Star Crossed

Mr. Rathgar arrived at his classroom precisely two minutes before the bell, tie slightly crooked, coffee already half gone. Monday nights were always a fog, but Tuesday mornings somehow felt worse. He set his briefcase down, pulled the stack of lesson plans from it, and frowned.

The Handmaid's Tale.

That was what he'd planned to start today. He even had a new PowerPoint ready. He glanced at the cover page. Something about it felt... off. Heavy. Repetitive. Dull.

He tapped his pen on the desk, staring at the word Handmaid until the letters blurred.

Then, all at once, a new thought flickered through his mind like a jolt of caffeine: Romeo and Juliet.

He smiled. Of course. A little Shakespeare never hurt anyone. Everyone could use some love, a little passion, some poetry to wake them up. It just felt right.

The bell rang. The classroom door banged open. Teenagers shuffled in, dropping backpacks, yawning, and pulling out phones they weren't supposed to have.

"Good morning, everyone," he said brightly, writing ROMEO AND JULIET across the whiteboard in big, squeaky letters.

A collective groan rolled through the room.

"Aw, come on," someone muttered.

"Didn't they, like, both die?"

"Yeah, spoiler alert, dude."

"Can't we just do something modern?"

Mr. Rathgar smiled, unfazed. "Shakespeare is modern. Timeless, even. You'll see."

Wyatt slouched into her desk near the middle of the room, twirling a pen in her fingers. Gary sat one row over, straight-backed, trying to look attentive. Both of them looked exhausted, but then again, all teenagers did at this hour.

"Now," Mr. Rathgar continued, "I'll show you how relevant Shakespeare can be. We're going to start in the middle—Act Three, Scene Five. That's the morning after the wedding night."

Several students snickered.

"Relax," he said. "We're just reading. But a little romance might wake some of you up."

He reached under his desk, pulled out a baseball cap, and started dropping scraps of paper into it. "We'll draw for roles. Everyone gets a turn eventually. Fair and square."

He gave the hat a good shake, then reached in. "Let's see… Juliet will be… Lisa Wallace."

A pause.

Gary blinked. "Uh, sorry, Mr. Rathgar, do you mean me?"

Mr. Rathgar tilted his head, smiling vaguely. "That's why I said your name, Gary."

"No, you said—"

"Alright, come on up, Mr. Wallace," he nodded as if nothing had happened. "You'll be reading Juliet. Excellent. And your Romeo will be…" He drew another name. "Wyatt Donnelly!"

"Seriously?" Wyatt said. "You're making me Romeo?"

"Perfect casting," someone whispered.

"Now, now," Mr. Rathgar said, waving his hand for quiet. "You're not exactly built to play Juliet, Wyatt."

He passed them the battered school copies of Romeo and Juliet. "Page seventy-one, everyone. Act Three, Scene Five. Let's bring some emotion to it. Picture it—you've just spent the night with the love of your life. Dawn is breaking. You know you have to part."

Wyatt muttered, "Yeah, that's not awkward at all."

Gary rolled his eyes but found the page. The class fell into a hush. Mr. Rathgar could feel something odd in the air, a faint pressure in the room, as though the walls were leaning closer to listen.

Reading the first line, Gary stumbled over the rhythm:

"Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day…"

His voice cracked on day, and the class tittered.

Mr. Rathgar smiled patiently. "Project, Gary. Remember—Juliet doesn't want Romeo to leave."

"Right. Fine." He cleared his throat and tried again, with mock seriousness. "Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day…"

Gary glanced down at the book in his hand. Stiffly at first, he began to speak, careful with each syllable as though trying to steady the cadence:

"It was the nightingale, and not the lark, that pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear…"

Someone in the back snickered. Wyatt gave them a warning glare, which, surprisingly, worked. allowing Gary to finish.

"Good," said Mr. Rathgar. "Now keep going. Feel it. You're young, in love, and the world is against you."

Wyatt rolled her eyes but now read her first line as Romeo, now with a trace of rhythm. Then Gary followed. Slowly, the room began to change.

At first, their voices clashed—one too loud, the other too quiet. But line by line, they started to find the same tempo, like two halves of a song rediscovering their melody.

Wyatt softened. Gary breathed more naturally. When he said "Therefore stay yet; thou needst not to be gone," his voice carried a fragile kind of warmth that made even the class go quiet.

When Wyatt answered—"Let me be ta'en, let me be put to ****; I am content, so thou wilt have it so."—the words didn't sound like Shakespeare anymore. They sounded like confession.

By the time they reached the end of the scene, something electric hummed in the air. Even Mr. Rathgar felt it, that peculiar pull of language when it starts to mean something beyond itself.

Wyatt was leaning forward now, the script forgotten in her hands. Gary had mirrored her unconsciously.

Gary read softly:

"Then, window, let day in, and let life out."

Wyatt answered without looking at the page:

"Farewell, farewell! One kiss, and I'll descend."

He smiled faintly, and she—Romeo—smiled back. They were both fully in it, suspended somewhere between the text and whatever had been building between them since their accident in the basement.

Again, Wyatt whispered, "One kiss, and I'll descend…"

And for one dizzying second, they both leaned closer—breaths mingling, the class holding its own. The air buzzed like static.

Then someone at the back whistled. Loudly.

"Woooo! Get a room, Romeo!"

The entire class exploded with laughter.

Wyatt jerked back, red-faced, while Gary snapped his book shut.

Mr. Rathgar clapped his hands once. "Excellent! Excellent commitment, you two. Very... emotionally charged." He pretended to check his watch. "Alright, everyone, that's all for today. Now that you've gotten a taste, we'll go back to the beginning tomorrow. Act one, scene one."

Chairs scraped. Backpacks rustled. The room filled again with chatter and relief. But as the students poured out the door, Mr. Rathgar lingered by the window, sipping the last of his lukewarm coffee.

He caught sight of Lisa and Wyatt at the door. They'd both stopped, just for a moment. Something flickered between them, a quick exchange of words, a long look, a touch.

A spark.

He smiled faintly, without knowing why. "Ah," he murmured to himself, "young love."

Outside, the clouds shifted, and sunlight poured through the window in thin, golden threads, bright enough to make the chalk dust glimmer midair.