Juliet Immortal

Ever.”
    “I’m sorry.” The falseness of the apology makes me want to punch him in the gut. “Did that hurt your feelings?”
    “Not at all. I preferred it.”
    He grins, seeming to take the insult as some form of flirtation. “Cool. We don’t have to talk. I just wanted to let you know that I’m
available
to you.”
    “Available to me,” I repeat.
    “I’m here to help meet your needs and achieve your goals,” he says. “Ben and Dylan are cool with sharing. And hey, I’m cool with that too.”
    I shake my head, so repulsed I can’t think of how to respond.
    “My parents aren’t home tonight. You could come over to my place after rehearsal and we—”
    “Not if you were the last warm-blooded thing on the face of the earth.”
    Jason’s laughter follows me down the street as I take off toward school. I grit my teeth, refusing to blink as the rain flicks at my eyes, refusing to look back over my shoulder or think any more about what Jason said. He’s a creep and a liar. There’s no way Ben would ever say anything to confirm a story like that. No way in hell. I don’t doubt Ben for second. I trust that he’s a good person with everything in me.
    Just like you trusted that Romeo Montague would cherish you as his beloved bride
.
    I break into a run, sprinting for campus.
    No. It isn’t the same. I’ve only known Ben a few days, but he’s already proved himself ten times the person Romeo ever was. Romeo never worried about other people’s safety or wellbeing; he didn’t talk lovingly of his family, or know what it was like to live through pain and loss. Romeo never saw the strength in me, never looked close enough to realize I was more than a pretty young girl, that I was a person with hopes and dreams and thoughts in my head. And Romeo might have praised my loveliness with lyrical poetry, but he never made me feel as beautiful as Ben did when he said four simple words.
    You matter to me
.
    I rock to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk, the rain soaking me through, shaking as the inescapable truth rises up to meet me. I’m in love. With Ben. Another boy I can never have. Truly
never
, not even if I’m wicked and selfish enough to try to take him. This isn’t my body, this isn’t my life, and soon I’ll be gone.
    Loving him would be the worst thing I’ve ever done. Stupid, pointless, inexcus—
    My cell phone trills in my backpack, a single upward scale I can barely hear over the rain. I jerk into motion, hurrying the last dozen feet to the school parking lot and ducking under the bus-stop awning at the southern edge. But when I pull the phone from my bag, it isn’t ringing. Instead, the screen glows blue with a message. It’s from Romeo. So much for my twenty-four hours …
    But then I read what he’s written. And shiver.
    Meet me backstage in fifteen minutes. If you see me before then, we are enemies, as always. Circumstances have changed. You are being watched
.
    We are not alone. The one who made me is here
.

FIFTEEN
    T he second bell rings as I reach campus and the last of the students still plodding in from the parking lot quicken their steps down the path. I join them—just until I’ve passed Mr. Stark, who’s on morning duty—then cut to the right, slinking around the school office building, hunched over so the top of my head won’t be seen in the principal’s window. The ground is spongy and slick. It oozes beneath my feet, making sucking sounds each time it’s forced to release my boot.
    By the time I creep around Building A and make my way to the back entrance of the theater, my sweater is sodden and my boots are covered in mud. I shake the damp off as best I can and reach for the door. It opens with a barely audiblegroan. Inside, the theater is dark, except for the ghost light perched on the stage on the other side of the curtains. It penetrates the deep red velvet, casting the backstage in a hellish glow.
    The heavy door clunks shut behind me, sealing me inside with the eerie light and the peculiarly still air of places that are usually filled with noise. Apprehension lifts the hairs on the back of my neck.
    Squeezing the soggy strap of my backpack, I pad toward the dressing room, boots nearly silent on the paint-spattered floor. This afternoon Ben and I are supposed to paint over the mess we’ve made working on the flats, cover the floor with a fresh coat of black before the dress rehearsal tonight.
    I wonder if he’ll show up, or if he’ll decide he’d