Why Romeo Hates Juliet (38 page)

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Slowly, Juliet approached the open doorway leading into her bedroom where she knew he was still waiting for her. Okay, she decided, tonight she would resolve everything one way or another. Sara had been right, no more lies and no more games. Tonight it was time to find out the truth.

Steeling herself and her nerves, she took in another deep breath and walked into her bedroom. But Romeo wasn’t there! The room was empty.

“Romeo?” Surprised, Juliet called out his name as she walked back into the hallway, but there was no answer. She checked the upstairs bathroom but found that empty too. Oh no! Had he left? Did this mean he didn’t want her after all?

Feeling panicked, Juliet rushed downstairs and noticed that the backdoor was still open from when they’d all had their confrontation earlier.

Had he gone back out?

She rushed outside and her frantic eyes scanned her property until she finally spotted him. He was standing motionless on his own property on the beach and staring at the charred remains of his house. He’d put his jeans and sooty white shirt back on, which he’d left unbuttoned and blowing in the night breeze, and he was holding his black jacket bunched up in his right hand. The light of the full moon ill uminated his stoic and lonely stance.

Breathing a sigh of relief that he was still here at least, Juliet tightened her flimsy robe around her body against the night air and slowly walked up to him. He didn’t turn to watch her approach, but kept his eyes glued on the burned out structure. A thick silence permeated the distance between them as she walked closer to him.

“Why aren’t you wearing your wedding ring?” he softly asked her as she neared, but he still didn’t turn to look at her. He kept his gaze fixed on the destroyed beach house.

“I’m surprised you noticed.” Juliet wrapped her robe tighter around her for protection, suddenly feeling shy in his presence.

Romeo turned to her then and his blue eyes focused in on her face. “I notice everything about you.” Juliet could only stare back at him as the intensity of his gaze held her captive. “You - you said up there…” she indicted the lit second floor of her house with a nod, “… that you were in love with me. Did you mean it?”

“Did you?” he asked, his eyes demanding honesty.

Juliet nervously lowered her eyes away from his penetrating stare. “I - yes, but…” She let the words trail away into the night wind.

Silence…

“But what?”

Romeo’s sharp retort broke the still ness between them and her eyes quickly flitted back up to his face, taking in the anger and hurt stamped there.

“But - I don’t know you. The real you, I mean. I’m in love with Romeo Boyd, car salesman and husband. I don’t know the actor.”

“It’s all me, Juliet.”

“Is it? How can I trust you? Putting on false personas is what you do for a living and you’re awfully good at it. Who’s the real Romeo Boyd?” Her eyes lowered again. “Because I don’t know anymore.”

Romeo let his jacket drop from his fingers into the sand and he breached the distance between them. His hands came to rest gently on her arms. “Look at me,” he demanded, and her eyes quickly came back up to his. “What we shared in this house…” he nodded towards the charred building, “…was real. I wasn’t acting and I wasn’t pretending; it was me, it was all me.” Juliet took a step back away from him and he was forced to release his grip on her. “You were lying about your amnesia, Romeo. How can you even say that to me?”

“Because it’s the truth…”

“The truth? What about that night when we had our clambake out here and then afterwards, when we almost made love… was that the truth? No

- it was all fake and you were just using me…”

“No, that’s not true! You’ve got to believe that.”

“I don’t know what to believe anymore because I don’t know the real you.”

Romeo took a few steps back, putting distance between them. He paused for a few seconds as if he was deciding something. “Okay, Juliet, you wanna know the real me? Ask me anything, anything at all and I’ll tell you the truth.” Juliet paused for an instant before she raised her chin defiantly. “Okay, let’s start with an easy question. Where were you born?”

“Los Angeles.”

“I know that your father was a car salesman, Tommy said so.”

Juliet sensed an immediate change in him as she felt him emotionally pull away from her.

“Why do you want to know about him?” he asked defensively.

“Look, Romeo, you said you’d answer anything, but if you’re changing your mind about that already, then maybe we’d better call this off before we start anything.”

“Okay - I’ll tell you what you want to know, but you might not like what you find out.” She watched as his eyes turned slightly downwards in shame and her stance towards him softened. “I’m not here to judge you, Romeo. I just want to know who you are.”

His eyes flitted back up to her beautiful face and he nodded, breathing in deeply, resolving to tell her the truth. “I was born in ll.A. to a drug addict father who taught me how to score drugs for him when I was eight years old.” Romeo watched as her lashes flew up and her eyes grew large with shock. “Are you sure you want to know more about me?” he asked, trying to prepare her for the ugliness she was about to hear.

“Yes.” She took a step closer to him, sensing the pain he was reliving. “Why would your father do that to you?”

“He didn’t want to get busted for buying, so he came up with the brilliant idea to have his eight year old son do it for him. What’s the worst that could happen to a kid if he got caught, right? Maybe a stint in foster care or juvenile detention?” Romeo smirked at the sordid memories of his deadbeat father flashing through his brain again after all these years. When would he ever be free of that old bastard?

Juliet gasped. “But you were just a little boy.”

He shrugged, acting as if it hadn’t mattered. But it had; it had mattered a lot. “I guess that was the appeal. So starting at age eight, I bought all of my dad’s drugs for him… pot, cocaine, heroin - his personal favorite - you name it, I bought it. I knew all the drug dealers on the seedy side of LA and they knew me. I was pretty good at it too and never got busted. But you should know that I never did drugs and I never sold drugs; I just bought them for him.”

He moved further away from her and turned to stare at his burned out house again. It was obvious to Juliet that he was still trying to process all of the pain from his past.

He broke the silence again. “I was just a kid and all I wanted was for my dirtbag father to love me. I didn’t know any better until I rebelled at fifteen. That’s when I had a growth spurt, grew bigger than him and could beat the shit out of him if he tried to force me to do it again. That year I also got my first movie role, a quick walk-on part in a low-budget slasher flick. Know how I got it?”

“I read somewhere that you were spotted at a coffee shop by an agent.”

He burst out laughing. “That’s just Holl ywood spin bullshit, Juliet. Wanna know how I really got it? My father was a good customer, you could say, so I knew all of my drug dealers pretty well. One of them had another customer who was a movie producer and as repayment to me for some drugs he owed me, he agreed to introduce me to the sleazebal and get me the part. So I broke into showbiz through my drug dealer at age fifteen. A real Cinderel a story, don’t you think?”

Juliet’s luminous eyes widened with shock. “But - I never read anything about that in any of your press…”

“Well, they can’t print what they don’t know. A reporter was sniffing around once, years ago, but I had a big summer movie coming out at the time and the studio paid him off to kill the story. Besides, the deadbeats from my shitty past are all dead or in jail, and the only ones who know now are my sister Hailey, Tommy - and you.” He looked at Juliet then and took a few steps closer. “So now you know the truth about me.” His shoulders slumped as if a weight had been lifted off of them.

Juliet watched him closely. “When you got arrested last month you kept saying, “I’m not like him”. Did you mean your father?” He nodded and let out a short laugh. “For all the drugs I scored for that bastard over the years, I never got caught once - until last month. Poetic justice, don’t you think? And the stash wasn’t even mine; it was Chace’s. For the record, I don’t do drugs and never have. I hate them.” Romeo studied Juliet’s stunned expression. “Are you shocked by what I’ve told you?”

“I - I don’t know what to say…”

Juliet pulled her wrap tighter around her as a chil went down her spine. What he’d just told her had shocked her to the very core of her being.

She could picture Romeo as a small eight year old boy being forced to buy drugs for his father. How could anyone subject a child to that kind of dangerous environment and how had he come out of it as well as he had?

Romeo studied her intently as she remained standing before him. He’d never wanted to tell her any of this now, but it had just poured out of him and he hadn’t been able to stop. Was she disgusted by what he’d done? Did she think less of him? A sudden surge of panic raced through his system. “Juliet, listen to me…” his words rushed out, as his hands grasped her arms. “What I just told you, that’s in the past and it’s not who I am now. Tell me you understand.”

She nodded. “I understand. You were just a kid.”

“And what I did to you - about the amnesia - I’m sorry. It was wrong. At the time I thought you’d shot me on purpose and I was mad at you, and I wanted you to feel as hurt as I was feeling.”

“I never shot you on purpose, Romeo. It was an accident, I swear it.”

“I know that - now - but I didn’t back then. I was angry and I know that’s no excuse for what I did to you, but I’m saying to you right here, right now, that I’m sorry. And know that every time I held you and every time I kissed you, it was real and it was all me - Romeo Boyd, actor, fake car salesman, asshole, whatever you want to call me - it was all me, just me.” His desperate eyes frantically searched her face for signs of belief in him. “I love you, Juliet. You’ve got to believe that. You make my life sweeter just by being in it.” Juliet’s lips broke into a sudden smile. “Really?”

“Yes. I’m in love with you, never doubt that. Before I met you, I was one of the dead and the dying and I didn’t even know it. But you - you’ve brought me back to life and the living. I can feel and hope and dream again. And I can love, and I love you.” His words were spoken with power and truth.

Juliet felt his love envelop her like a warm, fluffy blanket on a crisp winter’s day. Her eyes crinkled at the corners as she smiled up at him and she slowly entwined her arms around his neck. “What about everything - you know - that I did to you?” A quick giggle escaped her lips. “Like when I pushed you into your TV and the black eyes and the drug bust and the superglue and the shooting and the fake wedding - and everything else?

Aren’t you mad about all that?”

A smile twitched across Romeo’s lips as relief washed over him. She believed him! She believed that he loved her for real and she also didn’t give a damn about his low-life past. He let his arms tenderly encircle her waist as he gazed down into her teasing eyes. “Well, hell yes - I’m still hopping mad about all that, but so what? I can be mad and still be hopelessly and wildly in love with you, can’t I? Besides…” Romeo paused in mid-sentence and his eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute. What do you mean ‘and everything else’?”

“Well - I…?”

“Juliet, what else did you do?”

Her eyes widened nervously. Should she really tell him everything? “I - umm - well … okay here goes.” She took in a deep breath of courage. “I knew you were jealous of Nick, so I made sure to stick it to you every chance I got by pretending to like him more than I did, and then I tipped off the paparazzi about the wedding so they would send the helicopters, which fanned the fire even more which you and Nick caused when you were fighting over me.” She took in another breath before gushing out, “I’m sorry about your house. Are you mad?” Romeo blinked in amazement, not quite believing what he’d just heard. “What?” he exploded, as he let go of her and ran both hands over his head in frustration. “I - what - you - my house…?” He was at a complete loss for words. He turned to gawk at the charred remains of his beach house before incredulously turning back to her. “My house…?”

Juliet cut him off as she suddenly launched herself into his arms again and captured his lips with her own, passionately kissing the words right out of him. Her arms snaked themselves around his neck again, cradling his head with her hands and she let her yielding lips do the apologizing.

It took him one second to realize what was happening before he began to return the kiss, seizing her soft lips with his and deepening the contact. Both of his arms tightened around her and he pulled her hips against him, moaning with the sheer pleasure of it.

Several minutes later, Romeo felt her gentle the kiss and she pulled her swol en lips a fraction off of his. Her Madonna eyes gazed into his fevered ones. “I love you, Romeo Boyd - all of you.” Her lips twitched with humor. “Are you still mad about the house?”

“What house?” he teased, as he lowered his desperate lips back down to hers, tasting their sweetness again.

Juliet enjoyed his slow, soft kiss for a full minute before she gently pulled out of his arms. “Wait right here,” she announced, before turning on her heel and racing back up to her own beach house.

Not sure what was going on, Romeo watched her disappear inside and patiently waited a couple of minutes before his resolve broke and he started to go after her. But she quickly re-emerged and he stopped in his tracks, waiting in the sand for her. She raced back to him and when she approached him out of breath, he noticed that her eyes were glistening with a newfound happiness as she raised her left hand to him. He saw that she was now wearing her wedding ring.

“Okay, Romeo, let’s give this a shot,” Juliet gushed excitedly. “No matter how it happened, we’re married, and I know I love you and I know you love me. I wanna make this work. What do you say?”

Romeo’s mouth broke into a wide grin. “I say - hot damn, woman, what took you so long?” Her eyes twinkled with mischief. “Well, I didn’t want you to think I was easy,” she giggled, as she breached the distance between them and wrapped her arms around him again.