Farewell Juliette

"Come with me," she said, as she was walking backward through the crowd, somehow managing to avoid bumping into anyone. She pulled on my arm as I reluctantly followed. Once we were outside, she repeated the plea.

"Come with me. I've always wanted to do this, just walk away from everything and everyone and start over." I just kept staring at her, and the only thought going through my head was that she had never looked more beautiful than she did right now. I don't know if it was the street lamp's reflection in her eyes, or maybe just the fact that I knew this was the last time I would see her. Girls always look the most beautiful right before they walk out of my life. I should probably talk to someone about why that is, but in that moment, all I could do was stare.

She took my silence as encouragement to try harder. "Come on, it's not like you have anything to stay for. You work from home. All you need is a wifi connection. We could find the most boring place in America."

She had this notion that when an area was deemed boring, that's only because it was covered up in secrets and hidden excitement, and so anything mundane became something she fixated on. I had tried to talk her out of this, but the trouble was that she was right more often than not, and eventually I got tired of being proven wrong, and gave up trying. I think to some degree she actually convinced me. At any rate, my pulse had quickened just at the thought of running away.

She wasn't wrong. I had no ties to this town. I mean, I had a couple of friends, but they weren't close, and with social media, I could talk to them just as much as I did now from anywhere in the country. I was almost ready to jump in the car with her, but there was something holding me back. I wasn't sure what it was at the time, but now I know it was just my old friends fear and indecision. They've stuck with me longer than anyone else has, through good times and bad, no matter where I go. I couldn't just bail on them now.

So like I said before, that was the last time I saw Juliette. Like her namesake, we were just too different to ever really make it together, or maybe that's just what I told myself.