There are varying degrees of surprise on the kids’ faces. “You think them both dying is beautiful?” Bryan questions. “Nice.”
I laugh because boys are all the same, no matter the age. “Imagine, right now, you have someone you love. You’re in high school even though Romeo and Juliet were around fourteen and seventeen years old. Now, back then, they’d be living in a time when you’d be thinking about marriage and courting, so let’s age them up to what you are now. Bryan, do you have a girlfriend?” I know he does, as he’s sitting next to her.
His eyes move to Samantha and he smiles. “I do.”
“Okay, Samantha, can you imagine awakening from faking your own death to be with Bryan, your one true love, the man you would defy your family, society, hell, the world to have, only to see him lying beside you, having killed himself because the sheer idea of a world without you was too much for him to bear?”
Samantha stares at Bryan. “Would you do that for me?”
His eyes widen. “Umm . . .”
I take pity on them and step in. “Imagine, Samantha, because, trust me, you wouldn’t want him to do that.”
Her eyes go back to me. “Right.”
Okay, maybe she would. “My point is, Juliet, being young with an entire life before her, would rather follow him to heaven or hell than be walking on earth without Romeo. It’s beautifuland tragic and incredibly sad, but the depths of their love is what leaves generations reading, watching, and discussing this story.”
Lord knows I’ve dreamed of it myself. I idolized their love, the sheer strength of it. How two people were willing to give up everything they knew and their families just to have each other.
Even though they ended in tragedy, they loved in a way that was so deep.
“Okay, but the dude offed himself for a girl,” Bryan cuts in.
Jessie talks. “He loved her.”
“I love a lot of things. That doesn’t mean I would die for them. Sorry, babe,” Bryan says to Samantha.
She shrugs. “It’s fine. I wouldn’t for you either.”
This is going to take a bad turn, and I regret calling them out. “The point is, it still can elicit such deep and strong feelings as we talk about it. It’s why love stories are still written. Why we hope for a love that would make someone give up all they have for another.”
I turn to start writing on the smart board, and when I turn back around, half the class is on their phones.
“Guys, do I need to bring out the phone basket?” I ask.
A few students, at least, look chagrined, but the others are staring at me with a mix of horror and ... pity.
My stomach drops, and I can only imagine what the hell they’re staring at. “What is it?”
Samantha shakes her head. “Nothing, it’s stupid.”
I doubt that very much. I glance around the class. “Clearly it’s something if you’re all looking at me.”
Jessie gets out of her seat and hands me her phone.
When I see the headline, it feels as though I’ve been punched through the chest.
Sitting on my screen is the headline: “Dylan Leone and America’s Sweetheart Are ENGAGED!”
“Hit me, Max,” I say to the bartender as I sit at the corner of the bar. Max is my new best friend. I came in about an hour ago, and since it was literally just me and him, we spent that time chatting a little.
It’s been a day.
A really horrible day.
It didn’t start that way, but it sure as hell is ending that way. I still haven’t said any of it aloud, because I still can’t believe it.
He’s engaged before the ink is even dry.
