Dearest Juliet (Harry Styles)

Fourteen: Broken People

Juliet had this huge teddy bear named Kingston. I had given it to her to hold onto when I wasn't able to be there with her for treatments or hospital stays. She loved it, because it smelled like me. Juliet always had Kingston with her, so, as fate would have it, when I got Kingston to keep, he smelled like her. Kingston still vaguely smells like her, and that is why I have him out tonight.

 It was hard to really and truly accept that Juliet was gone, but everything is hard now. I grabbed Kingston out of my closet to hold him, because when I had something physically in my hand that was hers it was easier to grip onto reality. The sick reality that ripped her away from me, found that it had been too harsh, and brought Andie in to fix me as best she could.

  Andromeda Hemmingway. My girl in heels. Well, she was more to me now than that. She was the person to whom I trusted to save me from myself. I had told her the one thing I had never told anyone else: that I thought I had failed Juliet. Andie was the only one who could get rid of that foolish thought I had been torturing myself with. She wasn't just the obnoxious girl in heels that keeps coming around to annoy me anymore. Andie was the obnoxious girl that keeps coming around to help me. I know that now, and because of this knowledge I want to know Andie as intimately as she knows me. 

 I was finally ready to know her, and to know why my original assumptions are so off. After around eight months of knowing her, I'm finally ready to know her. 

 I put my phone up to my ear, only regretting what I was about to say a little bit. 

 "Hello?" Andromeda said through the phone. 

 "Hello, Andromeda." I replied, and I heard her laugh float into my ear. 

 "Curls!" She said excitedly, "What could have possibly made you say hello to me?" 

 "I'm ready." I said softly, ignoring her excitement.

 She paused, "Are you sure?" 

 "Yeah." 

 "I'll be there in fifteen minutes then." 

*  *  *

 I slid into Andie's car with a shiver, wondering why on earth we had to take her car. She smiled smugly at me, after I had removed a Coke bottle from beneath me and turned to look at her.

 "You said 'hello' to me." She said, her smile growing wider.

"Let's not dwell on it." I mentioned, falling into our usual banter easily.

 "You like me." She said as if she was cooing to a baby.

 "Absurd."

 "No it isn't. You like me! You like me! You," She poked my cheek, "like me." 

 "Fine!" I yelled, slapping her away from me playfully, "Maybe a little." 

 "HA! I knew it." She winked, and started actually driving down the road. 

 I shook my head. Andie was quite the abnormal person, but I don't think whatever our relationship was could work if I wasn't sad and she wasn't just confident enough to be weird. She glanced over and smiled slightly at me, and I returned the gesture, noticing that she was getting quieter as we got closer to our destination. I looked forward again, remembering the path she was taking from the previous attempt to get here. I wondered where we are going. What sort of place can make all my assumptions about her get smashed into pieces?

 Some of the assumptions were still there. The one about her bad days not being many, and I still thought she was arrogant and obnoxious when she wanted to be. I knew she wasn't a party all night, every night kind of girl though, and I knew that she cared about some things. I just knew so little, and this place promised me that I would know more.