Romeo

“Here Mrs Hayes,” I placed the aprons by the side of the kitchen, “Juliet asked me to give these to you.”

Mrs Hayes looked up at me and then at the aprons. “Oh,” she said, looking quite surprised, “thank you, dear. Where’s Juliet?”

“She said she needed to put something in her room,” I replied. “I think she’ll be down in a minute.”

Mrs Hayes smiled. “You know, you’re a very sweet boy,” she glanced over to my mum.

Mum laughed, “Well, usually he’s very quiet. Sometimes, I don’t even hear his voice for a week. He can be too shy at times.”

I didn’t answer my mum. Instead, I looked away and headed for the backyard. Both of our mothers laughed.

Just when I was about to pull the door open, I heard footsteps coming from the stairs. I ignored them and went out.

Juliet

I ran downstairs and gazed over to the kitchen. “There you are, Juliet,” my mum said to me.

I smiled, “Did I take too long?”

“Quite a bit. But that’s okay. Could you pass me the sausages?”

I gave her the tray of raw sausages and she placed a few more into the container.

“Do you think we can finish all of this?” I asked her.

Mrs Jones turned around holding the salad bowl. “Sure we can. If we, ladies, can’t finish them, I’m sure that the gentlemen would.”

I nodded. “True. Do you need me to help you with anything else, Mum?”

Mum glanced over to my direction, “Could you pass your father, Mr Jones and Romeo each an apron?”

“Um, sure thing.”

Holding onto the three aprons, I walked over to the glass door and pulled it opened. Sliding it back to where it was, I found Mr Jones and Dad talking about fishing as they were cooking the meat on the barbeque. Ice Pack Stealer, on the other hand, was just sitting there by the tables, doing almost nothing. Actually, I take that back. He was doing nothing.

“How was school, sweetie?” I heard my dad talking to me.

“It was alright, I guess,” I replied to him with a weak smile.

He chuckled, “It was alright?” He raised an eyebrow.

I nodded.

Mr Jones laughed, “Don’t worry, Juliet.” He paused, “us dads, always talk like this to our children.” He laughed and glanced over to Ice Pack Stealer. “Isn’t that right, Romeo?”

Ice Pack Stealer looked up and shrugged.

I smiled to myself, I didn’t think that my parents and Ice Pack Stealer’s parents were such good friends.

Gazing down at my hands, I suddenly remember about the aprons and gave one to Mr Jones.

“Thank you,” he said.

Then turning around to my dad, he asked me to tie the string for him. I did as I was told.

Finally, it was Ice Pack Stealer’s turn. “Here, put this on.” I stretched my arm out with the apron.

He reached for it and glanced way. Then putting it over his head and trying to tie the string, he stopped when he saw me still standing there.

“What are you looking at?”

I tried not to laugh, but I couldn’t help myself. “Um…” I replied. “How should I put this?” I slightly turned to my side and tried not to laugh.

He glanced down at his apron and sighed. Seeing it put on the wrong way, he quickly tried to fix it. I gave him a quick glimpsed and saw that he was still struggling to untie the string behind him.

“Need help?” I asked him.

“No,” he said, firmly. “I can do it myself.”

“Are you sure?”

He nodded.

I grinned, “Are you sure, sure?”

He didn’t answer.

“Are you absolutely sure?

He glared at me, knowing where I was quoting from.

“How about this?” I smirked at him. “Well, your mouth says that, but your actions are telling me that you do.” I paused and glanced up, “Does this sound familiar to you?”

“No,” he grinned back, “I don’t know where you’re getting this from.”

“Do you need me to remind you then?”

“You mean how I was on top—”

I crossed my arms, “Don’t you dare mention that to anyone.”

“What if I did?”

I narrowed my eyes “When you do, you’ll know the consequences later.”

He smirked and raised an eyebrow at me, “Really?”

I smirked back at him. Our eyes met, but they were blazing with fire. The only way to break this tension was if…

“Romeo! Juliet!” We heard our mums calling for us, “What are you guys doing?”

We stopped glaring at each other and looked over to where our mothers were. “Could you both come over here and help us set up the plates?”

“Sure thing!” We both said at the same time.

Trying to ignore his voice, I headed off first. He was still struggling with the apron, but I just let him be.

When I got closer to the house, I overheard Mum and Mrs Jones’ conversation. “They’re getting along so well, don’t you think?”

I thought to myself. Face palm.

Mum nodded, “I have to say, it’s not easy for people to speak simultaneously like that all the time.”

“Do you think…” Mrs Jones wondered as she smiled to herself. “Do you think they’ll be a couple?”

My eyes widened and my jaw dropped. No way. They’re not thinking that Ice Pack Stealer and I are going to be…

I lowered my head and wanted to punch his lights out. I shook my head and turned to where he was. He finally fixed his apron, but he just stood there with his eyes widened. From his reaction, it seemed that he, too, had heard it.

We exchanged glances and my hands were on my hips. It’s never going to happen, Ice Pack Stealer. Never. I thought to myself. Looking into his eyes, they were saying the same thing back to me.

I turned away and walked up to my mum. “Where are the plates?” I asked quietly, acting as though I didn’t hear anything.

“They should be over there on the kitchen bench,” she pointed.

I nodded and went into the house. Following behind me, Ice Pack Stealer also went into the kitchen. I picked up the plates and was about to make a turn when I saw Ice Pack Stealer looking around the kitchen for something.

Assuming that he was looking for the utensils, I stopped and turned to him. “The utensils should be in that drawer over there.” I pointed.

He looked at me and then replied, “Thanks.” Quickly, pulling the drawers out and taking the right number of utensils, he finally closed the drawer.

I paused, wondering why I was watching him do this. Ignoring my question, I headed for the backyard.

“Hey, Juliet,” he said, quietly. I stopped and turned on my heels.

He stared at me, trying to think up of something to say. “Do you happen to remember anything about your past?”

I raised an eyebrow. His question was kind of random now. “What kind of past?” I asked him, casually. “You know, you’re kind of not making any sense here.”

“Your childhood past,” he said, firmly.

My eyes widened. Wait a minute. How did he know that I can’t remember my childhood memories?

Questions began to pop into my mind. Is it possible that he knew something about my past? Or is it something that he wanted to ask out of the blue?

Then remembering the time when he mentioned about something like, “For some reason, you seem familiar.” I stopped my questions in my head and smiled at him.

“Of course, yes,” I lied. “Why do you ask?”

He just stared at me—the same way he did when he asked me about my ring. “It’s because I used to have a friend who looked like you,” he paused. “She even had the same name.”

My eyes widened again. Could it really be that he knew something in my past?

But the more questions I asked, the more I became confused. There was no point asking these questions to myself. Why? Because I couldn’t remember anything from my past and therefore, couldn’t answer them myself. But the reason why I lied to Ice Pack Stealer was that I didn’t feel like letting a mere person, like himself, know my about history.

This made me wonder why I had promised to talk about my childhood memories with Kat. Maybe it was because it felt like she understood me for many years, even though we only knew each other for a week.

I shook my thoughts away and looked back at Ice Pack Stealer. He was still staring at me, looking like a lie detector. I relaxed my shoulders and faced away from him.

“Maybe it’s just a coincidence that I look like your friend. Anyway, I’m going to set up the plates first.”

By the time the sun started to set, we were ready for the barbeque dinner. I switched on the lights and the backyard lit up instantly like a field of stars.

My parents invited Mr and Mrs Jones to settle down first. They joined the tables and then Ice Pack Stealer and I joined last. To my surprise, we were directly facing each other.

Mum heard me sigh and turned to my direction, “What’s wrong, Juliet?”

“Nothing.”

She blinked and let her thoughts fly away like white doves were released into the night sky. I put some salad onto my plate and noticed that Ice Pack Stealer was also trying to reach for the bowl of salad.

He watched me with his icy blue eyes. I wondered what happened to the sky blue eyes that I saw earlier.

I glared back at him with my eyes saying, What?

He didn’t say anything.

I ignored him and started to eat my dinner like everyone else.

I couldn’t believe I’m saying this, but our parents were talking about a fishing trip. They said they wanted to visit Grey Stones Forest for a fishing trip to relax with Mother Nature. Grey Stones Forest was quite far from our town, but it was the closest forest compared to the other forests. If I’m not wrong, it should be a three-hour drive to get there. I prayed that I had a good excuse not to go on that day.

But hearing his parents and my parents talking about this fishing trip, made me wonder why they get along so well, while, us, the children, are not even close to the definition of acquaintances. I glanced up a bit, seeing him cutting the meat and then placing the fork into his mouth. I quickly glanced down at my plate and stabbed the lettuce with my fork. I didn’t know how to say this, but just looking at him, ticked me off.

Chewing the food down my throat, in which I found it difficult to swallow. I stabbed my fork into my plate again. This time something else happened. Amazingly how it flew into the distance, the tomato sauce between the meat and the salad jumped into the air. My eyes widened as I noticed what was going to happen next. It landed on Ice Pack Stealer’s left cheek.

Our parents continued talking as though they didn’t hear anything. I glanced up and saw the look on Ice Pack Stealer’s face. He glared at me with blue fiery eyes.

I gulped and tried to show confidence through my eyes.

Then my eyes narrowed as Ice Pack Stealer and I were literally having a staring contest. Our parents, on the other hand, were having such an enjoyable time with their conversation that they didn’t even notice the tension between us. And because I didn’t want our parents’ happy conversation to be ruined, I relaxed my shoulders and reached for a napkin. Passing it to him, I looked away and mumbled, “Sorry.”

He stopped his staring contest and paused for a moment.

Even though my arm was stretched across the table, our parents didn’t happen to notice anything at all. Ice Pack Stealer reached for the napkin and thanked me. I withdrew my hand and watched him wiped off the sauce from his left cheek.

I suddenly remembered about Hero and wondered where he was. Looking around my backyard, I didn’t see a sign of him. Wondering if Hero was still in Ice Pack Stealer’s backyard, I changed the subject and asked him, “By the way, where’s Hero?”

Ice Pack Stealer finished wiping his cheek. He looked towards my direction with a neutral expression, “He’s at my cousin’s house.”

I blinked a few times, wondering why Hero was at his cousin’s place.

Then he continued, “My cousin wanted to play with Hero once every two weeks. So I dropped off Hero at his house this afternoon.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

And with that, he continued with his food.

I left the conversation like that and finished off my plate. In the end, my parents and I, greeted the Jones family good night and the barbeque dinner was done.

I closed my bedroom door and snuggled into my bed. I felt great being able to lay down on my back and smell my wonderful sun-baked blanket. I was about to turn off my lamp until I heard the melody of an unhappy violin.

I turned to the left and faced the closed curtains. It must be from Ice Pack Stealer.

Even though the violin he was playing was beautiful, I had to admit, it was quite late to be playing at this hour. Glancing over at my digital clock, it was literally past eleven o’clock. I closed my eyes shut and tried to let the music flow out of my ears.

But I could still hear his violin, I threw another pillow over my other ear and faced away from the curtains. However, it didn’t do any good. I started counting sheep and ignored the music from his room. But it was still the same. I tossed and turned and then finally I sat up and stared at the windows. Doesn’t he know that he’ll get complaints from his neighbours at this time?

Slipping out of bed and then turning the lights on, I walked over to the curtains and pulled them aside. I opened my windows and wanted to chuck something—literally anything that I could find—over to his room. I grabbed one of my math textbooks and held it high, aiming at his opened window. Math was never my favourite subject, so I couldn’t care less.

Then something stopped me.

I found myself gazing at his window watching him play his violin. His eyes were closed and his earth-coloured hair covered parts of his face. But for some reason, his gesture reminded me of something—or rather someone. I tried to remember where I had seen this posture before. Then again, as I thought as hard as I could, nothing came to mind. That was when my head started to spin. My eyes felt heavy and my head had this tingling vibration somewhere beneath my skull.

I tried to ignore my headache as I yelled across the window, “Could you just keep your music to yourself?”

His window was wide opened so he could definitely hear me loud and clear. He suddenly stopped and lowered his violin. Ice Pack Stealer looked over to my direction; his curtains fluttering in and out like the sails of a ship.

I took a deep breath and tried to say something again. But this time, my voice didn’t come out. My arm automatically lowered and I dropped my math textbook. I could no longer stand anymore and my legs collapsed. My headache, this time, was worse than before. I glimpsed up and saw him moving closer to his window.

“Hey, Juliet! What’s wrong with you?”

That was the last thing I heard before I was locked away into my unconsciousness.