Rosemary and Juliet

Alec

Juliet

"Rosey?!?" she shouted a final time, her friend snapping out of it.

"He's dead, Jules... He's really gone..."

Oh my god... "Rosemary, oh god, are you okay? I'll be there in half an hour, okay?"

Nothing mattered. Not that she was hurt, not that she was angry. Their past went away. Rosey needed her.

****

As her car pulled up to the apartment building, her phone dinged with a text, seeming to be from her friend Kyra.

~Rosey cut. Take away her sharp things, if you're going. If you aren't and she lied to me, tell me, because I will send Lea right there. Thanks, Juliet. It means a lot. She's like, my daughter. -KP

She knocked on the door, watching herself so that she didn't pound. Ms. Montague opened the door with a smile. "Juliet, Rosemary didn't tell me you were coming. Come on in, sweetie."

"Hi, Ms. Montague, gotta run, where's Rose?"

"Her bedroom. Is everything alright, dear?"

"Yes. Just some girl talk - you know teenagers," she laughed. Rosemary technically wasn't allowed to even talk to Alec because he was a legal adult (eighteen, but still). Her mother could not know about this, and Juliet respected that.

She opened Rosey's door, and found her on the ground, staring blankly at the air, headphones on, eyes empty. Her arms were covered in red marks and blood, which made Juliet cringe. A simple black dress made her look ready for a funeral. Juliet sighed, seeing how dead her best friend was looking.

"Oh, Rosey..." She knelt down next to her. "Honey... Oh, love, I'm so sorry."

Emotion flooded into Rosemary's face at the word. She didn't know the last time she'd called her friend "love", but it seemed necessary right then.

"Juliet..." She hiccuped, and Juliet had a feeling she'd been drinking. Just another thing not to tell... She was grieving, after all, and it wasn't like Juliet was going to let her go and do something stupid.

"Don't apologize," she murmured, sitting beside her and pulling her into my arms. "Just promise me. Never again, Rosey. Please."

"Never again," Rosemary whispered back to her, shaking like she should be crying, but Juliet didn't think she was producing any tears. Weird.

"Here. Let's go outside and talk about things, okay, love?"

Rosemary nodded, and they stood together. "Thank you for coming, Juliet..."

****

They sat on the ground, the late August sun blaring down on them. Rosemary was staring off into the distance, distracted by her sadness. Juliet tried not to look at her arms, but it tore her heart to see that. How many times had Rosey done it before? And all for what?

"Blue Lake sweatpants are the greatest thing society has been blessed with." It was something, at least...

"I don't like sweatpants. They're loose and so they don't fit me, ha."

"There was actually this girl at camp, and she wore multiple pairs at once, and she would casually strip off one pair, and boom, another one right under."

Rosemary laughed a little at that, but Juliet could see. "You really liked camp. That is good. I assume you're going next year, then?"

"Hopefully, yeah. Then I can see my friend Caroline again. She's pretty cool. I can tell her anything, because she doesn't know the people that I know, haha." Juliet could see that wasn't making anything better. She sighed. "There was this other girl."