"Please stop crying Unknown User Normal Unknown User 2 4 2001-10-29T17:47:00Z 2001-10-29T17:47:00Z 2 536 3060 DellComputerCorporation 25 6 3757 9.3821 0

"Please stop crying!" The harried teenager begged the crying twins. "Please stop!" He picked out up and rubbed his back, carried him around the room and smoothed the baby's black hair until his loud cries settled down to quiet whimpers. He picked up the second twin, a blond girl, and followed suit until she, too stopped crying. He hated being the oldest child, that made him the unofficial baby sitter at the so-called family re-unions, where as far as he could tell, no one was actually family.

He settled the twins on large pillows and had only just finished when he was called to by the other kids to help sound out a word, or find a certain puzzle piece by the other kids that flooded the spacious living room. "Please settle down!" He begged to no avail, he seemed to be the only voice of responsibility a trait he got from his mother, along with brown hair. There were other teenagers, but they were playing poker in the study, begging off from babysitting and he was the oldest...

"I'll tell you a story!" He said desperately, "Come sit with me and the twins in a circle and I'll tell you a story!" They loudly and clumsily gathered in a circle around him, looking at him with wide-eyes innocence. With his back to the kitchen he had no idea that the parents heard his desperate bargain.

When everyone was quiet he took a deep breath, not entirely sure what he was going to say, but he figured he couldn't go wrong with a classic, "Once upon a time…" He had heard different stories that started with once upon a time by the various members of the unique family, but they all seemed to include the same people, a brown haired girl that worked in her parents restaurant and wrote in a diary, who captured the heart of a lonesome young boy with expressive, soulful brown eyes and a quiet grace, his sister a blond beauty who was cold, but loved very deeply, their friend, a scared boy with brown hair who was angry but fell in love with a pixie who sang and had long blond curls and befriended a strange little boy with brown hair who played the guitar and wrote love songs about a princess.

He told the children, who were still too young to have pieced all the stories together, to figure out that perhaps there was truth hidden underneath all the pretty details and happily ever afters, a story about 6 teenagers who were afraid and confused and in love. He spoke of longing and betrayal, of hope and fear, of anger at themselves and those around them, unaware that the adults were listening the entire time.

Isabel put her arm around Liz's shoulders and Maria snaked her arm around her best friend's waist. Alex leaned down slightly, resting his head against Isabel's and Michael held tightly to Maria's hand. "You did good with him." Isabel said at last.

"We did good." Liz corrected, who could really tell which child belonged to who? They all seemed to sort of blend together as one family.

"He sorta reminds me of Max." Michael said, knowing Isabel and Liz must be thinking of their Max.

Liz surprised him by laughing quietly, "That's what I was going for."

The 5 friends listened to Liz's son (but still an Evan's by name and right) talk about their lives. He had hit the mark a little better than they would have liked, but it was still sugar coated with the fairy tale passion the adults had sprinkled over the stories of their lives.

He finished the story and the children erupted, once more flying about to play and torment.

"I was thinking," Maria said.

"Did you hurt yourself?" Alex teased.

"Shut up, Alex!" Maria cried, glaring at him. Michael squeezed her hand and she calmed down and said, "I was thinking happily ever after couldn't beat this."

-THE END-