Teen Ink

The Midnight Intruder

I awoke to a strange tapping sound. There would be one tap, a short pause and then another tap. It seemed to be coming from my window.
Reluctantly, I got out of bed and dragged my feet across the cold floor to the window. I looked to see if it was the thick oak tree’s branches tapping at the window, but the night was completely calm. Suddenly, a pebble hit the lower corner of my window. Puzzled, I opened it and looked down into the garden below.
“Anybody there?” I whispered out into the night.
“It’s Romeo, my love.” The voice came from the oak tree.
“What are you doing here? I called the cops on you before; I’ll do it again.” I reached to close the window, but Romeo scrambled to the end of the branch and held the window. “Let go or I’ll scream and wake up my dad. He’ll kill you; you’re Mr. Montague’s son.”
“If no longer being a Montague would make you love me, then I’ll give up my name.”
“Your name doesn’t matter to me, you’re a stalker whether you’re a Montague or not!”
“But sweet Juliet, it is written in the stars: Romeo and Juliet, a love for all time!”

“Ah, Romeo and Juliet are truly star-cross’d lovers.”
The stranger was lurking in the shrubs not five feet from the oak tree, writing everything down. Of course, he was taking a bit of creative license and only using the basic ideas from this event. Romeo visiting his love’s balcony after the party was the perfect demonstration of the fact he couldn’t get her off his mind.
“But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!” he murmured as he scribbled the words in his notebook. “The beauty of the moon is pale in comparison to the beauty of Juliet; I can hardly blame Romeo for falling for her charms. But why does the lady not return his love?”
He wanted to give the lovers some privacy, but he also knew this would be a great inspiration for a new play. The tragedy of Romeo and Juliet would speak to the heartsick and the love-struck. It would be a great romance, one that would stand the test of time and become famous throughout the world.

“Go away. If you leave and I never see you again; I won’t tell the cops about this.”
“But why would I never want to see my love again?” His dark eyes seemed to be pleading with me. “Will you be my girlfriend?”
“No! I’m in a happy relationship with Paris; I don’t want to be your girlfriend.”
I tried to slam the window shut but Romeo held tightly onto it. I went back into my room to find something to throw at him. I had an empty flower pot on the floor (my poor flowers had died long ago because I forgot to water them) so I grabbed that and walked back to the window.
“I see it in your eyes; you love me as well. We could get married and run away from this place.”
“I don’t love you and we’re not getting married, Romeo.”
The branch he sat on was a bit lower than my window, so I held the flower pot above his head and casually dropped it. The flower pot broke over his head and he swore.
“My love, why would you do such a thing?”
“Leave me alone, you creep.”
The flower pot landing on his head didn’t seem to affect him much, but it did make him let go of my window. I quickly shut it and locked it. Who knew what he would try to do? He was obviously mentally ill; you had to feel sorry for him. But the more he stalked me, the less sympathy I had for him. At this point, my sympathy was almost nonexistent.
I went back to bed and tried to fall asleep, but I had the strange feeling that someone was watching me. For a while I kept rolling over, trying to find a comfortable spot, but I just couldn’t get to sleep. The feeling that someone was watching me was so overwhelming that I turned on the light and looked around my room. I almost screamed when I saw Romeo’s face looking in through my window.
When Romeo saw that I knew he was there, he scrambled down the oak tree and ran off, jumping and barely clearing the garden wall. I kept looking out my window for quite some time, sure that I had seen something in the shrubs move. After staring at the shrubs for almost an hour, I gave up and went back to bed, exhausted.