Beautiful Mistakes

"And did he tell you the story?"

"Yes," Julie said, shaking her head. "She sounds… like a whore. I mean, I understand some people are ambitious, but come on."

"I know!" Leigh agreed vehemently, seeming to cling to having someone to talk to about it. "And he was so good to her, Julie. You don't see the difference in him because you've only ever met the post-Shannon Aaron, but before she ruined him…" Leigh sighed, trailing off.

"Yeah, it definitely seemed like she hurt him pretty bad."

"He was devastated," Leigh stated. "I will never forgive her for doing that to him. I mean, he loved her so much, you know? She just didn't even see how lucky she was. And the nerve of her to come back in here and think she can talk to him now…" Leigh shook her head. "He'll never have anything to do with her again."

Julie remembered her question about the baby, and she was just about to ask when she realized her phone was vibrating in her pocket. Normally she would ignore it while she was at work, but Aaron was out and she had texted Matt earlier to tell him she needed to talk to him, so she figured maybe he got around to answering.

"Hold on just a second, sorry," Julie said, grabbing her phone and quickly opening up the text.

Matt said, "About what?"

Frowning, she typed back, "Did you know Emma and I had lunch yesterday?"

Then she put the phone back in her pocket and returned to the conversation.

"I'm sorry, I had to take that. Anyway, I had a question. Aaron was kind of wasted when we were talking about it so he wasn’t totally clear, but he told me that she got knocked up."

Rolling her eyes in disgust, she said, "I know, right? As if the affair itself wasn't a big enough stab in the back, let's just twist the knife a little."

Her phone went off again, sidetracking her and she sighed, pulling it out to quickly read. "Yes."

That was it? Just yes?

She quickly typed back, "Do you know why she wanted to talk to me?"

Then she put her phone away again and said, "Definitely, but I mean… did Aaron ever…"

Leigh raised her eyebrows, encouraging her to go on.

"Remember when she came in here? What if it had to do with the baby?" Julie asked, although she knew her delivery of the question was clumsy.

Frowning, Leigh said, "I don't know what you mean, how would it have anything to do with that?"

"Well, she got pregnant, right? So… what if now that the baby is older—”

"What?" Leigh said, cutting her off with slightly wide eyes.

Since Leigh was giving her such a strange look, Julie just went mute.

"He didn't tell you?"

"Tell me…what? He told me a lot…"

"Honey, she didn't have the baby. She tried telling Aaron it was his, and of course that's how it blew up in her face, but didn't he finish the story?"

"Well, he didn't really tell me what happened with the baby, he was telling me more of the affair…"

Shaking her head, Leigh said, "No, when Aaron turned her away after she tried to claim the baby was his—that was after her other plans fell through, naturally—then she realized that the pregnancy had been a bad idea. She still clings to the excuse that it was a mistake, but I don't buy it. I think she had decided she was going to make a play for the boss, so she thought if she got pregnant… she’d have leverage? I don't know, I don't understand what she could have been thinking, but that's probably because I'm nothing like her."

"So, wait, she didn't have the baby?" Julie clarified. "There is no baby out there in the world?"

Leigh shook her head. "No. Once Aaron left her and she saw that getting pregnant had been a really bad idea all the way around, she thought she could backpedal and try to just get back to that status she had achieved by sleeping with her boss, and she wanted to please him, to get back on his good side. I wasn't eyewitness to this part or anything, 'cause obviously I cannot stand either one of them after what they did to him, but according to Aaron when she went crawling back, Matt just bought her off—he paid for her to get an abortion and within a month the bitch lost everything—since he was her boss, the favor worked both ways, and since she no longer had pregnancy to hang over his head he had no reason to keep her around. She was fired within a month of getting the abortion—served her ass right, if you ask me. But the really funny part is that his wife is the one who helped get Shannon fired—her dad owned the company, it was pretty messed up."

Julie only half listened to the latter half of that portion of the story, as her blood had frozen in her veins when she heard the name Leigh had used.