Beautiful Mistakes

"It's not right that you shouldn't be able to come to your own sister's wedding," Julie stated vehemently. "You are the only person who didn't do anything wrong."

"Are you sure?" he asked almost absently.

Frowning slightly, she answered unthinkingly, "Yes."

"You might hear a different story before this weekend's over."

"That… doesn't sound good," she said hesitantly.

"I'm just forewarning you," he said. "There are too many of the people involved here this weekend, and none of them really like you or each other. I wouldn't put it past any of them to try to tell you their version of the story this weekend, especially since you're here looking like you came with me."

Julie pondered that for a moment, mulled it over in her mind, and then decided that perhaps the wedding hadn't been such a stellar idea.

If there was something bad she might hear about Aaron, she was almost certain she didn't want to know.

"You know… it's not too late to go back home," Julie offered. "If you don't want to do this, if you don't want to go to the wedding… I mean, it's not that late, and I had plenty of rest. We could jump back on the freeway right now. Take the weekend off. We could go see a movie or go to a… museum. Or rent movies, or… just do nothing, and just not go to the wedding."

"Nah," he said, shaking his head. "I'm not going to let them chase me away from my little sister's wedding. I'm here now, I may as well just show up and… get it over with."

"I just hate to see you so uncomfortable," she told him.

"I can deal with uncomfortable. As long as you don't mind seeing me impersonate an alcoholic, because I have absolutely no intention of being sober any part of tomorrow."

Shaking her head, Julie said, "Trust me, that five minutes at the table made me wish I could have a drink."

He shot her a sideways smile, saying, "Ha ha."

She cracked a smile. "Nice."

"You're stuck being my DD."

"I knew you brought me for a reason," she said, shaking her head.

"You want to run me to a store?" he asked. "I should probably get a six-pack or something so that I can start before the wedding. Tonight it was just Shannon; tomorrow… it will be the whole damn Turner gang."

Nodding, Julie said, "Yeah. I remember that feeling."

Raising an eyebrow, he said, "From Jack?"

Julie shook her head. "No, the guy before him. I didn't love Jack, I loved the one before him."

"Fuck love," Aaron said.

"That's what I thought too," she said with a nod. "Until I finally got over the pain."

"When was that?" he asked conversationally.

Frowning, she answered honestly, "I'm not sure."

"How'd you get over the pain? Jack? Or Matt?" he asked, saying the last name like a curse word.

Frowning, she said, "Actually, it wasn't either one of them. I was still pretty anti-love when I was nannying for Anna."

"So, you never thought you loved him?" Aaron asked.

"Matt?" she asked, her eyes widening. "No. I've never fooled myself into thinking I love anyone—I either do or I don't."

"Well, that's good. At least you didn't love him. I wouldn't like if later in your pregnancy I had to listen to you blubber over him."