Why Romeo Hates Juliet (16 page)

At 5:10 the next morning, Eddie had shown up at Juliet’s doorstep, as requested. A gentle man in his 50’s, with a calm, patient demeanor, he had lived on the island his entire life and was an expert marksman when it came to rifles and shotguns.

Juliet had taken him out back to where the skeet machine was positioned. She’d brought out two benches which Eddie had asked her to set up so that they could have somewhere to place the shotguns and equipment. After taking ten minutes to inspect the machine and making sure that everything was in proper working form, he had pulled out two shotguns from their cases. One was a 12 gauge for himself and the smaller one was a 20 gauge for Juliet, which he explained might be easier for her to shoot because of her smaller frame. He also brought along proper shooting vests and ear protection to wear and then proceeded to spend the next hour teaching her about correct gun safety, how to hold her gun and how to reload the shot shells. Juliet was pleasantly surprised to find herself interested in it all and she listened with rapt attention to his instructions.

By 6 a.m., just as the morning sun was shining brilliantly over the blue ocean waters, they were ready to start shooting. Eddie had loaded up the skeet machine with clay discs and told Juliet that he was going to fire his gun first and for her to watch him, taking in his form and posture as he brought the gun up to his shoulder to shoot. Juliet held the button attached to the machine which upon Eddie yelling, ‘Pull ’, she was to press.

Juliet nodded at his instructions before taking a quick peek at Romeo’s house next door. All was deathly quiet over there and the vertical blinds had been pulled shut on all the windows. Last night’s party had gone on until 3 a.m. Although the music had basically stopped at eleven - Romeo obviously having learned his lesson the hard way about that one - many of the revelers had stayed on until the wee hours of the morning. The noise had died down considerably by then with a lot of them just hanging out and eating and drinking.

Juliet’s attention returned back to Eddie who was ready to fire his gun. As soon as he yelled the word “Pull ”, Juliet pressed the button, a clay was launched into the air and Eddie fired the shotgun, smashing the disc into tiny pieces. The sound of the gun firing was supersonic loud and deafening. There was even an echo to the shot after that.

Wow!!! Was that what a shotgun being fired sounded like, Juliet thought? That had been incredible and the sound of it was powerful. She was stunned at how loud it had actually been. She’d forgotten to put her earmuffs on to drown out the sound, so she’d heard it clearly and was amazed.

Her gaze wandered over to Romeo’s house. All was still quiet and she couldn’t detect any movement. Wonder how many gunshots it would take before he came barreling out of there and confronted her? Probably about eight, she reasoned.

It took only five.

After Eddie had fired his first shot, he’d gotten Juliet into position to shoot her own shotgun. He’d shown her how to plant her feet properly so as to handle the recoil from the gun, and after making sure she was ready, he went to the skeet machine, ready to launch a clay at her directive.

Trying to remember all the instructions Eddie had taught her, Juliet took a deep breath and smiled at him. “Pull ”, she shouted, and as the disc was released into the air, she brought her shotgun up to her shoulder, aimed it and squeezed the trigger. The gun went off with a loud, massive shot and the force of it recoiled into her shoulder. No, she hadn’t hit the clay, as she watched it sail away but she was so proud of herself. God, that had been so much fun!

She turned to Eddie with a huge smile on her face. “Let’s do it again, Eddie,” she laughed.

Eddie nodded and she loaded a new shell into the gun as he had taught her to do. By the 5th shot, Juliet was having so much fun even though she hadn’t hit anything yet, that she had completely forgotten about Romeo Boyd and her real reason for doing this.

But she was quickly reminded, when in position and ready to shoot at her 6th clay, she saw him purposely marching towards her on the beach.

He was shirtless but wearing pajama bottoms, his hair was long and wild looking as if he’d just gotten up out of bed, his brutish caveman beard clearly matched his two, brutish black eyes and his face was a glowering mask of fury.

“What the fuck is going on?” he screamed, as he came to stand in front of her.

Juliet brought her shotgun down and cradled it safely under her arm as Eddie had instructed her to do and she took off her earmuffs. “As you can see - or should I say hear - I’m learning skeet, Mr. Boyd.”

“At 6 o’clock in the goddamn morning?” His angry voice was rough, obviously having just woken up.

“Am I disturbing your beauty sleep?” she laughed.

“Well excuse me if I have an aversion to being awakened by gunshots outside my house.” Romeo was fuming mad. He knew exactly what she was up to. This was all another one of her little plans to get back at him. Tit for Tat was what they used to call it in kindergarten and that’s exactly what this was. She was mad about all the noise and partying and so she was going to lob some of her own shots back at him and in this case, they were going to be actual gunshots.

He had to hand it to her, she certainly was inventive and clever, but he was still mad as hell. Mainly because he’d been awakened from a sweet dream he’d been having in which he and Juliet had been making love in the sand by the ocean; her long, naked legs had been wrapped around his thighs and she had been moaning his name over and over again as he drove into her. The dream had been enveloping him in a delicious, satisfying mind fog - until the first gunshot had awoken him and ruined everything.

And then when he’d marched out here and seen what she was up to, and knowing that the Juliet of his dreams and the Juliet standing in front of him were polar opposites, it had made him even angrier than he should have been.

His expression turned even more sour. “Stop this now Juliet or else…” He let the threat hang in mid-air.

“Or else nothing. My house has special privileges which yours doesn’t and from now on, at dawn every morning, I’m going to be taking lessons and we’ll be firing shotguns. If you don’t like it, you can leave.”

“So that’s what this is about,” Romeo nodded, now understanding the complete picture. “This is a question of who’s going to leave the island first, isn’t it? Well, it ain’t going to be me sweetheart, because I can keep this game going for as long as you can,” he shouted, as he drove an angry finger into her chest before turning his back on her to walk away.

As she watched him stalk away through the sand, Juliet’s fury at his words hit an all-time high. “Oh, yeah? Well, I’m not leaving before you either! And I’m going to be out here at daybreak everyday from now on, so get used to it.” She kept backing further away and because her anger had short-circuited all of her clear thinking, she hadn’t realized that she hadn’t clicked the safety button on her shotgun to prevent it from firing; and she hadn’t realized that she wasn’t cradling her gun under her arm properly anymore like Eddie had shown her to do; and she hadn’t realized that she was in danger of coll iding with one of the benches that held their shooting equipment.

As she took one more step back, she finally came into contact with the bench. Her body was suddenly shoved forward and instinctively she brought her gun up. The trigger caught her arm and the shotgun went off by mistake. The sound was explosive and because she hadn’t braced herself, the recoil of the gun sent her sprawling onto her bum. In the split second when she’d been tumbling down, she’d seen the movie star lurch forward before hitting the ground hard himself. In that frozen moment in time, Juliet’s horrified brain registered the fact that she had just shot Romeo Boyd.

~ ~ ~

The whole day had been a horrible nightmare of a blur for Juliet that she so desperately wanted to wake up from but couldn’t.

The second her gun had gone off and hit Romeo, Eddie had galvanized into action. Running to Romeo’s inert body lying face forward on the ground, he’d examined him quickly and retrieving his cell phone from his pocket, had dialed 911.

Juliet, on seeing Romeo down, had screamed his name and run to him, flopping down in the sand beside him. Instinctively - although she realized later that she shouldn’t have done it - she turned him over so that he was on his back and she cradled his head in her lap. She saw that his left shoulder was covered in blood and he was unconscious. His gorgeous, piercing blue eyes were closed firmly shut. She bent down to his mouth and could feel him still breathing. She closed her own eyes in relief at that, at least. She re-opened them and saw red, sticky blood trickling down his arm.

“Oh my God, Romeo,” she started whispering, “I’m so sorry. Please don’t die, please don’t die…
please!
” She started crying as she brushed sand out of his hair with her shaking fingers. My God! What had she done to him? She didn’t mean to, but it had still been her fault. She was the one with the gun and Eddie had stressed to her earlier that with the use of a fireman came great responsibility and she must always be alert to any possible dangers that could happen. But she had gotten so crazy with her stupid revenge plans that she’d acted irresponsibly and now Romeo was paying the price for it.

Eddie had come back then and told her that it looked like a shoulder wound which might not be too serious, but the fact that he was still unconscious might mean that he had hit his head when he’d hit the ground. That could be more serious, he explained. He’d told her not to panic and to stay calm while he went into the house to get some towels.

Sara had come running out then and on seeing Romeo on the ground, had raced back to the house with Eddie for towels and something to put on the wound.

The ambulance had come within minutes, along with two police cars, and the paramedics had taken over for Juliet, pushing her out of the way to begin their ministrations. Within minutes, they had assessed Romeo’s condition and after putting him on the stretcher were just about to put him into the ambulance when Tommy and the girls came running out.

Carrie Ann and Kristen started screaming when they saw Romeo in the back of the ambulance and then Carrie Ann lunged at Juliet, shouting,

“You bitch, you did this to him!” but Tommy pulled her back and made sure she didn’t get anywhere near the other woman again.

“Carrie Ann, stop it! Don’t do this. You go in the ambulance with Romeo and Kristen and I will follow in one of the trucks.” Juliet, at this point, was almost catatonic and Sara was the only thing that was holding her up, otherwise she was sure she would have fainted in a dead heap. ‘Romeo, please don’t die’, she kept repeating in her head, ‘
Please…
’ Tears were still streaming down her face like an overflowing river.

After the ambulance had left, being chased by all of the paparazzi who had been stationed at the public road leading into their property, the police took over and began their investigation. This had been a shooting and they needed to find out the facts quickly to determine what had actually happened. After they had inspected the accident site, they took both Juliet and Eddie down to the police station to get statements from them both.

Sara had called the lawyer, Tim Hobbs, who had helped Juliet the night Romeo had pressed assault charges against her, and he had arrived at the station in record time.

Juliet ended up spending the day there, waiting for the police to determine whether this had been an accident or not. And all day long she hadn’t even been worried about her own personal circumstances. All she had thought about was Romeo and how he was doing and if he was okay.

Sara had called the hospital and spoken to Tommy, who told her that Romeo had been shot in his left shoulder, but they had removed the pell ets in surgery and he’d be fine. No major organs had been hit. But the big worry was that he still hadn’t regained consciousness. The doctors had deduced that he’d hit his head pretty hard when he’d fall en and they’d just have to wait it out and see what the extent of the damage was when he came to on his own. They were hoping there was no brain damage, but they couldn’t tell until he came out of it and they could examine him more fully.

When Sara had relayed the update to Juliet, tears had started falling down her cheeks again as she sat at the police sergeant’s desk. “Oh God, Sara, brain damage?” she had choked out.

“Shhhhh, we don’t know that yet, Juliet,” her sister had hugged her, trying to reassure her. “Let’s not assume the worst, okay? His shoulder will be fine and that’s good news, at least.”

“I’m so sorry I ever started this; this is all my fault,” she sobbed. With red eyes and tear stained cheeks, she looked up at her sister. “He’s got to be fine, Sara, he’s just got to be.”

“He will be, you’ll see,” Sara gently whispered back, trying her best to comfort her big sis.

The news of Romeo Boyd being shot hit the press like a tsunami. More paparazzi had flown to PEI that afternoon and all the media was awash with speculation and innuendo about what had actually happened. Sara’s husband, Rob, had also called from Vancouver and had insisted on coming out there, but Sara had told him to stay put for now. But if things got worse, he’d have to come.

In the end, Juliet was released and no charges were going to formally be made against her. Because Eddie had been a witness to the entire shooting and he was well-respected in the community, the police had deemed the incident to be an accident. Juliet’s lawyer had told her that if Eddie hadn’t been there to see the whole thing, she might have been charged with attempted manslaughter. On hearing that, both Juliet and Sara had felt sick to their stomachs at what might have been.

That evening, Juliet and Sara walked out of the police station to a sea of hungry paparazzi and camera flashes going off. As they moved towards their parked car, the herd followed them and started firing questions.

“Juliet, why did you shoot Romeo?” “Can you tell us what happened?” “Were you having a lover’s tiff?” “Does Carrie Ann have anything to do with this?” “Were you jealous about his continuing relationship with Carrie Ann?” The girls remembered Romeo’s previous instructions to keep walking with their heads held high when dealing with the photographers and they did just that until they were able to get into their vehicle and drive off. Sara, who was in the driver’s seat, looked in her rear view mirror and spotted the pack of cameramen jump into their own cars to give chase.

“It looks like we’re going to have company all the way home,” she said.

“Oh please, Sara, let’s go to the hospital instead. I have to see him for myself,” Juliet sniffled, as she dabbed at her wet eyes.

“Juliet, I don’t think we should do that.”

“Please, I have to be there with him - I just have to.”

New tears sprang to Juliet’s eyes and Sara, on seeing her sister at such a low point in her life, suddenly made a U-turn and headed in the direction of the hospital. The trail of paparazzi vehicles did the same.

Juliet stared blindly out the window as her tears continued to stream down her cheeks. My God, she could have killed him today! Her thoughts raced back to that awful moment when she’d seen Romeo lying in the sand, completely still and covered in blood - not knowing whether he was alive or dead - and she felt a raw, primitive stab to her heart. She looked down at his caked blood still splattered on her clothes from when she’d cradled his body and her tears flowed faster. My God, what had she done to him?

~ ~ ~