Beautiful Mistakes

"She likes attention; being drunk just gives her an excuse to act like that."

"Aw, I'm telling Leigh what you said about her sister," Julie teased.

"She knows," he said, shrugging. "Leigh is the responsible older sister and Danielle is the stereotypical baby sister."

"Nice," Julie remarked.

Leaning back into the couch, Aaron said, "Fuck, I can't even sit up straight."

"You lightweight," Julie said laughingly.

Aaron flashed her a smile and said, "I'm not a lightweight, I just… don't drink all that often. And in my defense, I have been fed shot after shot—it will be a miracle if I don't die of alcohol poisoning tomorrow."

"You won't," she assured him.

"Promise?" he asked, his expression jokingly solemn.

He looked adorable, all relaxed and playful.

Smiling a little, she said, "I promise.”

"All right. But if I die from alcohol poisoning now I'm kicking your ass," he informed her.

"You're not going to die from alcohol poisoning, you will probably just have a really bad hangover."

Shrugging, he said, "Oh well, at least it's only New Year's Eve once a year."

She smiled because his sentence was mostly redundant, but she nodded anyway.

"You look nice, by the way," he told her, glancing over at her.

Trying to hide her surprise, she managed a smile and said, "Thank you."

"You never went to Jack's party," he remarked.

"No," she said, shaking her head. "I pretty much told him he should party with his girlfriend."

"How'd he like that?" Aaron asked, smiling.

"He didn't." She paused briefly, not sure how much to share, but she decided to add a little more. "He tried to pull the 'I love you' card."

"Maybe he does," Aaron said open-mindedly.

She shrugged. "It doesn't matter. He just misses the convenience of having me around, not really me. I'm not sure he even knew me, not really anyway. I wouldn't be at all surprised if you asked him and he couldn't even tell you what I'm going to school for."

"That's stupid," Aaron said, missing a beat, then he said, "What are you going to school for?"

Laughing lightly, she said, "I'm going to major in English, but my end goal is actually to become a college professor, so I'm going to be in school forever."

Aaron shook his head. "I didn't like school enough to be there forever. I stayed as long as I needed to just to get my associate's degree and then I was gone."

Frowning, she said, "Your associate's degree?"

He nodded. "For business."

"I thought you got a bachelor's degree for some reason," she said, shaking her head.

Aaron shook his head, saying, "Nope, wrong brother."