Mistakes We Never Made

Finn helps Emma stand back up. He was her debate partner in high school, and he hooked up with a number of their female classmates. They almost dated several times throughout high school and college. They also fought at a wedding four and a half years ago. She’s glad she never fell in love with him because she is sure it would be a mistake.

She knew he would be at the wedding since he and Sybil were friends, but she planned on avoiding him. He explains that Sybil told him to come by, and so he returns with Emma to their table. Nikki teases Emma because Finn looks like her favorite character from Grey’s Anatomy. Emma declares that Finn is not her type and then declares that she needs a knife. Finn pulls out a pocketknife and cuts the lime.

Emma resolves to not drink much more so that she doesn’t accidentally end up in a fight with Finn again. They take their shots, and Willow discusses her pregnancy. They then play the Newlywed Game, in which Sybil has to guess the answers to questions about Jamie. If she gets them right, the others drink. If she gets them wrong, she has to drink. Emma pulls up the video of Jamie asking questions.

Sybil gets the first five answers right and begins to look bored. When Sybil gets a question Jamie answered about her wrong, Emma thinks she missed the question on purpose but realizes that it’s a fact that Finn knows about her that Emma doesn’t. Emma and Finn became friends when she and Sybil were drifting apart at the end of high school. Finn and Emma start to argue, and Willow interjects, saying that she’s going to bed. Emma says that she’ll go with her.

When Sybil gets home, she drunkenly decides to try on her wedding dress, and Emma helps her. Sybil wishes the dress sparkled more, and Emma suggests getting a tiara. Her friend cries, which she always does when she’s drunk. Then, Sybil asks her to be a steady support throughout the weekend. She feels like she might not be right for Jamie, even if she thinks that he’s right for her. Emma reassures her and admits that she’s not sure she’ll find someone as perfect for her as Jamie is for Sybil.

Emma goes for a run, and much to her chagrin, Finn joins her. As she tires of running up the steep hills, he seems unaffected. They stop at a rest station, and when his phone pings, Emma complains about him using his phone when the view is so beautiful. He shows her that his mom sent him a bunch of photos of baby otters because they’re his favorite animal. As she looks through the photos, she notices a screenshot in his camera roll that includes a special wallpaper she used in an interior design project six years previously. She feels that this project was the last time her approach to design met what her client wanted. She asks him about it.

Rattled, Finn says that Sybil sent him an article with some of Emma’s work because he’s eventually going to remodel his home. She wonders if Finn ever had a crush on Sybil since they spent so much of their senior year of high school hanging out. It was after senior year that Emma and Sybil grew close again, and then the Core Four formed when they, Nikki, and Willow went backpacking together.

Emma comments that the foyer in the photo seems more colorful than she’d expect from him, then says that he should give her a call if he does decide to hire a designer, commenting that they were good together on the debate team.

They part ways as Emma leaves to go get breakfast, where she meets up with Sybil’s parents. She and Sybil’s dad bond over their admiration for a rare Singer Porsche they both saw in the parking lot. She reflects on how different her single mother is from Sybil’s mom. Mrs. Rain asks if Emma is ready for her toast, but Emma runs off to grab Sybil for their spa appointment.

When Emma returns to their cottage, Sybil is gone, and so is her suitcase.

Emma checks Nikki’s room first, irritated that the itinerary she gave her friends isn’t being followed. Sybil’s disappearance brings back painful memories for Emma, reminding her of her father’s wordless departure from her life when she was a child. She doesn’t want to believe that Sybil has just left her own wedding. However, she also remembers that Sybil has been engaged twice before.

Nikki is surprised to see Emma, citing the itinerary’s instructions to meet at Emma and Sybil’s room. When she arrives, Willow makes a similar comment. Neither knows where Sybil is. Nikki relays how, the night before, Sybil and Nikki went to a tequila bar with Finn because he had invested in it, a fact that impresses Emma. While they were there, Sybil disappeared briefly. When she returned, she was visibly upset.

There’s a knock at the door, and it’s Mrs. Rain. She explains that Sybil texted her to say that she’s driving to San Diego for a facial and that she’ll be back for the welcome party later. When she leaves, Nikki adds that Sybil and Finn had a talk in which Finn told Sybil not to marry Jamie if she wasn’t sure. She emphasizes to Emma that she thinks this is good advice, and Emma disagrees, annoyed at Finn.

Emma reveals that Sybil took her suitcase. She is growing increasingly angry at Finn, believing that he convinced Sybil to flee the wedding. She decides to go to San Diego and asks Nikki to come with her. Nikki replies that her reality TV star ex Aaron is there, and if she’s seen in San Diego, people will assume she’s following him. Seeing how upset Nikki is at the prospect of seeing her ex, Emma relents but asks to take Nikki’s car. However, the electric vehicle hasn’t been charged. Knowing that Finn has a car, Emma decides to go find him.

On her way to Finn’s room, Emma runs into Jamie, who is looking for Sybil. Emma tells him that Sybil is at the spa. She then knocks on Finn’s door and explains that Sybil has gone to San Diego. He also defends his decision to advise Sybil not to marry Jamie if she isn’t sure, emphasizing that “[m]arriage is forever” (47). Emma disagrees. Because he is only wearing a towel, she also tries to distract herself from looking at his body. She asks to borrow his car, but he insists on coming with her. She is shocked to discover that he owns the extremely valuable Singer Porsche she discussed earlier with Mr. Rain. She tries to convince him to let her drive, but he says no. However, she’s excited to ride in the car.

Emma reflects on her father’s advice that how someone cares for their car can say a lot about them. Growing up in Texas, she often measured distances by how long the drive was between them. She thinks that her dad probably loved the escape that cars provided.

Finn asks about what she told Jamie, and Emma admits that Jamie thinks everyone is at the spa. Finn says that he’d want to know what was going on if this was his fiancée. Emma convinces him that if Sybil wanted Jamie to know, she would’ve told him.

Finn’s phone rings, and Emma teases him about whether it’s a girl or not. When Emma pretends to answer it and make a joke about sex, someone responds, and she realizes that she answered it by accident. She apologizes and passes the phone to Finn. It’s his office. While he takes the call, she looks at her email, seeing a meeting invite from her boss with the subject line “Performance Review” (54). She hits “accept” and sighs. When Finn gets off the phone, she apologizes again. He pretends that she ruined a deal for him, but she quickly catches on to the joke.

Finn says that he’s selling his company. She congratulates him, and she thinks about how so many people her age are thriving at work, while she feels like she’s having a hard time just keeping her job. A few months earlier, she was fired by a wealthy couple who didn’t like her design for their hotel. Ever since then, her supervisor has made references to changing her position on their firm’s design team.

Despite Emma’s protests, they stop for lunch at a taco restaurant frequented by golfers. Then, they see Nikki’s ex-boyfriend arrive. Emma thinks about how he lied to Nikki in the same way that Finn lied to her when they were younger and her father lied to her mother. Before she can stop herself, she goes up to Aaron and confronts him for cheating on Nikki, and he responds that she should’ve known what she was getting into by going onto a reality dating show. He turns away from her, and she throws her burrito in his face.

Finn begs her to stop, and she remembers when she was 16 and he failed to show up where they were supposed to meet. She tells him that he’s as bad as Aaron. She storms out, telling the cashier who is now recording a video of Emma on her phone that Aaron broke Nikki’s heart.

Eleven years before Sybil’s wedding, Emma, Finn, and the rest of their debate team win the state championship. On the bus home from the competition, Finn asks her to go to junior prom with him. She agrees.

On the day of prom, Finn doesn’t show up, and Emma goes to the dance without him. There, she learns that Sybil’s boyfriend dumped her and that Finn lent her his car so she could go to the prom. Later that night, Emma receives a text from Finn asking her to call, and she goes to his house after the dance is over. He apologizes and says he forgot. Emma retorts that he prioritized taking care of Sybil, but that it’s fine since they’re just teammates. She leaves, wishing that he would come after her. She walks home.

The next year, Finn stops doing debate, and he and Sybil become best friends. Emma grows apart from Sybil until Sybil plans their trip to Europe with Willow and Nikki. Emma feels that she has learned a lesson about Finn: that he won’t care for her heart.

Emma reflects that it would only become clearer with time that being with Finn would be a mistake.

Finn eats his burrito and remembers how Emma once yelled at someone for making fun of her sister. He adds that it’s nice she cares so much about the people she loves. Emma explains that she thinks it’s awful to pretend to love someone and then leave them. Finn asks if she’s talking about them, but she denies it.

She remembers how, five years earlier, Sybil requested that Finn stay at their apartment when he was in town for work. Initially, Emma agreed, but eventually, she tried to back out of it, calling Finn a “flake” because of prom (72). Sybil asked her if one mistake defined a person, and Emma thought so.

Nikki calls and berates Emma for confronting Aaron. Soon after, they arrive in San Diego at the spa where Sybil is supposedly getting her facial. At the counter, the receptionist tells her that no one with Sybil’s name is scheduled for an appointment. Finn asks about appointments under Sybil’s parents’ names, but the receptionist replies that she can’t tell them the names of their guests.

Emma decides they need to sneak into the treatment rooms. When she nears the doors, her stomach growls. Finn insists she get lunch first, and as they go toward the poolside bar, Emma spots Sybil walking toward the kayak rental counter. Seeing her get into one, Emma insists that they also rent one and paddle over to her. When they get in the boat, she can tell that Finn is nervous. He admits he’s not very comfortable in the water.