Rosemary and Juliet

The Aftermath

Seth (the cool one)

He sat at the memorial service, awaiting his turn to speak. Rosemary had asked him of all people to give a eulogy. She wanted him to tell their story. Her letter still flooded his mind.

"Seth, I have this crazy favor to ask of you. I know that's absurd, because I'm dead, and I know that it's probably not easy on you right now. I'm so sorry, and love you so much. You know that. There has never been a time that you stopped meaning so much to me. You always believed in me and Juliet, and you always did what you thought was the best for the two of us. Even when you and I were together, you did what you thought was best for me. I don't know how to thank you enough. You showed me that it was okay to think about myself first once in a while.

"Think of this as me doing that. I know, it's crazy. I wish that I could explain. I need you to read a couple of things at our funeral or whatever thing goes down, though, okay? I need you to carry on our fight.

" . . . Okay, now that we have that established, the other thing I need you to read is this story that Juliet and I wrote. It's our true story, not the book that I put on Wattpad. Our story needs to be told, and I want you to tell it. Please. It's the only thing I need to know happened.

"I love you, and you will always be my Rory.

"Rose, your Amilia Pond."

There was no way to process that. Why would she ask him to do this? He always had said that he'd do anything for her, but . . . this wasn't what he'd had in mind when he said that. Looking up, he saw that the first to speak was Sidney. Of course. He figured after her, it would be Andrea, and then Kaitlyn, and finally, it would be his turn.

"Hi, I'm Andrea," Andrea said, stepping up to the stand. "I'm not very good in front of people, but I'll do my best. I don't want to read the note she left me, because it's mine. It's the impression of herself that she left for me specifically. It's what I have left of her.

"When I met Rosemary in seventh grade, it was because she knew my friend Sidney. Sidney and I grew up together, we've been friends since we were kids, and so I knew who she knew. When she introduced me to this new girl, to Rosemary, I won't lie. I was jealous, and I was worried. I saw one of my friends lose her best friend to a new kid at school, and I thought that Rose was going to take Sidney away from me. She did something so different, though. She became a part of our lives, of our friendship dynamic. If there's a platonic way to fall in love, then that's what we did.

"Rose wasn't the type of person to steal your friend. She was the kind of person to ask if it was okay that she sat with you even though she had been sitting next to you for a month, just so you knew she wasn't trying to impose herself on you. She listened to whatever you had to talk about, and yeah, she always had an opinion about it, but at least she was honest.

"I am upset. She's gone, she was a beautiful and brilliant mind, and she's gone. It's not fair, but it happened. The worst of it is that she did it because she knew it would have this effect. She knew it would bring us together.

"The thing about Rosemary was that she wasn't perfect. No one knew that better than Juliet, and yet no one loved her more. If that doesn't say something about the nature of true love, then I don't know what does. And what really kills me about that? So what that they were both girls? So what? They were still able to demonstrate the greatest example of love that most of us in this room have ever seen. They worked on their flaws to be better for each other, and they loved each other including their flaws. They helped each other become better people. Now, they help us become better people, in the way we least expected the to." Andrea was shaking by the time she was finished, and looked like she was going to cry as she sat down.