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Benvolio’s voice caught up with Romeo before she did.
"Mate, mate, mate, whenceforth d’you go?" She staggered to a stop beside him, panting with her hands on her knees, until she clearly realised he wasn’t going to stop walking, and broke into a fresh jog to keep up.
"Nowhere." It was five minutes past the second rejection of his short and eventful second life, and Romeo was not in any way ready to explain anything to anyone—even if he’d had a clue himself whenceforth he was going. Which he didn’t.
"You were with Juliet, right?"
When he didn’t answer, Benvolio danced around to block his path.
"You gotta go back there and get her, man!"
Since he had walked away from Juliet on the bench, big dark clouds had rolled in to block out the moon and stars, bringing with them fat cold raindrops that fell with an air of resigned disappointment. Romeo hadn’t bothered to get under cover, so now he was wet through, even his usually resilient hair having deflated and now sticking in sad curls to his forehead.
Paris was all glittery in the nighttime rain, and it would be quite pretty, he supposed, if you weren’t looking at it through a haze of heartbreak. "Why?"
"Why?" Benvolio’s face screwed up incredulously. "She’s your destiny, cuz!"
Romeo pushed past Benvolio, something that was surprisingly hard to do given her size. But she’d always been tougher than him. "No, she isn’t. Or I’m not hers, anyway. She says–" He made an embarrassingly emotional noise, then sniffed hard. "She says she can’t love me."
He made it a few more steps before coming to a halt. "Like, what does that even mean? I can’t stop loving her. I’ve got all this love inside me, and it just oozes out, like– like–" He groped for a metaphor. He used to be so good at those. "Like an ice cream in the sun! Shall I compare her to a summer’s day, and me a 99 flake at the seaside? She’s more lovely and more temperate and when she’s around I just melt, I can’t help it. But summer’s lease hath far too short a date, and it’s like she doesn’t even want my melty sweet vanilla love any more." Having run out of mileage on his metaphor, and also to hide the way his eyes had begun watering uncontrollably, Romeo started walking again.
Benvolio’s footsteps caught up with him. Her voice was dubious when she said, "Maybe she’s cutting down on sugar…?"
Romeo made a noise he had meant to be a scoff but came out as a whimper.
"Alright, alright, I’ve got an idea, but hear me out, right?" Benvolio spread her hands beside him, inviting him to listen.
"Alright, what?"
"What about—and bear with me, 'cause this might sound a bit mental at first—what about this: you kill her and then yourself?"
Romeo stopped walking. He looked at Benvolio, and no words came to his tongue.
"I know, I know," she went on, "I know what it sounds like, but just give it a chance, yeah? I heard this story in a pub back in Verona, about this Moorish bloke, right, and his wife cheated on him or something, so he smothered her then stabbed himself." A weird unhinged grin split her face. "It was bare tragic, bruv."
Romeo stared at her with his mouth open for a long moment. Then he said, very slowly, "What is the matter with you?"
The grin fell off her face as a shade of doubt entered her expression. "Listen, it’s just an idea."
"That’s not an idea." There was a thread of anger uncurling in his stomach. "That’s– that’s– What makes you think that’s something you should suggest to me?"
Now Benvolio had transitioned to full-on shifty. "Maybe I misread the situation."
"Misread–"
"You did, y’know, top yourself recently, that’s all."
"Have you gone weird in the head?"
"Just saying, it’d be mad poetic–"
"No!" Romeo whirled away. His heart was beating hard inside his chest, and he didn’t want to fight with Benvolio, he didn’t– "Look, just– just piss off, Benvolio. I don’t need that kind of advice."
Before Benvolio could reply, Romeo started walking, head down against the rain. No footsteps followed him this time, and when he got to the corner of the street and looked back, Benvolio was gone.
He kept walking.
Benvolio’s suggestion churned in his guts like bad wine. How Benvolio could even think that he might– He didn’t want to think about it.
When he’d woken up in Verona and kicked off the lid of his coffin, scattering white petals everywhere, he’d had the horrible thought that Juliet had stabbed herself with his dagger. Like he’d wake up to find himself sticky with her heart’s blood. Him, awake, and her, long gone.
But she hadn’t. It had just been a bad dream. And it hadn’t even occurred to him until later to be hurt by it.
He wasn’t a murderer.
Okay, actually, he technically was a murderer. He had, actually, murdered two people. There had been extenuating circumstances, and he really didn’t like thinking about it much, to be honest, because it made his chest get all tight and his vision go spinny and he’d have to sit down and put his head between his knees until he felt better.
But, regardless of all that, he would never ever hurt Juliet. He’d cut off his own hands first.
He had felt hurt, when everything caught up to him. He hadn’t wanted Juliet dead but it was the abstract principle. Like, hadn’t their love been so big and bright that without it the world was empty and dark? Hadn’t she felt the same thing he’d felt, when he found her in the Capulet crypt, really truly dead just like Balthasar said, when he’d known there was only one thing he could do?
But she hadn’t been dead, really truly, and he–
I can’t love you, Romeo.
He couldn’t get her voice out of his head. He’d said he’d leave her to her new lover and be happy for her, and okay maybe she didn’t say exactly the words he’d asked her to say, but it was what she wanted—him to leave her alone—wasn’t it?
I can’t love you.
What did that mean?
He was lost. Both emotionally and also literally. Paris was awful. Cold, wet, way too many streets and everybody acted like they didn’t even speak Italian.
Taking a few turnings at random, at last Romeo found a grand old bridge over a big river.
He crossed to the middle and stopped to crane over the side. It hadn’t seemed it from the street, but it was a long way down to the black water below.
Romeo hopped up to sit on the parapet, swinging his legs over so his feet dangled over the river. The wet began to seep through his trousers and he regretted his decision almost immediately, but it was too late now.
He’d been hyper-aware of the dagger on his belt since Benvolio had lost her mind and suggested murder-suicide as a solution to his problems. Now he drew it, and held it in his hand.
I can’t love you I can’t love you I can’t love you I can’t love you I can’t–
A big, hiccuping sob escaped him and he sunk his head into his hands, only narrowly avoiding jabbing himself in the eye with the blade.
He’d been so happy. After he’d woken up, after he’d escaped from his coffin, joy had struck him like a spotlight. He was back! And Juliet was alive too! It was a second chance for both of them and it was super dope. It was time to chase her all the way to Paris and get their star-crossed love back on track! The future glittered like a disco ball, dazzling bright and almost within reach.
He pulled the dagger away from his face and turned it over in his hand. It was long and clean the edge of it glinted where it caught the light from the streetlights.
It would go between his ribs easy. It would find his heart with its point like a compass needle.
When he’d unstoppered the tiny bottle of poison in the Capulet crypt and thrown it back like a shot, his hand had known exactly what to do. There was no choice in it; it was like his whole life had been a dance and he’d hit every beat perfectly, and these were the final steps. Juliet was dead. It was the end. Some people would come and say some words about them once they were both gone, and it would be totally tragic, and that was it.
Now–
Now his hand didn’t know what to do with the dagger.
Romeo scuffed his other hand across his eyes. Juliet had once told him he’d never be alone, but here he was, on a stupid bridge in stupid Paris, all by himself with a knife he didn’t know what to do with. (Philosophically. Operationally he knew how to use a knife. Obviously.)
He wished he had Friar Lawrence with him now. Or Benvolio, not the weird dickhead version but the sensible one. Or best of all Juliet.
But he didn’t. He didn’t have anyone.
He didn’t have much experience being on his own. His whole life had been a headlong tumble of friends and family and enemies and sweethearts. The huge loneliness of Paris was a new and unpleasant experience.
So he was going to have to improvise.
"Okay, Romeo," Romeo said, with an immediate rush of watery relief that he really was alone because his voice was all wibbly. "What are you going to do?"
A big sniffle. "I don’t know," he replied to himself. "I– I was thinking it might maybe make it better if I took this dagger–" He lifted it, "–and killed myself again."
Well, there it was. It was the obvious course of action. So—what would Juliet say next? "Okay, but–" He took one of those big shuddering breaths you find yourself doing when you’ve been crying a lot. "But why though?"
"Because– because–" He hesitated, trying to think it out. So it was obvious. But why, actually, did he think that? "Because that’s what you do when everything goes wrong and you’ve got no hope. You drink poison or you stab yourself or get yourself bitten by a snake or throw yourself into a river, and then, when everybody hears about it, they go, 'wow, that’s super tragic'." He thought a bit more. "And because I’m really really sad and I think maybe I might stay dead this time and if I did it’d mean I don’t have to be sad anymore."
Something occurred to him. "If I stabbed myself right here, I’d probably fall in the river anyway. So that would be, like, double tragic."
He looked down past his feet at the water. "It would ruin Juliet’s wedding day, though, wouldn’t it?" He blinked hard, and his dangling feet became all blurry with tears again. "Even if she doesn’t love you—I mean, me—she’d be upset. And I said I’d leave her alone and be happy for her, and if– if I can’t be happy, at least I could try not to make her sad."
He dragged his nose across his sleeve. "Maybe they wouldn’t find me right away though. Maybe it’d be, like, a week of fish eating my toes before they found out I was dead."
Was that better? He wasn’t sure it was.
This was hard. On top of everything else, he was getting a headache.
Because his arse was wet and cold and his feet didn’t want to keep still any longer, Romeo climbed up to stand atop the parapet. The dagger was still in his hand. He spun it between his fingers, blade flashing in the dark.
He began again. "So why didn’t Juliet kill herself when she woke up back in Verona and thought I was dead?"
He took a few steps along the the parapet. "Maybe… she never loved me?" His voice cracked again on the word loved.
"No." He turned. "No, she did love me. I know it. I felt it. I might not know a lot, but I know what it feels like to be loved." A few more steps back the way he came. "So… so maybe she wasn’t brave enough to stab herself."
That was clearly not true. "No, no way. Juliet’s the bravest person I ever met." He stopped pacing. "So…" His head hurt more than ever, but it felt like he was on the brink of an important thought. "So maybe… maybe she didn’t want to die."
He lifted his head. The steady-falling rain pattered on his face, mixing with his tears. This thought led to another question. It was a question he hadn’t thought of before. "Romeo," he asked himself, "do you want to die?"
Did he? He was really, really sad. And if he was dead he wouldn’t have to feel that way. Of course, it also meant he wouldn’t feel anything else, ever again.
It hadn’t been… nice, the first time around.
He hadn’t been really truly dead either, of course. If he’d had the chance, he would have gone back to that apothecary and demanded a refund. But at the time, it had felt real. He’d been ready, he’d thought, ready for his big ending alongside the girl he loved more than life itself. And then he’d tossed back what he’d been sure was poison, and then–
He didn’t really remember much except for the dark closing in around him, and how the last feeling he could make out was something bitter and cold almost like regret, but that it was too late now–
When he’d opened his eyes in his coffin and taken that first gasping, lung-bursting breath, it was like being made new, and he’d been so overwhelmed with relief it had fizzed through his veins like a party drug.
"Maybe…" he said, experimentally, "maybe I don’t have to kill myself because I got broken up with."
He hadn’t ever considered this before. For as long as he could remember, there had always been something telling him he was either going to end happily or bloodily. There was no in-between, and no other options.
What if there was another option?
"Maybe I don’t want to die either."
His vision was still all blurry and his heart still felt like it had been run over by a carriage. This tentative revelation hadn’t fixed that. Realising that maybe he wanted to live hadn’t made him happy, and that was a bit of a shitter. But now he’d let the thought in, he couldn’t banish it again.
"Maybe I just need one more try. Maybe I want–" His chin wobbled, threatening fresh tears. He stiffened it. "Maybe I want to see Juliet again. Even if I don’t get to be with her any more. Maybe if she’s happy–" He had to stop and swallow hard before he could go on. "Maybe then I can be happy for her. A little bit. Maybe."
He lifted the dagger again. It was a very nice dagger. Old. Beautiful. Sharp. Altogether a lovely thing to kill yourself with.
He hefted it and flung it as far out as he could over the river, almost overbalancing but catching himself, hopping on one foot on the edge. The dagger soared in a glittering arc, turning over and over, curving down and finally disappearing into the black water with hardly any splash at all.
Having finally made his own decision all by himself, Romeo immediately burst into tears again.
In the next moment, a familiar voice almost startled him into the river with the dagger. "There he is! The famous Romeo Montague!"
Romeo screwed his fists into his eyes, making himself see stars, and jumped down onto the pavement.