Title: All's Fair in Stretch Marks and Pink Martinis

Author: Heath07

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: I don't own anything...

Summary: Just a little character study sort of thing. Julie. Ryan.

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He thinks he knows everything about her just because he knows she grew up in Riverside.

Well, he doesn't.

No one knows Julie Cooper.

They can't.

She won't let them. Sure, they can try, but no one will ever know the whole truth. Not the real truth, anyway.

People think they know her type, know what she's all about, but they would be presumptuous and only half-right. She's cultivated this life for herself. This magical universe so far away from the straggly-haired tomboy she used to be...but that doesn't mean she hasn't earned it. Slinging hash in dive restaurants, waiting on her father hand-and-foot while her younger brothers and sisters clung to her, starving for the only motherly affection they were ever going to get... Hell yes, she's earned it.

She'd spent seventeen years of her life earning it, letting people walk all over her because she had no power and no money to do anything about it and she vowed not to ever be that weak person again.

She's heard the whispers, seen people turn their perfect plastic noses on her while they sip their pink martinis and she still holds her head high, swallows her poverty in large gulps of lies. No one is ever going to make her feel inferior ever again.

No one.

Caleb is trading up as far as she's concerned. They can call her a gold-digger all they want, it doesn't bother her.

People might think they know her type, that she can be boxed-in that easily, but Julie Cooper is in a category all her own.

When she found Jimmy, she knew she'd found her way out. A sucker is born every minute and Jimmy was an easy catch...all she had to do was spread her legs and let him get a taste of what those rich Newport girls weren't so willing to share. She might have forgotten to take the pill on purpose but Jimmy never needs to know that.

She traded in an apron for stretch marks and a baby she wasn't ready to have; her father's respect for a man she didn't respect; flat shoes and cheap polyester dresses for designer outfits and four inch heels... This trade isn't that much different...one man for another. Hell for paradise? Paradise for hell? Everything's a tradeoff.

The reason Julie Cooper hates Ryan so much is because she sees her past in his eyes and he might see his future in hers. She's not quite sure on that detail. If he continues to pursue her daughter...

She can't think about it. She shouldn't feel that way about her own daughter, her own flesh and blood... And she knows she's moulded her to be the perfect Newport society girl, to have the life Julie was so desperate for growing up...

She can't change the past now.

She can't turn back time.

She can't be anything other than what she is.

She spent her whole life trying to be just like these people...and now she beats them at their own game.

She wins no matter the price.

Everything's a tradeoff.

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end.