Belle entered through the school doors and looked down towards her hands, a warm smile appeared on her face as she slightly rubbed one of her fingers through the title of the envelope, reading it for the twentieth time that morning. Then, the buzzing from her phone began. She took a glance at her phone screen, they were her friends, spamming her phone with messages. She read two of them that said, “Have you seen him yet?”, “Is he here yet?’. Belle thought to herself, “Is he here yet?”. 

          Belle looked around, but she didn’t see him, although she did see his group of guy friends. Belle walked over to a corner in which she could see them, but they couldn’t see her. Belle said to herself, “I’ll wait right here”; and so, she did, but as she waited, her overthinking consumed her. Even though Belle was excited to finally see him again, deep down, a part of herself felt worried, worried that his absence that whole summer wasn’t because he was working and going to the gym, but maybe because his intention was never to stay in touch with Belle after that year, and instead just use her for her intelligence, so he wouldn’t have to worry about failing or getting any bad grades. Belle knew about the possible outcomes that she might have to face later on, but the positive outcome always won the debate in her mind because when she thought about their long deep stares, there was nothing that could tell her it was going to end bad. 

   As Belle waited and overthought, she heard, “Romeooo! How have you been man!?”. And in that precise moment, Belle’s heart started to race, as if it were in a marathon, her stomach was suddenly swamped with hundreds of monarch butterflies, her hands mimicked the shakes of an earthquake, and everything around her, including the earth had stopped, except for one thing, the beatings of her heart, which rapidly knocked on her chest. Belle was excited to see him, yes, but she had forgotten what it felt like to be in the same place with the person you’re so immensely in love with.

  Belle gave herself a talk, she said to herself, “It’s okay, everything will be okay once I see him.”. Belle breathed in, looked up, and there he was. She then slowly breathed out and said to herself, “My sweet Romeo”. She stood for a minute admiring his features, and looked as if she were caught in a trance. She then realized, closed her eyes and said to herself, “God… he took my breath away again.”, she then silently laughed and thought, “Oh I’m a sucker for him.”. Belle opened her eyes and looked toward him, he seemed to be goodbye-Ing his friends in a hurry. Belle said out-silently to herself, “Already? Where is he going?”. 

    Belle starts to follow Romeo with such excitement and with the same big smile she had in the car for 30 minutes straight, on her way to school, earlier that morning. There were so many people in the hallway that Belle hadn’t noticed Romeo was on his phone texting. Belle thought, “Oh my god, he’s going to trip on someone, what is he doing?”.  Out of all the people in the hallways using their phone, she’d least expect Romeo to use his phone in the middle of a buffalo stampede.

    Belle started to walk more quickly through the people to catch up to Romeo, but then, suddenly, she felt a strong push that dropped her to the floor. It was a pretty blonde colored hair girl. She was so into her texting that she bumped into Belle and instead of apologizing to her, she stared at her down and said, “move!”. A short girl passed by and said to her, “Hey Chloe!” and she responded with, “Hey girl!”. Belle said to herself, “It’s always the pretty girls with the most arrogant personalities.”

      Belle quickly got up and ran through the hallways to find Romeo again; she then saw him, at least it looked like him from far away, “How could it not be, it has to be.”, Belle thought. Then he turned into another hallway, and so did his face, revealing that it was Romeo. Although Belle wasn’t surprised when she saw his face, she knew it was him. Belle showed a face of relief and said to herself, “He’s that one in a million stars that I’d be able to identify because he’s the only star that shines brighter than the rest in my eyes.”. 

 Belle stops on the hallway Romeo turned on, closes her eyes, breathes in and out and turns. Belle looks around for her star, which she cannot find, with frustration in her eyes she continues to search, and then… suddenly … their eyes met, and she no longer thought he shined brighter, because in that moment, it was Belle’s eyes who shined the brightest. Belle said in her head, “Why does this all feel like it’s meant to be, like a movie? Two people standing still in both ends of a hallway, staring at each other, with that long, “I feel something when I see you” stare. That stare that somehow made them look into each other’s soul, that somehow connected them, shared their feelings, that stare that craved and desired for longer stares, those same ones that spoke by themselves just by staring.” Belle had frozen just as Romeo did, but strangely after their interaction, Romeo walked away into another hallway. Belle seemed confused on why he didn’t go up to her and say hi, she even thought she could’ve been hallucinating and never actually saw Romeo. Belle’s eyebrows clenched, her eyes looked down, right and down, left, again and again, and then she said to herself, “No, no way, I saw him, it was him, that was Romeo!”.

       As the self-righteous person Belle is, she said, “I saw him and I am not hallucinating”, so she ran, she ran to meet the eyes of her Romeo again. Belle had finally reached to the other side of the crowded hallway in which Romeo was standing before her. Belle turned her head to find Romeo’s face. Not only did she find his face but many feelings and emotions flowing through her person in the moment, disappointment, heartache, and sadness.

       Belle was standing right behind a girl who was hugging Romeo, who happened to be the girl that pushed her earlier when she was following Romeo. “Right, it’s always the pretty girls”, Belle thought. Belle was in such shock that she didn’t know what to do or say. Belle’s body started to heat up and suddenly went deaf. Belle’s heart sank, she got flashbacks of the many times she had heard that phrase in movies and books, she realized how realistically your heart does sink.

      Although, Belle was not crying, and neither showed any expressions, everything she felt was in her heart and mind. Romeo opened his eyes once he was done hugging the girl and noticed Belle standing right aside from them. Their eyes met again, but this time, Belle’s eyes really did shine, hyperbolically? No. A teardrop fell down from one of Belle’s cheeks, then from the other side fell another one, then two, and then three. Romeo had shown a face of shock and then regret and sadness. Belle couldn’t stand seeing what was in front of her, so she looked down and tried to fix herself to stop crying, but it only made it worse. She looked up one last time to see Romeo while he stood still not knowing what to do. Belle covered her face and ran away from them. Romeo whispered “oh no” and ran after Belle. He tries to catch up to her but can’t seem to and yells “Belle!! Belle wait, please!!”. Belle keeps running and trips. Romeo stops running. As Belle lays on the floor, she looks up and an envelope falls onto her face, she picks it off her face and reads the envelope, which holds one of the many poems she wrote for Romeo.  Then Belle realizes that if one letter is on the floor, then all the other 29 letters are too.

  Belle sits up, sees all her letters on the floor and so does Romeo from a distance. Romeo starts to run again to get to where Belle is sitting bottom in the hallway. Meanwhile, everyone’s eyes are on the letters, except for Romeo’s, his were on Belle’s. Belle then throws the letter across the hallway and stands up quickly as she hears Romeo’s running footsteps, wipes her tears off and begins to run again, just as soon as Romeo gets there. As Belle runs away, her friends see her and run after her. Romeo stares down at the letters and seems confused. Romeo then notices that the cards from the front had written, “Romeo” and many cards from the back had titles. Romeo gets on one knee and grabs a letter, it had “Romeo” written on it like every other letter laying on the floor. Romeo then turned the letter to the other side and he read, “Today is the day I tell you”. After reading the title, Romeo then instantly, without hesitation opened the envelope, hoping that the words he’d read from the letter inside the envelope would confirm the mutual love they felt for each other. Romeo read the first sentence of the letter, “I think that I’ve fallen deeply in love with you.”.

      Romeo was no longer on one knee, but two, haunching onto and also looking down at the letter, feeling hopeless and about to burst in tears. Romeo’s throat felt as if it were a knot and suddenly felt a heavy pressure onto him from his back. Romeo’s face had seemed in shock for about two seconds, but then there was nothing other than rue in his eyes, and at one point, he also seemed mad at himself.

      After his moment of realization, Romeo got up from the floor, placed one of his hands onto the back of his neck, facing down at the floor. Afterwards, he looked up with sadness in his eyes as a teardrop traveled slowly down his cheek while also biting the right side of his bottom lip. Romeo then quickly removed his hand from his neck and said out loud,“Belle wait!”, and ran toward the direction Belle had run. Then, the bell rang, and Romeo stopped running. With frustration, Romeo placed both of his hands onto his head and his fingers slid through his hair, until they met and connected together and lingered on the back of his head still. He yelled out again, “Belle!” and there was no sign of her, so he continued to run in search of his Juliet.

         Then, Romeo saw her, in the end of a hallway, crying, while covering her mouth so her cries wouldn’t be heard. Romeo ran up to Belle and caught her by surprise as she turned her head; then, their eyes met, once again, and there was tension. Belle began talking almost instantly and started ranting, “I was a fool thinking some nerd like me could…”, then, there was an absence of words that were going to be said and a gap of silence. Romeo’s lips had intervened in the middle of Belle’s sentence. After kissing they looked at eachother with so much devotion. Belle smiled and cried a few more last tears, but in this case, happy tears, meanwhile both of Romeo’s hands held her from both sides of her head, trying to console her. Belle and Romeo’s head leaned over each other, touching, just as the tip of their noses were too. Belle looked into Romeo’s lips, which by the way slowly moved, he had lip synced something. Belle then looked up to Romeo in disbelief, wrapped one of her hands around Romeo’s neck and with the other, grabbed his right cheek and said, “I love you too.”