Page 10 of Written with Love

When she arrived home, her parents were sitting in the living room watching sports with their two dogs fast asleep between them on the sofa.

“Who’s winning?” she asked, sitting beside her dad and grabbing a handful of popcorn from the bowl in his lap.

“It’s tied,” her mom said. “How was your date?”

“It wasn’t a date.” She rolled her eyes. “I was just going to get a tour of the lighthouse from Sophia’s friend Max, who purchased the place.”

“Right, Max Wilson.” Her dad wiggled his eyebrows. “The big-shot Hollywood writer and producer.”

“He lived in New York last,” she corrected.

“Right.” Her dad held the bowl of popcorn towards her, and she took another handful.

“So, how was the tour?” her mother asked, not missing a beat.

“I only got to see the lighthouse itself. The view from the top is amazing.”

“What happened?” her dad asked.

“Max bumped his head, and I had to take him to Dr. Stevens.”

“Is he okay?”

“Yeah, he’s resting. Dr. Stevens glued the cut. It was pretty cool to watch,” she admitted.

“You were always chill around that sort of thing.” Her dad nudged her elbow. “We thought you’d end up a doctor.”

“Not that we are pressuring you.” Her mother nudged her dad hard on the side.

“No, of course not.” He smiled at her and then wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close.

“Right, well.” She got off the sofa and, feeling slightly annoyed, took the entire bowl of popcorn from her dad and walked away.

“Hey,” her dad whined.

“That’s what you get for not knowing when to shut your mouth,” her mother said with a chuckle.

“Damn,” her dad added as Juliette climbed the stairs to go to her room.

Okay, so she was twenty-two years old and still living with her parents. A lot of people were in the same boat. Right?

After she locked herself in her room, she set the bowl of popcorn down and looked around. Not much had changed in the room outside of her bed growing to a queen shortly after she’d graduated high school.

What was she doing with her life? She plopped down on her bed. She stared up at her ceiling as she ate the rest of the buttery popcorn and thought about her next move.

It wasn’t as if she had intended to stay in her parents’ house this long. After all, her brother had moved out right after high school when he’d gone to school in Portland.

The thought of leaving Pride had scared her enough back then that she’d decided to take online classes from the community college in Portland. She’d gotten her associates degree in art last year and had taken a few more classes after, but then she’d taken a break after the last semester. She’d wanted to save up the money for a down payment on her very own place.

Privacy was becoming more important to her the older she got.

When the bowl of popcorn was empty, she rolled over and pulled out her diary and wrote everything down in it.

One of the first gifts her parents had gotten her was a diary. Her parents were half-owners of the Brew-Ha-Ha bookstore in town. They split ownership with her two aunts, Cora and Alice. She spent a lot of her childhood among the stocked shelves of those books and had learned at an early age that writing down her feelings helped.

Dear Diary,

Tonight, I learned two very important things: