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It’s 11pm and they’re on hour three of digging through old photos when Emily springs an unprompted question.
“Do you ever wonder if we met as kids?”
From her spot on the floor, encircled by a literal fortress of photo albums, Beca blinks out of her daze and perks her head up. “What, just like...randomly bumped into each other as toddlers or something?”
“Yeah, before we knew each other as Bellas.”
“You grew up all the way here in Ohio,” Beca snorts. “And I lived in the boondocks of Washington until like, high school. Doubt we would’ve met before Barden.”
It’s been a few weeks since they’d decided to throw a year-late wedding reception, and after Beca gave the green light to proceed with the celebration, Emily had zapped into event prep mode, digging up the most cliché aspects of wedding receptions. Which brought them here, on yet another weekend visit to Ohio, to dig through Emily’s childhood photos from her parents’ humongous arsenal of albums stacked in their basement for the cheesiest of cheesy photo slideshows.
“But there’re so many stories of future couples and spouses bumping into each other as passing strangers before actually meeting for real,” Emily insists. “Like, real fate and destiny kind of stuff. What if that was a thing with us?”
Beca doesn’t look the least bit convinced. “You know I don’t believe in that soulmate crap. Besides, if we met, I’m sure we’d remember each other.” She laughs a little, mostly to herself. “I was a pretty big asshole as a kid. And as a teen. And well, now, too.”
“You’re not an asshole,” Emily says, smiling at a picture from her T-ball days. “Maybe a little rough around the edges, but not an asshole.”
2001
Beca doesn’t want to be here.
She doesn’t even know where here is, because her parents fought right before the drive down and weren’t talking to each other. Or to her. So when they pull up to a fancy-looking mansion with a fancy-looking party going on outside, Beca has no idea what’s going on.
She just follows her parents inside, tugging at the uncomfortable dress they forced her in, and lets herself be ushered into a room off to the side of the stairs. It’s full of children her age. Her dad mutters something about being back later and warning her to behave.
A freckly boy motions for her to join the rest of the kids. “We’re gonna play hide-and-seek!” he says excitedly. “Wanna join?”
Beca really doesn’t, but it’s not like there’s anything better to do. “Sure,” she shrugs. “Whatever.”
Someone starts counting and everyone scrambles out of the room. “First floor only!” the same boy shouts as he runs into the hallway.
Not even sure what they’re counting up to, Beca strolls after the others as they make a mad dash for the living room, dodging through the crowd of adults and ignoring their scolding for running in the house. This place is ginormous, a whole maze of hallways branching off from the living room and kitchen area where the adults are gathered, stretching into parts of the house that aren’t properly lit.
Maybe she should’ve asked whose house this is. Or why she’s here. They’d driven a good three hours to get here, it’s probably something important.
But she shrugs off the thought. Whatever, doesn’t matter. There’s a hide-and-seek game going on and she doesn’t really give a hoot to why she was dragged all the way out here, just that she gets to go home and change into pants ASAP.
Soon enough, the kids all dive into various hiding places — inside a closet there, behind a couch there, etc. — and Beca’s still wandering down the spacious hallways, interest in the game fading. She’s pretty sure no one remembers that she’s even playing.
Then she turns a corner and her stomach drops. There at the end of the hallway, curled up under the window, is a little girl sniffling into her hands. A crying child is the last thing Beca wants to deal with right now, and she starts slowly creeping backwards the way she came.
But something stops her in her tracks.
Grumbling profanities to herself, Beca drags herself down the hallway towards the sobbing girl until she’s standing in front of her. “Uh. Are you okay?” she asks awkwardly, hating the question as soon as she says it. Of course she’s not okay, she’s crying for god’s sake.
“I’m lost,” the girl says miserably. “ I wanna go home.”
"Yeah, me too,” Beca says, rolling her eyes.
“This place is old and scary.”
“More like old and boring.”
She’s doing an awful job of comforting this girl and they both know it. But being an only child, Beca has no idea how to deal with kids younger than her. She looks around, looking for a toy or something they can break, when she sees the telltale tiles of a bathroom a few doors away.
She ducks in quickly and rifles through the cabinets and and linen cupboard until she finds what she’s looking for. Racing back to the hunched-up girl, Beca plops down on the floor in front of her. Her dad had told her firmly to never sit cross-legged on the floor while in a dress, but he’s not here right now so she couldn’t care less.
“Wanna see something cool?” she asks, showing the girl what she’d stolen from the bathroom: a disposable Dixie cup. She turns it upside-down on the floor and makes sure the teary-eyed girl is watching her before starting to clap.
Emily’s still deep in thought when she reaches the end of the album book consisting of pictures from the early 2000s; she’d barely even looked at the photos close enough to pick one out. “Okay, we definitely could’ve at least been in the same place at the same time before BU.”
Beca groans from the other room. “You’re still going on about this?”
“I mean, think about it.”
“Oh my god, it’s like, 3am. I’m not thinking about anything.”
“There’re so many places our parents take us as kids, right?” Emily presses, ignoring Beca. She slams the 2001 album shut and stacks it to the side. “Like Georgia. You’ve got some family in Georgia, right? I’ve visited there a few times with my mom when she met up with her Bellas.”
Beca hums noncommittally. “Only distant family, ones we never went to visit. And my dad didn’t move there until I was like, twelve...and even then I tried not to go there unless I had to because I kind of hated his guts back then.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure I’ve spent a summer in Georgia a few times.”
“There isn’t anything to dig at if we’re going on something vague like ‘pretty sure,’ Em.” Beca comes back into the room to retrieve more albums to put away. “Like, I’m ‘pretty sure’ I’ve strolled through the Ohio area once or twice, but that doesn’t mean much. It’s a whole-ass state.”
“We still could’ve bumped into each other somewhere,” Emily says, determined to convince Beca otherwise.
2006
If there’s one thing Beca resents more than the summer heat, it’s the summer heat in Georgia at a nature camp surrounded by sweaty kids.
It’s been a year since the divorce and as per some legal ordeal that she doesn’t give enough shits to decipher, Beca has to spend a whole two months down here with her dad. Which was a phenomenal waste of time and effort and money for the plane ticket because he’s too busy teaching summer courses and writing his thesis and being a snobby little shit to actually pay attention to her.
Beca hasn’t spoken a full sentence to him since he left and she’s not about to start, especially after he enrolled her in a dumb daytime summer camp program.
Now she finds herself on some mountain surrounded by woods, a smelly lake to her left and an ancient-looking mess hall to her right. Since this camp only goes up to the end of middle school, she’s one of the oldest campers milling around a sea of screaming children.
Literally Beca’s worst nightmare.
The camp seems like it’s mostly free-for-all, counselors attempting and failing to lead their groups into designated activities but ultimately resorting to letting the campers do whatever they want. It’s only the third day and Beca’s already bored with everything this place has to offer; she’s not about to join the kickball or basketball game, and the girls hanging around the art center are too bitchy for her taste.
Maybe tomorrow she’ll bring her iPod so she can hide in a quiet corner and zone out for the day.
Drenched in sweat and miserable as hell, Beca wanders over to the shady part of the camp to cool off.
The last thing she expects to do is stumble into a scene from an after school special about bullying. Five girls, probably about Beca’s age judging by their height, form a loose half circle around a much smaller girl; her back is against the wall of the shed and she’s clearly being cornered. Beca’s too far away to hear what they’re saying but it’s clearly 5 v 1 confrontation, as if the older girls’ intimidating poses don’t say enough.
Beca doesn’t know the younger girl’s name — she really doesn’t know anyone’s name at this camp — but she recognizes her from the mess hall; she and a bunch of her friends had been singing some god-awful pop song at the top of their lungs yesterday. While Beca had found her annoying, she doesn’t seem like she deserved to be pushed around by a gang of preppy assholes.
This isn’t any of her business, that girl isn’t her friend, and Beca should just walk away right now to avoid any trouble. But instead of slowly backtracking out of sight, she finds herself surging forward, rage building in her chest.
“Wow, this is cliché.” Beca drones snidely, announcing her presence. “Cornering a defenseless girl 5 on 1? Behind the storage shack? You guys are so cool.”
The biggest girl, presumably their cult leader, whirls on her. “Piss off, runt,” she sneers. “Unless you wanna be next.”
“Leave her alone, man,” Beca says tiredly. “This is stupid.”
“Mind your own business,” another one of the mean girls perks up. “For the record, she picked a fight with us.”
“For the record,” Beca mocks nastily, glancing at the tiny, shaking girl and feeling her rage increase tenfold at her terrified expression, “you’re a fucking liar and you all should fuck off.”
A tense silence shocks through the girls at her use of the f-bombs. The presumable leader recovers the fastest and slowly breaks off from the intimidation circle to take a threatening step towards Beca.
“We’re just talking,” she says, tone overly sweet. “See, we’re all entering the talent show next week and we just don’t want any...song clashes, that’s all.”
Beca matches the fake tone. “Ohh, gotcha. Eliminating the competition, another cliché.” Smirking obnoxiously, she stands her ground. “Insecure much?”
Fake friendliness fading, Mean Girl Gang Leader scoffs nastily and takes several steps forward, her intention of shoving Beca to the ground more than clear.
And it all crashes down on Beca, the stupidity of it all, how she’s sweating bullets, how she’s stuck in a boring camp, how she’s in Georgia, how she’s dealing with these assholes because her asshole parents couldn’t be adults about their marriage and had to pull some shitty custody move that landed Beca in the middle of nowhere for a whole summer.
Fury burning so bright her vision turns red, she takes all that anger, that indignation, that frustration, and throws it all into a mean left hook.
And that’s Beca’s last day at a summer camp for the rest of her life.
“It’s just like, we meet so many strangers as kids, you know? And yeah when we’re older we’re able to recognize reoccurring ones, but when we’re kids there’s no way we could remember!” Emily whispers, and next to her on the bed, Beca lets out a long groan.
“Oh my god, Emily. It’s almost 5am and we need to sleep.”
“Like, let’s just say we both went to Disney World on the same day. That’s not that crazy! There’re only so many days during the summer that either of us could go. But that’s just an example, it doesn’t have to be Disney World.”
“Seriously, we only have one more day here before we fly back and we need to friggen rest.”
“Those are situations where you wouldn’t introduce yourself or like, formally meet someone, right? So we definitely could’ve passed each other by or talked to each other, even for the shortest amount of time, and we wouldn’t know it!”
Beca slowly rolls over onto her back and shoots a sleepy glare in Emily’s direction. “There’s literally no way I’d forget you if we met.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, ‘oh.’ You have a knack of saying the weirdest shit when you meet someone.”
“What? No I don’t!” Emily says, elbowing Beca’s arm.
“Don’t you remember the first thing you said when we met?” Beca laughs. “You didn’t even introduce yourself or say your name like a normal human. You just said that I led some musical revolution and that we’re sisters now.”
“Okay, that’s not fair. I was nervous and a little tipsy.”
“Just saying, it’d be hard to forget. You say some pretty ridiculous things sometimes.”
Emily huffs out a breath. “Do not,” she mumbles.
“Do too.”
2011
College is not working out.
Contrary to her dad’s beliefs, Beca really does make an effort. She sits through class. She does her homework. She gets a job. She eats the janky cafeteria food. She even gets cornered in the showered by a potentially homicidal senior who really wants her to join some lame a capella group.
She’s experiencing college, just like her dad wanted her to. But the more she does, the more she knows she’s just not cut out for this shit. There’s no way she can last another whole semester and a half of this nonsense.
It’s Saturday morning and Beca absolutely hates that she’s awake, trudging into the student center for a cup of lukewarm watery coffee to start her day. Midterms are finally over but god they’d taken up so much of her mixing time and Beca feels itchy all over, like she’s going through withdrawal from not being able to fiddle around with her equipment.
Thus, early Saturday start time.
She takes a moment to settle down at one of the armchairs, sinking down into the flat, faded cushioning to prop her feet up on the low table in front of her. Sunlight is just beginning to peek over the treetops, filtering into the student center where only a handful of people are lazing around like Beca.
It says something, that she’s awake this early on a weekend to dedicate herself to what her dad would call “a hobby.” She’s gritting her teeth through one year of college, spending all her downtime making her music, and committing to a life of creating content, so that has to mean she’s in the right mindset, right?
It has to mean she’s on the right path.
Right?
Beca zones out as more people enter the student center. A couple of people take a seat in the section behind her, and she tunes back in just enough to catch portions of their conversation. Judging by their respective tones, it’s a mother and a daughter visiting for the weekend.
“...so there’s no way I would’ve known that it’d be today,” the mom is saying as they settle down. Beca considers pulling out her headphones to block out their voices, both to give them privacy and to continue zoning out without disruptions.
But then the younger voice perks up. “’Oh please, mom. I’ll bet my left buttcheek that this was the real reason for this ‘weekend girls’ trip’ down to your old school,” she says, and Beca raises her eyebrow at the ridiculous words and playful tone. Beca’d never been too close with her mom or her stepmom, so casual banter with a parent is something she’s not used to.
The mom chuckles a little. “No, hun. How could I have guessed that today of all days is audition day for the Bellas?”
The last word sends a shock running through Beca.
Bellas. Auditions. Saturday.
Today.
A vivid image of a terrifyingly insistent ginger, invading her shower with a serial-killer smile on her face, flashes before Beca’s eyes. She wouldn’t put it past that terrifying senior to hunt her down if she skips auditions, but it’s not like Beca would sacrifice a whole Saturday for that shenanigans when she could be strengthening her portfolio to take to L.A. as soon as May comes around.
“Well, it’s a good kind of coincidence,” the mom continues, “maybe we can drop by and say hi.”
The daughter groans. “It’s been years since you were a Bella. You’re so old now, it’s gonna be embarrassing.”
Wow, Beca thinks monotonously. This chick’s mom was a Bella? How far back does this cult go? Is every female on this campus secretly a Bella? Is everyone a part of this a capella craze and I’m the only sane person left?
The duo behind her starts bickering, the daughter arguing that their visit to Barden was all some kind of ruse and the mother insisting that it was unintentional. This time, Beca pulls out her headphones and blocks them out.
Hmm.
Maybe she’ll drop by auditions later, just to see what all the hype is about.
It’s not like they’d take her, anyway.
Right?
Emily slams the 500th album shut and sinks back into the couch. It’s approaching midday and they have to pack up soon to make their 3pm flight back to New York.
Next to her, Beca also leans back, handing Emily a crumpled, creased, and smudged piece of paper. “There. That’s literally all I can remember.”
She squints at Beca’s sparse additions, deciphering her scribbles and the oodles of question marks surrounding almost every comment she wrote. “This is the worst collaborative effort I’ve ever seen.”
Beca coughs out a surprised laugh. “You’re asking me to remember places I went to and people I talked to as a child. That’s literally over 20 years ago.”
“That doesn’t matter! Look how much I remember,” Emily says, pointing at the timeline she drew and all the little events that had happened throughout her life. Maybe because they spent the last 36 hours digging through her past, Emily has vacations and trips dating back to her single-digit ages. The earliest memory Beca jotted down is one from middle school.
“Well you have an unfair advantage.” Beca reads Emily’s mind and nods towards the photo albums. “You just had a refresher course.”
Emily hums. “Okay, fine. I’ll keep this safe until we go to your house and sort through your photo albums. Then you’ll see.”
“Wow. I can’t believe you’re this invested,” Beca says. “Is this still even about the reception and this sappy photo montage? Or are you just trying to force some ‘red string of fate’ crap into our story now?”
“It’s not crap,” Emily tells her patiently. “It’s romantic. What if it’s true and we find tons of connections in our past? Think of how cool that would be!”
“That’s a pretty big what if, dude.”
2014
Beca absolutely hates it when high schoolers come to visit the campus. If it’s not the mobs upon mobs of tours clogging every stretch of sidewalk and entryway, it’s the hundreds of parents side-eyeing and judging every minor flaw they come across.
Like yeah, the cafeteria food sucks, but that’s something only students have a right to complain about.
For once in her life, Beca’s hanging out in the library to maximize her concentration; the Bellas are doing a special performance at the Kennedy Center over this summer break, and the venue has been hounding them about sending in their tech rider early so they can prepare for the show. The deadline is tomorrow night and Beca isn’t even close to done.
So, despite her abhorrence towards teenage crowds on Accepted Students Day, she drags her tired body out of the house and to campus, fighting hoards of tours to get to the library. There, she parks herself down at a table, not intending to leave until the library closes at midnight.
It takes roughly 20 minutes for her to regret this decision.
Maybe she just chose the wrong seat; she’d meant to pick a spot in the quiet section of the floor away from the elevators and stairs, but as Beca sits there, gnashing her teeth and stewing, no less than ten high schoolers with their parents pass behind her, chatting without a damn care in the world.
And it’s not so much the noise, since she has her soundproof headphones firmly clamped over her ears, but just the presence of so many bodies passing by behind her puts her on edge. Beca’s always had a pet peeve of people hanging over her shoulder to look at what she’s working on, and whether these people are doing that or not, it’s driving her insane.
The final straw is when someone stops right behind her to talk to someone at the next table, their voices inaudible through her headphones but almost tangible through Beca’s heightened annoyance. She fights hard to ignore the conversation but she can still tell that it’s between a girl and a guy, her tone more inquisitive than his.
Patience finally snapping, Beca minimizes the mixing program on her laptop and smashes the pause button on her music to tell these two people to shut the hell up.
“...and she told me we can meet up at the music building, but I’m not sure which one that is,” the girl is saying.
The male voice responds. “Oh, uh...I’m actually a transfer here,” he says apologetically. “I don’t know the campus that well either.”
The girl whispers a small curse. “Uh, hmm. Is there like a map I can get anywhere, or...”
“The front desk might have something,” he suggests.
“Ugh, I know, but there’s no one there. That’s why I came in here thinking that maybe someone else would know —”
“It’s down by the Athletic Center,” Beca interrupts impatiently without looking up. “Make a left when you hit the quad, keep going until you see the Science Complex. It’s the one between the Bio building and the Student Center.”
There’s a small, surprised silence before the girl speaks up. “Oh, uh. Thanks. S-sorry if I bothered you.”
Beca scoffs. “Yeah, maybe the library isn’t the best place to pick up strangers.”
“I wasn’t —!” the girl starts defensively but probably thinks better of it, seeing that Beca hasn’t even bothered turning around. “Sorry again,” she whispers as she retreats towards the door.
Beca just rolls her eyes and starts her music back up.
Their Uber gets lost approximately six times on the way from the airport back to their apartment. Beca collapses on the couch as soon as they trudge in the door with their bags, mumbling profanities about stupid drivers and calling for more self-driving cars.
Equally exhausted but determined to make the night marginally better, Emily drags herself over to the kitchen to heat up water for tea. “Want some?” she calls to Beca, who grunts out a negative sound. She takes out an extra mug anyway.
“What about at Barden?” Emily asks, hit with a sudden thought.
Beca cracks open one eye. “What?”
“You were at Barden for three years before I came along, right? I’ve definitely visited the campus before I was a freshman there. So we for sure were at least in the same area at the same time before we met!”
Closing the one eye again, Beca inhales slowly through her nose. “Emily.”
“Hey, this one’s totally plausible,” she says defensively, but she just gets an unintelligible string of groans in response. “I mean like, I kinda knew who you were since the Bellas blew up after your freshmen year, but you didn’t know me, so you totally could’ve — oh. Hi.”
Beca materializes next to her at the kitchen counter, hair slightly mussed from where it’d rubbed against the couch. “Look,” she starts, tugging at Emily’s sleeve so they’re facing each other before shuffling sleepily into her arms. Tea prep forgotten, Emily smiles at Beca’s rare initiation of affection and pulls her in gently. “Isn’t the important thing that we’re together now?” she asks into Emily’s shoulder. “Whether or not we’ve met before or whatever, we ended up here by some roll of the dice, right?”
“Mmm, I guess,” Emily mumbles.
“So like, why don’t we just forget about the what ifs and be grateful for what we ended up with? Because like, maybe I don’t believe in that destiny bullshit, but what I have right now with you is pretty great.”
“Yeah? Pretty great?”
Beca smiles against Emily’s neck. “Shut up. I’m being sappy for you, don’t mock me.”
“Well I think you’re pretty great too, babe.”
“Ugh, never mind, bye.”
“Nooo stay. I have tea and kisses.”
“Gross. Gimme.”
2019
It’s all Fat Amy’s fault.
Which is something neither of them will ever admit for as long as they live because looking at it from another angle, it’s all thanks to Fat Amy.
More than a month has passed since their little April Fool’s stunt and Beca could not be more antsy and on edge if she were living with 500 toddlers. Each day that passes where they’re not pretending to be engaged, even just for the sake of social media and the prank, the hole in Beca’s chest grows bigger and bigger until she’s almost convinced that they legitimately divorced.
As if Emily senses Beca’s uneasiness, she starts to putting distance between them, marginally small and hardly noticeable, but it makes Beca feel like the biggest idiot. There’s nothing malicious behind the gestures — the extra few inches of space Emily gives her when they’re sitting together on the couch, the subtle restraint of her smile when she teases Beca about something stupid, the growing infrequency of shared meals — since they’re just friends and roommates and nothing more, but they’re there and it’s clearly because her internal turmoil is visible to Emily.
And she just wants to be a damn adult for once, to confront her feelings and admit — even just to herself — that she can’t see Emily as just a friend or a roommate anymore, that she wants to keep doing the dumb couple-y stuff they were faking for April Fool’s, that she just really, really, really wants to kiss Emily like, once before she inevitably fucks things up and ruins the friendship they have. The prank was flawless and hilarious, but sometimes Beca wishes she could travel back in time to slap the ever-living crap out of her past self, the one who thought it’d be a good idea to fall into the classic trap of pretending to be romantic with someone she has real feelings for.
It’s week seven (not that Beca’s counting or anything) of them tiptoeing around each other when Emily suggests they open the bottle of wine Fat Amy had snuck through customs from Italy when she was visiting to buy her fifth vacation house with her new fortune.
Okay, maybe alcohol will help, Beca thinks, watching Emily pour out two glasses of deeply red wine. They’ll drink a little, get a buzz going, and maybe the mood will be light and happy enough for her to casually drop the bomb that she might have feelings for her roommate and face the consequences of her confessions with a hazy mind and temporary immunity to the devastatingly traumatic rejection.
She barely has a second to mull over how she would even start the conversation before Emily lets out a short scream while reaching out to pass Beca her wine, tripping over her own feet and sending the cherry-red contents of the glass all over Beca’s shirt.
“Hoooooo my god, I’m so sorry,” Emily gapes, almost dropping the now-empty glass in her panic. “Holy crap. Oh, god. Shit. Oh, god oh god oh god.”
“It’s fine,” Beca shrugs, more bothered by the coldness of the liquid seeping into her skin than the blooming stain. “It’s an old T-shirt anyway, so —”
She doesn’t even finish her sentence before Emily yanks the T-shirt clean over her head in one, frantic, unexpected movement. Abruptly shirtless, Beca stands there shocked and confused in her bra as Emily tosses the stained shirt into the kitchen sink and starts running the water full blast.
“Uhhhh I don’t remember the exact trick, but I think dish detergent and cold water and maybe...hydrogen peroxide?” Emily rustles under the sink as she talks over the rushing water. “I’m just gonna...let it soak I think? I dunno, I dunno! I’m sorry!” Her panicked eyes meet Beca’s for a split second before they flicker down ever so slightly. She snaps back up to Beca’s face, blushing instantaneously. “I-...oh, god. I’m so sorry, I wasn’t thinking and I just —”
“No, I get it. It’s...I mean, like...that was the right thing to do so...thanks. Uh, I guess.” Beca is mortifyingly aware that she’s blabbering and that she just thanked Emily for stripping her. “N-not for like, that. But for...uh. For...you know what? I’m just gonna —”
“You should —”
“Yeah —”
“Put on a —”
“Yup.”
“Yeah.” Emily clears her throat. “Good. I mean! Not that it’s not good if you don’t, it’s just...you know, you might...um, catch a cold or something, so, uh —”
“I’ll put on a shirt, Em.”
“Right. You...do that.”
Contemplating defenestration, Beca digs through her dresser for another shirt, barely able to process everything that happened in the last 45 seconds. It was supposed to be a chill wine night. Just wine. Maybe an earth-shattering confession. Definitely no toplessness involved.
It shouldn’t even be a big deal; they’ve seen each other in various states of undress over the years they lived together. They’d even shared dressing room space with the Bellas when they went on the road to perform, and they slept in a tent the size of a car trunk with eight other girls on that hellish retreat. There isn’t much they hadn’t seen of each other.
Then again, she wasn’t like, highkey crushing on Emily back then. They were just teammates, just two members of a dorky a capella group, just friends.
And it’s not like they’d ever undressed each other, so.
Forcefully willing away the heat rising in her cheeks, Beca throws on a clean shirt and turns to find Emily sinking slowly to the floor until she lands heavily on her butt. Beca watches, flabbergasted, as Emily starts scooting backwards on the floor until she’s completely under the kitchen table.
“Wh-...oh my god, where are you going?” Beca asks. “Get out of there, you doofus.”
“No. This is where I belong now,” Emily states, wrapping her arms around the leg of the table. “Out of sight and in isolation. Just what people like me deserve.”
“People like —? ...Wow. Look, I get it, dude. It was instinctive, you weren’t thinking, whatever. It’s not a big deal.”
She closes her eyes at Beca’s words, shaking her head slowly as she rolls it against the table leg. “I’m a creep and a monster.”
Beca wants to laugh at the exaggeration, but she doesn’t; if she’d done what Emily had, she’d probably be feeling the same exact way. “Hey, come on, man. It’s fine. See? I’m dressed, it’s fine, everything’s fine, we’re all fine. So just...come out of there.”
Emily’s eyes snap open, gaze fixated on the floor. Her mouth works like she wants to say something, but it’s a good while before the words come out. “Um. What if everything’s not fine?” she asks in a small voice.
Beca’s guts curl inwards unpleasantly. “Uh. Why wouldn’t it be?” she asks. When Emily continues staring at the floor, unresponsive, Beca can only assume the worst: she’d picked up on Beca’s dumb feelings and she doesn’t know how to turn her down.
It’s a hell of a conclusion to jump to, but with all of the nerves that’d been building up inside her, all of the insecurities just come flooding out. Beca swallows, dread building thickly in her chest. “Is it...is it me? Did I do something...wrong?”
“What? No!” Emily says quickly, looking astonished that Beca would even suggest that. “No, no it’s not you. Well, okay, it is you, but it’s not your...hm, well it kind of is your fault, in a way, I guess, but it’s not your intentional fault, I guess?”
“Emily.”
“I know, I’m sorry! I’m just going on and on and confusing you and...and. Y-you just...” She trails off with a small groan, curling tighter into herself.
Even though she feels a little ridiculous, Beca joins Emily on the floor so they can be on the same level. She leans back against the bed, looking expectantly at Emily across the floor — still hiding under the table — and mulling over her puzzling words. It’s not her intentional fault? What does that even mean?
After a long, tense silence, Emily opens her mouth again. “You just. Make me nervous sometimes.”
Beca frowns, taken back. “I do?”
She nods. “For the obvious reasons, of course. Like...you’re cool and funny and pretty and super talented and kind of intimidating.” Emily drums her fingers nervously against the table leg. “But you’re also really kind and caring and thoughtful and sweet but you act like you aren’t and it just makes me feel...um. It...scares me.”
“Why does that scare you?”
Emily’s chewing so insistently on her lip and breathing so shakily that Beca’s worried she’s about to start crying. But her eyes remain clear, just restless and nervous. “Because...” She swallows audibly. “I...because, um. I might...I think...no, I know that I...” Her halting sentence gradually decreases in coherency and volume until she’s just mumbling a string of completely indistinguishable words.
Beca blinks. “Uhh...what?”
Emily looks like she’d rather sink into the ground than repeat what she’d said. When she finally tears her gaze from the floor, Beca suddenly knows what Emily’s going to say right before she does. “I...really, really like you. Like. In a more-than-friends way. In a romantic way.” She holds Beca’s shocked eye contact for a solid five seconds before she breaks first and looks back down at the floor. “I’m sorry,” she adds, a whisper that’s barely audible over the thundering of Beca’s heartbeat in her ears.
“Wh-...? Why’re you sorry?”
“I don’t know,” Emily says, still in that tiny voice. “I didn’t want to ruin anything between us. I like how we are, now, as roommates and friends. But I also like how we were, acting all cute and couple-y, even if it was all fake. So...I don’t know.”
Swept up in a whirlwind of emotions, Beca can only stare and listen, barely breathing through disbelief. This can’t be real. This can’t be happening. How can someone like Emily reciprocate her dumb gay crush? How is the most perfect, dorky human Beca’s ever met returning her feelings? And how is she supposed to follow up this untimely coincidental confession?
Just be like yeah, same and high five?
“And I thought I could just keep it to myself, you know?” Emily’s going on. “Until I got over it or something. But then I do the dumbest things like...like just. Spill wine all over you. And then rip your shirt off. And now I’m just...ugh, I’m just, like, hiding under a kitchen table telling you all these dumb things and you probably hate me now or don’t want to be around me, and —”
“Em.”
“I know it’s dumb, but I’ll get over it, I promise. So just please don’t worry about me or pity me or run away or —”
“Emily.”
“— just give me a few days...no, maybe a week. And I’ll be completely normal. Like, we’ll just forget all of this happened and everything will be back to —”
“I like you too, dude,” Beca says loudly over Emily’s frantic blabbering.
Her mouth clamps shut and her eyes go wide. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“...for real?”
Beca reels back. “Why would I lie about that?”
“We lied to the Bellas for weeks.”
“That was for them! For a prank!”
Emily stares at her, expression a mix of hopefulness and confusion.
“I wouldn’t...god, I wouldn’t joke about shit like this,” Beca explains. “This thing we were supposed to do tonight, with the wine? It was supposed to be like, an ice breaker or whatever so I could tell you...well, basically everything you told me.”
“Oh,” Emily says again.
“I didn’t want to say anything either. Thought I’d get over it eventually, but...I didn’t. Since it kinda seemed like you picked up on it, I thought I’d just get it off my chest so you can flat-out reject me and we’d move on.” Beca gestures vaguely between them. “But, like, this works too. I, uh. I really like you too. More than friends. Romantically.”
A heavy silence follows the last word and Beca’s stomach bubbles uncertainly. Did that come out too casual? Does she still think it’s all fake?
Hands starting to shake from anticipation, Beca is seconds away from diving into a whole monologue of explaining every detail of all of her feelings when Emily suddenly bursts out laughing. It’s the last reaction Beca could’ve expected. “What...? What’s happening?” she asks.
“I can’t — holy crap — I can’t believe,” she wheezes in between her laughter, gasping for words, “Beca, we’re so dumb.”
Not about to dispute that but still confused as hell, Beca raises her eyebrows in a nonverbal question.
“It took us, what, months? A year? To get all of this straight? And we might not have if we didn’t, like, see how easy it was to be together when we were faking an engagement. Or if I didn’t dump wine on your and take off your shirt.” Emily sounds like she’s not even breathing through her explanation, choking on laughter after every other word. “How funny is that?”
And it’s not funny at all, it’s borderline pathetic that it took them this long to finally clarify their feelings, which, to Emily’s point, might not even have happened if this wine fiasco didn’t occur. The sheer cliché of them both coming to a realization that they have legitimate feelings for each other while faking a relationship?
Complete disasters.
Downright hilarious.
Beca cracks a smile. “Yeah. We’re dumb.”
“We’re so dumb!” Emily cries before dissolving into a fresh round of giggles. There’s no way to not laugh along with that amount raw, auditory happiness emanating from this dork of a human, freshly relieved of her worries through the most unbelievable turn of events, so soon enough Beca’s laughing too, thoughts of all the unnecessary tiptoeing they’d both gone through these past months making her laugh harder. It’s one thing to be completely oblivious to someone’s feelings, but god, for them both to have missed each other’s signs goes to show just how disastrous they are at handling their feelings maturely.
“Wow,” Emily says, wiping a tear from her eye.
“Yeah.”
“So dumb.”
“The dumbest,” Beca agrees.
The tension and embarrassment gone from her posture, Emily straightens a little, looking curiously over at Beca. “Hey. Can I come over to you?”
There’s less than three feet of floorspace in between them; her request barely constitutes approval.
“Uh. Sure?”
In exactly the same manner as she’d slid under the table, Emily scoots her butt across the floor towards Beca, legs pulling her a few inches per scoot. She looks absolutely ridiculous but Beca can’t find it in herself to laugh, because now Emily is sliding into her personal bubble and getting even closer until her legs practically wrap around Beca’s waist.
God, she’s so close.
“Hi,” she says quietly.
With her heart in her throat, Beca can barely find her voice. “Hi.”
Emily leans even closer and Beca fully stops breathing. It must’ve been a noticeable halt because Emily hesitates.
“Is this okay?” she asks, breath warm against Beca’s mouth. Too afraid to speak and break whatever spell they must be under for this to actually be happening, Beca nods a fraction of an inch and rests her forehead against Emily’s, eyes fluttering shut at the contact. Her hands are still shaking and she can’t make them stop; every muscle in her body is wound so tight she’s surprised she’s not shaking all over.
Then Emily closes the space between them and all of that fades away.
Warmth spreads instantly throughout Beca’s body as their lips touch, a feeling so overwhelming she loses all sense of direction for a hot second. It’s a careful kiss, one that’s testing the waters and gauging reactions, one that leaves room for either of them to change their minds and pull away if there’s no desire to continue. Unable to even move, Beca exhales through her nose, slow and unsteady, practically drowning in all the emotions overflowing from her chest.
They drift apart as slowly as they came together, the sensation of Emily’s lips still lingering on Beca’s and leaving her wanting more. She opens her eyes to find Emily already watching her, eyes silently asking the same question as before.
Is this okay?
And all she wants to do is tell her that this is more than okay, that it’s better than she could’ve imagined, that she doesn’t want to stop, but Beca’s brain isn’t anywhere close to forming a complete sentence. Instead, she melts out of her stiffness and reaches out to glide her hands up Emily’s arms until they come to a rest on either side of her neck.
She pauses, then — even though all she wants to do is continue kissing — to take in every detail of Emily’s face: her pink cheeks, her glazed eyes, her cute button nose. They stare at each other, inches apart, gaze flickering from each other’s eyes to each other’s mouth in near synchronization. Tentatively, Beca brushes her thumb across Emily’s slightly parted lips, shivering a little at their unrealistic softness. When they lift up at the corners into a smile under her touch, Beca fixates on a singular, repeating thought.
She’s perfect.
As if she’d read Beca’s mind, Emily smiles even wider and leans in again, pressing happily and clumsily against Beca as she fights to control her smile. And it’s so endearing, so purely Emily, that Beca smiles too, reveling in the feeling Emily’s fluttering pulse under her palms as they both let out a breathy laugh, a pleasant tingling starting low in her stomach.
Regaining composure, Emily grips at Beca’s hips and deepens the kiss, making a small sound at the back of her throat that lights a spark in Beca. Her hands tangle in Emily’s hair, desperate to feel every inch of her warmth and softness, to submerge every one of her senses in this flawless moment. She slips her tongue past Emily’s lips, gentle but insistent; when she lets out a shuddering breath in response, the warm tingle in Beca’s stomach turns into a thousand fireworks bursting to life. She must’ve snuck a sip of the wine before spilling it on Beca because there’s the barest hint of its taste on her tongue.
The thought brings another smile to Beca’s face, making it impossible to kiss properly again. Neither of them mind, though, because Emily’s letting out another quiet laugh as she bumps their noses together. And it’s so perfect how imperfect this is, how they keep laughing and smiling too hard to actually make out for more than three seconds, how they don’t need anything more than each other to feel this happy. Everything feels right with Emily in her arms, against her lips, pulled in close, like the universe has been pushing them together all along.
And Beca wants to do this for the rest of her life, to kiss that perfect smile until she dies, to live off of that intoxicating buzz for as long as possible. But she also thinks she might die from a heart attack if they keep going right now.
Emily gets the hint as soon as Beca’s hands slide down to her shoulders. She sneaks in one more quick peck before leaning back, eyes heavy and breathing uneven.
She’s absolutely fucking perfect.
Beca clears her throat a little but her voice still comes out hoarse. “Wow.”
Emily smiles, eyes and nose crinkling adorably. “Yeah.”
“Uh. So.”
“So...?”
“Are we...?” Beca starts, unable to hold back a smile. “Are we doing this? For real this time?”
Emily mirrors her expression. “Yeah. For real this time,” she agrees. “I’d like that.”
This is totally not how Beca saw the night going, but she’s not about to question any of it. “Cool,” she says, not quite managing to match her tone with such a casual word.
“Cool,” Emily echoes before her smile falters the slightest bit. “Um. Can I tell you something I was too afraid to tell you before?” she asks shyly.
Beca’s not sure how much more she can handle, but whatever Emily wants to say seems important. “Yeah, okay. Uh, go for it.” Her stomach flips when Emily beams and leans in to kiss her again. God, she’s never gonna get used to that. She never wants to get used to that.
“You’re beautiful, Beca,” Emily whispers against her lips.
Instant heat rushes to her cheeks. Her heart skips so many beats that it might as well have stopped; fittingly, her world tilts a little to the left and she suddenly feels light-headed. Whatever Beca expected Emily to say, it definitely wasn’t that, in that tone, with that smile, with that much sincerity.
She’d heard those words before, from her parents, from friends, from Jesse, from the Bellas...but she’d always shrugged it off as something people say to their loved ones. It’s not that she didn’t think herself as not, just never really took it to heart. But for the first time, Beca looks at Emily — looks at the amount of pure, unfiltered love that’s all over her face — and believes it.
Emily faces Beca’s open-mouthed surprise and laughs a little. “You don’t have to say anything back, I just wanted to tell you that. I’ve...been wanting to tell you that for a while now.”
Hardly able to think, Beca forces herself to look into Emily’s earnest eyes. “You...” She clears her throat again. “You can’t just...say things like that,” she says weakly.
“But I want to,” Emily says happily. “Because it’s true. And it never felt right to say it to you as friends because it wouldn’t’ve been as true. I think you’re the most beautiful person I know. Inside and out.”
“Oh my god,” Beca whispers. Her face is on fire and she can’t handle Emily looking at her like that anymore. She scoots closer to hide her blush against Emily’s shoulder. “You’re killing me, Em.”
With a soft hum, Emily presses her lips to Beca’s temple and pulls her in tight. It’s the most comforting feeling in the world, being held by Emily, and Beca immediately feels safe and relaxed, like coming home after a long day or waking up under warm blankets on a Sunday morning. No one’s ever made her feel this way.
The words hang on the tip of Beca’s tongue; it might be embarrassing to say out loud but there’s an overwhelming need for the thought to be shared.
“I think you’re beautiful too,” she finally mumbles. She can feel Emily smile from the way her ears pull back a little against Beca’s hair. “You’re perfect.”
They stay like that for what feels like hours, just holding each other, until Beca quietly suggests they finish whatever’s left of the expensive Italian wine. Laughing, Emily pulls them to their feet so they can retrieve the half-empty bottle from the kitchen counter.