Flowergirl

✿✽❀~ eighteen ~❀✽✿

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Juliet didn't come by the next Saturday.

I was sad, of course—beyond sad, really, since after what had happened the previous week, I felt more attached to her than I had before. I decided though, that it was probably just a family matter that she would explain to me when we talked on the phone that night. The only problem was, when I called her phone on Saturday night, she didn't pick up. Instead, it went straight to voicemail on the second ring, and when I called back a little while later, it went to voicemail on the first ring.

I wasn't sure what was going on. I had talked to Juliet just two nights before and everything had seemed fine. It didn't make any sense.

Okay...so maybe I'm exaggerating a little when I say everything had seemed fine, because in all honesty, it hadn't.

It wasn't anything crazy, but as we spoke on the phone, I could tell just from the sound of Juliet's voice that something was bugging her. I had asked her about it but she said it was nothing, and now, as I sat at the dining table waiting for her to arrive, I found myself growing increasingly worried with each passing second. I hated myself for not pressing the matter. For not expressing to Juliet in no uncertain terms that I cared—that I wanted her to share her struggles with me, even when it was hard.

I had assumed that I would be seeing her in two days and so I figured it would be better to talk about the difficult stuff in person. And as usual, whenever I made an assumption, it came back to bite me in the arse.

I asked Mum if she had seen Juliet throughout the week, and she told me that Juliet had come by for the first part of the week, but on Thursday—the last day I'd spoken to her—she'd stopped showing up. It wasn't like her, and although Mum was trying to hide it, I could see the concern etched into her forehead as she asked me whether I'd heard from Juliet since.

I said that I hadn't and Mum mumbled something under her breath about being sure J would show up again come Monday.

Come Monday, Juliet did not show up.

I stayed home from school that day, giving Mum some excuse about feeling under the weather. I didn't think she would actually buy it, but when she came to my bedroom to check on me in the morning, she seemed fully convinced I was sick. I didn't understand why until I passed by a mirror and saw what a mess I looked like. My face was puffy, my eyes were bloodshot, and my nose was red as a tomato.

Mum made me some chicken noodle soup, and I ate it at the dining table, staring out the window as I tried to will Juliet to my house.

By the time Mum was leaving for work, she was surprised to see that Juliet still hadn't arrived. On the weekdays, Juliet usually got to our house long before Mum left, so this was way out of the ordinary. Mum decided to ring her phone for good measure, but her call went to voicemail on the first ring, and as she left the house that day, I could see the cloud of worry following closely at her tail.

I spent the day back and forth between my bed and the window, feeling a kind of low that I hadn't felt in a while. I wasn't sure what was up with Juliet, but I knew it couldn't have been good if she'd gone this long without even a text to say hi.

I went to school the next day, deciding it was better to be miserable out there where I actually had things to do than at home where there was nothing to distract me from it. Where every room I turned to reminded me of her. And by the time the weekend rolled around again, I found myself physically itching to see her. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, I damn near couldn't think. I just wanted to see her. To be sure that she was okay.