Chapter Text
Sierra was a 16-year-old girl who lived in Syracuse, New York. She was walking down the sidewalk when an antique shop caught her eye. She walked to the storefront and looked at the chalkboard sign by the doorway. It said the place was open and she had this nagging feeling that she should go in and look around, so she did.
Sierra looked over to the counter where you would go to check out and saw a box. A sticky note that was stuck on the box said "Photos 25 cents each," so she walked over and checked the photos out.
The first photo was of a couple who were sitting on the front porch of their house and it seemed like they had just bought the house. There was another one of a 30's bride, smiling brightly at the camera. Sierra saw the people there, but in those photos, she saw herself and her boyfriend, Jake.
Jake was a London native who was a foreign exchange student at her school in 9th grade and the two of them became fast friends. He had to go back to London and they kept in contact, eventually, they started long-distance dating and it's been hard but they've been able to visit each other during summer breaks.
Sierra called up Jake and started talking about how she saw the two of them in those photos instead and texted pictures of those photos to him. "I...I just know that, even if we were alive back then, in the 1940s, we still would've found each other. Even if we met in a crowded in 1944, and you were headed off to fight in the war, you still would've been mine, we would've been...what's the word?" Jake replied, "Timeless?" Sierra nodded her head, even though she was on the phone, "Yes!! That's the word!"
While she was still on the phone with Jake, another picture caught her eye and it made her smile. It was a picture of a teenage couple in the driveway, holding hands on the way to the dance. She picked it up and flipped it over and the date on the back said 1958. It reminded Sierra of when she first met Jake, in that dumb freshman PE class, electric blue eyes met stormy gray ones. At the time, it felt like time had stood still. She thought about it as she started looking around at the precious things that time forgot.
Thats when she saw an old book covered with piles of dust and cobwebs. She walked over and checked the cover of the book. The cover said "Romeo and Juliet". She opened the book and read the prologue of the story.
Two households, both alike in dignity
(In fair Verona, where we lay our scene),
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-marked love
And the continuance of their parent's rage,
Which, but their children's end, naught could remove,
Is now the two hours traffic of our stage;
The which, if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
While continuing to read the story, Sierra couldn't help but see herself as Juliet and Jake as Romeo. "So, Jake, I'm reading the copy of Romeo and Juliet and I feel like, if we were in their place, we still would've fallen in love like they did. I'd die for you in the same way."
"Awww that's so cute!!" Jake smiled from his side of the phone. Sierra continued on the phone, "Like if I first saw your face in the 1500s off in a foreign land and I was forced to marry another man. That would be so crazy to live through, right??" Jake thought about it for a second, "Yeah that'd be so weird to go through. Well, good thing your dad loves me." Sierra laughed and bought the book, deciding it was time to head back home
About 30 minutes later, Sierra was sitting in her bedroom as she started looking through her own photos. She saw one of her and Jake back at the beginning of freshman year when they were only 14. She closed her eyes and imagined the day she met him.
Sierra walked into the gym and looked around. There were a lot of people, too many people. She walked to the bleachers, sitting down while looking at her phone with her headphones on. Someone tapped her shoulder and she looked up at him. He had electric blue eyes and messy blackish-brownish hair. "Hey, uh, I'm new here. Would you wanna be friends?" The boy asked. Sierra took off her headphones and nodded, captivated by his accent and how kind he seemed.
Sierra opened her eyes and grabbed her songwriting book. She turned to the page, titled it Timeless, and started writing.
"Down the block there's an antique shop and something in my head said stop so I walked in..."