Lyrical Love Letter

“Another please.” Juliette grumbled as she threw back a shot of whiskey, it burned like hell but Juliette didn’t care. She’d considered Artois for only a moment but had then decided that it wasn’t nearly strong enough. Not strong enough at all…

Juliette was numb and indifferent to everything around her, but the whiskey reminded her to feel. She didn’t care about Alex and the pain she knew she’d inflicted on him like a whip. She was numb to the fact that David wanted to have a relationship with her, she was numb to the fact that Collin wanted to reclaim her as his daughter, and she didn’t care that she had hit the status of rip roaring drunk three shots back—what did it matter? It was all going on Renee’s credit card anyway—Juliette’s personal ‘fuck you’ to her mother. People around her were swaying and jumping in time to music that she couldn’t quite get the gist of.

The room was hot and humid and sweaty bodies were bumping into her, fighting for a spot at the already full bar. Juliette thanked her unlucky stars that she had stumbled into the bar two hours before Happy Hour, plopped herself down at the bar counter and had yet to move three hours later, laying claim to the bar stool she sat on.

“Who does that?” Juliette questioned, the Italian in her intensifying with her drunken state as she waved her hands around widely as she spoke. “I mean really, what am I discount steak? Already on the discount rack for having no relation to the guy then getting taken back to the store because I’m missing some essential flavoring, only to request the same slab of meat because Collin decides that I might be okay. And what about David?! Well, I might just be okay, it’s a convenient time for him to play House. After all he’s already well into his thirties and he’s already been divorced twice with no kids. The chance at kids at this point is slim unless he shacks up with some whore in Vegas and contracts the alphabet of STD’s.” She was rambling but the bartender, a middle aged man name Bill, was listening, and thoroughly intrigued by Juliette’s life story. “I mean my mother was a groupie for Christ sake and a cheating one at that.” Her words were slurring horribly as she downed the shot placed in front of her. “I spent my whole life believing the guy my mom cheated with was my biological father, was my dad. So the dude, who is actually my step-father…or was…basically disowned my brother and I, up until a couple of days ago when he decided that it didn’t matter that we weren’t biologically his. I mean all the damage is done so what’s the fucking point, you know?”

“Totally. I had this dog one time that my mother hated. It was a boxer with an attitude, so she tried replacing it with another boxer thinking it wouldn’t have made a difference to my ten year old self as long as they looked a like. But they were different dogs and I knew it, so eventually my mother found my original dog and got it back for me.”

“S’not the same thing.” Juliette pouted before she threw back another shot and pulled a face as the potent liquid went down. “’nd don’t even get me started on the fucked up problem that is the triangle of Alex, Lisa, and Jack.” But that was when the guy beside her gripped her upper arm and pulled her off the stool.

“Common pretty, dance with me.” He was as drunk as her, if not farther gone.

“I don’t wanna dance with you.” She yanked on her arm but it was next to nothing compared to the size of the burly man holding her.

“Just let go,” The man said bobbing his head to the music, his hand still gripping her arm.

“No you jus’ let go.” Juliette slurred. One good yank and the man flew off balance and Juliette’s arm went flying up, whapping him in the side of the head.

“Bitch!” The man yelled clutching the side of his head. A ring had formed around the two and Mark, the bodyguard, was trying and failing, to reach them.

“Really hunny, I’m gone ten minutes and you’re already causing a scene.” A figure was beside Juliette and she peered up at him between squinting eyes.

“You.” She grunted accusingly but said no more as she teetered on her feet.

“The bitch hit me!” The man accused again, angrier this time.

“My sweetums here just doesn’t know her own strength.” He put an arm around her shoulders, meant to convey affection but Juliette clearly got the message to follow along.

“Sweetums,” Juliette grumbled noncommittally. “You’re pushing it.” Mark was weaving his way through the crowd and growing ever nearer.

“Look, do you want to spend the night in jail?” Alex hissed between a clenched jaw so only she could hear, though an easy grin played across his face as though to convey to the crowd that this really wasn’t a big deal. “Do you want to be the one to explain to the cops how you got your hands on a fake ID? I’m sure Uncle Ben would love to hear that one.”

“Is there a problem?” Mark barked angrily.

“She hit me!” The man accused point vehemently at Juliette.

“I’m sorry,” Juliette began, careful to articulate every word but failing terribly in her drunken state. “It was an asssident honesst. I lost my balllencce you see-“

“She tired to catch her balance and hit him by mistake.” Alex finished in a perfectly sober state causing Juliette to appear twice as drunk. His hand drifted boldly to her waist, gripping her hip. “I better take her home now.” And before Mark could protest and the drunken man could continue ranting, Alex led her through the bar toward the entrance. As soon as the cool air hit her face, Juliette shrugged Alex off and stumbled her way toward the nearest payphone.

“What--no thank you?” Alex called after her, following several paces behind Juliette.

“I don’t need your help, Alex!” She yelled back, sobering slightly with the biting cold of the night air. “I don’t need some freaking savior! I’m Juliette Rose Barkalow!”

“Well at least we know you know your own name. That’s always a plus.” Alex commented sarcastically. “and what’s with the Barkalow crap, I thought it was Dawson? Oh wait, I get it. When you feel the need to be a bitch it’s Barkalow but when your in an okay mood it’s Dawson? Jesus Christ your like a PMSing Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

“Go away, Skinny Jeans.”

“You were going to get arrested. You realize that don’t you? You were going to get arrested and that’s before they find out about the tiny detail of you being seventeen-“

“My birthday is next month.”

“-with a fake ID,” He continued. “in a fucking bar, drunk of your skinny little ass.”

“I’m not drunk!” Juliette yelled back at him angrily as she stumbled on a pebble along the sidewalk. “and my ass isn’t skinny.” She grumbled

“Oh right and I’m Mark fucking Hoppus!” Alex retorted as Juliette made her way into the phone booth.

“Will you just leave me alone,” Juliette said her voice breaking slightly. This always happened when she was drunk, the slightest bit unhappy and Juliette went into full on weep mood. “I’ve had a really bad couple of days and I just want to call Rian and go home.” Juliette was concentrating hard on keeping her breathing even, determined not to cry. She was Juliette Barkalow and Barkalow’s didn’t cry. Barkalow’s were strong, respected, proud people. She wanted to go home desperately. But the images of home her mind produced were from New York. Flashes of friends, smiles, clubs, love, family. Tears welled up in Juliette’s eyes at the thought.

Juliette made no move to pick up the germ infested phone; she just leaned against the inside of the booth tiredly.

“What’s wrong?” It was then that Juliette realized how close Alex had come to her, but she didn’t have the strength to make some smart ass remark and push him away from her.

“What’s wrong?” Juliette repeated. “What’s wrong?” Her voice was breaking horribly, she was coming apart at the seams and she couldn’t stop herself. “What’s wrong is that I am hundreds of miles from the only home I’ve ever known. I’m the permanent new kid, I used to love cheerleading and now I hate it, I only joined to piss off Melanie. What’s wrong is the fact that I am a seventeen year old girl sharing a room with her brother. What’s wrong is the fact that I’m living under a roof with a family I hardly know. What’s wrong is that my mother abandoned me. What’s wrong is that for my entire life the person I believed to be my father--isn’t. What’s wrong is that the guy I thought was my father completely dropped my brother and I until he just decided that it doesn’t matter that we aren’t blood. The guy who is my father has known about me my entire life but never cared two shits about my brother and I until recently when it was convent for him. Because he wasn’t in the middle of a fucking divorce, or touring, or recording, or screwing a groupie. I’m having a bad day because you insist upon making my life a hundred times more difficult then it ever was. What’s wrong is that I had sex with you which is so so bad because well because…” She trailed off awkwardly for a moment. “I’m having a bad day because I was such a bitch to you before. I haven’t regretted anything so badly for a long time. That, Alex, is why I am having a bad day!” Tears were streaming down her face and she was sobbing uncontrollably. Juliette was angry and drunk and feeling incredibly sorry for herself but she couldn’t stop her tears. It was the hardest she’d cried in years.

“Shh Juliette, don’t cry.” His voice was soft and so full of care and concern it made Juliette cry harder. She didn’t know how or who moved first only that suddenly she was pressed against Alex’s chest and she was sobbing into his New Found Glory t-shirt, breathing in the scent of Old Spice. Her knees buckled but Alex’s arms went around her waist, holding her up as she cried helplessly into his chest. “It’s going to be okay, Juliette.”

“No it won’t, it’ll never be okay.”

Alex could only hold her tighter in response.