by Sienna Blake
By the grace of God, they loosened their grip. My heart squeezed tighter and tighter as I watched Julianna walk down the length of the cathedral, her steps hesitant, until she passed into the section in the back where my locked coffin, weighed down with sandbags, sat waiting for my funeral.
You will learn to forget me, I told her silently. But every day of my life I will think of you.
I would die a thousand times if it meant your life was saved.
Goodbye, my precious Jules.
Be brave.
Be…happy.
31
____________
Julianna
I sat in the one of the pews and stared up at the man on the cross. He died for me. Just like Roman had died to save me. The ultimate act of love.
Inside me was just…nothing. Empty space between the nothing.
I closed my eyes and pressed my fingers into my face. This is where I stayed. Long after Roman’s funeral ended. Long after everyone had left and the church had grown silent again.
I didn’t move even as I heard the patter of soft footsteps coming up the aisle. He or she stopped beside me.
“Miss?”
A boy. Young. I didn’t lift my head.
“This is for you, miss.”
I said nothing. I didn’t care enough to open my eyes.
“I’ll just leave it here.”
There was a rustle as something was placed beside me. The soft patter of his shoes, slower now, as he left.
I rubbed my eyes, blinking into the dim church. The sun had long since gone down. The candles had dwindled to their last inch. I should…go home.
What is home without Roman?
I glanced down. Beside me was a single red rose.
I started, spun around. But the boy who left this for me was long gone.
A single red rose.
Was this someone’s idea of a sick joke?
Roman was dead.
Anger swelled up, burning away the numbness that had wrapped around me until now. I grabbed the rose by the stem in my fist, ignoring the thorns that cut me open. “Fuck you!” I screamed and flung it. It smacked against the altar, petals flying off in a shower of red.
I was a cliff whose roots had been ripped away. It would not hold. I would not hold.
The earth opened up under my feet and I fell into the abyss, a bottomless pit I could not escape from.
Fuck you, God. Fuck you, heaven. You don’t deserve him. He was supposed to stay with me.
We were supposed to run away to Paris. To live out a long life of love and laughter and glorious heart-stopping sex and…babies. Oh God, our babies. My heart cried for the future we would never have, the home we would never get to make, the children we would never get to know.
I cried because he was stolen from me. He was stolen from this city that would never know him. They deserved to know him like I did. Roman turned on his family, singlehandedly ending the Tyrells’ reign of terror in this city.
My father repaid him by taking his life. My father was a murderer, no better than Giovanni Tyrell. Worse, because he hid behind a badge and a good name. My father—my father—had selfishly stolen Roman away from his world, this city, from me. My own father. The man who gave me life thought he had the right to take it away.
In my darkness, the storm raged around me. I shivered, naked, in the center of it. Anger and grief choked me, crushing my lungs. My insides ripped apart, as if my very soul was trying to tear itself from my body, to follow Roman into the afterlife. It hurt so much I doubled over, heaving in breath.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t breathe.
“Julianna, my child.” A soft hand slid on my shoulder. Through my universe of pain, I heard Father Laurence’s voice. I reached for it like he was my lifeline. Father Laurence would help me.
I inhaled, loud and hoarse like a drowning woman. I had managed to find a sliver of air. A sliver of hope. I exposed my face to the Father, in all its broken rawness. “Please,” I begged.
He had to help me. He had to.
He gazed at me with such worry. “Please, what?”
“A gun.”
“What?” He drew back, a look of horror replacing his pity.
“They took mine from me.”
“Julianna—”
“Or a knife. I’m not fussy. A knife would hurt more and it would take longer to die than a bullet but…”
The Father made a wheezing sound and grasped at the pew in front of us. “You can’t be serious…”
I trained my eyes on him, my grief solidifying with purpose. “As serious as death.”
“Don’t be too hasty. You are young—”
“I am young,” I spat out, my words bitter. “Which means I have to spend every minute of every hour of every day for the next sixty or seventy years waiting. Waiting until I can join him.”
“You… You will get over him.”
That was what my father said. He lied. He’d had never gotten over the death of my mother, his love, his soulmate. Look at him now, an old lonely, hateful, bitter shell of the man he used to be.
I would not become him.
I could not live with what he’d become.
I’d rather die.
“You do not know true love if you think I can go on without Roman. I won’t live as a ghost. Let me die like I should. Let me join him.”
Father Laurence shook his head. “I can’t. I w—”
I grabbed the front of his shirt, my fingers twisting into his robes. “If you do not help me,” my voice was as hard as bullets, “I will find someone who will.”
He stared at me as I held his gaze, willing him to comprehend how determined I was.
Slowly, his shaking hands slid over mine, his eyes growing resigned. “Okay, Julianna. Okay.”
* * *
Late that night, I held the tiny vial in my hand. The thick dark liquid inside looked black, but held up to the light, the edges revealed its true nature. Blood red, like wine.
The Father’s words came back to me as if he were standing right next to me.
“Drink the whole bottle on an empty stomach. All of it, don’t miss one drop. You’ll begin to get sleepy in a few minutes. You’ll sink into what feels like a sleep, then you should feel…nothing.”
I had prepared for my death in a steady, logical motion. I’d cancelled my electricity, my home phone and internet account. I donated the groceries left in my pantry and fridge to the local soup kitchen down the street. I wrote out a will, a suicide note, signed them both and left them on my dining room table.
I went over to Nora’s place and gave her one last hug. I threatened to give myself away when I squeezed her for too long. She just thought I was still upset about Roman. She didn’t realize my veiled attempt at goodbye.
Just one last goodbye to make. My stomach tumbled around as the phone rang. It didn’t matter how much I blamed him, he was still my father. He would hurt enough as punishment when he realized I was dead.
My heart fluttered with relief when my father’s phone went to voice mail. His gruff voice came on over the speaker, telling me to leave a message. The same voice that rumbled “I love you” against my forehead when I was a child and he thought I was asleep. It would be the last time I would hear it. He might have killed Roman, but he was still my father and he would mourn me. I knew he would mourn me.
Beep.
“Dad? It’s me… I just wanted to tell you that I know what you did to Roman. I know you shot him. I wish…” my voice cracked, “I just wish you’d gotten to know him, the real Roman. He is…was…my air. Just like Mom was yours. I can’t live without him. I hope you understand. Goodbye, Dad.” I hung up before I broke down.
I lay myself in bed, dressed in a long nightgown. The vial watched me from the bedside table as I played the audio recording of my mother’s voice one last time, letting her voice infuse me with strength. When the recording ended, the silence was swollen.
I picked up the vial. My future felt weightless and so delicate in my hands. A river of fear ran up my arms. What if Father Laurence had been lying? What if it was painful? Or worse, what if it didn’t work?
I pushed down these thoughts. If I wanted to see Roman again, I would have the courage to drink every last drop. I focused on his face, clear in my mind. My chest filled with resolve. I unscrewed the top and dropped the tiny cork stopper. It bounced off my bed cover and rolled around on the floor somewhere.
I remembered Roman’s last words to me. “My life began with you. It will end with you.”
I lifted the vial up in a toast. “To endings, that are really just beginnings.”
I knocked back the vial and the cool liquid hit the back of my throat. It tasted like bitter almonds and grass. I forced myself to swallow it all down.
I dropped the empty vial. I lay back on the covers, staring at my ceiling, waiting.
First, my toes and my fingers began to tingle. Then a tightness, like a frost, closed around on me. My heart thudded as a shot of fear went through me. What had I done? It wasn’t too late. I could run to the bathroom and make myself throw it all up.
“Be brave,” I heard Roman whisper.
The frost swept over my vision, making all my edges blurry. I embraced it. I began to float. It wasn’t long before the blackness took me.
32
____________
Roman
I got into my small pickup truck and wiped the back of my hand against the sweat beading across my forehead. It was only nine a.m. but the sun was as raw and exposed as the land here around this desert town. As empty and vacant as my heartscape. The steering wheel of the truck was almost too hot to handle. I ignored the burn and accelerated down the dusty road away from my one-bedroom shack, windows open to try to cool the inside of the cab.
My name was Remy Montague now. I hated the name. I hadn’t shaved since I left Verona, my three-day stubble already transforming my features, making them darker. The sun was already turning my olive skin a deeper shade. The desert dust was in the weave of all my clothes, in the creases of my elbows and stuck in the eyelets of my boots. No amount of cleaning would ever get them out. The desert was already consuming me. Soon I would be nothing but a part of it. This relocation wasn’t a new life, it was an exile. This desert town was only a two-and-a-half-hour flight and four-hour drive south of Verona, but it may as well have been another planet.
Even as part of me raged against my purgatory here, another part of me knew I deserved it. I may not have gotten life in prison for my crimes, but this was another type of prison. The wide-open spaces, the sky touching the edge of the dry, dusty landscape, rocky crops where only the most daring and brave of the desert flowers could grow. They were my bars. This scorching, glaring sky became the walls of my prison. The rattlesnakes, my wardens.
There was not a second since I’d left Verona that I didn’t think of Julianna. I prayed that she would not hurt for too long. Maybe it was better that she thought I was dead. It was a cleaner break. It gave her some closure. She could move on. Closure that I would never get.
I drove into town every day to get internet reception so I could check my phone for news on Verona. I couldn’t help it. I sat in the same seat on the porch of the only café in town and ordered a coffee, black. Some things didn’t change.
I connected to their Wi-Fi, which was spotty at best, and waited. My coffee had cooled to the point where I could sip it by the time the browser loaded. It pained me every time to read about a city I was no longer a part of. But I greedily drank up every headline—a new development proposed, the local elections coming up, a local school attempting the world record for most consecutive turns of a skipping rope—because these things were happening around the woman I loved.
Today was different.
Today’s headline was blackened, poisoned words shaped like knives that cut me so that all heat drained from my limbs in a rush.
Chief’s Daughter Commits Suicide.
There was some mistake. There had to be some mistake. Some other chief. Some other daughter.
I clicked through to the article, my finger shaking as it tapped the screen. I glared at the white screen as the Wi-Fi struggled to keep up.
Come on, load, damn you. I only realized I had slammed my fist on the table when it rattled my coffee cup. A few patrons turned their heads to stare at me. I was the grouchy stranger among them who refused to make any friends, and they already didn’t like me for that reason.
I didn’t give a shit what they thought. Just that this goddamn page would load and the mistake would be cleared up…
The page presented me with cold, ordered font in neat lines.
Detective Julianna Capulet, the daughter of Chief of Police Montgomery Capulet, was found dead in her apartment yesterday by her father. It appeared that she had ingested poison and her heart had stopped. There were no signs of forced entry and she left a note in her handwriting. The police have ruled it a suicide. A memorial will be held for her tomorrow at Waverley Cathedral.
Julianna.
Dead.
Suicide.
Everything in my body seized.
My blood turned to swollen hot lava in my veins. This was Chief Capulet’s fault. He should have told her I was still alive. I let out a roar that echoed across the desert plains.
I was alive, Jules.
I was alive.
The unfairness, the sweet life she just threw away, burned in my body. For what? A lie that her father perpetuated.
I was half-blind with rage as I stood, knocking my chair back. I threw money down—too much money—for my half-drunk coffee. I tumbled into my truck and turned it immediately towards the nearest city with an airport, letting my blood roar along with the engine.
I didn’t care that I would be imprisoned for life if I were caught. Tonight, I would return to Verona.
* * *
I wore a cap pulled down low over my eyes as I pulled up in a cab to the back entrance of the Waverley Cathedral grounds, the morning dusk creeping across the slated roofs of Verona. I caught a glimpse of myself in the side mirror as I got out. My four-day beard darkened my face. Sorrow made my eyes weary. I doubted even Nonna would recognize me now.
The cab crawled away across the crackly gravel. I slipped into the rusted gate that led to the graveyard. I trudged past the rows of bone-like headstones as I made my way to the back of the cathedral building. It wasn’t long until I found myself standing at the very place that I first saw her standing by her mother’s grave. The plot beside it had been dug up, a fresh headstone stood beside her mother’s.
Rest in Peace
Beloved daughter and friend.
She left us much too soon.
Julianna Abigail Capulet
My vision blurred, her name disappearing behind my grief.
I could not believe she was dead. I would have known. I would have felt it, her soul ripping from where it joined with mine when she flew away from this Earth. Was it a trick to weasel me out? To get me back to Verona by the Veronesis who wanted to finish off the last of the Tyrell line?
I knew deep down, these were just the desperate thoughts of a man close to madness. I was balanced on a knife’s edge.
Her memorial was not scheduled until later this afternoon. Just as my empty coffin had been, only a few days ago, her coffin would now be in the room at the back of the cathedral.
The cathedral appeared empty as I slipped into the back door, keeping an eye out for anyone who might be around. I walked the same path that Julianna had walked towards the back room. My steps slowed as I neared the door, everything in my body screaming at me to turn back.
I had to keep going. I needed to see her body with my own eyes, even as my heart banged against my ribs. Until I saw her, she was alive somewhere in my mind.
I placed my hand on the smooth wooden door, be brave, and pushed my way in.
The coffin sat whe
re mine had, upon a stone table. Unlike mine had been, the lid was open. My vision narrowed so that it was all I saw. They had sent my mother away dressed in mahogany too.
Oh, God, I can’t do this.
Yes, you can, Roman. You have to make sure it’s her.
I forced myself to step closer, my throat closing up as I neared and the inside came into view. Nestled like a gift in wrapping paper was my Julianna.
She was still so beautiful. At least death hadn’t stolen that away. Not yet. Her eyes were closed. She looked just like she was sleeping, except her lips were pale and the veins showed through her thin eyelids. She wore a soft white sundress printed with sunflowers, the same dress I had first seen her in, her hands clasped across her stomach.
It was true.
She was dead.
Because of me.
“How dare you,” I slammed my fist down on the stone platform, reveling in the pain that flared up my arm, “your life was not yours to take. It was mine. It belonged to me.” I clutched at the edges of her coffin, my fingernails scratching against the wood. I wanted to crawl in there with her and never wake up. “You belonged to me.”
I couldn’t protect my mother.
I couldn’t protect Jules.
I had failed.
Everyone I loved was now gone. There was nothing for me left on this Earth.
Nothing.
My gut twisted with resolve and relief as I made up my mind. I would not go back to my purgatory. “I’ll be with you soon, my love,” I whispered.
One last touch. Just one. I reached out for her cheek.
“Roman?” a male voice spoke from behind me.
I spun. Father Laurence was standing at the door to the room, dressed in his white priestly robes, a purple sash falling on either side of his neck. I’d been so focused on Julianna I hadn’t heard him come in.
His face broke out into one of relief. “Thank God. I knew you’d come back. I tried to get a message to you, but no one at witness protection would talk to me.”