Just the voice of Juliet almost made me break down into tears about how much I actually had not thought this decision through. She was bubbling on the other line. Classes were over now. Gary had bought a ring she’d just accidentally discovered. Why did this seem like such little news? So trivial.
    “Jane…why. I’ve been talking over you. You can congratulate me now, and beg to be my maid of honor.”
I was silent…Eric was staring at me across the room. It seemed like a disbelieving, hard stare.
    “Juliet”
I repeated.
    “Yes…”
She said, her tone slowing down, catching up with mine. I started crying.
    “Jane…Jane no! no don’t cry babe. Look I’ll come over. Marriage doesn’t mean any big changes with you and Haley. We’ll still be high-school best friends. Forever and ever?”
She laughed a little at the end at the cliché we’d been using since high school. She didn’t know that those were the exact words to make me cry more. Eric had walked over and was whispering in my ear
    “You’ve got to let it go, love of mine”
His voice still a convincing temptation, making me remember how much I wanted to make this decision.
    “No Juliet”
I said sniffing, and preparing myself
    “You can’t come over. Look it’s been weeks and I’ve just had to put up with you…and Haley. We were over in high school. Now you’re just too immature. Forever and ever?”
I tried to make the sob that was erupting turn into a scoffing laugh.
    “What?”
Juliet’s voice was a whisper. It was never a whisper.
    “Just leave me alone okay!”
I worked up to a yell.
    “Go get married, I won’t be there. I don’t care okay?”
I said and that was my limit, That was all I could take, I hung up thinking to her ears the hanging up beep would sound as a final angry and cutting word. I let out my sobs and turned into Eric, and cried. I could feel in his tense posture that he didn’t understand my grief. But I knew this he wouldn’t understand. He was new to humans, and way too new to love. He couldn’t understand the different types of love there were in this world. He hadn’t figured out how your heart is given to different people, and how those people become a part of you. He didn’t understand that losing them, was like killing a little bit of yourself. I got it. I lost someone I loved practically once a month. Right now he had most of my heart, all of my soul, so he had no choice but to be my only rock while I cried it out. Even despite his inability to understand his hands went around me and he whispered smoothly, and seductively into my ear comforting words.
    “Sssh, it’s okay. Don’t cry…please…don’t. You‘ll be fine. Don‘t cry anymore.”
Eventually, I stopped and looked up into his strange brown eyes, that could never seem human to me.
    “Okay. I’m ready”
All the emotion was sucked out of me. There was none left to use. It was inhuman to not be able to feel emotion. There was so much emotion in the human world, so strong, and so many that when you used so much you ran out, it felt surreal, empty, and grey, but strangely peaceful. Relieving. Like the poem by Emily Dickinson I never understood, what she had meant. I’d said she was just psychologically depressed in high school.