Chapter Text
Present Day
I never imagined my life would be like this. Once I met you, I never imagined my life would ever continue without you with me.
I'm here without you, in our bed tossing and turning with no sleep in sight. You’re not here and I can’t sleep knowing that I’ve made you upset and drove you away.
One-year prior
I never imagined my life would be like this. One hit song after another plus one chart-topping album, I was on top of the world and Chloe, you were right by my side. We were the it couple Hollywood, everyone want to be us.
“I love you Chloe” I said one morning as we were waking to a new day. There was nothing special about this day. I just think that when I have someone as special and someoneI love as much as you, then you deserve to hear that every day.
“I love you too, Becs”, you say as I start peppering you with kisses all over your face and neck.
I love mornings like this. Where it’s just us in our little world and no one else. The paparazzi have been more aggressive than ever with talks of a new album coming out so soon after my first one dropped. We just can’t catch a break with those guys when we go out. So I’ll take every moment I can get where it’s just us.
I had been on tour the last 6 months and had been home for about a month before I started working on the new album. Touring was a dream, shows every other night in a new city with screaming fans everywhere I went. It was surreal. It was like a party every night and I was the guest of honor.
But the fact that you couldn’t be with me most of those nights hit me the hardest when the night wound down. When the stage was torn down, the parties ended, and everyone went home. I was “going home” to an empty hotel room or tour bus every night. My heart would coming crashing down from it’s high of the performance every time I would hang up the phone after talking to you.
That’s when I started falling.
Three months into the tour, alcohol became my only solace to the empty feeling I had when the night was over, when the FaceTime calls would end, and when you couldn't be there to hold me. It never affected my performance, but it did affect my attitude toward my team and everyone knew. No one could stand to be around me for more than five minutes before I started yelling. I just wanted you around and touring and your school made that impossible.
I was able to get in under control about a month before the tour ended. I realized I couldn’t go back home to you in that state. You reminded me of that; you reminded me that I would always have you to come home to.
Now five months later, I’m ready to release a new one. I know these past few months haven’t been easy on us. With the pressure to release a new album so soon after my tour meant that I had a lot of long nights at the studio, sometimes not even coming home until the evening of the next day. I put a strain on us. I was missing date nights, I was late your classes spring performance (they were even performing one of my songs since they knew I would be there, I barely made it to the last bridge and chorus of the song), I was even late to my own birthday party that you had spent so long planning with Aubrey and the other girls.
I hated myself so much for disappointing you. I hated myself so much that I turned to alcohol again to numb the pain of the hurt I had for causing you to hurt so much.
I was falling again.
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I was losing myself in my work. Honestly, it couldn’t even have been consider music anymore. I was pulled more into the logistics and promotions and legalities of the business rather than making actual music. The more I spent time away from you, consumed by what was going on at work, the more I felt myself changing into a person I never wanted to become. Someone obsessed with making it, no matter what it took to get there.
My music was changing. No longer were they extensions or myself, with emotions and feeling oozing through every verse, every chorus, every bridge, and every lyric. The music was not my own; not of born out of my own doing by turning a dial, pushing a button, or adjusting a lever.
The music, the lyrics, myself, it all became theirs. The label owned me and I let them. My music was no longer my music. Rather just a generic, run-of-the-mill music and song that was just like everything else on the radio. No longer was it about the emotion of the song, but rather the “virality” of it. How marketable was it, how likely would the kids take the song and make it a viral hit by playing it for their friend or make a dance of it on social media.
I was losing myself. I was falling.
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Those final months of developing the album drew me to the bottle once again. I couldn’t stop myself at that point. I was so disappointed in myself for letting the label use me the way they had. For not standing up to them because I wanted to "make it". But what hurt the most, what was the hardest to stomach and therefore I had to become numb, was hurting you in all they ways I know I had, and all the way I didn’t know.
Once the album dropped, the drinking just got worse. With all the promotion came all the parties and interviews. Of course, you were always my plus one. I wouldn’t have wanted any else there by my side. I didn’t know that behind your smile was just a world that was crumbling.
I never imagined the night of my second album release party would be one of the worse nights of my life. You were always by my side, as much as you stated that you did not want to be there. Our home life had not been what it used to be during my first album or even when I got home from my first tour.
I guess as the night progressed, so did the drinks and so did the attention. People were coming at me from all sides, I didn’t even realize that you had stepped aside to give me space to do my thing. That’s one of the things I love about you, you always knew what I needed even when I didn’t and you always let me do what I needed to do in that moment.
I was so caught up in the attention I was getting that I hadn’t noticed you had been gone for so long. There had been so many people, different types of people, hanging around, dancing around, giving me drinks. That was the first time I had experienced anything like it. I noticed there was this one woman who always stood too close. She was all over me. I tried to push her away but she would just push harder. I eventually found it easier to ignore her and continue my evening talking to other people. She had her hands all over me and would grab my hands to put on her waist, her hips, her ass. The alcohol was flowing through my veins and I knew it was getting harder to understand what I was doing, where my hands were. But I knew she wasn’t you. Even with so many drinks in me, I knew she wasn’t my person, the love of my life, the one who understands me more than I understand myself.
I saw you out the corner of my eye when I finally turned to her to take my hands off her and to tell her to back off before I called security. All of a sudden, I sobered up. I knew where my hands were and I knew that you had seen. I flinch back from her so fast and ran toward you. You had seen us, seen where my hands had been. I tried my best to rough my way through the crowd, but kept being stopped every few feet. I looked up to find you and you ran. You ran out of the party and by the time I had gotten outside, I couldn’t find you. I didn’t know if you had gotten a ride back to the apartment or if you walked, but I ran straight home not even caring about the party or the multitude of texts and calls coming through my phone. I caught a cab once my legs couldn’t run anymore and when I arrived home, my heart broke even further.
You weren’t there. I couldn’t even find evidence that you had been there at all. My only solace was that your stuff was still in its place. I took comfort in knowing that you hadn’t run from us, you were still here, you were still with me, there was still and us.
I had called you so many times. From the sidewalk I ran on from the party, from the cab on my way to the apartment, from the apartment that was dark and empty and felt nothing like home. I didn’t get an answer. It was pushing almost 2am by the time we both ran from the party. I knew it was late, but I had to talk to you, I had to hear your voice. I had to explain what you had seen.
I wanted to explain everything. I wanted to blame my inhibition on the alcohol. I wanted to blame the woman who just couldn’t take a hint that I was in a committed relationship (we were Hollywood couple goals for God’s sake, she KNEW and yet she still tried). I wanted to apologize for what you had seen. I wanted to tell you I love you over and over and over again until my throat hurt and could no longer speak.
I couldn’t get a hold of you. You hadn’t answered any of my calls or texts all night. I had a clue of where you might’ve been but it was so late that I knew if I called there was a higher chance of them not telling me versus if I just called in the morning (not that I was sure they would still tell me in the morning because of what you might’ve told them about what happened, there was just a better chance of me getting thrown a bone if it wasn’t 2 in the morning).
With the time continuing to move forward and my exhaustion getting the best of me, I decided to call it a night. The only thing keeping me together was the hope that I would be seeing you in the morning. This nightmare would be over in the morning and we can go back to being us. We could get away for a bit and just be Beca and Chloe again. Find our relationship, find our love again.
I woke up at 2pm the next day. My head throbbing to the beat of my heart and my eyes refusing to stay open due to the light coming in through the bay windows. The only reason why I woke up to the light coming through was because you had pushed the curtains open rather than waking me yourself.
You wouldn’t even look at me, talk to me to wake me from my slumber. I saw the suitcases by the door before I even saw you at the kitchen table with a cup of tea in your hands, another cup, I presumed was coffee, for me pushed to my side of the table.
I explained everything, but you had seemed to have your mind made up. You were done with this, done with us. You told me you couldn’t take it anymore, that you were tired of taking care of me when I would come home drunk or worrying about me when I wouldn't reply to calls or text when I hadn’t been home for days at a time. You were done, we were over. You said you forgave me for the incident at the party (which I will never understand how you were so forgiving so quickly, but am forever grateful for), but I guess that was just push you needed to get out and leave. You left 20 minutes later after I had begged and pleaded, on my knees with tears flooding both of our faces, for you to just stay. We would work it out, we could be Beca and Chloe again, this was just a rough patch that we can fix but only if we do it together.
I was falling.
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You still left and my heart broke, because I knew this was all happening because of me. You were leaving because of me, because of my actions (or lack there of) and behaviors of not being the person you needed me to be. My heart broke more knowing that I did this to you. I pushed to you so hard that it drove you away. You left. I didn’t chase you. You deserved so much better than me and I’m sorry that I kept you to myself for so long.
I cried myself to sleep that night, and every night after. It didn’t matter that my album took off. It didn’t matter that my dreams were coming true. With no one to share it with, what was the point. I realized my dream was not a successful life doing something I loved, but living that life with someone I love the most.
Numbing the pain of you no longer around was the only way I could move forward. I became like so many of the other artists I had read about, worked with, and sometimes made fun of. Alcohol wasn’t enough any more. Drugs came into the picture soon after and I was no longer myself. I was grumpier than my usual self, to the point that it was no longer charming or endearing. I was short-fused, snapping on anyone and everyone who would so much as ask me one to many questions. I was no longer taking care of myself and I didn’t care. None of it mattered if you weren’t going to be around. I was becoming someone that even I couldn’t recognize. No wonder you didn’t want to stay with me. I didn’t even want to be with myself.
I was falling.