Beautiful Mistakes

"Because I knew you wouldn't like if I wore them?" she finally said.

"Shouldn't you be more concerned with what Matt wants than what I want?"

"I don't think I should," she responded.

"Why?" he asked, watching her, his gaze dropping to her lips and then back to her face.

Her brow furrowed just slightly as she responded honestly, "I'm not…sure."

He didn't say anything for a moment, just sat there looking at her with that hooded look for a minute, and she wondered if he was about to fall asleep.

Then he smiled again, shaking his head and saying, "You should probably go home."

Julie broke the gaze then, her eyes dropping to her lap. The familiar sting of rejection set in—although she had no idea why she felt rejected—and she said, "You're not… coming home?"

He seemed to consider it for another second, his eyes lazily roaming over her, then he met her gaze and he said, "It's probably better that I don't."

Nodding, she said, "You're staying with Leigh tonight then? That's fine, I just thought I could give you a ride if you wanted one, but if you don't want one, obviously that’s fine too," she rambled a little awkwardly, her words her words coming out too fast.

"I wasn't going to go home with you earlier, that's why I let myself drink so much. But now that I did drink so much, I want you to take me home—it was kind of…" He shook his head, closing his eyes. "I can't think of the word I want to use right now, because my brain is a little foggy, but… the point is, you should go home, and you should go home now before I ask to go with you."

He made absolutely no sense.

"It's your apartment," she said, growing slightly irritated. "If only one of us is allowed to go back to it, you should go back to it. If you don't want to be around me, I can drop you off and go somewhere else."

His lips curved up slightly and he shook his head. "Are you really that dense?"

Great, he was back to insulting her again.

Standing up, Julie felt strangely emotional. She just wanted to get out of there. She couldn't even remember what else she had wanted to ask him, and she was getting so tired of being hated—she didn't know why she cared, she didn't know why she wouldn't wear the earrings, and she definitely didn't know why him telling her to go home because he didn't want to go with her made her feel like crying.

She only knew that it did.

"Are you going?" he asked, standing up with her, although his balance took a little longer to kick in.

"I suppose," she said. "You obviously want me to leave, so I'll leave."

"Are you mad now? You're not the sharpest crayon in the box, are you?"

Thoroughly frustrated, she shook her head. "Obviously not. I'm stupid and I'm unlikeable—I don't know why some people get all the bad qualities either."

"Why are you mad?" he asked, looking genuinely bewildered.

She felt like screaming. Did he not realize how openly he hated her? "I'm not mad, I'm just… tired of you not wanting me around. If you don't want me around, just say something. I don't give a shit about your stupid 'debt' or whatever it is you're using me to settle—if you hate being around me so much, just say something and I will be gone within a couple days."

She had expected to piss him off, so she was definitely confused when she looked up and saw that he was smiling at her.

"What?" she asked, eyes bugging out in exasperation.

"I didn't tell you to leave because I hate being around you," he stated.

No, he probably wanted to get laid, so he needed to stay with his girlfriend, she thought a bit sourly.

Her cell phone chimed again, and she fought the urge to throw it on the floor and crush it beneath her heel. Instead, she opened it up and saw it was from Matt.

"Is it him?" Aaron asked.

She wanted to tell him it was none of his business, because he had made her grumpy, but instead she merely replied, "Yes."