I'll Take You Under My Wings

''How do you know you're in love? How do you know that you're in love if you even in your wildest dreams hadn't thought you could be? I don't even know if I sometimes wished to be in love, fall for someone, get turned on, and all that other crap..''

Someone knocked the door. Juliet quickly closed the book, along with the ballpen, and swiftliy shoved it under her pillow.
''What do you want?'' she angrily asked her brother, mad at being disturbed like that in the middle of her deepest thoughts. Dylan flinched, but Juliet couldn't tell, because soon an evil grin wandered upon his lips.
''What are you doing?'' he asked teasingly. ''Writing a journal or what?''
''None of your buisness!'' she snapped at him.
''Never mind, it's dinner time now anyways.'' Dylan turned and began walking down the stairs towards the kitchen. Juliet pulled out the journal from under the pillow again. She had to hide it somewhere more safe. Even if she just shared room with one more person nowadays, and even if her sister Lily was calm
and respectfull towards her. When they all had turned fifteen, the four of them had had to move apart to different rooms. It was all Andys, Alans, Martins and Daves idea. They claimed that you couldn't have four youths boiling with hormones sleeping in the same room. Especially not that the sibblings themselves all knew that they weren't biological sibblings. They weren't even cousins, or related to eachother in any way for that matter. They only said it was for their own good. Over a year had passed since then, and they all had adapted quite good to the changes. Boys in one room, and girls in another weren't so bad after all. The evenings had become alot more calm than it had been before. Or maybe it was because the four of them had grown alot more, and the boundaries between childhood and adulthood had grown clearer for each day. Juliet herself couldn't tell, and she weren't about to speculate in that anymore either. After all, she didn't know what it felt like, being fully grown up. If that was about having your period, she'd become a grown-up three years ago. As she had been ashamed about it! She had dared to tell Andy, fortunately.
She had thrown away her blood stained underwear, and had hoped to keep it a secret.

They had arrived in the late summer of 1980. Juliet, Dylan, Lily and Beau had come from different parts of the country and hadn't had much more in common than that all of them had come from dysfunctional, neglecting families. Drug addicts, single parents who had taken their lives because of the pressure and depression. They all had began their infant lives with things of that matter. They all had met here, in this house, on this farm. They all had arrived the same way. A fat man had delivered them, one by one, on a motorbike, only with a few days span between each child. Another thing they had in common were that
all the four of them had been lying in the mans side carrige. Alan, Andy, Dave and Martin had recived them on the porch and taken them inside. This big, white house, that had been Juliets home during the sixteen years of her life. How quickly time had went through their fingers. How nice everything had been during all these years. She had had four of the best of fathers, as far as she was concerned. They had given her food, shelter, a good home education, brought her and the other to the amusement park atleast once a year... Everything was so vague for Juliet anyways. She didn't knew about any other way to grow up
than this, and she slowly remember, how surprised she'd been, when she'd realised that a child weren't ment to have four fathers, but a father, and also a mother. When she'd met childen outside the house, that had it the way children were ment to have it, they had thought she was strange. Her sibbling had told it that the best thing she could do was to lie. To say that she had a father and a mother. She didn't even had to tell them the truth about all the four of them growing up under the same roof.

Why Juliet, Dylan, Lily and Beau had come there in the first place, weren't that important. Juliet only knew, that all the four of them had been brought up in a good way, and that none of their fathers had been trying to hurt them in any way. She loved her sibblings, she loved Andy, Martin, Dave...and Alan.
It was something special between her and Alan. She couldn't tell, if there was some sort of naive imagination or if that actuallt was the case. Of course, she loved Alan too, as much as the rest of her family. But it was so hard for her to say that about Alan, that she loved him. As if there was stupid to say so, as if it was wrong. But why could she say that about all the others? She and Alan hadn't any special connection had they? He wasn't as open and cheerful as Martin. Martin always had a smile upon his lips, threatening to break out into his special laughter. He wasn't as out going and yet prospective as Dave was. Dave could have alot of mood swings, but he could talk to anybody. And Alan was definutely not as responsefull as Andy. He was kind of the leader, as Juliet saw it. But he had been learning her how to play the piano, he had tought her how to sing. Juliet loved the times when Alan and Martin would play
together..Alan on piano and martin on his acoustic guitar. Sometimes, Dave would sing too. He had such a nice, deep barytone voice. She would miss those times...

But Alan hugged her just as much as the other fathers, and he helped out as much as the others with the daily chores. He had been the one that had recieved every child in his arms when they'd come. It was even documented with pictures, by themselves.

Sometimes it felt as if she understood Alan more than anyone else, and he understood her. She wanted to ask him so much, but she was shy in front of him for some reason. He understood her better than anyone else. Better than her sister, even better than Andy. Despite all that, Alan and Juliet still were like stangers from time to time.

''Juliet!'' Dave called downstairs. ''We're not gonna wait for you any longer! Get down here, now!''
''I'm coming!'' she called back and jogged down the spiral stairs. Everyone were already sitting by the table when she entered the kitchen. The saucepans were on the table. They had never during these sixteen years been having reserved places during dinner. So she got to sit where there was room for her. And she got a strange feeling building up in the pit of her stomach when she realised she was going to sit next to Alan tonight. He looked up from his plate, smiling warmly at her.
''Come here and sit, Juliet.'' he said and patted on the seat next to him. ''You know we eat together as often
as we can during dinner time.''
''Yes.'' she aswered shyly. She helped herself with some pasta with tomatoe sauce and sat down next to
Alan. Then the ordinary dinner conversation started out, as usual, until Dylan opened his big mouth:
''I saw Juliet writing in a journal!''

Everyones gazes turned to Juliet...