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Juliet delicately placed a small empty vial on her nightstand, the (God willing) liberating potion trickling down her throat to pool in her stomach.
She settled into her bed of feathers, pulling the white linen sheets over her body, wishing desperately with every fiber of her being that it was her dearly beloved Romeo’s embrace that attempted to warm her.
Instead Juliet was forced to make do with particular contingencies that loomed tauntingly over her shivering frame.
Soon enough, as Friar Laurence had promised her, Juliet would be engulfed by the scabrous arms of darkness and lulled into a faux death, after which she would be placed alongside ancestors that had lost their lives some decades prior; what horrific sights of long departed mortals waited in stow for her once she awakened from this supposed deep sleep?
Despite her initial impulsivity while scheming with the friar and her desperate ache to escape the suffocating clutch of her stipulated fiancé, Juliet now continuously turned over each possible outcome frightfully in her swirling head.
The process posed several hazards: she could awaken too soon, she could awake too late, or perhaps her eyes would never again reopen to be greeted by soft, yellow sunshine filtering past her bed hangings.
A paralyzing thought.
And what would happen to her assuming the plan went accordingly—where would Romeo take her?
Feeling a precise sensation throb within her heart, Juliet grasped at her chest, withering further into her downy bed.
It was a physically painful reminder of the persisting mental torment she had endured over the course of the past few days between her cousin’s death, her husband’s exile, and her forced betrothal to a man for whom she felt no love.
She thought about her mother and father who merely hours earlier had threatened to destroy her life should she choose to not marry Count Paris.
Would her father regret his harsh words when he awoke to wails proclaiming her death?
Would her mother hold her body tenderly in her arms as she once did in Juliet’s infancy?
Would her parents finally exhibit affection towards one another as they grappled with shared grief, a demonstration Juliet had anguishly prayed for to a deaf God in her girlhood?
She thought of the fair Rosaline, a distant cousin she so greatly admired and wished to be like: would Rosaline spare Juliet a thought of solemn remembrance once she absconded?
She thought of her sweet nurse who had served her faithfully for years.
Would her nurse yearn endlessly for Juliet’s presence like Juliet would for hers, for the familiar comfort of having nurturing company within reach?
What would become of her nurse once Juliet escaped with Romeo?
She thought of her late cousin Tybalt who had nobly, if not recklessly, given his life to the cause that was the Capulet-Montague feud; likewise, she remembered hundreds of secret playful excursions taken around the Capulet property.
Was he ever aware just how much Juliet adored him and sought his attention?
Should she not awaken, would Tybalt’s warm spirit be there to guide her to heaven’s gate?
(She was afraid to see his mangled body.)
Finally, Juliet thought of her husband, the man for whom she was executing this perilous labor.
Although the couple met simply days prior, she knew she loved Romeo.
He consumed her waking thoughts—she coveted nothing more than to spend the rest of her life with him.
Her eyelids began to grow heavier as the friar’s man-made sleep overcame her and, with a shaky exhale, Juliet understood that she lived for love.