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by A.C. L
Juliette’s waiting by the door when Ellie gets there. She has been there since six in the evening. It has already been thirty minutes, give or take, by the time that Ellie pulls her Ford into the driveway. She sees Juliette simply sitting there, and though Juliette hasn’t set up an entire shelter right there on her doorstep, she has settled into that space like she could just live there forever. Ellie observes for a brief moment until it hits her — guilt. She shouldn’t just stay there in her car as the rain pours, the only thing protecting Juliette from it being her own house. She shouldn’t be acknowledging that she is the cause of Juliette’s pain, because there are true things that you just have to be selfish to admit to yourself. Other people can say it, but not her. If you do know, you should already be fixing the problem. Finally, she opens the car door and goes over to Juliette.
“Hi,” Juliette greets. She tries not to smile, but you can tell that the corners of her mouth are fighting against her. It’s pure. She’s not asking for much. She knows something that many people don’t, she knows that you can’t make someone love you. At this point, Juliette has long accepted that. She wants the bare minimum now, and it punches Ellie in the gut that she might not even be able to give her that.
“Hey, Juliette,” there it is. Her full name. Instead of “Julie” or “Jules,” it’s Juliette. Ellie doesn’t want to give her that acknowledgement, but she’s choosing the lesser of two evils. She couldn’t lead Juliette on like that.
You can see a drop in Juliette’s already-fragile mood. But like usual, she pushes through and offers a fake smile. “Part of me thought that it was just my luck, and that you were staying at someone else’s tonight.”
Ellie can feel a sharp knife pierce straight through her chest at that sentence. “Well, I’m not, I hope that’s okay,” she plays it off cool, but she’s only half joking.
“Well, it’d be the one time you came home,” Juliette says as the smile fades.
Normally, Ellie would be annoyed by the melodramatic statement, but it’s the least she can do — listen. She doesn’t know how to respond, anyways. “Why are you here?”
“Because I miss you, maybe?”
“Yeah, but like, what did you think would happen?”
Juliette thinks to herself for a second. “I didn’t know what was going to happen, all I
knew was that I wanted it to happen.”
“What if you didn’t like the outcome?”
“I don’t think that would be possible. I just wanted to be here.”
“You shouldn’t, though.”
Juliette felt herself get dizzy for a moment, her body temperature dropping a few
degrees very quickly. “Be here? I shouldn’t be here?” Her voice started to sound slightly panicked.
“No, no, that’s not what I’m saying, I-” Ellie needs to be careful. Juliette is small in the palm of her hands. “You shouldn’t want to be here.”
“Why?”
“I shouldn’t be something that makes you this happy.”
“Who says that’s a bad thing? You’re supposed to find things that make you happy in life, and for me, it just so happened to be you,” Juliette says, pulling Ellie in. Now she’s wanting more, and that’s dangerous for Ellie. “You know, everyone I’m close with just wants me to be happy. But now I have that, and it’s a problem.”
The innocence is gone now. Ellie knows what Juliette wants. She wants more. More than what she is able to have. It can never be simple with Juliette. “That must be hard.”
“That would be an understatement.”
Ellie sucks in a sharp breath, but tries to keep it silent. But Juliette notices, and her heart stops.
“Juliette?”
“Yeah...?”
There’s just a beat before Ellie’s next words, but it feels like eternity to Juliette.
“We can’t keep doing this. I care about you too much to see you ruin yourself like this.” There it was. Juliette couldn’t even cry. You could see her brain processing the recent
information, trying to quickly decide how to feel. “Keep doing what?”
Ellie can’t watch her play dumb anymore. “You know what,” she sighs, drained. Juliette starts speaking at a faster pace, “No, I don’t. I really don’t.”
“Yes, you do.” Ellie’s tone remains calm.
“No, I don’t! I need you to tell me! Why won’t anyone tell me anything?” “Because you don’t want a reason, you want a justification, Julie!”
Juliette’s eyes widen at the name. “You’re just like everyone else,” she stands up,
shakily. She slowly paces towards Ellie, “You have no idea,” Ellie backs up and Juliette’s voice raises, scratching, “how it feels to go through this,” she starts yelling, “yet, you complain about having to see it!” Tears burst from her eyes like they’ve been held back for centuries. She can’t keep herself mad for too long. All she wants is for Ellie to stay, not leave. She wraps her arms around Ellie, getting tears on her black, distressed denim jacket.
Ellie wants to cry, too. She wants to fall apart from trying to hold Juliette together. She can’t stay upset, either.
But Juliette needs to let go.
She knows that they can’t be together. Not in the way she wants them to be.
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