Act 1, scene 1: Benvolio (Romeo’s cousin) is having a riveting discussion with Lord and Lady Montague (Romeo’s parents) about those motherfucking Capulets (seriously, fuck them), and they are also expressing deep concern over poor, emo Romeo, who has been sulking around among the sycamores lately. As Romeo sulks onto the scene, Benvolio promises to find out the reason for his melancholy.

Spoiler: Romeo is in love with Rosalind. Unfortunately, Rosalind doesn’t reciprocate the feeling. Also, she has sworn herself to a life of chastity. Poor, emo Romeo…

Enter ROMEO.

Benvolio: “Good morrow, cousin!”

And that’s when I forgot all my lines.

Except it was more surreal than that. It was like an out-of-body experience. I literally felt like I was in the audience, and I was watching the Shakespearean Tragedy Formerly Known as Ezra. I watched as he destroyed his acting career, and his future with Imogen, in one fell swoop. His eyes were wide, and his mouth was open, and he looked like he might faint at any moment, or possibly die.

I knew my lines. I knew them! I whispered them to myself from my out-of-body seat in the audience.

Is the day so young?

Is the day so young?!

IS THE DAY SO YOUNG?!?

But the lines never made it to the Ezra onstage.

Benvolio whispered the line to him. Offstage, Ms. Lopez whispered the line to him. Loudly. Loud enough for the first several rows to hear. Finally, in a moment of peak exasperation, she rushed onstage with a full script and attempted to shove it into his limp-noodle hands.

The Ezra onstage looked at the script like it was his own death sentence.

And then he ran offstage.

Out of the school.

I found myself curled up in the parking lot, having an actual mental breakdown.

Crying.

Ironically, our production of Romeo and Juliet was on the evening of Carbondale’s first total solar eclipse. Ms. Lopez seemed to think it was poetic—being a tale of star-crossed lovers and all. It wasn’t until later that I learned how Romeo and Juliet really ended. It wasn’t a romance. It was a staunch, die-hard tragedy! If that didn’t act as foreshadowing of my future with Imogen, nothing did.

That was about the time my chronic insomnia became a thing. Although technically, my insomnia also followed a minor car accident from my childhood—one that happened a night or two before Romeo and Juliet. But honestly, I couldn’t remember a damn thing about it. My doctor suggested my insomnia was trauma-related. I suggested it was I-don’t-know-how-to-be-a-human-being-anymore-related. My doctor suggested that maybe that was trauma-related. I suggested that space-time was made out of spirals, known mathematically as the golden ratio, and that this ratio—1.618—was the mathematical constant that governed the universe, but knowing that wasn’t going to help me sleep—if anything, it was doing the opposite—so, like, did he have anything stronger than Ambien or what?