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Three years. It had taken Chloe three full years after being left alone in, and then subsequently moving out of, their New York apartment to feel normal again. Even that – normal – was a bit of a stretch. Those blissful eleven months had changed in her memory to dreadful, combining with the previous four years to change her so fundamentally she didn’t know what was normal anymore.
She had spent the first three months after Beca moved out trying to understand what had happened. She thought they were in love, they were going to be forever, they were each other’s everything. She was heartbroken, alone in a new apartment in a new city without the person she had constructed her identity around loving for the previous 5 years. How could Beca leave so easily after all that they were?
It only made sense if they were never really were everything Chloe thought. They weren’t in love; they weren’t meant to be together forever. They were just together of convenience. Beca was just someone to occupy her time when she was too worried about how to direct her life post-graduation to be alone. Compartmentalisation has helped her, but it still took three years to feel okay again. But that’s okay, because at least now, she was okay. She was okay as long as she made sure she remembered she never really felt anything for her.
It wasn’t like she had nothing to do with her since – they still shared a whole heap of very close mutual friends, and the Bellas didn’t hide each other’s existence from the other by any means. But, while Chloe knew Beca was living it up as a producer in LA, she was pretty sure Beca had no idea her own work and study had led her to also live in LA. Regardless, she hadn’t seen her in person since the night she left, and she didn’t mind that at all.
Except now, tonight, they were face-to face again – and she felt everything she had constructed fading just that little bit, reminding her of the hurt and the confusion that hid behind it all.
Beca Mitchell didn’t look much different – sure, her hair was a few shades darker and the tight smile she gave Chloe when their gazes locked across the room didn’t meet her eyes – but she was still Beca. Still noticeably smaller than everyone around her but making up for it with a formidable presence. Still in a checked shirt, although a little more formal than her old college flannels, given they were at a party which required, to quote CR’s invitation to all of them via their long-running Bellas group chat, “somewhere between semi-formal and cocktail I guess, I don’t know what straight people call that.” Still scanning the room with a guarded expression that wavered between nervous and intimidating.
“Hey Chloe. Hey Amy,” Beca greets them, having wandered through the crowd to where Chloe is standing with Amy by the main entrance. The air of caution to her tone and demeanour disappears into a laugh as Amy crushes her in a hug.
“Welcome to our new home!” Amy proclaimed, louder than necessary, as the three of them dragged their first boxes into the apartment they were renting together. It was small - way too small for three people - but it was what they could handle.
“I just wish it had more proper beds,” Beca murmured in a half-joking response as she placed the box she was holding down on the sofa - not yet pulled out into its bed form - that she would be sharing with Chloe.
“But you get to share a bed with meeeee!” Chloe responded, with excitement, pulling Beca into a hug when she rolled her eyes in fake annoyance. She knew Beca didn’t really mind, deep down, although sometimes she wished her best friend didn’t put so much effort into pretending she hated her affection.
On their first night, Beca twisted and turned for fifteen minutes before settling on her side, back to Chloe, and reaching out to pull Chloe’s arm around her waist. On the fifth night, Amy informed them she would not be coming home until late the following day, and Chloe used their privacy to ask the question.
“Why don’t you just say you want to cuddle?” She asked, as they both slipped under the covers, before Beca started her fidgeting and turning.
“I dunno...” Beca trailed off, sighing, “I don’t want you to judge me.”
“I’m not going to judge you, Becs. We’ve been friends too long for that.”
“Yeah I know but it’s not very... me.”
“You sure? Because my experience says you love affection as much as me as long as it’s from the right person,” Chloe teases.
“You think you’re the right person?” Beca teases back, quicker than Chloe expects.
“Obviously, I’m perfect for you babe,” she responds, after taking a moment to recover. Instead of awkwardly laughing off her comment like usual, though, Beca just nods slowly and moves into her arms.
“How’s life in LA?” Amy asks, after Beca squirms out of the hug, Chloe still standing quietly by her side, not sure she wants to hear the response. But it’s okay, she’s okay, she doesn’t care what Beca does now or who she does it with.
“Oh, you know, it’s... a lot. Work is busy and all, it’s good to actually be behind a mixing board now, so. Better than New York.” Beca answers, a hint of awkwardness returning to her tone. Chloe pretends not to notice the indignant hurt washing over her at the insinuation Beca didn’t enjoy New York. Okay, so they were just fun, but... they were still fun. Especially when it was just the two of them.
“How are things for you guys? Still travelling Amy?” Beca adds, after Amy says something that Chloe entirely misses.
“Oh, yeah mostly, I’ve been crashing with Chloe for the last month but she’s boring now so I might head off again. Haven’t got to Africa yet, so might do a safari, can’t be any more dangerous than Tasmania,” Amy answers, voice as raised as ever, and accent still somehow pronounced despite her now 7 years away from Australia. Beca simply raises her eyebrow, gaze shifting to Chloe.
“Boring? Really? What happened to fun Chloe?” she asks, not teasing but not entirely serious either. Chloe bites back her immediate response of ‘you’, suddenly wishing it was just them and Amy wasn’t there and they weren’t in a party where she couldn’t make a scene.
“Vet school is a lot,” she answers instead, with a shrug, before spying Jess and excusing herself to go say hi.
The party - for Cynthia Rose’s engagement to her girlfriend she had met shortly after they all graduated - is in Atlanta, in a large venue not far from the airport. She settles into good, albeit artificial, conversation with Jess and Aubrey, the three of them leaning against a bar table with drinks in hand.
“Always thought this would be you and the small one,” Aubrey comments, and Chloe tries not to wince. She told Aubrey she was over it, past that, everything. She’s still wasn’t keen on discussing it in public.
“Nah. We weren’t serious. The feelings weren’t there. She was just... something to do,” Chloe answers, the other two just nodding in silence before Jess moves the conversation on.
Amy lasted two months in their shared apartment before moving out to her own place. When she left, Beca and Chloe both moved to the real double bed, neither considering the possibility of one of them staying in the sofa bed. They loved Amy, but they loved having their apartment without her just a little bit more than with her. There was calm, there was space, there was privacy.
“I’m in love with you,” Beca burst out, three days after Amy left, in the middle of a breakdown over something entirely unrelated. “And I broke up with Jesse last month but I didn’t tell anyone because I was scared you’d realise why and not want to cuddle me every night and you’re everything to me and I’m sorry I just-“
Chloe cuts her off, then, by almost storming over from where she’d been standing in the kitchen and pulling Beca into a tight hug pressed against her.
“I’ll never not want to cuddle you. I’m in love with you too, okay? I love you. So much.”
“Can I kiss you?” Beca asked, Chloe responding by doing just that, their first kiss tasting of salt and tears as Beca cried away the remnants of her stress.
Slipping into a relationship wasn’t hard. They already went on dinner dates, included each other in their plans, were each other’s plus ones for any work event that came up. Now, they just added a little more affection and a lot more explicit openness about feelings that had been previously buried beneath fear and implication.
“You’re everything,” Beca whispered reverently as they lay tucked together in bed after they had finally, a week into their relationship, succumbed to the sexual tension that has permeated their friendship for years but only now could be resolved.
“You are,” Chloe whispered, in response, “I’m so glad I can finally hear you say things like that. I’ve been in love with you for so long”
“I have too. You’ve changed my life so much, I don’t know how I’d survive without you, but I don’t have to and I’m so happy we’re here,” Beca responded, uncharacteristically open, although Chloe quickly came to find Beca had no problem being open with her emotions in their relationship. They trusted each other, wholly and implicitly.
“Hey Jess, Aubrey,” Beca’s voice appears behind Chloe‘s shoulder, not long after Aubrey’s question about their relationship.
“There are three people here,” Aubrey points out accusatorially, and Chloe once again cringes, wishing she could have a conversation with all of these people alone to tell them to quit all the insinuation.
“I know, I said hi to Chloe with Amy a little while ago,” Beca answers, shrugging, not taking the bait. Chloe nods, when Aubrey glances at her before responding, trying not to react when she feels Beca glance at her too. This was going to be a long party.
“How’s being a producer going?” Jess asks, Beca’s face lighting up in response.
“I am really enjoying it, it’s a lot of hours but it’s everything I’ve ever wanted in a job, absolutely worth it. I’m getting way more exposure to the industry and the networks I need than I have previously and yeah, just... it’s great. What about you guys? The lodge, Aubrey?”
“We’re actually expanding at the moment so yeah it’s going great, and I think Stacie is joining me up there pretty soon so the personal life is settling in nicely too... How’s your personal life?”
“Um, nonexistent,” Beca replies, her awkwardness returning for a moment, “can you... not? Just let us enjoy CR’s party without trying to cause a scene about the past?”
“Bit rich of you to say that, as if you’re speaking for Chloe too. Think you gave up the right to do that a while ago, didn’t you?” Aubrey pushes, Chloe glancing to her side to see Beca rubbing a hand against her forehead.
“She’s right, Aubrey. Stop it. It’s in the past,” she speaks up, Aubrey shrugging and walking away.
“I’m gonna find Ashley...” Jess trails off, tone rising as if she is asking if she’s allowed to leave them, Chloe simply nodding in acknowledgement.
“Sorry,” Beca murmurs, when it’s just them left, and Chloe grips the glass in her hand tighter. She hasn’t had enough alcohol for this conversation - she’s only halfway through her first glass of champagne.
“What are you apologising for?” She replies, more sharpness to her tone than she anticipated. But it’s okay, she’s fine. She doesn’t care.
“Scaring them off. Letting them get to me.”
“I’m sorry,” Beca murmured, face buried in her hands as she sat on Chloe’s childhood bed, two days before Christmas and thirty minutes after they had arrived at Chloe’s parents’ house from New York. She was surprised, and yet also not, when Chloe’s parents invited her to spend Christmas with them, even though they’d only been together four months.
“What for, baby?” Chloe answers, taking a seat beside her and wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
“I’m so bad at families, I know your family means a lot to you and I want to get to know them but I just... it’s terrifying, and what if they don’t like me already after just a few minutes and I ruin your perfect family Christmas by being so bad at this and-“ she cuts herself off with half a sob.
“Becs, they already like you because they know how much you care about me and have cared about me for years. They invited you here because they see you as part of our family, okay? And you are. My perfect family Christmas isn’t perfect unless you’re in it. I mean, ideally, you’d be my wife and it’d be more official but- that’s the future. You’re still part of it for a reason now,” Chloe reassures her, shifting closer against Beca’s side as she does.
“I still can’t understand how someone like you wants me, but I... I want to be part of your family. I love hearing you say I’ll be your wife one day. I love you.”
“I love you too, baby. You want to sit in here for a bit, unpack and whatever, before I introduce you to everyone else?”
“Yeah.”
“I guess I have a lot of things to apologise for though,” Beca adds, after a moment of silence. She sounds regretful, and Chloe pushes down her emotional response.
“Whatever. It’s three years ago. We were just... convenient. No hard feelings if there’s no feelings at all,” Chloe responds, messily, tacking ideas on as she goes. She doesn’t look at Beca, doesn’t notice the shock on her face, and then suddenly CR is beside them and they’re congratulating her on her engagement and the party, and the moment is gone. She can’t tell whether she minds, but she makes a point of moving her mingling to people she doesn’t recognise after they finish talking to CR.
“You’re still on your first glass?” Amy asks, incredulous, when Chloe encounters her again some thirty minutes later near the open bar, her broader mingling having given her a nice bit of time away from the Bellas’ incessant questioning. She wishes they didn’t know this is the first time she’s been in the same room as Beca since they broke up.
“Don’t feel like drinking tonight,” she shrugs, although she downs the rest of the glass in the process. Not that there was much left.
“Does that have anything to do with seeing-“
“No, Amy, god, can you quit it? I don’t care about her, I don’t care that she’s here. I just don’t want to be hungover because you know I’m flying back to LA early tomorrow,” she snaps, Amy raising her hands and backing away when she does, quickly turning on her heel and walking off. Chloe turns the other direction, freezing when she sees Beca standing beside the bar behind her, although she doesn’t appear to be ordering a drink.
“LA?” She asks, and Chloe shrugs.
“That’s where I could get the most courses in my specialisation.”
“Didn’t know we were living in the same city,” Beca responds.
“Did you need to? We haven’t talked for three years, Beca,” Chloe snaps back, starting to wonder if she does need more alcohol to deal with the rest of the evening.
“I’m sorry. For everything. I don’t believe that you don’t care, and I don’t believe that you honestly think we were just... fucking around. This party should’ve been for our-” Beca cuts herself off, mouth shut tightly as Aubrey appears beside Chloe and starts talking about something Bella did when Stacie last visited the lodge. Chloe excuses herself to the bathrooms a minute later.
“What is it, Beca?” Chloe asks, two weeks before their one-year anniversary, when she finds Beca staring numbly at a suitcase packed on the couch that was once their bed when she returns from her internship. They had a date planned tonight, just a casual dinner out, but Beca was in sweats and an old T-shirt.
“It’s...” Beca starts, pausing for a full thirty seconds to go back to packing her things into the case. “When I went to LA the other week, it wasn’t for work. Well it kind of was. I interviewed for a new job over there, and it’s perfect, and I’ve got it. So… yeah. I’m moving tomorrow, I’ll get out of your way, I know this means that’s it for us so I guess... yeah.”
“What?” Chloe asks, her pride at Beca’s new job turning to numbness permeating her entire being. “Why does that mean it’s it for us? Why can’t we work things out? Why didn’t you tell me earlier so we could work things out?”
“It’s too hard, Chlo. It’ll be easier this way. I’m leaving tomorrow morning.”
“I thought we were more than this. You said we were, you said nothing was easier than being with me,” Chloe argues, trying to keep her tone level and unemotional even though she feels like screaming and bursting into tears simultaneously.
“Things change,” Beca answers, coolly, and Chloe turns and walks back out of the apartment before she breaks down. She thinks she’ll stay with Amy tonight.
When she returns to the apartment the next morning, hoping everything was just some bizarre nightmare, half of its contents are gone and Beca is nowhere to be found. The bracelet she gave Beca for their six-month anniversary - matching to the one on her own wrist - is sitting on the kitchen bench. It’s the final sign: that’s it. They’re over.
She collapses to the floor, loudly sobbing at 8am on a Saturday morning, and doesn’t get up until 5pm on Sunday. She has to go to work on Monday, if she’s going to be paying the rent on this place alone. Alone. The thought sends her crashing back to the floor in another wave of tears.
“What are you doing?” Chloe asks, forcefully, cornering Beca near the door to the courtyard attached to the party venue, away from anyone else they know, another thirty minutes into the party.
“What?” Beca answers, although she makes no move to step away from where Chloe is stood, firmly in her personal space.
“You know what I mean. The things you’re saying to me. What are you trying to do? You clearly didn’t want or need me anymore, and now I don’t want or need you, and I’ve realised I never did. Is that so difficult to understand?”
“Yes, it is, because I know you. Do you even believe yourself?”
“Hey! Beca! Chloe! It’s been so long!” Ashley calls out, stepping in from the courtyard with Jess by her side.
“Might be a bad time babe,” Jess says, just loud enough for Chloe to hear, both girls waving apologetically and walking along into the room.
“Of course I-“
“Chloe!” Amy bellows, walking in not long behind Ashley, and Chloe snaps.
“Can you please leave us the fuck alone for two minutes?”
“Woah, chill, I’m just being me,” Amy responds, undisturbed, and Beca audibly groans.
“And sometimes ‘you’ is a bit too much at once. Just... I saw them putting more punch out, you should go test if it’s alcoholic enough,” Beca tells her, voice strained. When Amy complies, walking further back into the room, Beca silently signals to Chloe to follow her as she steps outside and wanders over to the railing at the edge of the courtyard, looking away from the building to the garden beyond. Chloe follows, leaning against the railing beside her, although leaving a considerable gap between their arms. The sun has set since they all arrived at the venue, the only illumination now provided by small lamps in the garden around the courtyard.
“You destroyed me,” Chloe starts, after a moment of silence, “I didn’t feel anything for months, I didn’t know who I was or how to exist without you. But you left so easily, and I didn’t know how you could. It only made sense if everything you said to me was a lie, but I... couldn’t handle that. So I figured that we were both wrong. We weren’t anything special, or you wouldn’t have thrown us away so quickly. I learnt to throw you away too. I had to, so I could exist again. I still don’t know who I am, I can’t be the old bubbly affectionate me anymore. You took that away from me.”
“Leaving you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I was miserable - am miserable - every moment I’m not preoccupied with work, and quite often when I am. I lied about it being easier. I didn’t lie about anything else,” Beca answers, gaze fixed down on the ground in front of her.
“Why did you do it, then?”
“I was scared that if I suggested long distance or moving to California you’d leave. Everything was too good to be true, and if I’m good at one thing it’s self-sabotage. I thought I might survive a clean break, but not a messy one or slow and gradual. I know now I should’ve talked to you, but I was in a constant panic state over money and work and whether I’d ever feel like enough for you and I wasn’t thinking properly.”
“I would’ve moved with you. You should’ve talked to me.”
“I know,” Beca sighs, leaning forward and burying her face in her hands. “I didn’t mean to say anything tonight. I was just going to talk to you as if I barely knew you, but then I saw you for real and...”
“I know,” Chloe echoes, as they both fall into silence. It’s a warm night out, late in summer, the sounds of cicadas and crickets as loud as that of traffic driving on the highway down the road and the airport not much further away.
“You’re flying to LA tomorrow morning?” Beca asks, looking up as a plane takes off over their heads, voice raised ever so slightly above the noise.
“Yeah. When are you heading back?”
“Tomorrow morning. American, at 8am.”
“Same. You still fly economy?”
“No. Business. I’m guessing on a student budget...?”
“Yeah. Economy. I mean, I’m working, I’m not as broke as we were back in New York but. Yknow.”
“I... have been promoted more than I’ve let on. I’m earning like, a lot, and I’m writing music for some pretty big names as well as producing. I’m not saying that to brag. I’m saying that because most of what I write is about you and if you don’t mind sharing a smaller part of the cabin with me I’ll upgrade you tomorrow.”
“You can’t buy me back, Beca,” Chloe replies, her sharpness returning, but Beca shakes her head.
“I know. I don’t expect anything. I’ll always want to be with you, more than anything, but I understand if you don’t want that. I still feel like I owe you, in some way or another.”
“You kind of do. You can upgrade me tomorrow. And you can pay when we get coffee later in the week. Not... a date. Just, I don’t think I can handle you leaving my life again.”
“If you want me around, I’m not going anywhere. Whatever capacity that’s in.”
“Do you want to come with me?” Beca asks, fiddling with the tab of the tea bag sitting in her mug.
“Of course I’ll come if you’d like me to, Becs. In... what capacity? Is this me meeting your family as your girlfriend or...?” Chloe answers, twirling her own mug around in a circle at their dining table. It was rare that they both woke up relatively early on a Sunday, but they often took the opportunity when it did happen to just sit and enjoy each other’s presence.
“I don’t think I know how to be anything other than your girlfriend any more so... yeah. I’ve already told my Dad we’re dating, I don’t know what anyone else will say, but... you’re charming and perfect so they gotta like you if you’re there in person, right?”
Chloe responds by laughing and reaching out to take Beca’s hand in her own.
The party, for Beca’s grandmother’s 90th birthday, is a week later in Atlanta at a building on the university campus, organised by Beca’s Dad. It’s weird being back on campus - although being the summer break, there’s barely any students around - and it’s especially weird, for Beca, sleeping in the guest room in her father’s house and not her own bedroom, because her Dad suggested her and Chloe might prefer the double bed, since there’s two of them and all. It’s true, but it still made Beca turn red in mild embarrassment and question when she became an adult with a partner her father considered equivalent to all the married aunts and uncles who had used that guest room in the past.
“So nice to see you again, Dr. Mitchell,” Chloe had greeted her Dad when they arrived, but he had quickly corrected her with Ben, a warm handshake, and a return of the sentiment. Her step-mother, too, greets Chloe enthusiastically when she returns from work not long after they arrive, and Beca feels her nerves settle down. It’s Chloe, everything is always fine when Chloe is involved.
The following morning, they help set up for the party, taking a list from Ben of places that had things for last minute pickup, traipsing around Atlanta to get a cake, balloons, and the bracelet he and his two siblings had bought and had engraved as a joint present for their mother’s birthday. They return to the venue, then, the bracelet being handed off to Ben outside before they take everything else in.
“Oh, Beca! So lovely to see you!” Her Dad’s sister - Jen - greets her, the hug she is looking to give thankfully negated by the fact Beca is carrying the cake in its protective box.
“Hi, Aunt Jen, just give me a moment to put this in the fridge,” she replies, rushing to the back room of the venue to do just that.
“Oh, and you are...?” Jen starts, as Chloe walks in holding the bag of things to go on the cake once it leaves the box, Beca rushing back to her side, having deposited the cake in the fridge in the small kitchenette.
“This is Chloe, my girlfriend,” she introduces, trying to keep her voice confident but... light. She can’t say she hasn’t a bit scared. “Chloe, this is my Aunt Jen, Dad’s sister,” she adds on, after a moment.
“So nice to meet you,” Chloe smiles warmly, and Beca watches Jen’s face cycle through confusion and tension before relaxing back to normal as she extends a hand, which Chloe shakes.
“You too, Chloe, but I must ask, girlfriend as in...?” she trails off, and Beca winces, feeling Chloe glance to her.
“Girlfriend as in dating, although we were friends for four years before. Chloe was my co-captain in the Bellas in college,” Beca explains, Jen nodding.
“Oh, of course, you look familiar now! I’ve seen a couple of videos of performances Ben showed me, you did very well,” she answers, and Beca sees tension fall away from Chloe’s shoulders as she feels herself relax, too.
“Thank you, I should go put this with the cake and help Ben bring things in,” Chloe responds, excusing herself with a smile which Jen returns.
“Didn’t expect you to turn up with someone, Beca. We never met your last boyfriend...” Jen trails off, eyebrow raised - evidently Beca did get some of her expressions from her Dad’s side of the family.
“She’s the first serious relationship I’ve had, I know we’re both in this for the long term,” Beca explains, awkwardly, and Jen nods.
“She seems lovely, and you seem like less of a grump too.”
“You really do sound like your brother sometimes.”
“Should we go back in there?” Beca asks, breaking the tense silence that had formed between them. Chloe couldn’t help but miss when silences were light and comfortable, but everything felt heavy, tonight.
“Maybe. I don’t want to,” Chloe admits, and Beca makes a small noise of agreement as the silence returns.
Chloe is hyper-award of her presence beside her - she can feel that she’s there, feel the tension in the air and the nerves radiating off Beca. It’s making her tense, too, and it’s already pushed through her carefully constructed emotional walls, now threatening the numbness below them, threatening to bring back things she never planned to access again. She can’t tell how much later it is, when she feels that numbness begin to crack. It feels like ages, but can only be minutes, and as the crack widens beyond a hairline she turns and sinks to the ground, audibly crying, knees curled against her chest and head buried in her hands.
“Chloe? I...” Beca starts, her own voice choking up, but Chloe just cries harder. “I’m so sorry, Chloe. I can’t explain how sorry I am, how guilty and sick I feel for upsetting you both then and now. I’m sorry I came tonight knowing you’d be here. I’m sorry I talked to you and challenged you. I... fuck,” Beca’s response trails off to a sob, and Chloe feels her sink down to the ground beside her.
Beca’s sob sends a piercing wave of care that shocks her to her core, and she has to restrain her instinctive urge to reach out for her hand to comfort her. The fact that it’s still there, that it’s so strong and clear, makes her want to throw up. Instead, she gives in, reaching out one hand to find and clasp Beca’s between them, the contact destroying every last bit of hope that the full extent of feelings she had for Beca weren’t still there.
“I hate you,” she speaks, finally, “and I miss you, and I love you, and I want to be with you forever and I want to run away and never see you again.” Beca doesn’t respond verbally, although her crying seems to intensify, and she squeezes the hand still clasping her own. Chloe doesn’t really know why she does it, but she shifts towards Beca, pressing into her side and twisting to bury her face in Beca’s neck, letting herself notice the familiarity of Beca’s skin, of her smell, of the way she cautiously wraps her arms around Chloe and presses a kiss into her hair.
“I don’t know what to do, Becs,” Chloe mumbles against her neck as her tears gradually subside, a good fifteen minutes later. The thought crosses her mind that they’ve been out here for half an hour, that someone will have definitely noticed, but she can’t bring herself to care.
“I know,” Beca whispers, “and I don’t think I’m the right person to help you work it out.”
“I’m the right person to work it out, but you will inadvertently make up my mind for me.” Chloe responds, and Beca sighs.
“Just because I want to treat you like the angel you are whatever happens now shouldn’t mean you decide anything positive about me. I really fucked up, Chlo, as much as I can know myself how much I’d never do anything to hurt you again, you need to genuinely believe me, and I wouldn’t blame you if you never trusted me again...”
“What if I already trust you? What if I know you so well I can see through every lie you tell, including the ones when you left me, and I know you’re for real now? What if I want to be irrational and heart-driven and fall into bed with you tonight?” Chloe responds, and Beca’s grip on her loosens and falls away, creating an unwelcome, on Chloe’s perspective, gap of space between them.
“I won’t let you. I can’t, I’d feel like I was taking advantage of how much I broke you. I don’t want to do that, Chlo. I want you to pick me again - but I want you to do it with your head, not just your heart,” Beca’s reply is laced with a new set of tears, and Chloe shakes her head.
“Fine. I just... I know I’m a fucking mess right now, but I feel like me for the first time in three years. That has to mean something, Becs.”
“I know, Chlo. I just... if we got back together, I’d want it to be forever. I don’t want to just mess around with you, I want you to be part of my future and my life. And we would need to have a healthy relationship on a solid foundation for that to be realistic and I don’t think you saying you hate me is a solid foundation.”
“Yeah, you’re right, I just...” Chloe trails off, sitting up straighter and wiping the tears from below her eyes, knowing her makeup will be trashed. She glances to her side, eyes meeting Beca’s for the first time since they moved outside, her heart jumping in response. She has the sudden urge to lean forward and kiss her. Instead, she lets humour into her tone, “I’m mildly offended you turned down an opportunity to sleep with me.”
“Baby, you’re the hottest person I’ve ever met, but I value you being in my life long term more than sleeping with you once,” Beca’s response is laced with humour, too, although Chloe can hear the seriousness underneath.
“You called me baby,” she shoots back, watching as Beca realises her mistake, burying her face in her hands.
“Fuck. Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply anything, it just came out-“ she mumbles into her fingers.
“I don’t mind, Becs,” Chloe cuts her off, reaching over to pry one hand off her face and hold it in both her own. “This is... a lot. Half your eyeliner is on your cheeks, and I’m sure mine isn’t any better. I’m going to go back to my hotel, and I’ll see you at the airport tomorrow morning, okay?” She finishes her statement by gently pressing her lips against the back of the hand she’s holding, not able to resist. Beca doesn’t make any move to retrieve her hand.
“Okay. Just... if we both disappear, and I don’t plan on staying at the party either, you know what our friends are going to assume,” Beca raises, matter-of-factly, Chloe shrugging and pulling out her phone, tapping out a message to the group chat.
“There. I told them once they finally left us alone we talked and we’re both upset so we’re leaving, separately, to separate rooms, and we’d like them to stay out of our business. That cool?”
“Yeah.”
“Why are you always taking photos of me, Chloeeee?” Beca whines, moving her arms to cover her face as she lies back on their bed, the book she had been reading now lying open beside her.
“Because you always look pretty,” Chloe answers, with a grin that Beca sees when she reluctantly moves her arms down off her face, putting on a scowl when Chloe uses the opportunity to pull up her phone and tap the camera again.
“I wish constantly taking photos of you was decent payback but you don’t even care, do you?” Beca sighs, reaching out to pull Chloe down on the bed beside her.
“I especially like being in photos with you,” she responds as she settles in, head nestled between Beca’s own and her shoulder, holding up the phone above them and switching to the front camera as Beca relents and turns to press a kiss against the edge of Chloe’s mouth as she takes the photo.
Chloe doesn’t really recognise herself in the photos from their old apartment in New York. She knows it’s probably a bad idea, lying in her hotel room at 3am flicking through every photo of Beca on her phone, but she isn’t sure what else to do. She certainly can’t sleep. She wants to feel as happy as she looks in the photos.
“What happened?” the message, from Aubrey, drops down from the top of her screen and distracts her from the photo of her and Beca lying on their bed, Beca’s lips pressed to the corner of her mouth.
“It’s 3am, why the hell aren’t you asleep?” Chloe replies, avoiding the question, Aubrey immediately sending an eye-rolling emoji in response.
“I’ve been asleep, woke up to use the bathroom and was going to check if you messaged me, but it said you were online, so…”
“We kept having bits and pieces of conversation about us, no thanks to you + the others for bringing shit up… she snapped at me, I snapped at her, we yelled at amy to leave us alone and went outside and had a real conversation and both broke down and cried a lot.”
“a real conversation about…?”
“us. She stills wants me. I still want her. She won’t let me just dive in right away tho…”
“do you really trust her not to do the same thing again???”
“yeah. She’s broken too. She’s trying so hard to do the right thing.”
“she messaged me when you guys broke up. Made me swear never to tell you that she regretted it immediately because she didn’t think she deserved you back, asked me to make sure you were okay since she couldn’t and it was killing her, apologised a million times and berated herself and showed more emotion than I’ve ever seen her do to anyone except you. I guess all bets are off now but… I know you still love each other.” Chloe re-reads the message two times, trying to process the revelation. Part of her wants to be mad Aubrey didn’t tell her at the time, but it would’ve made it harder to pretend she didn’t care.
“i’m… not surprised she messaged you. I’m surprised you seem to be supporting me getting back with her?”
“I trust her Chloe. She talked to me tonight, after you left. She wouldn’t say what you’d said, thought that wasn’t her place, but she explained her side to me and asked me if I think she has any right to be around you again… so, yeah I’m just trying to see if what you say matches up, and it does.”
“she’d only talk to you if she was really serious about it all.”
“exactly.” Chloe doesn’t know how to respond to Aubrey’s message, but she is saved by another appearing at the top of her screen, quickly flicking back over to it.
“go to sleep, Chlo,” Beca’s message reads, the first between them since three days before Beca left. In hindsight, Chloe should’ve known something was up, Beca didn’t usually go a day without sending her something, even if it was a stupid meme.
“how do you know I’m awake?” she shoots back.
“it says you’re active now”
“I was talking to Aubrey,” she replies, going with the honesty, quickly glancing at and not bothering to click through to read the new message from Aubrey, since it starts with ‘going back to sleep’.
“Oh. I talked to her. I hope you don’t mind,” Beca responds, her caution coming through in the message, somehow. Chloe’s response, after a moment, is a screenshot of her conversation with Aubrey. She holds her breath, watching as Beca types and erases over and over. After a moment, she throws in the picture she was looking at earlier, too, along with a message.
“I couldn’t stop looking at pictures from back then. That’s why I was still awake.”
“You and Aubrey are making it really hard for me to hold back as much as I’m trying to. I don’t want to push you, I don’t want to say anything that you might not be ready for, and I do want to do the right thing and I am serious about all this,” Beca sends, eventually, quickly followed by another message, “that’s one of my favourite photos ever.”
“Mine too,” Chloe answers, “and what if I said you’re not pushing me, I’ve got here all on my own? With my head and my heart?”
“Then maybe I’d… stop trying to hold back.”
“You’re in the same hotel as me, right?”
Chloe isn’t sure whether Beca will respond, and if she does, whether she’ll know what Chloe’s really asking – but she does. She gives a room number, and three minutes later, Chloe finds herself standing at the door. Beca opens it before she’s even finished knocking, stepping aside to let Chloe walk into the room, locking the door behind her. There’s a small couch in Beca’s room – it’s slightly larger than Chloe’s – and they settle on it, twisted sideways to face each other, neither saying a word.
“I’m still in love with you, Chloe,” Beca breaks the silence after it stretches on long enough, reaching out to grasp one of Chloe’s hands in her own and hold it against her knee. “You still mean everything to me, and I don’t feel like myself without you either. Being beside you feels like home. I want to be home again.”
“I want to be home again, too. I know it’s a lot to rush into after not talking for three years, but I just… I don’t see how we could possibly just be friends, or acquaintances, or whatever. I still have the same drive I’ve always had around you to just get closer, and closer, and closer,” Chloe emphasises her point, pulling her hand from Beca’s only to shift around so she is resting firmly against Beca’s side again, legs draped over Beca’s and arm wrapping around her shoulders.
“I missed you acting like a human blanket all the time,” Beca muses, lightly, Chloe just laughing in response. “If we aren’t just friends, then… can I turn the coffee I’m buying you later this week into a date?”
“Yeah, I’d like that,” Chloe answers, “and I’d like if this time, you told me when you were scared instead of running away. I don’t want to lose you again.”
“You won’t lose me again. I know better, now. I promise I’ll always talk to you first. I’m so sorry I messed up everything the first time around,” Beca’s response is softer, turning to a whisper as she finishes. It betrays the vulnerability and care behind her statement, in a way Chloe can only interpret as intentional. Beca’s opening herself up to her, and she’s still in love with every part of her that she reveals.