nobody responds. I don't even think they heard me. They didn't even notice that I had stood up and was walking along the dock back into the line of trees across the back of big beach by myself.

That's how it had always been. Me, myself and I. I was Juliette's winter replacement, his winter girl. I turn as I watch them giggle together, threatening to push each other into the beautiful, beautiful crystal waters. She rests her head on his shoulder as they laugh about their beautiful summer together, starting tonight.

but i guess, with a heart like that — you deserve the world.