Page 5 of The Hundred Loves of Juliet
And lost her, every time—in one way or another.
Helene doesn’t know she’s the Juliet I’ve loved my entire, accursed life, though. Juliet, whom I miss when she isn’t here, whom I long for during the in-between years after she’s died but before her reincarnation finds her way back to me.
“But you weren’t supposed to find methistime,” I mumble as I bang a fist into my truck’s steering wheel. For more than ten years, I’ve been hiding. Because I actually saw Helene once before, when she was a student at Pomona College. I’d been considering going back to grad school and was touring the nearby campus whenI heard the music of her laughter across a grassy square and tasted the telltale honeyed wine on my tongue.
I observed her from a distance. She was beautiful in an amber-colored sundress, lounging on a picnic blanket with a group of friends. A young man had his arm around her as he recounted a story, his charm evident in the way he held everyone in rapt attention, Helene most of all. She watched him with a glow in her eyes, as if he were a prince who’d slain a dragon and come back to tell his kingdom the tale.
At that moment, she looked up, and our eyes met briefly across the lawn. But then I tore myself away and fled. Helene—my Juliet—was happy, and I didn’t want to take that from her. If I left her alone, perhaps my curse would leave her alone, too.
I had walked away from the last version of Juliet in order to let her live, and she did. From that experience, I learned that the curse doesn’t trigger simply because our paths cross. Something more is needed. Perhaps Juliet and I have to actually fall in love.
Which is how I was able to force myself to leave that grassy lawn at Pomona College, to walk away from Helene, even though it had, by that point, been more than seven decades since I’d held Juliet’s hand in mine, felt her hair brush against my cheek, fallen asleep with my love beside me. I missed her as much as the stars would miss the sky if they ever fell to earth. But still, I left.
Because I knew with certainty what would happen if I stayed, if I became part of Helene’s life. The story was always the same:
Romeo and Juliet fall in love.
They believe they finally found happiness.
And for a small fragment of time, they get to be heedless, euphoric, pure.
But then Juliet dies, and Romeo mourns, eaten away by grief and guilt.
I feel it now, like acid, nipping at my soul. I don’t understand how the cycle repeats, again and again. Every Montague I am, no matter what name I bear. Every version of Juliet, who never remembers me, never remembersus.
All I know is I didn’t die that first time, like Shakespeare claimed.
I never die, but Juliet always does.
And it’s entirely my fault.
I hoped, however, that I could evade the curse again this time. Alaska was supposed to be a safe place for me to hide. The harsh landscape favors hermits and outcasts, and the ratio of men to women tilts more heavily male than most places. I buried myself in work, built a house in a frozen forest far away from the already remote town, blockaded myself from the rest of the world.
So what is Helene doing here, in Alaska, of all places? I tried to stay away from her. And how does she know me?
Does she…remember?
She never has before.
Now I’m breathless again—not in a good way—just thinking about her standing at my table tonight. It takes all of my strength not to leave this self-imposed prison in my truck, not to run back into The Frosty Otter and scoop Helene up in my arms and tell her,You’re right. Youdoknow me, and our souls are intertwined, our story retold over and over for centuries. Romeo and Juliet. Cupid and Psyche.
Me and you.
But I remain in the truck, crumpled against the steering wheel, because everything about this is wrong. Juliet and I only ever meet on the tenth of July, and it’s now January. She’s not supposed to know me, not even recognize me; every Juliet is a blank slate.
Unless the curse has changed. Perhaps I toyed too recklessly with fate when I walked away from Avery Drake, the version of Juliet before Helene, and now the curse is back with a vengeance in the form of a Juliet who thinks she remembers me. Punishment for my attempt to thwart fortune.
Yet I cannot succumb. I recall all too vividly each time I let Juliet love me, and how she suffered as a result of it. A spear impaled through flesh. Heat stroke and dehydration in the desert. A pyre of hungry flames leaving nothing but ash and bones. And more.
I won’t let her die again.
Which means keeping Helene away. I can chase her out of town before she settles in. Or if I have to, I’ll leave Alaska. No matterwhat it costs me, I’ll try once again to save her. Because Helene deserves to live a life in full, not one cut short because I bring our crossed stars into it.
And all I deserve, after everything I’ve put Juliet through, is to keep letting her live, even if it means an eternity without her.
Someone knocks on my truck window. I startle, hitting my head on the ceiling.
It’s Adam Merculief, co-owner of theAlacrityand my best friend. Of course he wouldn’t just let me leave The Frosty Otter so suddenly.
