My life was going pretty great until my parents decided they had to throw the biggest party the town had ever seen.

Montagues and Capulets were in the business of outdoing each other, you see. The Montagues sponsored the school dance, and so my parents had to put on a dance of their own, of course. Except this one - in true Capulet fashion - had to be the height of decadence and excess. Our house - usually pretty modest - was decked with flowers, food, and gifts. There wasn't an inch of the house that wasn't covered with something pretty.

I suppose that's what bothered me the most about it. It was all so pretty, but it had no substance. It was all for show, all for the sake of making us the best. Capulets always had to be the best, and as a consequence, we were always the worst.

No surprise, Tybalt was delighted with the prospect of being "the best" yet again. He talked about how this would be the most amazing party ever, and how it would finally show the Montagues our family was the best. He told me, "It's not a party; it's a statement. It's a way of saying 'Look what we can do that you can't'."

It felt less like a 'statement' to me and more of an 'attack' move. Just another one of many coordinated blows our house would strike against the Montagues in this year's battle in the neverending war.

Frankly, I was tired of fighting.

I often went on long walks back then. I didn't really have a destination, just anywhere that wasn't home. Most of what I saw was just a blur, background scenery as I rattled away in my head, trying to figure out everything in my life. (I never really did figure anything out, by the way. I still have no idea who I am. The only thing I've actually figured out is that it doesn't matter if you know who you are, because you just are. No knowing required. You don't have to know the meaning behind a painting to think it's beautiful. It just is.)

It was on another one of those walks I saw Romeo again. They were sitting on the edge of this small cliff looking out over the ocean. I thought it was odd that they were just looking, until I realized that I was just looking as well.

Then Romeo turned around and waved at me. I froze, then snapped back into my senses and looked around quickly. If anyone saw us being civil to each other, we'd get in trouble. There was no one. We were on this cliff in neutral ground; far, far away from the feuds of our families and the pressure of society. We were alone.

Stupidly, I approached them.

"Hey," I mumbled. Would they even want to talk to me?

Romeo smiled. "Hi. What are you doing here?"

Well, that took me by surprise. "Escaping. You?"

"Same." Romeo patted the ground next to them and I sat down. "What happened, or is that too personal?"

I could probably go on and on for hours, ranting about Tybalt and the damn party, but I decided for the sake of our sanity not to. "Let's just say the Capulet house feuds with everyone, including itself."

"Huh," they replied, like they were expecting it. "That's surprising."

"Are you really surprised?"

"No."

"I figured."

I know what you think is coming. The romantic setting, the cute bantering, the physical proximity - this is all setting up for some big kiss or something, right? Wrong. Was Romeo cute? Yeah, but dogs are cute, and I'm not attracted to dogs. I can appreciate the aesthetics of something without going any further. And as for the setting, well - not a billion romantic sunsets could make me go against my nature.

Luckily, Romeo was the same.

And so we just sat in silence, perched on the edge of this cliff as the wind blew and the world turned and the waves crashed and the sun set. Though we didn't speak, the air was full of something more significant than words. There was a certain feeling in the space between us. Something between comfort and happiness that I hadn't felt in far too long.

It was at that moment that I realized that home isn't a person or a place; it's a feeling.