A Romeo And Juliet Story...

A story named after, and inspired a little bit by one of Shakespeare’s plays, Romeo and Juliet minus the tragic ending. It has some modern retelling and possibly subverted etc. as indicated by Reedsy Writing Prompts.

“We were both young when I first saw you,

The Flashback starts, I see you standing there,

On A Balcony of Summer Air….”

She was apparently dreaming… She was asleep on her bed, thinking deep thoughts about a painting she had seen when she was a little kid. She was thinking that she might actually meet this person or his equivalent in real life.

She knew that there was no possibility of finding Love in her life. She knew it was Just A Dream, and that she should just ignore it. She thought about how the painting of Mona Lisa was also just some painting, and lots of people couldn’t tell why Mona Lisa was smiling like that.

But then she thought about how some people did great things with their lives like find good looking people to marry. She thought about her own life, and how it life plain sucked as a good-for-nothing rich girl.

Her name was Natalie, and she was just 16, and she had a love interest. She wondered if this person was anything like the guy from the painting. His name was Leonard and he spoke well and also liked to chew gum. He was only 17.

So there she was writing in her journal one day about what she saw in her dream. She liked writing in her journal about things she loved. She always knew she had a thing for Leonard, but she never had the heart to tell him.

Natalie was afraid of the idea of being in Love with anyone. Natalie knew that falling in love meant rejection most of the time, by the world’s standards, and she knew that since Leonard had anxiety, perhaps their pairing would end up in disaster.

Natalie was someone who did a lot of things that wealthy, girly women did like gossip about others, wear precious jewellery, do her hair and make-up, and try to look nice. One day while she was looking in the mirror, while she was writing in her journal, she thought of something remarkable.

Natalie thought about Leonard and how he too was a young confused rich guy with a heart of Gold that liked her. Natalie thought long and hard about his weird gum-chewing habit, and also about how if she told her parents about him, they would find out that they were slowly becoming more than friends.

Natalie thought about that queer painting she had seen as a young girl that reminded her of Leonard. That painting was the handsome ideal that no man could ever hope to be like. Natalie thought about the connection between this painting, and Leonard.

Leonard was in his room, in his part of town also doing interesting things with his life.

He knew he had a friend that he loved and cherished. He knew she was the serious type who did not ever think about more than what seemed interesting to her. Her beautiful life, and everything that mattered to her.

Leonard was too young to be in love he felt, while he sat down in his bedroom at his bedside table chewing gum. He was someone who hated being rich, and he loved to do things aside from his parents.

Leonard loved playing sports. He knew he could never keep a girl like Natalie happy. Or could he? He thought for a moment about the pretty-as-a-picture Natalie.

Leonard continued reading his Bible while he chewed gum in his room. He was an athlete who loved playing sports. Leonard was thinking so hard that he bit his tongue and decided to go watch some TV. He wondered if he could watch something interesting on the Sports Channel.

Back in her little world, Natalie was thinking about many things. She was thinking about how brave people did wonderful things with their lives. She knew that being rich was a good thing, but adventure awaited.

She wanted more out of her life. She looked around her. She looked at her reflection and knew there was more to life. She possibly knew there were more ‘possibilities’ in the eyes of her dear rich friend Leonard than she thought.

She continued to write in her journal. She wrote about the weather, she wrote about life. She wrote about a biblical promise — “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ has forgiven you” that she did not know the meaning of.

Because her mother was a Bible-reading woman, and she loved her mother. She decided to make the most of her friendship with Leonard instead of complaining because he was her friend after all. Maybe one day they would get married.

She didn’t know what she was doing but she decided to call Leonard. She knew he was a bit of a prick, but she decided to call him anyway and find out about his most pressing problem. His biggest secret the fact that he hated school, and hated being rich.

He didn’t answer the phone. And she was busy writing in her journal, about her favourite song

“See the lights, see the party, the ball gowns

You see me make my way through the crowd

And say, “Hello”

Little did you know…

Romeo, take me somewhere we can be alone

I’ll be waiting; all there’s left to do is run

I’ll be the prince and you’ll be the princess

It’s a love story, baby, just say “Yes”

When the phone rang again and Leonard acted like he could read her mind. He invited her to watch his basketball match, which was happening soon.

That day finally arrived. Natalie was sitting down watching Leonard playing basketball, along with his other friends. Leonard was a handsome man, a knight in shining armour. She noticed things about him when he was being himself that people never noticed about him otherwise.

She thought about the deep meaning of the Bible verse she had written down in her journal while looking at her own reflection in the mirror. She thought about how no man was perfect, and perfection was a dreaded disease.

When she saw Leonard play like that the words, came true almost magically. Leonard was no Romeo, and She was not the Juliet of the Shakespearean love story, but magically he seemed to represent everything about the fictional guy in the painting.

Juliet went home that day and wrote in her journal, about how Mona Lisa was smiling for a very strange reason. She was after all Mona Lisa, and Juliet realized something very strange about what she saw in the mirror. She realized that she was the one writing the story of her life, and she could make her story one of Romeo and Juliet, or possibly Mona Lisa Smile.