The Love That Still Haunts Her

Juliet was thirteen the first time the world truly broke her.

Before that, she'd always known she was different — but it hadn’t been punished yet. She thought maybe, if she was just sweet enough, just smart enough, just kind enough, the world would leave her alone. It didn’t.

Middle school hit like a crowbar to the ribs. She walked through the hallways like a target. It didn’t matter what she wore or said or did — her very existence was offensive to the pack. The way she stood, the way she blinked, the way her voice trembled when she answered questions — all of it was enough to make her the punchline of someone else’s power trip.

She didn’t know she was neurodivergent. She just knew she was wrong.

Her eighth-grade life was a string of humiliations — pointed fingers, mocking laughter, cruel nicknames. Hannah Montana was the one that stuck. She thought dressing up for Halloween would be fun. She thought being unique would be celebrated. Instead, she became a circus act. The entire school turned her into a living meme before memes even had a name.

They followed her around like mockingbirds with cell phones for beaks, screeching “Hannah Montana!” at every turn. They asked for autographs on binders and lunch trays, snickering behind cupped hands. And she — trying to survive — played along for a while. Smiling through it. Pretending it didn’t cut like razors.

But it did. And eventually, she stopped smiling.

And that’s when they started calling her crazy.

Because that’s the trick of being bullied — if you laugh, they mock you for trying too hard. If you break, they say you were unstable all along. Either way, you lose.

Her lunch periods were the worst. She learned to sit alone, not because she liked solitude, but because it was safer than hoping someone would join her and watching them walk away. She became invisible. A ghost wandering the cafeteria with a paper bag and a lump in her throat.

And then… he sat down.

Daemon.

No grand gesture. No words. No explanation. Just his quiet presence beside her at that abandoned table like it was the most natural thing in the world.

And suddenly, she wasn’t invisible.

Daemon sat beside her like it meant nothing. But to Juliet? It meant everything. No one else had dared. No one else had wanted to.

She didn’t know why he chose her table. She didn’t ask. She didn’t have the courage to. But each day, he returned — hoodie sleeves pulled over his hands, dark hair falling across one eye, headphones tucked just beneath his collar. He didn’t say much. But he didn’t leave.

And that was all Juliet needed.

Sometimes, the girls he hung out with — tall, thin, rich, fashionable, breezy — would wander over, but it was always Daemon who stayed. He didn’t look at her like she was pitiful. He didn’t mock her costume choice that Halloween even though it followed her around, or the viral video of herself singing Nobody's Perfect on a private YouTube channel that spread everywhere, or ask why she sat alone. He just existed beside her. Like she was allowed to exist, too.

Juliet tried not to stare. But she was thirteen, autistic, and carrying a heart too big for her body. Of course she stared.

Daemon was beautiful — in that moody, post-Victorian poetry collection in a hoodie kind of way. He looked like someone who’d understand her favorite Smiths lyrics. He looked like her, somehow, like he belonged in her world instead of the world that had rejected her.

And little by little, she began to look forward to lunch.

Not the food — she barely ate. She still carried the shame of being a chubby girl in a body-obsessed hellhole of a school in the mid 2000's. She ate most of her feelings at home, after hours of starving herself just to avoid being watched. But when Daemon was there, she felt… still. Not judged. Not a sideshow.

Just a girl. Eating lunch. With someone who didn’t flinch.

One day, she caught herself smiling in first period before lunch had even happened. And it terrified her. Hope had become dangerous. Wanting things meant risking them being ripped away.

She told herself it wasn’t a crush. That it couldn’t be. Boys like him didn’t notice girls like her. He had to be taken. Probably dating that girl with the shimmery eyeshadow and Juicy tracksuit who sometimes flopped next to him like she owned his orbit. Juliet didn’t remember her name. But she remembered how small she felt around her. So she buried it.

She buried the flutter. The heat in her cheeks. The gentle ache of what if?

And she told herself: This isn’t love. This is just kindness. Don’t ruin it.

But love doesn’t ask for permission. And kindness, when you’ve gone your whole life without it, feels exactly like falling.

Most people didn’t realize Juliet was quiet by survival, not design. She wasn’t “shy.” She wasn’t “mysterious.” She was silenced. Conditioned to stay small. Taught, over and over, that her voice would only make things worse. So she lived in her head. At school, she barely spoke. Teachers called on her and she flinched. She got good at nodding, writing things down, keeping her mouth shut.

At home, it wasn’t much different. Her parents were always stressed, always managing something. When she tried to speak, she was met with “not now,” or “can we just have quiet for once?”

So she gave them quiet.

She gave the world everything it wanted — silence.

But with Daemon? She couldn’t stop talking.

It started small. A comment about the cafeteria food. A joke she muttered and instantly regretted... until he smiled. Then another. And another.

Soon she was filling the empty space between them with everything she’d been too afraid to say. Thoughts about music. Old cartoons. The way she imagined the world ending. Her favorite quotes. Her least favorite colors. Her fear of gym class. Her obsession with metaphors. Her weird dreams.

She yapped. And he listened.

He didn’t roll his eyes. He didn’t interrupt. He didn’t look around the room like he was embarrassed to be seen with her. He looked at her. Full eye contact. Still. Patient. Open. Listening. Like she was saying something that mattered.

Juliet wasn’t used to mattering.

And slowly, without realizing it, she came to life at that table. It was the only place she felt real.

“I don’t really talk much,” she said one day, almost apologetically, after telling him a long, winding story about band lore. He shrugged, softly. “You talk to me.”

That line stayed with her. Not because of how he said it — but because he said it without disbelief. Like it made perfect sense. Like of course she talked to him. Because he made it safe.

But the safety didn’t last.

Because even though Daemon gave her space to breathe, the world around them kept tightening the noose. The school had never been kind to Juliet — but now, it was actively cruel.

The students didn’t stop.

They just got bolder.

Juliet couldn’t walk to class without hearing “Hannah Montana” hissed from the lockers like a slur. Boys would lean into her ear and whisper things she didn’t understand until she felt dirty. Girls laughed when she passed by, pointing and high-fiving like mocking her was a sport.

And worst of all? The teachers saw it. And they let it happen. Some of them joined in.

She remembers asking for help after a group of students trapped her between desks, throwing paper at her hair. The teacher looked her in the eye and said, “Maybe if you didn’t act so weird, they’d leave you alone.”

She remembers speaking — not even loudly, just responding to a question before the bell rang — and being locked in a supply closet. The teacher held the door shut from the outside. Told her she needed to “learn respect.” Made her stay after school to “reflect”, even though she had a concert out of town to go to that evening.

Her mother was called. Not about the bullying. Not about the trauma. About how Juliet needed a 504 plan. Because apparently, being traumatized made her disruptive. The world didn’t want to understand her. It wanted to fix her. Or minimize her. Which, in school terms, meant: hide her.

That’s when she knew she couldn’t stay.

Even Daemon couldn’t shield her from this.

And how do you tell the one person who made you feel safe that you’re leaving — not because of him, but because of everyone else?

She didn’t say goodbye. She couldn’t.

Because if she opened her mouth, the scream would’ve come out. The one she’d been holding since the first day someone laughed at her for just existing. The one that said: I didn’t ask to be like this. And I still deserve to be loved.

So she disappeared. Just like that. One day, she was there. The next… gone.

Daemon never asked for anything. And she gave him nothing in return. No goodbye. No explanation. No thank you. And for years, that silence would claw at her throat like a prayer she never got to say out loud.

When Juliet left Daemon’s school, she didn’t get a fresh start. She went back to her old middle school — the one she’d escaped before. And it was just as cruel as she remembered.

No Daemon. No table of silence and safety. No one waiting beside her.

This school didn’t mock her with theatrics like the last one. It didn’t need to. It remembered her. She was still the weird girl. The girl who had transferred out. And now she was back — softer, more broken, even easier to isolate. She spent that final middle school year floating. Ghosting. Counting days.

And then came high school.

Which was worse.

Not louder. Not messier. Just… colder. More polished in its cruelty. More clinical in how it broke her down.

The bullying there was a different beast. Not hallway teasing. Psychological warfare. The boys were the worst. They smiled at her like wolves. They spoke softly. They said nice things. Until they got her alone.

And then?

Darkness.

She didn’t know the word for what happened then — not at first. Not until much later, when the memories began to make her physically sick. When a therapist finally said the word. And her body remembered before her mind did.

She froze. That’s what her body did. Every time.

And then she disappeared.

She stopped dressing up. Stopped caring.

Stopped being a girl.

She became nothing.

School became a fog. She couldn’t recall full days. Just fragments:

The boy who “was just being nice”. The friend who vanished when she spoke up. The teacher who said “try harder to fit in”.

She stopped trying. Because by then, Juliet wasn’t a person. She was a shell. A placeholder. A body on autopilot.

Juliet didn’t remember exactly when she stopped feeling.

But she remembered exactly when she started again.

It came out of nowhere, in the form of a borrowed copy of The Hunger Games. She picked it up on a whim, bored and unseeing, expecting nothing. She didn’t even know why she started reading. Maybe because she’d run out of distractions. Maybe because her brain couldn’t take the silence anymore.

Maybe because something in her still wanted to feel something.

And oh God, she did. She felt it all.

Every chapter like a pulse restarting in her chest.

Katniss surviving. Fighting. Protecting her sister.

Raging against the Capitol. Refusing to be used.

Juliet cried for her, rooted for her, clutched the book like a lifeline.

And then, just like that, Juliet remembered what it was like to have a heartbeat. For the first time in years, she cared. About someone. About something, even if it was fictional. And that was enough.

Enough to get her out of bed, enough to make her look forward to the next page. enough to make her want. Not for much — not yet. But for more than numbness.

She became obsessed. Read the whole trilogy in days. Started watching interviews. Memorizing quotes. Drawing again.

When the movie came out, she was first in line at the premiere. Eyes shining. Quietly trembling. Not because she thought she’d be healed. Not because she believed she was fixed, but because something inside her had shifted.

Something had come back. A flicker. A spark. A reminder that she hadn’t disappeared completely. That underneath the numbness, the trauma, the abuse, the silence… Juliet was still there. Waiting. Watching. Ready.

Lightning, again.

Juliet didn’t expect to see him again.

That version of her — the girl at the lunch table with the cracked voice and too-big eyes — was dead and buried. She figured Daemon was just part of that old world. A ghost from a chapter she never finished.

But fate?

Fate had other plans.

She was twenty-two. Community college. Same city. Longer hair. Still struggling in different ways. She walked the halls of the math and science building, not wanting to be there, but she had to be. Or at least like she was trying to. Life still felt grayscale, but at least she was coloring inside the lines again.

And then she saw him.

Across the hall.

Headband that reminded her of a young Ralph Macchio in The Karate Kid. Headphones. That same emo-ass aura that hit like a memory you forgot you missed. Older. Taller. Still devastating. Still him.

Juliet said his name before she even realized she was saying it.

“Daemon?”

He looked up. Blinking. Then, that instant smile. That soft, stunned, holy-shit-it’s-you smile.

“Juliet!”

"Please tell me you remember me."

"Middle school. Hannah Montana?"

Juliet laughed and nodded.

Seven years.

Seven years of silence.

Seven years of aching, of almosts, of what ifs and should haves and god, if only—

And here he was, standing in front of her. Looking at her like nothing had changed.

They didn’t have a class together, didn’t even study the same subject, but that didn’t matter. He showed up anyway. Every day, just like he did in the eighth grade. Met her outside her building on the fourth floor. Walked her to Botany class. Waited for her after, even ditched with her if she didn't feel like a lecture. Carried her books. Talked. Listened. Existed beside her — again. And Juliet — older now, quieter, scarred but surviving — felt everything come back.

The flutter.

The weightless ache.

The oh no, it’s happening again thrill of real human connection.

Daemon wasn’t just a ghost from the past. He was here. And somehow, he still saw her. But this time, really saw her, more than she ever expected him to.

Juliet hadn’t healed.

Not really.

By the time she saw Daemon again, she was in the deep end of an eating disorder no one knew how to see. Not dramatic. Not obvious. Just… constant. Quiet. Calculated. Consuming.

It didn’t look like the movies.

It looked like pistachios for lunch. It looked like weighing granola. It looked like skipping meals in the name of “not being hungry” — when really, she couldn’t stand the idea of being perceived. And she was lying to herself, something she had become too good at.

She was always cold. Her fingers trembled sometimes when she opened doors. She layered her clothes and still shivered in class. But no one noticed. No one except Daemon.

He never said anything. Never pushed, never made her feel weird or scolded her for not eating enough. But he sat with her anyway. Every day. On a concrete bench outside the Botany building.

Her eating disorder made food feel like a battlefield — but Daemon? He made lunch feel normal. He never commented on what she ate, scrutinized her or made her feel like a bug under a microscope for her abnormality. Never asked her to explain. Never made her feel watched or small or shameful. He just sat beside her.

And he let her talk, laughed at her weird and slightly dark sense of humor, listened with those soft, careful eyes that always made her feel like she was okay. They never ran out of things to talk about, yapping excitedly and losing track of time.

And maybe that’s why she started to let herself feel it.

The warmth. The closeness. The light.

Because even though her brain was busy punishing her for wanting things, Daemon made her want anyway. To be close. To be seen. To stay.

He gave her his jacket once when she was cold. She hesitated, asked if he was sure. He insisted and was in no hurry to get it back.

And she almost cried. Not because it was romantic — though it was.

But because someone gave a damn.

And not about how much she weighed, not about how much she was or wasn’t eating. But about her.

This time, Juliet didn’t just talk — she connected. With Daemon, the conversations weren’t one-sided. They weren’t therapy sessions or trauma dumps. They were light shows. They were fire. Two minds striking against each other, sparking.

He got excited when she talked about books. She got excited when he went on tangents about films, music theory, 1980s fashion, obscure sci-fi, or whatever else his brilliant, beautifully bizarre brain was churning out that day.

They fed off each other effortlessly. Riffing. Laughing. Getting deep without warning.

“Wait — wait, no, seriously,” she’d say, gripping her backpack, “you’re telling me you’ve never seen The Dark Crystal?”

“Never!” he’d laugh, mock-defensive, “But now I’m afraid you’re going to assign me homework.”

“Good. I will. A full report. MLA format.”

It was silly. It was effortless. It was everything.

For the first time, Juliet didn’t feel like she had to explain herself. She didn’t have to water herself down. Didn’t have to translate. Didn’t have to code-switch or mask or pretend. Daemon met her where she lived.

He knew her music. They both spoke in metaphors, rich vocabulary, elevated language. He understood nuance. He listened deeply. She felt seen on a soul level. And that’s when it hit her — hard and fast.

She wasn’t imagining it.

This wasn’t a teenage crush that never really faded. This was real.

And she loved him.

Not the fairytale kind of love. The oh god, this is rare kind. The I know you kind. The I choose to be exactly here with you, every day, because nowhere else feels right kind. But she still hadn’t told him. Not yet. And the moment where she almost did?

That was coming.

It wasn’t grand gestures that undid her.

It was the chocolate milk.

One day, he walked up with two in his hands — one for him, one for her.

He didn’t make a thing of it. Didn’t say “I thought you might want this.” Didn’t tease her for not eating enough or ask her to explain. He just handed it over, casually, like this was what people did. Like her needs weren’t inconvenient.

Juliet stared at it for a second too long. “It’s okay,” he said softly, almost sheepish. “I just… figured.”

And god — he had figured.

Because sometimes her brain was so noisy she couldn’t even choose something to eat. Because sometimes she didn’t want to chew in front of people. Because sometimes a damn chocolate milk was the only thing she could get down. And he knew.

Not because she told him.

Because he saw her.

There was the time he gave her his jacket. She didn’t even say she was cold. But he noticed her shoulders tense. Her hands tucked under her arms. The way her nose turned pink even though it wasn’t that cold out. He just shrugged off his hoodie — black and grey striped, soft, smelled faintly like his cologne and dryer sheets — and held it out.

“Here.”

“I’m okay,” she said, but her voice cracked, and she wasn’t okay, and they both knew it.

“I know,” he said. “Take it anyway.”

And she did.

And she wore it in Botany class with the sleeves too long and the zipper all the way up, and she had never felt so safe in something that wasn’t hers.

She could still remember the way it smelled. Years later. She could still remember.

That was the moment she knew.

This wasn’t just nostalgia. This wasn’t just a sweet boy from middle school showing up at the right time. This... was love.

Gentle, devastating love. That My Chemical Romance/Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge kind of love — where your heart is so full and so ruined at the same time, and you don’t even know where to put all the feeling.

She hadn’t said it out loud yet, but her heart already had.

The day she almost told him? She can still feel the weather.

Late afternoon. Golden. The sky that weird shade of blue that feels like a secret being kept.

They were walking out of the science building — she was headed to her ride, he was headed… who knows where. He never said. Maybe he just liked ending the day with her.

They walked slowly. Not because they were tired, but because neither of them wanted it to end. He didn’t take the elevator that day, even though his class had also been on the fourth floor.

He took the stairs — four flights — just to have more time with her. Just to walk beside her for a few extra minutes. Like every second mattered.

And god, she noticed. She noticed everything.

They were laughing about something dumb — probably a song lyric or a bad movie — when he did it. He held out his arm for her to take. Not in a "joking" way. Not in a "let me be ironic" Gen Z boy kind of way.

In a gentlemanly, old-Hollywood, Cary Grant-looking-over-his-shoulder-in-black-and-white kind of way. Who does that?!?

Like this was a moment. Like she was someone worth walking beside, properly. “M’lady,” he said, eyes twinkling.

Juliet could’ve screamed.

Instead, she slipped her arm through his.

And she fit.

Perfectly.

She looked up at him. Saw the softness in his jaw. The calm in his eyes. Felt the electricity around them. And she knew. He felt it too.

She was going to say it. Something. Anything.

“I’m really glad we found each other again.”

“Yeah?” he said, smiling.

“Yeah…” she started. “It’s weird. It’s just… you make me feel—”

But that’s when her ride pulled up. Too soon. Too fast. The moment gone. She stepped back. Let go of his arm. And just… smiled.

Like an idiot. “See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Tomorrow.”

She never told him. Never said what she felt. Never closed the distance. And now, she would never forgive herself for not trusting her own heart.

They were always touching. Not in obvious ways, not in ways that would’ve made anyone look twice. But in quiet, sacred, almost-accidental ways that told the real story.

Juliet would brush his hair out of his eyes when it fell over his face — not because she was flirting (okay, yes, a little), but because she needed to see his eyes. They were so damn expressive.

Brown and deep and gentle.

Eyes that didn’t just look at her — they read her.

And every time she brushed that one stupid lock aside, he let her. Smiled a little. Leaned into her hand like he wanted to stay there forever.

Then there were the times he’d pluck random things out of her hair — a leaf, one of those little springtime blossoms fallen from a tree, something she didn't even notice.

“Nature loves you,” he’d tease, holding up the offending object like evidence. “Or wants me dead,” she’d counter, swatting playfully. But she’d feel her skin burn under his fingers.

Not because it was sexual. Because it was gentle. Intimate. Specific.

He was paying attention. To her.

And then there were the hugs. God, the hugs.

Daemon hugged like he meant it. Like he knew she needed to be held.

Arms wrapped tight, hands resting against her back, chin sometimes touching the top of her head. Or sometimes lifting her up playfully.

He didn’t do the awkward guy-side-hug thing. He embraced her.

And Juliet? She let him.

She let herself lean in, let herself stay. Even when her mind screamed “don’t get attached, don’t be vulnerable, don’t fall—”

It was already too late.

This was love. This was mutual. And still, she said nothing.

Because trauma told her to wait.

Because fear told her not to ruin it.

Because life had never been kind — and this felt too kind to last.

The Silence She Created

Daemon didn’t ghost her.

Juliet ghosted him.

And that?

That’s the part she can barely say out loud.

It wasn’t on purpose. Not like that. There was no dramatic decision. No “I’m going to cut him off” moment. Just a slow retreat. A quiet pulling back. A vanishing act born of fear disguised as logic. Self sabotage.

She had been through too much, too many betrayals.

Too many boys who wanted her only to break her. And when something real stood in front of her — when Daemon looked at her like she was safe to love —

She panicked.

Because what if he changed his mind? What if he saw all of her — the trauma, the food issues, the self-loathing, the insomnia, the nights she cried over nothing — and said, “Oh. Never mind.”

She told herself she was protecting both of them. That it was “better this way.” That it wasn’t real.

But it was.

And she knew it.

And she left anyway.

One day, she just didn’t show up.

Skipped their bench. Turned off notifications. Let the message in her inbox sit there — unread.

Daemon had reached out.

“Everything okay?”

“Missed seeing you this week.”

She didn’t reply. Not because she didn’t care. But because she cared too much. And it scared the life out of her.

And then? Time passed. Shame set in. She couldn’t explain it. Couldn’t fix it. She thought, “He probably hates me now.”

So she stayed quiet. Longer. Until silence became the story.

It wasn’t until years later — years — that she healed enough to see what she’d done.

And the regret?

It wrecked her.

Because for the first time in her life, someone had offered her real love. And she ran.

Not because he hurt her. Not because he failed her.

But because she couldn’t believe she was worth staying for.

And by the time she realized she was?

He was gone.

The Search for Daemon

Juliet wasn’t getting any younger.

And something about that truth hit differently in her thirties.

She had survived. She had healed. She had learned to stand tall in the mirror, even with the scars — inside and out. She was at a healthy weight again, began enjoying food without guilt and her features had filled out again to a more comely shape.

But still… something was missing.

Not something. Someone.

Daemon.

The name alone made her breath catch. The idea of him — the softness, the safety, the laughter, the stupid chocolate milk — had never left her.

And now, it wasn’t enough to remember.

She wanted him back.

She thought about the day he asked her about adventures. They’d been sitting on that bench. Talking about music. Or maybe horror movies. Something ridiculous.

When he said — almost out of nowhere:

“I want to travel one day. Just take off. You know?”

“Where would you go?” she’d asked.

“Anywhere. Doesn’t even matter. As long as I have someone with me who makes it worth it.”

At the time, it sounded like a fantasy. Now? Juliet was ready.

To go. To live. To love. To finally say yes. Because here’s what healing taught her:

Trauma had robbed her of so much. But she didn’t have to keep giving it power. Daemon had offered her something real. And she’d walked away. But that didn’t mean it was too late.

She started looking for him. Not like a rom-com montage. More like desperate, quiet determination.

She searched old emails. Went through photos. Looked him up online. Followed tiny digital breadcrumbs with obsessive precision.

She didn’t know what she’d say if she found him. But she knew this:

She wouldn’t let silence win this time.

She would show up. She would say the thing.

She would choose love over fear. Finally. Completely. Bravely.

Searching For a Ghost That Never Left

Juliet didn’t even know where to start. How do you find someone who once felt like the only real thing in your world... but left no digital trace?

She started with his name. The one she remembered. Daemon + city + “college” + “emo” (because yes, she remembered the hair).

Nothing.

She tried old emails — the one she used to message him. Error. Mailer-daemon failure.

Cruel irony.

She tried Facebook. Instagram. Threads. Reddit. Anything. Searched for classmates. Group photos. Comments. Anything with a familiar face. She found people who might’ve known him. Scanned friend lists. Looked at every blurry college-era picture like a detective reviewing crime scene footage.

Still nothing.

But Juliet was a woman on a mission.

And love makes you meticulous.

She dug deeper. Old yearbooks. Archived forums. A blurry screenshot she saved from an old friend’s now-defunct social media page —

There.

His face. Still beautiful. Still unmistakably Daemon. Dressed a little more elegantly, but he hadn't aged a day.

Still in the same city, but a nicer neighborhood.

Juliet zoomed in. Googled. There was a maybe. A sliver. A listing. A profile. An address that may or may not be current. Her breath caught.

Could it really be him? Was this finally her door to knock on?

And now?

It wasn’t just about finding him. It was about what she would say. Because this time, she wouldn’t freeze. She wouldn’t ghost. She wouldn’t let fear make decisions on her behalf.

She would show up. For him. For herself. For everything they could’ve had. And maybe — just maybe — still could.

Juliet’s fingers hovered over the keyboard as she stared at the search results.

His face. His name. A city she knew — somewhere not too far from where she was now. Every search had felt like a step toward closure — but this one felt different.

Real. Immediate. Possible.

She found a listing that matched his exact name, age, and city —

But then there was a line she didn’t expect.

“Conservatorship.”

At first, she blinked, confused. She refreshed the page. Checked again. Yes. His name. His birthday. His city. And next to it, in small, bureaucratic type:

Under Conservatorship / Mental Health Division

Juliet’s breath caught.

Her first reaction wasn’t relief. Not joy. Not anything simple.

It was concern.

And then… fear. Because nothing about this made sense.

Why would someone like Daemon — the boy who carried extra chocolate milk, who climbed stairs just to walk slower with her — end up here? Her heart slammed against her ribs like it was trying to escape.

She clicked through everything she could find:

A legal notice from a conservatorship hearing. References to a mental health evaluation. A note about competency restoration. A phrase she couldn’t unsee:

“Gravely Disabled”

Juliet’s stomach dropped. How did life turn this way? How did someone who once walked beside her with patience, kindness, and strength end up under court control?

The answers didn’t come easily. Not in pixels on a screen. So she dug deeper. Public records. County filings. Old classmates’ pages. Anything she could find, anything that mentioned his name in connection with something other than that strange legal terminology.

And the more she uncovered, the more the story emerged:

Not a whimsical adult with travel plans and open roads… but a man whose life had taken a turn she couldn’t have predicted. A man who had been hurt. Not by her. Not by anything she did — but by life. And that hit Juliet harder than any rejection ever had.

Because suddenly the heartbreak wasn’t just about her fear.

It wasn’t about missed chances or unspoken words.

It was about something tragic happening to the person she loved, something beyond her control. Something she could never fix with an emotional leap or a heartfelt confession. Daemon wasn’t missing. He was trapped. In a reality she barely understood. In a system she didn’t know how to penetrate. In a fate that rendered her reunion impossible.

And just like that, all those days she spent regretting her silence paled beside the new truth:

He wasn’t waiting for her. He was held somewhere else. And Juliet realized with a sickening twist in her gut that this wasn’t just a story of fear and missed love anymore.

It was a story of loss and life’s cruelty.

Of how people can be broken through no fault of their own.

Of how love sometimes finds you ... then disappears into something darker than heartbreak.

The Grief That Had No Name

Juliet didn’t cry right away when she read the word “conservatorship.” She just froze. That was a word she’d only heard in news stories. Something that happened to celebrities and cautionary tales.

Not Daemon.

Not her Daemon.

She refreshed the page again. And again. But it didn’t change. And something inside her broke.

She closed the laptop. Sat in silence. Hands shaking.

She wanted to scream. To throw something. To undo every choice she’d made that led her to this moment.

Why didn’t I stay?

Why did I run?

Why did I let fear make decisions for me?

But those were useless questions. Because the damage had been done. Not by her. Not entirely.

But still… she had disappeared.

And now he had, too.

Only his disappearance wasn’t by choice. It was systemic. Legal. Irreversible.

She imagined him in some clinical room, under watch, medicated, unheard.

The boy who once carried her books. Who offered his arm like a 1900s gentleman. Who never commented when she only ate pistachios for lunch — Just sat beside her and made her feel like a person. Who noticed.

And no one had done that since.

She had spent years hating herself for being afraid to say “I love you.”

Now? She would’ve sold everything she had just to say hi.

The grief didn’t come in sobs. It came in waves of nausea. In sleepless nights. In the sickening realization that she had healed just in time to be too late.

Because he wasn’t coming back.

And the version of her that had loved him? Would never stop.

She started learning about conservatorships, reading everything she could. What they meant, how they started, what rights he still had — if any.

Because some part of her still hoped that there might be a sliver of him left. That somewhere in there, he remembered her. And if she could find the right door to knock on, maybe… just maybe… he’d be waiting.

The Research Spiral

Juliet didn’t know much about conservatorships when she first saw the word next to Daemon’s name. But she knew it wasn’t right. Not for him. Not for someone who memorized lyrics, carried extra chocolate milk, and walked stairs just to spend a few more minutes beside her.

So she began reading. Not casually. Not when she had time.

Like a woman possessed.

The First Night

She tracked down the legal definition — terms like gravely disabled, temporary conservatorship, LPS, competency evaluation. Words she never thought she’d learn spelled correctly, much less memorized. She emailed public record offices. Scoured county websites. Clicked PDF after PDF of conservatorship filings, redactions, dates, hearing notes. Each document was like a breadcrumb — tiny, bureaucratic, heartbreaking.

And with every click, she felt closer, terrified, desperate and angrier than she’d ever been.

Pattern Recognition

She logged dates, mapped locations, compared filing signatures.

She pieced together when his conservatorship began, what led up to it, where he was likely living now, what rights he had and what rights he didn’t. It wasn’t just obsessive. It was relentless. Because for the first time in a long time, Juliet’s heart wasn’t just hurting — it was acting.

She found court hearings she couldn’t access without special permissions. Case numbers she had to cross‑reference with public databases. Redacted files that teased more than they revealed.

Sometimes she stayed up all night, reading statutes and legalese that made her head pound. But she didn’t stop.

She learned terms like: Conservatee, Lanterman‑Petris‑Short (LPS), Competency restoration, Court‑appointed conservator. And the more she read, the more her stomach twisted. Because she realized this wasn’t just legal language.

It was someone’s life documented in cold, clinical terms. And that felt obscene.

Why She Couldn’t Stop

Other people mourn the dead. Juliet was mourning someone alive —

Someone with a name, a history, a personality, a laugh, a shoulder she leaned on, a jacket she wore. And here he was, existing in a set of files and statutes, stripped down to phrases like “gravely disabled” and “subject to supervision.”

It was… dehumanizing.

She wanted more than paperwork. She wanted his story. His voice. A sign that he was still in there — not just part of someone else’s legal responsibility. She wanted to find him. Not just the file.

She had gone from a girl who avoided notice to a girl who wanted to be seen. Not just for herself, but for someone who once saw her so clearly. And as she dove deeper into legal documents and old records and obscure court filings… she found that her heartbreak wasn’t broken anymore. It had turned into something else: purpose.

Not the kind that cures sadness. But the kind that gives it direction.

Juliet had spent weeks lost in legalese, court codes, PDFs that wouldn’t load, and redacted pages that seemed to taunt her. She didn’t know what she expected — a photo, maybe, or a phone number, or an old email address with a reply button that still worked.

Nothing.

Juliet never got her grand reunion.

No airport scene. No email response. No warm, nostalgic hug that made the years melt away. No kiss that was years overdue.

Just a void.

A world where he’s still alive, but unreachable.

And that might be worse than death.

Because death has rituals. But this? This is grief without a funeral; love without a place to go.

She walks through life now with the quiet ache of someone who still thinks about him when she hears a song, sees a leaf fall, smells a hoodie that still carries a scent from 2017.

She doesn’t message his mother. She doesn't write a letter to their house with no return address, or leave a single rose on their doorstep. She doesn’t push.

Because she’s still ethical, still self-aware. Still Juliet.

But she thinks about him. Every day.

And sometimes she imagines what she’d say if he were standing in front of her again.

“I’m sorry.”

“I missed you so much.”

“You were right to see me when no one else did.”

“And I’ve never stopped wanting to go on those adventures with you.”

But there’s no one there to hear it. Just silence.

The story ends here. But the love doesn’t.

Juliet doesn’t “get over it.” There’s no healing arc, no big “moving on” speech. No moment where she looks in the mirror and forces herself to smile, declaring a new day and a new Juliet.

Just… existence. Carrying him quietly through the world like a phantom limb. Some days it’s just a dull ache. A heaviness in her chest when she hears a song like “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls and suddenly she’s 22 again, smiling at nothing, thinking of him.

Other days it’s unbearable.

She’ll see someone with hair like his, or laugh at something only he would’ve understood. Or walk past a bench and wonder what if.

What if she had stayed? What if she had said yes when he asked her out in the coolest, most lowkey way possible? What if he still wanted her now?

She plays scenarios in her mind like old film reels, scenes they never lived but should’ve. Laughing on a road trip. Holding hands in a museum. Dancing in a kitchen with music playing too loud. In a fancy hotel with candles and rose petals. Falling asleep on his shoulder after a long day. Living the life they were meant to.

But instead… she walks through crowds scanning every face. Could that be him? What if he’s here? What if he remembers me?

But it’s never him.

Just echoes.

Shadows.

People who look close but aren’t Daemon.

The worst part is that she still loves him. Not in a naïve, teenage-crush kind of way. But in a my soul knew yours, even when I didn’t know myself kind of way.

She doesn’t chase him anymore when there's nothing to chase.

But she feels him everywhere.

And she’s so sorry.

Sorry she ran. Sorry she never said it. Sorry she was too scared to let herself have something beautiful.

Juliet knows she’s not supposed to want it. Not supposed to ask. Not supposed to still ache like this.

But she does.

Every. Single. Day.

She bargains with fate itself. “Please,” she whispers to nothing. “Just let me see him once more. Let us cross paths by accident. Let him remember me. Let him smile when he does.”

She would give anything. Years off her life, her comfort, her peace. Just for one more shot. One more bench. One more conversation. One more chance to say everything she never did.

She thinks of him when she drives. When she eats. When a random stranger has his jawline. She builds realities in her head where they meet again, where she finally says the right things. Where he looks at her and says, “Took you long enough.” And she cries in his arms and says, “I’m here now. I’m not leaving again.” And they begin. She dreams that he shows up in her workplace, she gasps his name and runs to him.

But she wakes up every day, and it’s still just her.

Alone with the ghost of a man who isn’t dead. She tries to hate him. To shut it down. To scream “HE’S GONE, MOVE ON.”

But the love is louder. It drowns out reason, pulsing through her like a sickness. A sweet, cruel poison. One she drinks willingly.

Juliet prays the rosary at night.

Not because she expects a miracle, not because she thinks God owes her anything. But because the pain needs a witness. Her family, friends and the internet would never understand.

She curls into herself on the edge of her bed, fingers trembling as they move bead to bead, and she cries to Mary — not as a saint, but as a mother who watched the man she loved suffer and disappear beyond her reach.

That feels closer to the truth.

“I don’t know what to do with this,” she whispers.

“It hurts so much.”

She tells Mary everything she can’t tell anyone else.

How she still looks for him in crowds.

How certain songs feel like knives — especially “I Look In People's Windows” by Taylor Swift, "Love Like Ghosts" by Lord Huron, "Check Yes Juliet" by We The Kings, "Semiotic Love" by Blaqk Audio.

How she imagines him laughing somewhere, or worse, hurting somewhere, and she has no way of knowing which is true. She tells her how much she regrets leaving. How fear masqueraded as logic. How she was young and wounded and didn’t understand that love doesn’t always come twice.

“Please,” she begs softly, rosary damp with tears.

“If there is any mercy left in this world… let me have one more chance.”

One conversation. One moment. One chance to choose love instead of survival. She doesn’t ask for forever. She’s not greedy like that. Just one more intersection.

Mary never answers.

But Juliet keeps praying anyway.

Because loving Daemon feels like a vow she accidentally made and never learned how to break.

Because even now — especially now — she would choose him.

And maybe that’s her penance.

To carry a love she never spoke aloud. To grieve someone who is still alive but unreachable. To wake up every day with the quiet knowledge that the life she wanted exists only in her imagination.

She lives politely.

Ethically.

Silently.

But inside? She is on her knees, begging heaven to be kinder than it has been so far.

This is where the story ends. Not because it’s finished, but because this is where Juliet is still standing.

Waiting. Praying. Loving.

And hoping that somewhere, somehow, Mary understands.

And in the quietest moments between sleep and waking, she still whispers:

“Please. Just one more chance.”

And the universe, as always, stays silent.

But she doesn’t stop asking. Because what they had wasn’t just a crush or “young love” in the sense that most people would trivialize. It was once-in-a-lifetime. The kind of love you only survive by cherishing the fact that it happened and it touched you once.

And Juliet never forgot. She never will. Because she knows now: that was love. Not the kind you move on from, but the kind that sits with you forever.