by Sam Mariano
"I guess that sounds…really naïve now that I say it aloud," she admitted. "But I really didn't. It was one decision that I just… didn't think about at all. I acted without thought, and once I crossed the line… there was no going back, you know? I couldn't go back and make a pro and con list, there's no rewind button… Granted, if I would have used my brain to begin with and thought it through then I might have been able to stop the whole thing before it happened, and then I wouldn't have ended up pregnant…but would I still be living with Jack? Would I still be acting like I didn't smell the perfume on him just because I didn't want to upset my meager existence? Would I still be smelling those disgusting breadsticks every day as I continued to plod my way through my day-to-day life? Would the neighbor with the Angelina Jolie lips still be smirking at me every damn time I went to check the mail?"
If he surprised her before, he really surprised her when he sat down next to her and asked, "Who's Jack?"
Raising her face from her hands she peered at Aaron, just realizing that he didn't know anything about her life before he met her.
"Oh… Jack was my boyfriend. He's actually the reason I transferred—No, that's a lie," she amended, shaking her head. "I was having issues with an ex, and Jack was a guy I dated when I was younger, but we never worked out because he's terribly faithless, he parties too much… he's just not really my type, our personalities clashed constantly. But he offered an escape. Jack lived in Chicago, so when he suggested we give it another try and I move here with him… I opted to run away from my problems and I moved here.
"Unfortunately, moving in with Jack brought on a whole new set of problems," she went on. "It's one of those hindsight things—I've concluded that I must have been intentionally not paying attention, because looking back…there's no way in hell he didn't cheat on me, and probably pretty often. He cheated on his girlfriends before me—I don't know that I really expected him to be different with me, because I'm not that dumb, but… I never let myself love Jack, because I knew I couldn't possibly trust him. That's who I was living with when I met Matt and he offered me the nanny job. Then, as I started spending even less time at home—not because of Matt," she added quickly," but just… Emma was never home, and I had to be with Anna a lot of the time, and I had school, too. There just wasn't a lot of time for Jack, and he is incredibly high-maintenance—you have to lavish him with attention every single night or he's going to look elsewhere, and he doesn't care if you have midterms or a research paper due."
"He sounds lovely," Aaron remarked dryly.
"And I'm painting him in a nice light," she said ironically.
Before she went on, she hesitated, not knowing how much of what she had learned about herself she should actually share with Aaron. Then she figured she may as well—he already hated her, it couldn't really get any worse, and it would probably feel good to actually share it with someone.
"I wasn't consciously aware of this at the time, but I think I was actually trying to get out of my relationship with Jack. One too many nights that I waited up, one too many nights that…he snuck in when I could literally see sun peeking in the window. Even though I never consciously admitted that he must be out cheating on me, I'm not a dumbass, I saw what he was doing. I think I actually had so much going on in my life that I just didn't have time to see that my boyfriend was cheating on me, as ridiculous as that sounds. I just didn’t have the time or the resources to deal with it."
Shaking his head, Aaron said, "No, that doesn't sound ridiculous at all. Actually… I think it's easy to get so caught up in your day-to-day life that you miss even the really obvious things like that. Sometimes you just don’t want to see it."
Nodding, she said, "And then there was Matt, always there to listen to me when Jack didn't care what I had to say, to watch a movie about an artist and his painting when Jack would have probably been stupid and wanted to watch porn or something," she said, rolling her eyes. "And he had Emma—and anyone could see that Emma…"
She stopped and glanced at him cautiously, knowing that she was probably treading on very thin ice, and she didn't want to step too hard and break it.
But Aaron nodded. "I know Emma. Go on."
"I just think sometimes that maybe the reason I…took the plunge with Matt was because I wanted out, but I didn't know how. Maybe not consciously, but… I never do things without thinking them through first, not really, and especially not important things. I knew Jack wasn't right for me, and when the opportunity presented itself… I think I just took it because I knew something would have to change then. I'm not the kind of person who can be involved with two people at once—when I picked Matt, that was the shove away from Jack that I needed. I think—and I've had a lot of time to think, but this is still only a theory—that I always viewed that as a temporary step, just a short chapter in my life to transition me from being absolutely dependent on a shitty relationship to get by to… wherever I was supposed to go next. The OB GYN never crossed my mind," she stated dryly.
Smiling a little inanely, Aaron said, "The temporary transitions tend to stick longer than you mean for them to."
Nodding, she said, "Mine completely changed my life. Now I have a baby on the way. Not really the next step I was planning to take, but… hey, whatever works, right?" she said, offering a smile.
Aaron looked pensive, but he nodded a little. "It sounds like Jack really didn't treat you very well," he remarked.
"He didn't. Of course when I got fed up and told him I was leaving, then he decided he wanted to change his ways."
Smiling without humor, he said, "They always do."
Julie shrugged, sighing. "I don't know. I just really don't know what to tell my mom."
Aaron was suddenly frowning, and she didn't know what she did or said, but she could feel the energy in the room shift, and his frown turned into a deep scowl.
The momentary camaraderie was gone.
Then, standing up, he said, "I don't know what to tell you."
She could feel him pull out of the conversation then, and his attention moved around the room as he walked, but she could tell he didn't really have anything to do, he was just looking for something to pull him away from her.
"Anyway, I have to make a phone call," he stated, grabbing his cell phone and heading to his room without another word.
Julie frowned as he ran away as if she had the plague, and she wondered what it was that she had said wrong. For a few minutes, she felt like she was actually connecting to Aaron.
However, the server seemed to have abruptly crashed, because the connection definitely failed and he couldn't seem to get away from her fast enough.
Sighing, she wondered if he would always hate her so much.
Then, glancing down at her still bump-less stomach, she said, "Poor Poppy Seed. You should have picked a smarter mommy."
When Aaron got done with his phone call—if he even made one—he left, leaving Julie to spend yet another evening alone with her books, her thoughts and the telephone.
She knew she needed to call her mom and explain the situation, but she really hated to do that.
As she was contemplating calling her mother back, her cell phone started going off and she saw that it was her mother calling.
Julie sighed and braced herself, then she answered the phone. "Hello?"
"Julie! How could you hang up on me like that—just drop the bomb and hang up."
"Yeah, I was being a chicken," Julie admitted.
"Who's this guy? You're living together? And you didn't even tell me? When did you and Jack break up?"
"Listen, this is going to get complicated." Sighing, Julie heard Aaron's voice in her head, simply telling her to tell the truth and she decided just to come clean.
"Mom, this is not going to be one of those heartwarming stories where the prince saves the princess and they all live happily ever after."
"Oh God," her mother groaned. "What did you do, Julie?"
Sighing, Julie said, "Well, it all sta
rted when I got this job as a nanny…"
---
It was incredibly strange, Aaron had to work the next day as far as Julie knew, but she was up watching Breakfast at Tiffany’s on television at two a.m. and Aaron still hadn't returned home.
She was getting worried.
Yeah, he had seemed to return to disliking her as soon as their conversation was brought to a halt, but he always came home.
When the movie ended she turned the TV off, and since there was still no sign of Aaron, she played around with the idea of stealing his bed.
Wherever he was, if he wasn't coming home at all, he would never know, and so far, it seemed like he definitely was not coming home that night.
She wasn't sure why that bothered her a little, but it seemed to. There was also no logical reason for why she should find the thought that he probably spent the night with his girlfriend or something at all disheartening, but she seemed to.
Her conclusion was that she must be lonely, and therefore she was jealous that Aaron had someone to go spend the night with.
In the meantime, she would take the consolation prize: the bed.
Chapter Fourteen-
Aaron did not come home that night.
When she woke up the following morning, she was all alone, and his side of the bed hadn’t been touched.
It didn’t feel great that actually opening up to him about herself made him avoid her even more than he had when he really knew nothing about her.
When she finally did see him the next day at work, he made no mention of it, so she didn’t either.
He was a grown man, after all. He could stay out all night if he wanted to.
With Christmas out of the way, Julie found herself counting down the days until she went back to school. Apparently she was either a fairly bad waitress, or Aaron couldn't even stand the thought of having to work with her, because it seemed that he was sticking her on the four hour shifts five days a week as if that was enough for her to survive on.
For someone who hated her so much, he certainly wasn't giving her enough hours so that she could move out of his apartment.
Maybe he was trying to get her to quit.
When she got her schedule for the week of New Year's Eve and she saw that she had four of the four hour days, she became convinced.
"He's trying to get me to quit, isn't he?" Julie asked Leigh conversationally one day as they made up silverware.
Looking startled, Leigh said, "What? Why do you say that?"
"I normally get five shitty shifts a week, giving me a grand total of twenty hours a week, and this week I only got four. Next week I'll get three, once school starts I'll get two… he won't fire me and go back on his word, so he's trying to get me to quit, isn't he?"
"No, why would he do that? You're catching on—I think you're pretty good."
"He hates me," Julie stated.
Leigh smiled and shook her head, dismissing the notion. "No, he doesn't hate you, he's just… Aaron. And he didn't cut your days, sweetie; we're closed on New Year's Day, so nobody works."
"Then why do I always get the shitty shifts? It's barely worth my time to come in here for four hours, and I've noticed that nobody else gets all four hour days—just me."
Frowning a little, Leigh said, "Hm, that is strange. I'm not sure, maybe just because you're the newest? If you need new hours I'd be happy to talk to him for you."
She didn't know why Leigh's friendly offer rubbed her the wrong way, but instantly Julie felt her mood shift toward grumpy and she forced a smile. "No, thank you anyway, but I… it's not a big deal I guess."
Why did Leigh always take it upon herself to talk to Aaron for Julie? Was Julie incapable of formulating intelligent conversations? Perhaps complex sentences were just slightly beyond her grasp.
Instantly, Julie felt bad for her unkind thoughts, especially since they were completely unfounded.
Shrugging it off, she decided it must be her hormones.
"Hey," Leigh said suddenly. "I just thought of something. Are you doing anything for New Year's Eve?"
Thinking over her options briefly—reading Shakespeare or Brave New World—she came up with, "Nothing very exciting."
"You should come to my New Year's party," Leigh said enthusiastically. "It's not a big party, just a… smallish social gathering. Aaron's coming, and I was just thinking about it. He was probably going to end up staying at my apartment since we'll all be drinking and everything, but if you wanted to come then you guys could even come together and you could drive him home. I don't know how much fun it will be for you to be pregnant," she said sympathetically, "but it could be fun."
Smiling slightly, Julie averted her gaze and said, "I don't really think Aaron would be happy if I went to the same party he was going to."
"Well, Aaron's not sending out the invites, now is he?" Leigh asked with a little wink. "And besides, I'm going to let you in on a little secret—Aaron is friendly when he's drunk."
Thinking back to the one lovely time she had interacted with intoxicated-Aaron, Julie smiled a little fondly in remembrance. "Yeah?"
"Yeah," she confirmed. "He's just… cautious," Leigh said carefully.
Thinking that perhaps it was a good opening, Julie glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was approaching, and then she said, "Yeah, I noticed. Does that have anything to do with that Shannon girl that came in here?"
Leigh took a turn glancing to make sure no one was around, then she shot Julie a hooded glance. "Naturally. I figured you would pick up on that. Aaron doesn't like his business being broadcast like that, but… Shannon Hamilton is one person that I just can't control my feelings around. She's such an evil little bitch, I would just love to scratch her eyes out."
Raising her eyebrows, Julie said, "Yes, I noticed. I've never seen you so... hostile."
Leigh's lips curved upwards just slightly, but Julie could tell just speaking of the redhead made Leigh's mood drop. "She certainly brings out the worst in me. I can't help it; I despise that girl with every fiber of my being."
Nodding casually, Julie said, "Did you guys have it out or something?"
Shaking her head, Leigh sighed. "No. Aaron is a class-act, even in the shitty situation she put him in, and he wouldn't even let me say anything to the dumb bitch."
Julie still found herself surprised by the level of loathing Leigh clearly felt toward the girl, and it was so apparent in the way she would swear and glare at the mere thought of her.
"I take it they had a really bad break-up?" Julie asked, curious, but at the same time not wanting to seem too pushy or too interested.
"You could say that." Leigh shook her head in disgust. "I wish that I could explain to you—she's just unbelievable. Take my word for it."
Smiling slightly, Julie said, "I already believe it. I've never met someone that made you swear just thinking of them."
Smiling a little sheepishly, Leigh said, "Yeah, she brings out my worst side."
"So, what is it that she did?" Julie asked, trying to keep only an appropriate level of interest in her tone.
Leigh sighed. "I wish I could tell you, but that's one thing Aaron would actually get mad at me for gossiping about. It's his story to tell." Then, smiling, she said to Julie, "Hey, if you come to my New Year's Party Aaron will be drunk—if you'd like to hear the story… usually he won't talk about her, about the whole situation, but when you get him drunk and ask about her… well, then he'll usually talk about it."
She only had to think about it for a few seconds, because the temptation of not only getting to hang out with Drunk/Nice Aaron again, but possibly solving the mystery of the redhead so she could quit being so curious about him was just too much to resist.
"You know, a party actually sounds like fun," Julie said.
"Great!" Leigh said enthusiastically, taking the container full of rolled sets of silverware and balancing it on her hip. "I'm so glad you're coming. You can use my camera and take a bunch of really bad pictures of all
of us acting silly. When I'm drunk, I tend to sing, so you can't say I didn't warn you."
"I'll have to bring a video camera," Julie said with a smile as she grabbed the coffee pot and prepared to make a round.
Laughing, Leigh called, "Good idea!"
---
As usual, Matt gave Julie a call to check in. He asked her the usual things—how she was feeling, if she was remembering to take the prenatal vitamins that he bought her, things of that nature.
Even though she hated to admit it, when he asked things about the baby, it made her feel kind of good—like maybe despite his initial bastard behavior, he actually cared.
Then he asked her about her availability on a day several weeks away, if she had any classes. When she asked why, he told her that he had scheduled her first doctor appointment on that day, so she needed to write it down and let Aaron know she wouldn't be able to work that afternoon.
"Are you going to come with me?" she asked without meaning to.
"If I can, yes," he said.
Since she found the answer just a little dissatisfactory, she let the topic go.
Without much trouble, they returned to more normal topics. Matt was also asking about the classes she was taking in the coming semester, and two of the classes she was really looking forward to, so she rambled about them for a while.
Then he got around to asking her if she had any plans for New Year's Eve. Although she was sure she hadn't intended on editing Aaron out of the story, she somehow ended up telling him that a co-worker was having a little get-together and invited her to tag along if she didn't have anything better to do, so she figured she would probably stop by their party for New Year's.
"Do you even have anything to wear to a party?" he asked.
Feeling like it had been a subtle and probably unintended insult, she responded, "I have clothes, if that's what you mean."
"Well, no, obviously you have clothes," he said with a slight chuckle. "Although I do prefer you without them…"
Her pulse skipped a little, and she pretended not to hear that part. "Well, I'm sure that I will be able to find something to wear. I haven't gained any weight yet, so all my clothes still fit me at the moment."
