Dear Reader,

 

This isn’t a story about a girl who goes through life with a smile on her face and a determination to face whatever the world throws at her. In fact Juliet was the complete opposite, she was a girl who went through life with tired eyes and a permanent frown, so if you’re looking for a fairy tale story this isn’t it.  

 

Sincerely, The Writer

 

Well if you’re reading this I guess you want me to continue, Juliet’s story all started out with a plush elephant that was given to her by her mother, unfortunately this would be the only thing that she would ever get from her mother, because when Juliet was three months old her mother died in a car accident. Her grandmother, once Juliet was older, told her that her mother was driving home from work on night when a drunk driver crashed into her. Juliet didn’t really miss her mother, because like I said before she was only three months old when she died. This didn’t mean that Juliet didn’t feel a hollowness in her chest whenever Mother’s day came around each year. It was tough for her when she was little, seeing all the other girls in her class making cards for their mothers, but she had her grandmother and of course the plush elephant.

 

Throughout her life Juliet never got along with other girls, she never saw the point of putting on makeup or doing her hair in extravagant braids. This of course lead to Juliet becoming an outsider, when she reached middle school. She didn’t really mind, in fact she liked being alone. When all the other kids played outside at recess, she preferred to venture into the land of Harry Potter and Percy Jackson. Her grandmother would send her to camps during the summer hoping that she would connect with the world, but she gave up the summer before grade nine when she saw that it had no effect.

 

Even though she had her books, and her grandmother, and her elephant, Juliet was lonely. Although she tried to ignore it, this loneliness would seep into her thoughts late at night as she lay in bed staring at her ceiling. She would try so hard to ignore it that by morning her eyes would look tired and grey, her face would only look like the shadow of what it used to be, and so with her shoulders slumped and and her body tired she would start over the next day going through the same motions every day like a broken toy stuck on repeat. When night time came again, the same thoughts would invade her, they would taunt her  with their sugar coated promises and their sweetly bitter remarks.

“Why are you like this?”  “I guess there right when they say you’re a freak.”  “God just look at yourself no wonder he said no, no one in their right mind would ever love you”

I guess you could say that Juliet was one of those lost souls, she never really had a place in this world, she just wondered, never really going anywhere just stagnant in the ocean of people. With all of this in mind I guess it wouldn’t come to you as a surprise when I tell you that Juliet ended her life on a quiet night in the middle of winter. Her grandmother found her laying on her bed the next morning with an empty bottle of painkillers , her elephant in her arms, and a note on her bed side table. In it she wrote only one line “I couldn’t hold them back any longer.”

(This piece was inspired by the Lemony Snicket writers seminar we had in class so I turned it into a short story piece.)

 

Picture: https://www.pinterest.com/explore/eyes-drawing-tumblr/