Lyrical Love Letter

To the world, seventeen year old Juliette Rose Barkalow lived the definition of perfection who breathed ambition. She was an honors student and a cheerleader on the varsity squad. She made every other girl in the room take a hit at their self-esteem. Her twin brother Declan was the same way, placed in Pop Warner football at seven, quarter back of the football team by sixteen and his sister captain of the cheerleading squad the same year. Life was perfect. A normal schedule for the Barkalow’s consisted of school, an hour and a half of ballet, then racing the clock to football practice. They had dinner with their grandparents every Sunday after church and they were never out of the suite passed midnight. They had grown up living in a five star hotel on the top floor with a perfect view of the east side of New York. Money seemed to flow through the Baraklow’s blood and luxury was all they knew. They had grown up expecting to inherit a large sum of money from their parents, grandparents, and numerous aunts & uncles.

To seventeen year old Juliette Rose Barkalow life was shitty. While cheerleading and good grades outlined her life, she never found herself performing as well as the other girls and her grades were slipping from A+’s to B+’s. Her chestnut hair never cooperated on days that ended in ‘y’ and she hated every piece of clothing she owned. Her boyfriend Matt Adams was cheater extraordinaire and her family was falling apart. Her mother was a pill popping lawyer who drank too much on weekends and her father…well her father wasn’t even her biological father. Her anonymous illegitimate father David was a rocker from some 80’s band and her mother was a teenage groupie. Perhaps the twins could have been perfectly at easy with this knowledge if their scared 17-year-old mother hadn’t told her then boyfriend that the twins were his; Leading to a shotgun wedding and seventeen years of lies.

Two weeks was all it took for everything the Barkalow siblings knew to disappear. Three months was all it took for one annulled marriage and a withdrawal from the twin’s inheritance funds. Leaving a thirty four year old ReneeBarkalow Dawson stripped of her life and luxury and stranded with two teenagers.

Luxury had just become a thing of the passed.

Two days in Atlantic City was all it took for Nana Jean to gamble away half a million dollars. Renee sold her hybrid and her son’s Pontiac Solstice (she attempted to sell Juliette’s Impala but no one in the city seemed to want a ’67 classic.), she even attempted to sell Juliette’s guinea pig but her daughter had put her foot down, Nana Jean sold her house on the shore in Jersey, Juliette took on double shifts at the café, and Declan quite the football team. And yet that wasn’t enough for the Barkalow’s. They had experienced the first slap of reality, coming in the form of three late fees, four over due bills, and two maxed out credit cards. In a blink of an eye everything had changed. Suddenly Juliette and Declan Barkalow were shipped off to Lutherville (or looserville as Juliette bitterly deemed it) with their 65-year-old battling cancer grandmother and insane mother. Juliette had screamed obscenities and cursed David to hell. She threatened to run away and even managed to find refuge in friend’s homes for a few days but nothing could keep Juliette’s feet firmly planted in the five star hotel. Ultimately Declan bit the bullet and picked his younger sister up over his shoulder and left the hotel while she screamed, kicked, and scratched every inch of him she could get her French manicured nails on.

“David can go to hell.” Juliette grumbled darkly as her suddenly small and broken family piled out of the car. They had been driving for hours and several times Juliette entertained the thought of taking a wrong turn and heading for California. She wondered how far she could get before anyone would notice. But she hadn’t. Instead she had driven the many miles from Manhattan to Lutherville; condemning herself to live with her uncle, who she had not seen since she was nine, and his family.

“How bad could it be?” Declan questioned a hint of mockery in his voice threaded with sarcasm but their mother, who hadn’t caught the subliminal message, nodded weakly in agreement.

“Please guys, be a good sport.”

“Be a good-” But Declan had clamped a hand over his sister’s mouth and shot her a warning glance.

“Don’t make it any worst,” He glanced at their mother who was juggling two boxes and headed for the house. “How bad could it be?” He wondered a hint of curiosity in his voice.

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“I’m not sharing a room!” The twins protested in unison.

“I’m sorry guys this is a five bedroom house.” Their uncle was three years older than their mother. He had dark brown hair and hazel eyes. “Besides it is only until we get the spare room set up for Declan.”

“Wait…five?” Juliette’s head whipped toward her mother and grandmother. “Where are you going?!” Declan gazed at his mother and Nana Jean alarmed.

“You’re not leaving us here are you?” He questioned sharply his caramel eyes wide.

“Don’t be so overdramatic you two; it isn’t as though I’m leaving you on a street corner with strangers. It’s Uncle Ben.”

“I’m sure that was plan B,” Juliette growled darkly before throwing her hands up in the air. “This is un-fucking-believable! You are seriously leaving us.”

“Where the hell will you go?” Declan snapped. Renee turned to him with wary eyes; it was unlike Declan to be angry. Declan had always been the mediator for the women in his family. He’s level headed disposition had always made him the only one with the ability to calm his sisters hot headed temper.

“We are going to Baltimore for a while. When we find a place, we’ll come back for you.”

“Don’t fucking bother!” Juliette spat between her teeth. From the corner of her eye she saw a figure drift into to the room and stand beside her uncle. Juliette’s glare was turned on the figure until she realized it was her seventeen-year-old cousin Rian. Juliette & Declan had never been close with their cousin. It isn’t to say that they wouldn’t be had the trio actually known each other. The last time Juliette recalled seeing her cousin he had been clad in glasses and braces, they had been ten at the time and it was Thanksgiving. Juliette & Declan and Rian had only been together a handful of times in their short seventeen years but it appeared, however, that they would be together more than any of their likings.

“Watch your mouth Juliette,” Her mother snapped. “Just because you have to live with your uncle for a few months does not give you the right to speak to me like that. Times are hard, Juliette, deal with it. Now apologize to Uncle Ben and Rian. They are being gracious by allowing you into their home.”

“Hell will freeze over when I apologize to you!”Juliette snarled. She glared at her mother as anger and disappoint filled her face, two emotions Juliette couldn’t stand to see on her mothers face. Tears welled threateningly in her chocolate brown eyes and Juliette turned abruptly into the room she was deemed to share and slammed the door behind her. Juliette was a naturally proud person; to proud to shed tears.

“Talk to her.” Renee hissed and Declan just shook his head slowly staring at his mother reproachfully. Their whole lives their mother had been like a best friend to them. They had been blessed with one of those rare kinds of parents you could spill your heart to about everything without facing judgment or question. But as Declan stared at his mother he began to realize something; Renee had only been their friend when they were getting A+ or winning state championships. Otherwise she had never really been there, busying herself with work related things. It had been the only father they’d ever known, Collin, who supported them no matter what they did, who when they would get a low grade on a test would get the response of ‘I know you did your best, just try harder next time’. This of course would follow a laugh, ‘you kids hand me these tests of 105% and I haven’t a clue of what is on the page. You kids do better then I ever could’. It had been Collin who had been their safety net, their go to person, the person they could talk to without fear of getting grounded, and the encouraging person every child needed. And now he was gone, half way across the country. Declan remembered clearly the day he had seen his sister in a state of vulnerability that no one before had ever witnessed. He remembered Juliette running for the front door after Collin, mascara streaming down her face as she begged for him to stay. She begged for her best friend, her caregiver, her daddy not to abandon her. Collin told her it was for the best and assured her that it wasn’t her fault he was leaving. He said he needed time and space to comprehend everything. But how long would that take?

“No Mom.” Declan shook his head, his voice distant. “I don’t have to say anything to her because she’s right.” Declan glanced at his uncle before his gaze landed on his mother once more. “We both know you won’t be coming back for us.” Declan turned and twisted the knob on the bedroom door before pushing it open and closing and locking it behind him. Juliette lay on a foreign bed, covering her head in blankets she had never seen, crying shamefully into a pillow that still faintly smelled like home. “Sunny?” He murmured, a nickname few were allowed to use; it had been a nickname given by Collin. He always said she had a sunshine smile. Declan stood planted in the doorway staring at the lump on the bed. “You want to talk about it?” It was a useless question but he needed to say something, letting her subtly know he was there.

“No.” She cried her voice muffled and broken as she hiccuped. Declan nodded and proceeded to unpack a few boxes containing his belongings ignoring his sister, with only the sound of her sniffling and ruffling of unpacked items filling the room.