Julieta

She liked to walk around and pretend she hadn’t been named after a fictional character. That it wasn’t inherent, this instinct to go a little overboard. Because not only has she been named after a fictional character, but a main girl in a play. One so common that the place where her name has been uttered the most was in her school’s drama club.

Her parents had been blessed with a mercurial child and hadn’t wasted the opportunity to name her after a girl who faked her death for love and subsequently actually off’d herself when she realized her whole scheme might’ve gone a bit too well. 

So now when they said things like “Oh, god, you’re so dramatic. You’re so intense.” 

She’d respond with something like, “Yes and…? You clearly didn’t have a problem with it until you tried to watch a movie with me or I turned 20 and you realize I’ve never dated.”

Although, considering her namesake it was probably for the best if she never fell in love, right?

They must’ve thought she’d been born, heard her name, opened her eyes and said “Let the chaos unfold”. 

As a child she’d been a brawler. Although that wasn’t technically her fault. Not only could she attribute her temper to her name but also to her parents. The Gods must’ve been high the night of her creation, when they blended the tempers of a hyena (her mother) and a dragon (her father). They’d probably also thought it would be hilarious to pour it all into a 5 feet tall, brown skinned body with fluffy hair. 

In school, there’d been this guy. A friend actually. He thought it would be hilarious if he came up behind her and used her hands to grope some other guy in the middle of a hallway full of people. Everybody laughed.

She hadn’t.

She’d kicked him in the shin, made him release her. Elbowed him in the ribs and stopped at slapping him in the face–because they’d been friends.

And she’d never had very many friends. She still wondered why sometimes.

A few years later the anger took a backseat and the sadness took over. It had felt like a tsunami wave perpetually cresting over her head. Looked like it would never crash, until it did. She’d been waiting for it forever, but nobody else had seen it coming. 

It would make her reserved and suspicious, but also oblivious. Because, turns out that handsy hilarious guy she’d been friends with in high school? 

He had liked her for like 5 years. She’d never noticed. 

All things considered, maybe she wasn’t the only one who had trouble managing her feelings.

The tsunami wave hit, and it made her take a year off before college. It was probably for the best since she’d never figured out what she wanted. Life seemed like a pitch black, endless tunnel. 

Just like in any natural disaster, times when our world seems to be attacking itself, it makes others panic and flee. It leaves the victims stranded. When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. Disasters leaked money and pain and nobody ever wants to deal with them if they don’t have to. Lucky for her all those years of anger had made her somewhat of a general. And if there was anything she had left was self-discipline. She made herself walk and eventually crawl out of the worst of it. And when she finally did emerge people asked her questions as if she’d willingly put herself through it. 

Life made people into such interesting, intricate beings that it made her wonder who came first–the character or the person? Because if she’d been named after somebody’s fictional girl, had she been based on somebody who had existed? Had the character of the same name somehow influenced her through the ages?

Her name often felt like a joke. Such a dramatic, tragic story followed her everywhere. But it was the romance that people clung to. Where is he? Where is your Romeo? they’d say. Much to everyone’s disappointment there had never been one. Maybe there would never be. When she was younger she’d been so headstrong, that version of her would’ve never allowed or excused risking it all for somebody else. 

Older and wiser, the words made her laugh. If anything, as she’d counted more birthdays she felt like she knew less. She’d realized how quickly a good time could disappear and felt more reckless and detached from her choices. Whatever happened, happened. If it hurt, then she would deal with it. There was no point in worrying about things that weren’t happening now. So if someone ever came along and she fell in love with them as hard as that girl in that ancient play? Maybe she would do something terrible and insane as a result, too. Because really, if she only had this one chance to live, why not give it all a bit of flair?

She’d told her parents she was a writer. Their reaction had been nothing short of fabulous. Fabulously dismayed.

It probably meant she had some careless choices in her future and plenty more of her “drama” for other people to roll their eyes at, but if they weren’t willing to live without fear and wanted to experience life from the safety of  a cage, the least she could do was provide some kind of entertainment. For everybody’s sake–including hers. 

She imagined life got terribly boring without mistakes. She would give them a crazy character to live through vicariously. She’d been waiting too long for her freedom and her peace. Until now had she realized it could all start and end with the words on a page.