Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Part I: Aubrey: A Friend-Love Story

 “Dear friend… I just want a humble, murderously simple thing: that a person be glad when I walk into the room.”

—Marina Tsvetaeva, “On Love”

Freshman Year (November 2008)

It was the first line of one of Chloe’s very favorite books, but she still had to look it up later. She couldn’t remember exactly how it went.

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

She might have remembered a word or two wrong, but even so, it was all she could think of that first Thanksgiving at Barden—when she met Aubrey.

*

She hadn’t minded the silence as much as she thought she would. Technically, no one was allowed in the dorms during breaks from school, and if you wanted to stay you had to go through the embarrassing process of appealing for special permission.

Okay, it wasn’t really that bad—it mainly involved her meekly asking a half-asleep official from campus security to stamp a form—but Chloe didn’t like to admit it, that she didn’t really have anywhere to be.

So she looked out her window to the green and of course it was totally strange that no one was blaring music or playing Frisbee or randomly screaming for once but, still, it was kind of a relief. She’d been in college for nearly three months and she really did love it (she kept glancing down with pride at her newly-acquired forest green Barden shirt), but she’d hardly had a chance to take in a breath since it had started.

It didn’t feel real yet.

It was just so easy. Everyone moved in packs towards lunch, towards the quad, towards parties. You never had to be alone, and you never really had to be anywhere.

She’d spent almost all of the past few months with three of the girls on her hall—she had more or less herded her roommate and closest neighbors into friendship and they had more or less gone along with it. Chloe had gotten drunk (way too drunk) for the first time after a week of school and the other girls had nursed her through it. After that, it was like clockwork: three meals a day together, hanging out in one of their rooms at night.

So why did she feel like she was waiting for something?

She tried not to think about it too much, and just enjoy it. Surprisingly for Chloe, it was probably the parties that she liked the most so far from her college experience. Not the partying itself, which was at best awkward and cramped and at worst terrifying, but that when the booze came out suddenly everyone else felt like it was okay to love each other.

It was so clear to her: people who held each other at arm’s length all day collapsed into each other’s arms the minute they were handed a Solo cup. Now that was what she thought college would be like.

She didn’t want it to be so easy. She was sure that there was more.

*

Maybe she was thinking about that as she watched the leaves fall on the empty green outside her window, but she wouldn’t remember later. Whatever she was thinking was suddenly interrupted by—

Music. It was so loud and clear, she thought at first that it must be coming from her computer, but as she kept listening, she remembered the sad-looking piano down in Baker Hall’s janky basement, one floor below her.

She had never really heard music like this before. She could hear fingers crunching down on solid chords, and then in steady flutters, flying over the keys—it was so free, she felt like she was floating. How could that pathetic instrument be making these sounds? And who was even there to make them?

As the tempo sped up, Chloe rushed to slip on her flip flops and run out of her room, leaving her door open as she dashed to the stairs down to the basement.

She reached her destination just as the girl at the piano bench was sounding out the ecstatic last few bars. The girl paused after she finished, letting the notes linger in the air. After taking a deep breath, she leaned forward to make a note on the music in front of her.

Chloe took in a breath of her own before shouting, “Wow!”

The startled pianist accidentally threw her pencil in the air at the sound. It bounced off the basement’s wall onto the carpet. “Crap,” she mumbled, turning towards Chloe with an irritated look.

“Oh my God, who are you?” she asked.

Later, Chloe would think back on this warmly, noting that the girl at the piano wasn’t Aubrey as she would know her—perfect, composed, overly-eager and over-confident—she was just a nerd with a blonde ponytail playing the piano in an empty basement.

“I’m Chloe,” she responded, and she could feel in her face that she was beaming. She quickly made her way up to the piano bench and sat down close to the girl, who automatically shifted an inch to the left at her approach.

“I thought I was the only one here,” she said after a pause.

“Me too.”

Chloe leaned forward to read the music. Chopin. Ocean Étude.

“I’m still learning it,” the other girl offered hastily, pulling a strand of hair behind her ear. “I know I made mistakes.”

Ocean Étude—yes. That was exactly what it had sounded like. Just like the ocean. Chloe almost felt sorry that she had interrupted the girl’s practice, seeing her avert her eyes with embarrassment, but not quite.

“I loved it,” Chloe blurted out, her hands flying up with excitement to somewhere around her shoulders.

The girl next to her raised her eyes from the music in surprise and smiled hesitantly.

“Aubrey,” she said, stretching out her hand.

*

Twenty minutes later, they were halfway through a bag of tortilla chips and salsa Chloe had rushed to bring down from her room. Aubrey was sitting up straight in one of the various weathered, beige armchairs arranged throughout the basement, while Chloe sprawled out on a couch next to her, propping up her head with one hand, listening to Aubrey speak.

Neither asked the other why she hadn’t gone home for Thanksgiving, and Chloe loved that. But the answer for Aubrey, at least, became partially clear as they kept talking—she came from an army family, and her father was currently stationed in Germany.

Chloe wasn’t sure what to make of how Aubrey talked about her father. He was the one, she said, that had first taught her to play the piano. She wasn’t (she hesitated as she said this) as good as he was.

“Oh, no way,” Chloe interjected, and watched Aubrey’s face flush. “But seriously, you are really good. You could do this for, like, a living.”

Aubrey shook her head, absentmindedly readjusting her ponytail. “Do you play?” she asked.

“No, I wish. I just sing.”

“You sing?”

Her voice was bright and hopeful. She moved an inch forward on her seat.

“Yeah,” Chloe affirmed. “Well, I’m okay. But I love it.”

“Me too,” Aubrey replied without a beat, then promptly stood up and grabbed the bag of chips straight out of Chloe’s hands, tossing them onto the table. She nodded her head towards the piano, then pulled Chloe’s hand along with her.

*

It had taken a few moments for Chloe to recognize the melody; the simple guitar strumming of the song’s opening sounded so much slower and more expressive on the piano. That’s probably why she started laughing in surprise when the words out of Aubrey’s mouth were

I’ve got my sights set on you
and I’m ready to aim
I have a heart that will
never be tamed

“I love this song,” she burst out. She took a moment to get over Miley’s lyrics as translated through Aubrey’s precise enunciation, then joined in, adding in a higher harmony:

I can’t wait
to see you again

But it wasn’t until the start of the chorus, when Aubrey slid her right hand across the keys and leaned closer as she pounded out the chords, that Chloe realized that this was what she had been waiting for since she had moved into Barden that August.

She couldn’t help moving into what was more jumping than dancing as she sang along:

The next time we hang out
I will redeem myself,
My heart won’t rest till then,
Oh I, I can’t wait
to see you again

Aubrey let Chloe take the lead as she laughed her way through the rest of the song, occasionally catching Chloe’s eyes as she added in another unnecessarily elegant embellishment to the music, and at the end, trying unsuccessfully to force the corners of her lips downwards when Chloe gestured towards her at the words “best friend Lesley.”

After she had finished playing, when Chloe pulled her into a tight and only slightly awkwardly-positioned hug from behind the piano bench, she gave up trying.

When Aubrey finally shook herself out of her grip, Chloe moved round to sit next to her, still humming under her breath.

Aubrey moved her hands back from the keys, holding them together nervously below her chest. They sat quietly, Aubrey’s brow furrowed in thought.

“Do you like it here so far?” she asked quietly. “At Barden, I mean.”

“Oh, totally,” Chloe replied quickly, but stopped as she saw her face fall slightly. “I mean, it’s okay,” she revised. “Still getting used to it, for sure.”

Aubrey stayed quiet for a moment, picking at her cuticles.

Then, all at once, she buckled under the pressure.

“College is hard!” she whined. As if surprised by her own lack of restraint, she cleared her throat before continuing. “I’ve seen a lot of movies, okay? I just thought I would be having memorable experiences and bonding on the quad and having ‘the best years of my life.’”

Chloe’s eyes widened as she watched her little outburst. Aubrey was carefully avoiding her gaze, bracing herself for embarrassment. Poor thing, she thought.

“I thought… I would have made friends by now,” Aubrey added, her voice thin. She shrugged.

But at that, Chloe could only roll her eyes.

“Aubrey,” she said, gesturing at the space in between them, “what did you think this was?”

She just looked confused. Chloe stood up and offered her a hand.

“Come on, we’re getting some real food.”

*

Chloe doesn’t like things. She loves them.

So maybe it was that anxious glint in Aubrey’s eye crying out, “love me!” that made her feel totally at home.

Or maybe it was her confession, the way her voice cracked with the force of it. Chloe was fascinated by that tension in her face, the scrambling to take whatever felt like too much back. Believe her, Chloe got that. She had always been too something.

For one, she was too young. She had just turned seventeen that summer, and, yes, since everyone asks, she did skip a grade. She chalked that one up to having loved school so much for a brief period during early elementary school.

A couple years before, looking through her mom’s papers, she had found the letter her teacher had sent home with her, requesting a meeting to talk about having her move on to third grade in the fall. She blushed as she read the opening sentences: “Your daughter is a delight. She is such a bright and affectionate child.”

The note went on to describe, along with a list of accomplishments, an amusing game Chloe had liked to play with one of the teacher’s aides (Chloe remembered her) in which she would steal her hat at the end of the day and run around the room until she got it back.

Her mom had not been thrilled about that detail. She sat Chloe down and explained to her that sometimes it wasn’t appropriate—one of her mom’s favorite words—to play.

“Sometimes you have to calm down,” she said. “Do you think you can be calmer at school, Chloe?”

She had nodded, and promised she’d do better.

School wasn’t as much fun after that. She tried to be quiet and waited for it to end.

But there were things, sometimes, that made her feel completely, so thankfully not calm—music, and every so often a book.

And maybe now Aubrey.

*

Aubrey probably hadn’t expected Chloe to drive them to the grocery store, but that’s where they ended up. Chloe contentedly wheeled her cart down the aisles through the crowds of last-minute holiday shoppers, haphazardly dropping items into the basket. Aubrey trailed along, clearly puzzled as she tried to figure out the game plan.

“I don’t—what—why are we getting all these things?” she stammered.

“It’s Thanksgiving,” Chloe replied, in a tone that implied, obviously.

“Okay,” Aubrey said while picking up two of the items in the cart—Corn Flakes and instant pudding. “But have you actually, you know, ever cooked? Anything?”

“Oh shush, Aubrey,” Chloe responded, reaching for a loaf of bread. “I can pick up some groceries for myself while I’m here.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“But no, I haven’t actually cooked before.” She winked.

Aubrey took control. Obviously they weren’t going to have time to cook a whole turkey at this point, but she directed Chloe over to the ready-made chickens, mashed potatoes, and pies. Chloe grinned widely as she watched Aubrey deliberate over which seasonally decorated napkin set to purchase.

“Oh, get these ones!” Chloe pointed to a pattern of turkeys hilariously dancing with each other while holding gourds. Aubrey, who had been deciding between two tasteful designs featuring autumn foliage, grudgingly assented.

As they carried the bags back to Chloe’s car, she could already tell something was different in her new friend. She seemed more poised, more self-assured than she had been a half hour before. She started to assert herself more stringently—“no, Chloe, the eggs stay in a separate bag. Do you want them to break?”

Chloe didn’t mind. What was more important: Aubrey looked happy.

*

They had to drag a table from across the basement towards the little kitchenette, but Aubrey definitely knew what she was doing decoration-wise. Chloe largely watched and provided much-needed moral support from an armchair.

“I wish we would have planned this better,” Aubrey noted wistfully as she unwrapped a stick of butter. “If I had been working on it this morning, I could have made time to sculpt a turkey out of butter.”

“Aubrey, I didn’t know you this morning. And I’m starving. Let’s get moving.”

Well, it had started as moral support, anyway.

Eventually, Aubrey decided that their table was (quote) “passable” and she gestured to the chair across from her. Chloe made her way to the seat while Aubrey searched the kitchenette drawers for serving utensils.

Aubrey finally sat down with a satisfied sigh, and looked up at Chloe with some of the timidity she had shown in their first conversation.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. “I’d never spent Thanksgiving alone before.”

Chloe had.

(She didn’t say so.)

“And even if I were home…” Aubrey trailed off.

All happy families—Tolstoy’s words came to Chloe’s mind then—are the same; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. She reached out for Aubrey’s hand.

“Now we can have it together,” she declared. “Let’s be best friends.”

Aubrey exhaled with small laugh. “Okay.”

Chloe squeezed Aubrey’s hand, winked, and reached for her fork.

“Wait!” Aubrey stopped her, and Chloe dropped the utensil immediately, letting it clang against her plate.

“Sorry. I mean, I’ll say grace.”

“Oh, yeah, let’s hear it,” Chloe assented, folding her hands politely on her lap.

Aubrey bowed her head. Chloe waited, unsure of what to do next.

“Thank you so much,” Aubrey said eventually, “for this food, and for bringing us together today.”

“And for letting us start a tradition of sharing Thanksgiving together every year for the rest of our lives,” Chloe added cheerfully.

Aubrey narrowed her eyes, but continued.

“And for allowing us to start a yearly Thanksgiving tradition, to be held every year until it no longer makes sense to do so.”

Chloe shrugged, as if to say, I’ll take it.

“And,” Aubrey added slyly, “for introducing me to Chloe so I could recruit her to audition for Barden’s all-ladies a cappella group with me.”

“Oh.” Chloe considered it for a moment. “Okay!”

“Okay? Great. Thank you for all of that. Amen.”

“A-men,” Chloe repeated, heaping piles of mashed potatoes onto her plate.

How many sizes was it that the Grinch’s heart grew on Christmas? Obviously, no one ever would have accused Chloe of being a Grinch, and they were celebrating a completely different holiday, but still she was certain she felt something like that happen in her chest as she watched Aubrey cut her food neatly with the fork pointed downwards in her left hand.

She was pretty sure she was home.

Chapter Text

Sophomore Year (November 2009)

The next year, thank God, they had planned far enough in advance for Aubrey to sculpt a butter turkey. And sculpt it she did: Chloe marveled over the texture of the individual feathers.

“Don’t they make molds for these?” Chloe asked.

“Molds are for the weak,” Aubrey recited dispassionately as she set the butter in place, then shook her head. “I’m sorry; that’s just the annual Posen butter sculpting competition coming out in me.”

“Oh, fun!” offered Chloe.

“Not really, no.”

Chloe still didn’t know how to cook, so she hadn’t contributed much so far except for actually buying the groceries. She assured Aubrey she’d make up for it with hosting skills as soon as the other guests showed up.

Aubrey had decided to have a Friendsgiving that year a few days before Thanksgiving break started so they could open up their tradition to others—more specifically, to the Bellas.

Aubrey was desperate to bond with them. With no new freshmen in the group, they were still the newbies, and, honestly, at that point in their college career they were maybe even a teeny bit too uncool for the a cappella set.

Aubrey did the best she could to hide that she was a double Math and Music major, usually offering some noncommittal comment about economics and finance at the question. Chloe, meanwhile, was the recently-elected president of Barden’s Russian Literature Reading Group. (Enough said.)

She didn’t care. She loved the Bellas. She never wanted not to sing every day like she did now. And she was learning so much—the older girls, especially Erika and Ari, the two senior Bellas and co-leaders of the group, amazed her.

Ari, who was somehow managing to captain both the Bellas and the rugby team, had started out shyly as a leader, letting her co-captain, Erika, do almost all the talking. Lately, though, she seemed to be gaining confidence. Chloe soaked it up; Ari had spent nearly two hours after practice the month before teaching her how to beatbox. Erika, who usually took point on arranging the music, also overextended her time doubling as the chapter president of Barden’s only historically black sorority. Chloe never stopped telling her how incredible her arrangements were.

It wasn’t that the Bellas didn’t like Chloe and Aubrey. And it wasn’t that anyone was unkind—well, Chloe corrected herself with a wince—most of them weren’t. But it wasn’t, well, as close-knit as she had imagined. As supportive. As “like a family.” Wasn’t that what people said about these things?

That would be nice.

“We have to be proactive,” Aubrey was always insisting. “Go on the attack. My father always said, ‘a winner never quits, and a quitter is shot on sight.’”

Friendsgiving, as she explained it, was one tactic of many.

“Operation Make the Bellas Like Us?”

“Yes, something like that. We’ll workshop some names.”

“Copy that.”

Aubrey folded cloth napkins into delicate leaf-like napkin holders she had painstakingly crafted from online directions, while Chloe moved back onto the same couch she had settled into during their first conversation last year.

*

Over the next year or two, Aubrey would for the most part seem to forget what they were like then, those first few semesters before they actually became cool.

Chloe would never say it, but even looking back, she thought that things were actually just right the way they were.

Back then, Chloe would have to drag Aubrey to parties every weekend, and spend most of her energy there attempting to get her to dance. But most of their Saturdays and Sundays would be spent in the basement which they had unconsciously begun to think of as theirs.

Chloe would sprawl out on the couch devouring a new novel while Aubrey made irritated sounds from the piano bench as she tried her hand once again at mastering Beethoven’s Hammerklavier.

When she’d get too frustrated, Chloe would lay her book down flat on her stomach and start humming a melody from one of the Bella arrangements till Aubrey would give in and start playing it by ear. Chloe would move to the piano and they’d sing together, trying to impress each other with new improvisations.

Some days, Chloe would sit on the kitchenette counter while Aubrey cooked, and they’d talk about music. The version of Aubrey that only Chloe knew would tell her, again and again, that music was just like math.

“And, you know, for both, the rules are so strict,” she’d say, peeling a potato, or caramelizing some onions, “but that’s what makes it so interesting. When you try to do something new it just gets more and more complicated. That’s the whole craft.”

Chloe thought that was all pretty great, but if she were being totally honest she thought music was really much more like a story. A really good one—one that takes you over.

*

Speaking of which—on the couch, she was thumbing through her copy of The Master and Margarita, occasionally stifling laughter with coughs so as not to annoy Aubrey. She had been so excited about this section of Professor Mitchell’s “Satire: From Juvenal to Jon Stewart” course ever since he had said at the beginning of the semester that it was his favorite book. It did not disappoint.

“Chloe, I can hear you cough-giggling from here. I know I shouldn’t even ask, but what is going on in that bizarre little book of yours?”

“Like, right now? Satan is throwing a magic show in Moscow.”

“Well, I asked. The table’s ready.”

Chloe got up from the couch and headed over to the table (actually two folded tables Aubrey had set up side by side), glowing with pride. It wasn’t just perfect, it was Aubrey perfect, which was its own category altogether.

They’d spent about a week in preparation, thrifting for china and silverware, picking out fake leaves at the party store, buying little pumpkins at the farmers market. Aubrey had thought of everything, from little orange scented candles (technically forbidden in the dorms) to cornucopia-shaped place cards.

Chloe grinned wider as she saw that one of the places lacked a cloth napkin; next to the card bearing the name “Chloe,” under the fork, was an extra dancing turkey paper napkin from the year before.

“Oh, Aubrey,” she said softly.

“It’ll be nicer next year when we move off campus,” Aubrey cut in. “There’s only so much I can do about the surroundings.” She gestured around at the basement.

Chloe realized suddenly that she was tearing at the corner of the front cover of her paperback in fidgety excitement. She put the book down on the counter and looked at Aubrey squarely. After a year of best-friendship she still felt giddy about it.

She wanted to be part of a group as much, maybe more, than Aubrey did, but she couldn’t completely shake the worry that letting others in would mean less time for each other.

*

She hadn’t really had a best friend since eighth grade. She had been, if it is possible, as excited about being Neha’s friend as she was now about being Aubrey’s.

They had had nearly nothing in common: Neha wore a lot of flannel, was obsessed with Star Wars, and made snide jokes about their fellow classmates. She and her brother Sunil once spent an entire weekend doing nothing but unsuccessfully laboring to improve Chloe’s lackluster Rebel Strike skills. Neha was pretty insistent on making the distinction between the other more alternative kids at school and herself. While those poseurs wasted their time listening to Avril Lavigne and applying eye makeup, she would get her mom to drive her and Chloe to record stores on the weekends to locate vinyl versions of albums from obscure early-90s grunge bands.

And she loved Chloe. She joked about the strangeness of her best friend being someone who not only didn’t hate everyone like she did, but rather “irritatingly loved everything,” but all Chloe heard was the beginning of that sentence, “best friend.”

Chloe had gone above and beyond for her birthday. She listened for clues for months leading up to the date, finally scoring with a comment about a game Neha had played at a friend’s house once and loved as a kid that she never was able to find again. Everyone was new to Google then, so it had taken Chloe about a week to locate the game based on her description, but finally she was able to buy it over the phone with her mother’s credit card from a public library three states over.

She had placed the ancient CD-ROM in a gift bag with everything else she could think of: a pack of Nerds rope, her friend’s favorite candy; a mix CD; some additional chocolate for good measure; and a long, heartfelt letter. She had barely slept the night before from the excitement of sharing them with her.

But when she woke up the next morning, rushing to the kitchen, she found her mom looking through the bag she had left on the counter.

When she’d think of her mother now, she would imagine her like she was that day and almost every morning of her childhood: standing at the kitchen counter eating toast and jam, in a light collared shirt, her blazer folded over the back of a chair at the table.

As she looked up and saw Chloe standing in the hallway, her face was concerned.

It had always bothered Chloe that she looked nothing like her. Maybe the only thing she had inherited was her height, but even being short looked different on her.

When Chloe would look at herself in the mirror back in those days her stomach would clench with frustration; everything about her was just so totally unserious, so silly. The big eyes. The red hair. Her mom kept her own dark blonde hair short around her more angular face, and her hazel eyes that day were staring back at her daughter with worry.

“Chloe, don’t you think she will find this a little… much?”

She didn’t respond. Until that moment, she honestly hadn’t even thought of being embarrassed.

“It’s sweet,” her mom tempered her voice at Chloe’s hurt expression. “But you don’t want to scare your friend away.”

Scare her?

On the bus to school, Chloe rummaged through the gift bag, suddenly realizing how completely creepy the whole thing was. Neha would think she was a stalker. Hastily she pulled the letter out of the gift bag, tore it into a few pieces and shoved it into her backpack. She took out the game and left the candy and the mix CD.

Neha laughed happily at the pack of Nerds rope, and that felt good enough.

Friends grow apart. It’s not anyone’s fault, right?

But when Chloe would think about what went wrong, as much as she didn’t want to, she’d have to remember that day and the questions she, after it, couldn’t stop asking.

*

In the absence of any more actual tasks to complete, Aubrey straightened the silverware on her place settings.

“Wait, Aubrey, don’t we have too many seats here?”

Aubrey squinted at the place settings, counting in her head.

“No, it’s right—enough for us, the other Bellas, and Sean.”

Chloe shook her head wildly. “No, no. Not Sean.”

Aubrey raised an eyebrow. “You broke up?”

“Like a week ago.”

Aubrey made a half-hearted sympathetic sound as she rapidly dismantled his table setting. She didn’t make much of a secret out of her consistent dislike of whoever the newest addition, male or female, was to what she referred to as “Chloe’s animal rescue,” or “Chloe’s home for wayward strays.” Chloe had had four one-to-two-month-long relationships since starting at Barden, each more unsatisfactory to Aubrey than the next.

The most recent example had honestly just repulsed her. (“I mean, for God’s sake, Chloe, he’s majoring in Philosophy. He writes poems. Where is your self-respect?”)

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It didn’t really matter.” Chloe gave a little half-shrug. “I know you didn’t like him.”

On more serious days, Aubrey would explain she was just sick of seeing Chloe hurt for no reason. That was fair, she guessed. It was true that she usually ended up liking people with issues.

“Well, are you okay?”

“Oh, yeah. I mean, you were probably right. The poetry was pretty bad.”

Aubrey laughed, but placed a hand on Chloe’s back, giving her a sympathetic look for a few seconds before applying herself to the endless task of aligning chairs.

*

Operation Aca-cumulation of Friends (Chloe had suggested that one) began in earnest when, to Chloe’s delight, Erika and Ari showed up.

As she opened the door for them, Ari unzipped the backpack Erika was wearing to pull out, with both hands, two bottles of wine.

(Chloe wondered, not for the first time, if these two were secretly dating.)

“We come bearing technically forbidden beverages,” Erika announced.

“I knew we invited seniors for a reason,” Chloe teased.

Ari stuffed the bottles back into Erika’s backpack as Chloe guided them down the stairs to the basement.

“I guess we just have to hope no RA wanders down here tonight,” she noted lightly. “Erika is about one infraction of a university rule away from being kicked out of her sorority.”

“Yeah, whatever. I’m the president.”

Ari lifted her eyebrows mockingly. “I wouldn’t be so sure of yourself. I think I could sense a coup in the air last time I was there.”

(They are totally dating, Chloe thought.)

As they reached the bottom of the stairs, Erika burst into an open-mouthed laugh.

“Sorry. I forgot how gross the dorm basements are.”

“Oh, but look,” Ari whispered admiringly, pointing at Aubrey’s setup.

Aubrey was readjusting a corner of the tablecloth when she noticed they had arrived. She exchanged an eager look with Chloe.

“Welcome, ladies!”

Ari was unzipping Erika’s backpack again.

“Never fear,” she said. “We brought booze.”

*

Two glasses of wine usually wouldn’t have been enough to tip Chloe over the edge into a buzz, but, now that she thought about it, she maybe had been too busy to eat that day.

On the other hand, Aubrey’s anxiety was enough to keep her staunchly sober. Twenty minutes later, no one else had arrived.

Honestly, it wasn’t a huge surprise. The rest of the members of the group were all juniors and mostly lived in awe of their classmate, the Bellas’ most ambitious soprano, Alice, who had made her dislike for both Aubrey and Chloe crystal clear.

Aubrey was handling her moderate panic by frenetically skipping through the playlist she had crafted for the occasion.

Chloe knew she should have been keeping an eye on if Aubrey was veering towards a nervous breakdown, but instead she placed her empty glass down on the counter and walked jauntily towards Erika and Ari, who were sitting on the couch, steadily making their way through the plate of little puff pastry canapés Aubrey had prepared.

Chloe picked up and ate one of the pastries, then pushed her way into the middle of the two girls, sitting down between them.

“I’m so happy you both are here,” she said, weaving her hands into both of theirs.

Ari blushed a little, but Erika just smiled in amusement. Chloe looked from one to the other affectionately.

“How did you two meet?” Chloe asked, and Ari was definitely red now. Chloe was so happy she had been right about them.

“Chemistry class, sophomore year,” Erika answered, unsuccessfully attempting to remove her hand from her grasp.

Chloe’s eyes widened. “Chemistry?”

She wouldn’t check her phone until later, but it was probably around then that she had started to receive texts from the other Bellas.

sorry to bail, lots of homework to do before break. have a great party!

And from Alice, just:

hey sorry, i can’t make it.

It was likely just these messages that caused Aubrey to call out Chloe’s name plaintively from the kitchenette.

When she dutifully rushed to her side, Aubrey was staring at her phone, her other arm crossed against her chest.

“I don’t think anyone else is coming,” she said finally, keeping her eyes on the screen.

Chloe softened.

“Well,” she tried, her voice small, “maybe they’re late.”

Aubrey shook her head stiffly. Behind her, the little egg timer on the counter went off. Placing her phone down slowly, she turned around to check on the turkey.

Chloe grabbed Aubrey’s phone and read through the messages.

Oh.

Okay.

“There’s still…” Chloe counted, trying to speak in as gentle a tone as possible, “three? Three people we haven’t heard from.”

Aubrey shut the oven door.

“They’re not coming,” she snapped.

Chloe folded her arms uncomfortably at the change in Aubrey’s voice. But before she could think of something to say to make it better, Erika interrupted—

“Hey, y’all, Megan just texted us. She’s at the door.”

*

Now that was kind of a plot twist. Megan was one of the few students at Barden who had gone to Chloe’s own high school, something that made Chloe (maybe unfairly, she thought) uneasy about her.

But, more importantly, Megan was Alice’s best friend in the group and Chloe was sure at least once she had heard both of them making fun of Aubrey together, stretching their voices into an impossibly high pitch, motivating each other with overeager suggestions.

Chloe stumbled up the stairs to the door, wishing she weren’t still so buzzed.

Megan was smiling when she opened the door, and she thought, well, maybe she was sincere.

Her smile faltered a bit as Chloe pulled her in for a hug as a greeting.

“Thanks for coming!”

Megan slinked out of the hug, handing Chloe a store-bought pumpkin pie.

“I wasn’t sure if we were supposed to bring anything,” Megan said.

“Oh, that’s okay! This is awesome.”

(Maybe, she thought, it was just that Megan’s face didn’t look the friendliest. It wasn’t her fault. She shouldn’t be so judgmental.)

“Okay!” Chloe announced, gesturing towards the basement. “Let’s get this party started.”

*

By the time they reached the basement, Aubrey had rearranged place cards around one side of the table, leaving the other half empty.

Chloe showed Aubrey the pie Megan had brought, and Aubrey smiled benignly.

“Please, everyone, take a seat!”

Aubrey sat down at the head of the table, Chloe to her right. She wanted to wave Erika and Ari over next to her, but knew on some level that would be rude. Instead, they sat to Aubrey’s left, and Megan settled down next to Chloe.

Aubrey looked around at her four guests as they settled into their seats, took in a breath, and bowed her head. Erika automatically followed suit, but the others, as Chloe had last year, looked confused for a moment, unsure of what to do next. She smiled at them reassuringly.

“Thank you for the food,” Aubrey managed, “and these ladies’ presence, and our soon-to-be victory at Regionals, and everything we have to be thankful for.”

Her good spirits weren’t noticeably dimmed, and hopefully, Chloe thought, she was the only one who could hear the pang of disappointment in her voice.

“Amen,” responded Chloe enthusiastically, giving her what she hoped was a comforting look. She nudged Aubrey with her elbow, smiling brightly until she returned the favor.

“Cranberry sauce, anyone?”

*

Ari had a habit of constantly fixing her hair while she was telling a story. She was halfway through a recollection of the time Erika had organized herself and three sorority sisters into breaking into Barden’s decrepit old clock tower. Chloe’s heart leapt as she saw Erika’s eyes linger on Ari’s athletic arms as she once again fastened her ponytail.

“I mean, I already thought it was haunted before we started hearing—”

“It was a cat,” Erika interjected, placing a hand on Ari’s shoulder.

Ari’s mouth opened in mock indignation.

“You just ruined the rest of the story.”

“Did you get in trouble?”

(Oh, Aubrey.)

“Nah,” Erika shook her head, and then at a pointed glance from Ari, added, “but we did nearly fall through the floor—”

“—to our certain deaths.”

“So, you’re the reason they boarded up the entrance?” Chloe asked with sudden realization.

They looked at each other with laughing pride.

“I guess we can graduate in peace, knowing we’ve left some kind of legacy,” Erika responded.

“Still time to win at Finals,” Megan chimed in, pouring another glass of wine. “You know, legacy-wise.”

Ari’s smile dropped a little at that, but she nodded, taking a large bite out of one of Aubrey’s butternut squash dinner rolls.

“Actually,” Erika offered, “I’m almost done with a new arrangement that we can use at Semi-Finals… I mean, if we get to Semi-Finals.”

Ari excitedly placed a hand on Erika’s forearm.

“Oh my God, yeah, tell them about that.”

“It’s like a combination of Ace of Base, The Bangles, and Gloria Estefan. Retro, but I think it’ll work really well.”

“Oh, love it,” Aubrey intoned brightly.

Chloe actually clapped with excitement.

“Wow, I forgot Ace of Base even existed,” Megan offered, evidently in the middle of composing a text underneath the table.

“I mean, we all did. As a society.” Erika shrugged. “Wait to hear it, though; I think you’ll like it.”

“It’d be great, anyway,” Megan concluded, “to have something to beat those Treblemaker assholes with.”

Chloe was ready to ask Erika what songs she was using when her phone started buzzing.

“Oh—sorry,” she whispered as she reached to check it.

Aubrey cast her a chastising look before turning back at Erika.

“So, what are your plans for next year?” she asked.

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence before Ari mumbled an answer about not being sure yet.

Chloe just stared at the little envelope on the front screen of her phone with a name on it: Dad.

Erika made a joke about how lucrative careers in a cappella were. Chloe heard laughter around her and smiled reflexively, but didn’t look up at the others.

Eventually Aubrey caught a glance of the phone in Chloe’s hand. Her face gentling, she reached over to place a hand on her arm.

Chloe stood up before she could reach her. “I’m sorry.”

The other Bellas stared back at her blankly.

“I’ll just be a sec.”

She hurried out of the room, phone in hand, ignoring the confused murmuring from the table as she made it up the stairs to the dorm hallway.

Sitting down on the floor, she pressed her back against the wall and waited for her heart to return to a normal rhythm.

When was the last time she had heard from him? The summer?

She hadn’t seen him, anyway, since—

Since her junior year.

One of two guys passing her in the hallway nearly stumbled over her feet. “Yo, watch out,” he called backwards, and his friend laughed as they made their way out the door.

She covered her face with her hands for a moment, then picked up her phone again.

She opened it.

I know you said this summer that you already had plans for Thanksgiving. If you reconsider, please know we would be so happy to have you. Dad

She read it three times in a row before registering a reaction. She searched her mind for any one of the feelings she had felt over the past three years (grief, sure, but also anger, fear, guilt—oh yeah, a lot of that last one). But at the moment, all she felt was tired.

And distracted. She had set aside the muddle of her family in a completely different region of her heart than the one dedicated to Aubrey’s Bella Friendsgiving.

She didn’t want to think about it. She imagined her friend one floor below, probably eagerly foisting second helpings of yams on her guests right about then.

She gave herself one more minute to recover, then snapped the phone shut and walked back toward the stairway.

*

But, reaching the foot of the stairs, she stopped mid-step as she made sense of what she was overhearing.

“—someone go check on her?”

“Maybe something happened? She’s been gone for a while.”

“She’ll be fine,” she heard Aubrey say with an edge of uncertainty to her voice.

“It was just her dad, right?” That had to be Megan’s voice. “I saw her phone; it said it was her dad.”

“Maybe they’re just making Thanksgiving plans,” Erika suggested.

“It’s probably not our business,” Aubrey cut in, a little testily. “More yams?”

“You know, it’s weird,” Megan shared. “We went to the same high school. Her mother was a single mom.”

Chloe froze.

(Here it comes.)

“Was?”

That voice, lowered in sympathy, was Ari’s.

Half of Chloe wanted to turn around to flee the building immediately.

The other half wanted to hear a voice just like that, just as concerned and kind, tell her that everything, after all, was going to be okay in the end.

“She died a few years ago. My senior year, I think? I can’t remember. Maybe she lives with her dad now.”

“Okay, enough.”

Chloe couldn’t see her face, but she knew that despite this outburst, Aubrey was still smiling.

“We are either going to stop talking about this, or no one gets more turkey. Or pie. And if I hear any of you asking Chloe questions about this when she comes back, the dinner is over. Have I made myself clear?”

Chloe could hear Erika and Ari assuring her they would never, etc. Megan made some murmurs of assent.

Not knowing what to do next, she sat down on the bottom step and waited for their conversation to move on to another topic.

Meanwhile, she tried to think of anything else. Instead, Megan’s voice played on a loop in her head:

My senior year, I think? I can’t remember.

She wouldn’t, would she? There hadn’t been a funeral. Her mom didn’t want one.

(Her aunt had placed ashes in her hand from a plastic bag.)

She hadn’t even been sure that Megan had known, until that moment. They weren’t in the same grade. They’d barely even known each other when it happened.

(Her stomach had been aching. She’d stared at a bird dragging its red beak along the water.)

Not now.

When she walked back into the basement, she was prepared for the slightly pitying looks. But she didn’t break her smile as she sat back down, taking a roll and reaching for the now-unrecognizable butter turkey.

“These rolls really are just ridic, Bree,” she said, and hoped that only Aubrey could tell if her voice were shaking.

*

The rest of the dinner, after that, was kind of subdued.

Out of politeness, Chloe ate a slice of the pumpkin pie Megan brought, while Erika and Ari gorged themselves on Aubrey’s decadent chocolate pecan pie, a family recipe.

“It has something else in it, I can’t quite place it,” Ari said, squinting as she tried to taste it.

“Is it vanilla? Maybe?” Erika’s mouth was full as she guessed. “I’m so bad at this game.”

“There’s a secret ingredient,” Aubrey responded proudly. Chloe noted with pleasure that “secret” didn’t apply to her—she knew it was coconut cream.

Megan, dessert-less, smiled at her phone under the table for the third or fourth time that evening.

Chloe knew Aubrey had prepared some after-dinner games (which apparently was a thing), but she didn’t even mention them as Erika and Ari tried to bring their plates to the sink.

“No, you’re our guests, don’t be ridiculous,” she objected.

“Well, thank you so much for this amazing dinner,” Ari said, spreading her arms out for a hug.

“Oh my God, yeah,” Erika agreed.

Megan stood up too, waiting for the others to say their goodbyes.

“Yeah, thanks so much!” she waved.

As they grabbed their bags, Chloe turned to walk them all to the door, but Aubrey shook her head. “Let me do it,” she said.

*

Aubrey was sitting silently on the couch.

Chloe had moved the dishes to the sink, and she totally was planning on washing them eventually, but for the moment she moved instead towards the couch and with an exaggerated sigh collapsed down next to Aubrey.

Neither of them said anything at first. Aubrey looked exhausted, and Chloe knew she was going over every little detail that she had imagined differently about that evening in her head. Her practiced smile still lingered on the corners of her lips, but her eyes looked glassy. Chloe felt a surge of tenderness, and reached out to link her hand with hers.

At the touch, Aubrey turned towards her and forced a closed-lipped grin. I’m okay, it said.

Chloe realized with surprise she felt angry at the Bellas. Here was Aubrey, her entire life a declaration of “I will not disappoint you, I can do better,” and it still wasn’t good enough for them. So what was the point?

“My dad asked me to Thanksgiving again,” she said eventually.

In response to the sudden shadow of worry on her friend’s face, she added: “I’m totally fine.”

“Do you… are you going to go?” Aubrey asked.

“No.” She shrugged dismissively. “I don’t know.”

“Do you want to?”

That was the question, wasn’t it?

Maybe it would be, like, everything she actually wanted.

Maybe she should. Maybe everything would click into place and they would just get her, in a way she never… She didn’t know. Letting herself imagine it felt warm and weightless. It felt—it didn’t feel real.

“I don’t know him,” she said. “Not really.”

Aubrey nodded, her brow wrinkled. Chloe could tell she was struggling to understand; Aubrey was so proud of being her “father’s daughter” even when that meant failing him, over and over again. She didn’t really get why someone wouldn’t feel the same sense of duty.

“Maybe…” she squeezed Chloe’s hand. “Maybe you should give him a chance.”

She returned the squeeze.

“Okay,” she nodded. “Okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Not this year.” She squinted in thought. “Maybe next.”

“Good,” replied Aubrey steadily. “That’s really good.”

Neither of them really had anything more to say about that. Aubrey laid her head on Chloe’s shoulder, her hand never loosening its grip in hers. She looked like she was somewhere in between sleep and waking when Chloe whispered:

“Hey, Aubrey?”

“Mmm.”

“Happy friendiversary.”

Maybe she heard Aubrey sniff as she pressed slightly closer into her, but she didn’t say a word.

The dishes can wait, Chloe thought, and closed her eyes in suit.

Chapter Text

Junior Year (November 2010)

This year was going to be different.

Aubrey said she could feel it in her gut, but really, they both knew that things had already been different for a while.

The past year’s lazy weekends had been replaced with a steady Thursday through Sunday schedule of off campus debauchery and the occasional frat party. The Bella rehearsals were less intimidating after having successfully bonded with most of the girls over sloppy games of Beer Pong and drunken dancing, though Alice, having taken leadership of the group, still held on to her cautious distaste for both girls.

Meanwhile, Aubrey was thrilled, as she would have it, that Chloe’s animal rescue was closed for business. Chloe had given up on the short-but-intense relationships of the past two years, and hadn’t regretted it much. Those dark and brooding love interests, from whom she had wanted—what? something new? something beautiful?—more often than not actually just turned out to be mean.

Aubrey was dating someone (a Business major, yikes), and never stopped trying to pull Chloe into uncomfortable double dates, but the meaningless college hookup really was more than enough for the time being, she thought.

Things were different.

Chloe had thought that moving into their own apartment off campus would be like a never-ending sleepover party, but in reality they were spending less time alone than ever. If they weren’t sleeping, at class, or going out, Aubrey was scrambling to invite friends to hang out in their common space.

All in all, Operation Bella-Chicks-Less-Strange (the final version of their mission title; it was hard to resist a Harry Potter pun) had been a success.

This year’s Friendsgiving plans were noticeably less Martha Stewart-esque. The china and silverware they had thrifted the year before returned to grace their kitchen table, but those were about the only items that had made the cut. The focus instead had been on procuring as much alcohol as possible from friends who were old enough to buy it.

All they could do at that point was hope that the Bellas would come. Megan had texted earlier that day to say that she was going home early for Thanksgiving, but Aubrey had received at least tentative RSVPs from most of the others.

Chloe picked up the charging iPod on their kitchen counter and began scrolling through the playlist for the dance portion of their party. Aubrey had deputized her to spruce up the song selections—while Aubrey’s knowledge of both ‘90s-era pop music and classical piano compositions was impressively encyclopedic, she had some pretty serious gaps in about, oh, every other genre.

As the closest thing to hip hop she had included in the list was Destiny’s Child, Chloe decided that that was the area in most dire need of improvement. She could tell that Aubrey, on the other side of the counter, was grinding her teeth a little as Chloe tested out some Ludacris songs for the list, but hey, she was just doing what she was told.

“Ooh, also, Aubrey,” she interrupted her own playlist-crafting, pausing the song she had just started. “This album literally just came out yesterday and I listened to it for, like, four hours straight.”

“When do you have time for this?” Aubrey called back, sprinkling walnuts into a large bowl of salad.

“I mean, I listened to it while translating poems.”

“Of course.”

With that, she started playing Nicki Minaj’s “Super Bass.”

She danced around the counter during the intro, pushing her way in between the salad bowl and her friend.

“Chloe, stop,” Aubrey pushed her away half-jokingly.

She moved back a few inches but kept dancing, moving a little more enthusiastically as the song transitioned into the hook.

Aubrey watched her, seemingly half fond, half horrified, as Chloe mouthed the words of the second verse, miming a pop of the collar at the words “boys in the polos,” and placing her hand over her eyes, exaggeratingly surveying the kitchen, at “when he give me that look.”

“Oh my God, stop, you’re weird,” Aubrey whined, reaching for the small bowl of dressing she was mixing.

Chloe just shook her head and continued. She grabbed Aubrey’s arm, pulling her into the dance as she started singing along with the bridge:

See, I need you in my life for me to stay
No, no, no, no, no, I’ll know you’ll stay
No, no, no, no, no, don’t go away

For a second, Aubrey just stood there watching her. Then, giving in, she began to move back and forth in the one non-choreographed dance move with which Aubrey was comfortable.

Chloe cheered, and Aubrey couldn’t help laughing at her excitement. Chloe finished the song more or less jumping up and down, cracking her up further.

She grabbed Chloe’s wrists to steady herself as she lost her balance. Reeling back, she regained her equilibrium as the song faded out.

Chloe missed her so much. She hadn’t known it, or even known that it was possible to miss someone with whom you spent literally all your time, until that moment. Missing Aubrey was like background noise she had never wanted to get used to.

Shaking her hands from Aubrey’s hold, she carefully pulled her in for a hug, resting her head on her shoulder and shutting her eyes. Stiff at first, as were all of Aubrey’s hugs, she finally relaxed and let her head lean against Chloe’s own.

(Chloe should have asked her to come with her to her father’s house the next day. Why hadn’t she? The last thing in the world she wanted to do was go alone.)

Against her own instinct, Chloe pulled away first.

“Okay, well, I trust you have the music handled,” Aubrey said finally, her demeanor a tad less mechanical than usual.

“Don’t worry; it’s going to be awesome,” Chloe assured her.

*

And, at the very least, it was better populated than the previous year's party.

The Bellas arrived in a pack. Aubrey’s eyes flashed happily as Alice made her way through their door, handing her a store-bought pumpkin pie identical to the one Megan had brought last year.

“Welcome! Welcome,” Aubrey repeated, waving the group into their kitchen.

Chloe counted as they filed in: six. She exhaled with relief. She scurried to the kitchen counter to start preparing drinks, smiling hastily at the girls as they passed her on the way to their living room.

One of Chloe’s other delegated tasks had been researching Thanksgiving cocktails. She wasn’t sure if the pumpkin pie martini was supposed to taste like the aftereffects of an explosion at a butterscotch ice cream factory, but, well, whatever, she wasn’t a bartender. The spiked apple cider, on the other hand, she was pretty sure was delicious.

She put four of each on a tray and made her way to the living room.

“I have drinks!” she shared, interrupting whatever conversation she had so far missed.

After a moment of silence, Aubrey asked, “why don’t you tell them what they are, Chloe?”

“Oh. Of course. This one is a pumpkin pie martini,” she nodded towards the left side of the tray. “And these are apple cider cocktails,” turning her head towards the right. “I made them myself,” she added brightly.

Maybe the mock grimace Alice had given the others on the couch had nothing to do with her. She hoped.

“I’ll take the pumpkin spice,” Alice replied with what she probably thought was a charitable smile.

Chloe carefully moved the tray closer to the couch, and lowered it so that she could take one.

“There you go,” she said. “Erin? Danielle, Nicole?” she asked, moving the tray closer to the other Bellas on the couch.

The demand for the pumpkin pie cocktail was high, and Chloe returned to the kitchen to replenish her supply while vaguely listening to the impassioned discussion in the living room she had unwittingly inspired about whether pumpkin spice or pumpkin spice chai lattes were a better Starbucks order.

When she returned to the room, a few of the girls were making sour faces as they sipped from their cocktail glasses. They should have gone for the apple cider.

At least the conversation had moved on. Brianne, the short New Jerseyan transplant who was always the loudest at a party, was doing a pretty funny impression of Bumper deigning to speak to his fans.

“God, I can’t wait to see his face when we kick their aca-asses in New York this spring,” added Danielle, seeking out Alice’s face for approval.

(Both Danielle and Nicole, the group’s newest members, were Alice’s friends whom she had chosen to fill Erika’s and Ari’s spots rather than selecting any of the “freakish” freshmen and sophomores who had auditioned. They weren’t the greatest singers on the planet, but, to be fair, they did look pretty good in a Bella uniform.)

“We will,” Nicole replied with a satisfied look. “I can feel it.”

“If we can all get the choreography down and start showing up on time for rehearsals,” Alice qualified, taking a sip of her martini.

No one was sure whether to laugh at that. Some half-hearted titters followed her comment, to which she narrowed her eyes.

Chloe settled down on the arm of the chair Aubrey was sitting in, hoping her friendliest smile would cover up that she knew at least part of that remark was meant for her.

It was going to be a long evening.

*

But a few drinks in at the dinner table, halfway through a plate of food, Chloe was feeling optimistic.

The dinner conversation had transformed into something of a free-form Never-Have-I-Ever game, with the girls marveling at each other’s most impressive sexual experiences.

“Wait, were you driving, or was he?”

Aubrey, Chloe knew, was valiantly trying to cover up how scandalized she was, less from the sex than from the utter disregard for safety. It looked like Caitlyn, the token Southern belle of the group, was in similar straits.

“Life goals!” laughed Brianne, scooping some more turkey onto her plate. “I have a new life goal.”

“He was driving, obviously,” said Nicole.

“Oh my God, where was this?” Erin asked. “Not in Atlanta.”

“No, yeah, clearly not. Back home in Virginia. Lots of farms and open space. And really long, flat roads.”

Another round of laughter from the Bellas.

“What about you, Aubrey?” asked Danielle. “What was your craziest?”

Aubrey sought out Chloe’s eyes with the clear message, “don’t say anything,” as she prepared to lie her way through this part of the conversation. Sweet, prudish Aubrey.

“Well…” she gave a show of thinking, as if she was sorting through a number of possible examples. “There was this one time in the old Barden clock tower before they boarded it up.”

She waited for the gasps.

“We nearly fell to our deaths.”

The other girls were screaming with delighted disbelief.

“Oh my God!”

“Yeah, you win.”

“So, you’re the reason they closed it off?”

Aubrey shrugged with exaggerated modesty. “I guess so.”

“Credit where credit’s due,” Alice said after a moment, raising her glass, and all the other girls followed suit.

Chloe beamed at Aubrey’s satisfied expression.

This year was different.

*

Dinner was over, and the dance party had fizzled.

The problem was that they couldn’t decide on a drinking game.

Kings was Aubrey’s favorite, no doubt, Chloe thought fondly, due to how annoyingly complicated the rules were.

All for nothing, really. By the time Aubrey had fished a deck of cards out of the kitchen drawer, most of the Bellas were well beyond the point of being able to remember thirteen different directions. And that was before the arguments started.

“No, listen, six is chicks,” Danielle insisted.

“It’s dicks,” Brianne shook her head. “I’m sure it’s dicks.”

“Wait, what? What are y’all even talking about?”

(That was Caitlyn. She looked about ready to fall asleep.)

“Each card has a different rule,” Brianne started to explain.

“Oh, fuck that,” Nicole, sitting on the ground and leaning against the sofa, waved her hand dismissively. “Way too much thinking.”

“Ooh, I know,” offered Danielle. “Let’s just play Truth or Dare.”

“What, are we twelve?”

(That was Alice. She still seemed completely sober, despite Chloe having lost tracked of what drink she was on.)

“No, come on, it’ll be fun. Me first. Dare.”

“I dare you to drop it,” Alice replied with a smile.

Chloe was back on the arm of the chair to which Aubrey had returned, though sitting in a slightly more lopsided fashion than earlier in the evening. She had also lost track of what drink she was on.

Everyone was starting to seem kind of wonderful. It was possible she loved them all very much. Alice was actually just very funny; why did she always forget that?

“I’ll bite,” Brianne slurred. “I dare you, Danielle… to… mmmm… make out with Nicole.”

Nicole shook her head vigorously.

“Stoooop, Brianne,” she whined. “She always tries to get us to make out.”

“Ugh, fine,” she started again. “Danielle, I dare you to chug one of those pumpkin spice cocktails.”

There was a lot of laughter at that, and Aubrey patted Chloe’s hand affectionately. Chloe couldn’t quite remember what was so funny. She squeezed her hand back.

Danielle sighed dramatically, but picked up an abandoned martini glass from earlier and, her face distorted comically, downed the whole thing.

Sticking out her tongue with distaste, she waited for the laughs to die down before pointing at Aubrey. “Truth or dare?”

Aubrey smiled back involuntarily.

“Truth,” she said, without hesitating. (She always chose truth.)

“Hmmmmm.” Danielle squinted her eyes in thought.

“Ask her who she was in the clock tower with!” Brianne called out.

The group cheered its assent.

“Yeah, that one,” Danielle agreed.

Aubrey seemed at a loss for a few seconds. Chloe knew she should assist her, but in her current state all she could manage was:

“He… didn’t go here, right, Bree?”

Aubrey nodded.

“That’s right. Jason! From one of the high schools I went to.”

Chloe nodded her confirmation eagerly.

“Oh, boring,” Brianne noted regretfully.

“Your turn,” Chloe nudged her.

Aubrey looked around the room carefully, narrowing her eyes and tilting her head as she made her choice.

“Alice, truth or dare?”

Alice’s eyes flashed with the challenge. She shared a thoughtful glance with Erin, who was sitting next to her, and then turned back to Aubrey.

“Truth.”

“Um,” Aubrey thought out loud. After a solid thirty seconds of silence, she asked, “why did you take out the counterpoint in Erika’s arrangement of ‘Eternal Flame’? That was my favorite part.”

(Oh, dear Aubrey. That was really all she cared about, drunk or no.)

The other girls booed at the total boringness of the question. Chloe stroked Aubrey’s hair.

Alice pretended for a moment as if she were deep in thought.

“Hmmm… because it sucked. Moving on.” She leaned in, fixing her eyes steadily on her chosen target. “Chloe.”

She wouldn’t have been so caught off guard if she hadn’t been taken with a turn of sadness at Aubrey’s little social hiccup.

“Oh.”

“Truth or dare?”

Chloe didn’t need to think about it. She always chose the same thing.

“Dare.”

Alice looked thrilled.

“We should’ve saved the pumpkin cocktail dare for her,” Danielle laughed. “Taste of her own medicine.”

“No, make her do something mean for once,” Nicole suggested. “She makes us all look like assholes.”

Alice looked like she was considering that.

“A prank call!” Brianne screeched. Then, with sudden concern, added: “Oh, fuck, where’s my phone?”

She stood up and started lifting cushions.

Alice held up a hand, silencing the group.

“Prank call it is.”

Chloe felt her stomach flip as Alice locked eyes with her.

“To Baloney Barb.”

The Bellas roared.

(Alice hadn’t forgotten, it seemed, Chloe’s hesitant question at auditions: maybe—I don’t know—maybe we should let her sing at least?)

“Oh, I totally have her number,” Danielle cut in. “I put it in my phone when I was pretending that we’d call her back.”

“Fabulous,” Alice went on. “Pass your phone to Chloe.”

As Danielle made her way across the room, Alice’s face brightened.

“Oh, tell her…” She had to pause to laugh before finishing her sentence. “Tell her Oscar Meyer is looking for a new supplier and is wondering if she’d be interested.”

For a minute, Chloe sat wordlessly, staring blurrily at the iPhone in her hand, Barb’s number already on the screen. She waited for the hysterics around her to die down.

They did, eventually. Even as she looked at the screen, she knew everyone’s eyes were on her, awaiting her next move. (Not counting Brianne, who was on her knees, bending down to search for her phone under the couch.)

She felt Aubrey’s hand on her elbow. When she turned to her, Aubrey shrugged and nodded towards the phone.

She hadn’t really been mad until that moment.

“No,” she said, and at first it was so quiet, the others made her repeat herself. “No, I don’t want to.”

“You have to, Chloe,” Brianne insisted, holding firmly in her hand the phone she just realized had been in her back pocket. “It’s a dare.”

“I’m not going to.” She shook her head. Aubrey was avoiding her eyes.

“God, you’re such a buzzkill,” Alice sighed, walking up to take the phone from Chloe’s hand. Chloe watched her press “call,” and she couldn’t stand to listen to what was next.

Maybe no one else even noticed as she slid off the chair and made her way into the kitchen.

*

Dishes are hard to wash when you’re drunk. She kept dropping the plates in the soapy water and forgetting where she had placed the drying towel.

And she was crying.

Things were different. That year was different. She and Aubrey kept saying that to each other, without asking themselves even once if things were better.

She missed Aubrey. She missed Erika and Ari. She missed—

The Bellas weren’t what she wanted them to be.

Why did it hurt so much to admit that?

She didn’t even hear Aubrey walk into the kitchen, or know she was there till she felt her hand, placed lightly on her shoulder.

She shook it off.

“Chloe.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she told her, and her voice was about an octave higher than she wanted it to be.

“Come on, stop with the dishes. You know that I’ll do them later.”

“I don’t want to talk right now,” Chloe repeated.

Aubrey just stood there, holding her hands together uselessly in front of her.

Chloe shook the soap from her hands into the sink, dried them with the towel, and turned towards her friend. Aubrey moved away her eyes as Chloe tried to meet them, worrying her bottom lip.

(Chloe’s heart lurched for a moment, wondering if Aubrey was headed towards the start of an anxiety attack, which for her, usually ended with a fit of vomiting.)

She sighed and moved a hand to Aubrey’s arm, waiting for her eyes to move back to hers.

Chloe knew she looked like she had been crying.

“Why did you want me to make that call?” she asked pleadingly.

All she wanted was to hear her say it had been a mistake.

“They’re our group,” Aubrey responded helplessly.

Wrong answer. Still, Chloe knew with a pain in her gut that no response could be more Aubrey than that.

“It was really mean, Aubrey. And it could have been us.”

She shook her head slightly. “But it wasn’t.”

“It could have been! I mean, sometimes it even is us.”

Aubrey raised her eyebrows. That one had hurt.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do, Aubrey, come on. They don’t like us.”

Aubrey’s folded her arms across her chest.

“That’s not true.”

“It’s not?” Chloe tempered her voice. “Aubrey—”

“It’s not. They’re our group. I just think we should be loyal to it. Whether or not they like us, every one of those bitches would fight for us if they needed to, because we’re their people. You just don’t get it, Chloe. You couldn’t. You’ve never…”

Aubrey trailed off, realizing where she was going halfway through her sentence.

“Never what?”

“Chloe…” Her voice was shaking.

Chloe’s hands moved defensively to her hips.

“No, never what, Aubrey? Never had a group to be loyal to?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“You’re supposed to be it,” she spat, throwing her hands to the side.

Aubrey was silent, taking in what Chloe was saying.

“You, Aubrey! You and the Bellas. You’re supposed to be it. You’re the family I have.”

Her friend’s hands reached out for her automatically, her eyes large with sympathy, but she backed away before she could touch her.

“I’m leaving early,” Chloe announced, turning towards her bedroom. “For my dad’s. I’m getting my stuff.”

Aubrey followed after her.

“Chlo, you’re drunk right now. You can’t drive.”

“Leave me alone, Aubrey.”

“No, really, I screwed up. But I am not letting you drive.”

By then, Chloe could hear, the rest of the Bellas had quieted to listen to their conversation. She sat down on her bed, so completely exhausted. She could feel the tears spring to her eyes again—so stupid. She wished she hadn’t drunk so much.

Aubrey took her phone out of her back pocket and took a moment to fix something on it.

“Chloe,” she said, and her voice was so sweet, she didn’t want to be mad anymore. “I’m setting an alarm, okay? I’m going to get you some water, and then you’re going to sleep, and as soon as you’ve sobered up I promise you can head out.”

Chloe nodded, and maybe it was that concession that let Aubrey know it was okay for her to walk forward, lean down and place a kiss on the top of Chloe’s head.

She was so tired. She doesn’t even remember falling asleep.

*

She left in the morning, rolling a suitcase in one hand and holding the paper bag Aubrey had packed (containing a bagel, bottled water, and Advil) in the other.

After everything that had happened the night before, her mind was surprisingly blank as she followed the curves of the highway, inching her way through the day-before-Thanksgiving traffic. She wasn’t even playing music.

But a few hours from the North Carolina border, Chloe reached for the turn signal as soon as she saw the sign for an exit.

Pulling into the welcome center, she found a space towards the back of the crowded lot.

She stepped out of the car and leaned against it, squinting up at the daytime moon to the west. Strangely, the sight of it gave her a quick rush of happiness, like seeing a friend after a long trip away.

After wiping her eyes, she turned towards the well-worn book she had brought with her out of the car.

It—the very first Russian novel Chloe had ever read—had been a gift from her favorite teacher in high school. She’d handed it to her one day after class towards the end of her junior year.

Chloe hadn’t understood why she’d given it to her till she’d made her way to the end and found the passage her teacher had so slyly underlined for her, all-too-relevant to her own recent situation.

She turned to that dog-eared page now, and, in a whisper, read it.

Can it be that love, sacred devoted love, is not all powerful? Oh, no! However passionate, sinful or rebellious the heart hidden in the tomb, the flowers growing over it peep at us serenely with their innocent eyes; they tell us not only of eternal peace, of that great peace of “indifferent” nature; they tell us also of eternal reconciliation and of life without end.

Those words (which, to be honest, she had memorized a long time ago) steadied her, even if she didn’t fully understand why.

Love, sacred devoted love.

In front of a station wagon a row ahead of her, two kids were screaming as they chased each other in a spontaneous game of tag. Their father honked the horn loudly from the front seat, yelling at them to get inside, and that just made them run faster, scream louder.

Chloe thought: what a great song.

She had made up a game once for her and her mom to play; it was the only game they ever did play together. Everything, six-year-old Chloe had stated with certainty, sings. The game was to figure out what things were singing.

“What’s singing right now?”

It could be a lawnmower singing about how angry it was to be woken up so early, or a dog belting out a love song to a squirrel. Her mom would shake her head, grinning, when Chloe would double over with laughter at the notion that the blender was yelling a melody at the smoothie inside it.

Chloe remembered it all like a punch to the stomach.

How was it that the sharp sound of a car horn and the shrieks of some out-of-control kids were blending to make a song that raw, that beautiful?

*

The house—compact, constructed of dark wood—sat on top of a hill facing the mountains. The graveled driveway Chloe pulled into was littered with fallen leaves, and was empty but for two bikes lying discarded on the ground.

She had been there before, once.

She sat in her car for a minute, catching her own apprehensive eyes in the mirror. Knowing that they must have already heard her approach, she took in a deep breath and grabbed her suitcase.

Outside of the car, she was overwhelmed briefly by the smell of burning wood—from their fireplace? It was so nice. She bent down to pick up the bikes with her free hand, steadying them upright.

Everything was so pretty.

It was Juliette who opened the door.

(Jules, Chloe reminded herself. That’s what she wanted her to call her.)

At the sight of Chloe, her face moved into a broad smile. Chloe did her best to return its warmth with her own.

“Well, aren’t you lovely,” Juliette said, pulling her into a hug.

“Thank you so much for having me,” Chloe managed from within her grasp.

“Of course, sweetheart. It’s been too long.”

Four years, Chloe thought. Almost exactly.

“Well, come in,” Juliette gestured, reaching for Chloe’s suitcase.

She led her through the living room to their guest room. It was a lot cleaner than the last time she was here, when the house had been home to a six- and four-year old and had been buried in toys. The furniture had been moved around, mostly to accommodate the addition of a piano in the corner. There was music both on the stand and on the piano bench, and Chloe wondered whose it was.

The view, still, was the best part of the room. Chloe couldn’t believe that the windows displayed a sky almost at sunset; she had been driving for longer than she thought.

The guest room was pretty much as she remembered it, bright and modern. Juliette rolled her suitcase in after her, placing it in the corner.

“Should I let you settle in for a bit?” she asked, then leaned in confidentially. “I have to be honest with you, I’ve distracted the kids with video games for the time being, but I can’t promise you much peace as soon as they figure out you’re here. Jenny has been champing at the bit.”

Chloe gave a little laugh, folding her arms even as she did.

“Is… is my dad here?” she asked hesitantly.

“Not yet,” Juliette answered, her voice a little kinder than Chloe wished it was. “Unfortunately, he had to work today.”

“Okay.” Chloe smiled. “I’ll just settle in.”

“I’ll let you know as soon as he’s home.”

“Okay. Thank you so much.”

*

It was Jenny, though, who found her first.

Chloe was lying on the bed, trying as hard as she could to focus on the words on the page in front of her, when she heard the door open by just a crack.

Her heart skipping a beat, she turned to greet Juliette again. Instead, she was met with the image of a ten-year-old’s completely failed attempt to spy on her.

She couldn’t help smiling.

“You can come in, Geneviève,” she called out, and the door immediately shut.

A few seconds later, it was open again.

Jenny walked in sheepishly, but on seeing Chloe’s welcoming expression sped up to come sit down next to her on the bed.

It wasn’t like Chloe hadn’t noticed it last time she was there, but four years later, Jenny looked even more like a miniature version of herself.

She pulled unruly strands of her bright red hair behind her ears, and absent-mindedly bounced as she turned towards Chloe.

“Hi,” she said finally.

“Hi,” Chloe replied.

Jenny didn’t really have much of a follow-up to that; she seemed perfectly content just staring at her.

“How’s school?” Chloe asked, at a loss.

“Fine.”

Okay, good talk, Chloe thought.

“You should hear her play piano. She’s as musical as you are.”

Chloe’s stomach flipped as she recognized the voice.

“Daddy!”

Jenny ran to him. Chloe stood up, not sure what to do next.

But he walked towards her, opening his arms for a hug.

He had a beard now, a short one, and it finally made him look like a grown-up. She couldn’t help feeling just a little bit of pride at how handsome he looked.

He patted her on the back as he hugged her.

“It’s good to see you, Chloe,” he said.

“You too,” she answered.

And it was, mostly.

*

Jenny had reluctantly agreed, after much prodding, to play her newest recital piece, Bach’s Little Prelude in C Minor, for Chloe.

When she got stuck at one part, she insisted on starting over.

“I’m still learning it,” she pleaded, her face reddening. “Don’t laugh,” she added, looking at Chloe.

“I’m sorry!” Chloe apologized. “You just reminded me of someone for a second.”

She made up for it by clapping enthusiastically when she finished, and Jenny couldn’t hide her joy at that.

Hugo, the eight-year-old, was aching with boredom.

“Mom, can I go now?”

“No,” Juliette refused. “We’re having family time.”

As weird as Chloe felt hearing that, that’s totally what it looked like as she surveyed the room. Juliette was the only person in the room that didn’t look like part of a cloning experiment.

“So, Chloe, tell us about Barden,” Juliette turned towards her.

Hugo lied down on the floor in quiet protest.

“Oh… I really like it.”

“It’s a great school,” her father commented.

(He was struggling as much with the small talk as she was.)

“You’re a Russian major?” Juliette asked.

“Russian and Music,” she clarified.

“What, like Stravinsky?”

“No, I mean… I have two majors.”

“Oh, I see,” Juliette smiled. “Ambitious. Any thought on what you want to do after?”

Instinctually, Chloe shook her head. “After” was a place she didn’t even feel like visiting.

“Well, you have some time,” Juliette said kindly. “And you sound well-rounded. I know that you might not be interested in the nonprofit world, but if you needed somewhere to start when you graduate, you know you could come to me. My organization could always use smart young people.”

“Jules,” her dad cut in, making a face that maybe meant, too much.

“No, that’s—thank you, Juliette. That’s so nice. I really appreciate it.”

“Call me Jules,” she said, reaching out to squeeze Chloe’s hand. “We’re family, aren’t we?”

Chloe hoped she didn’t look too uncomfortable. She was grateful when Hugo interrupted the moment.

“Mooooooooooom. I’m booooooored.”

“Tais-toi, Hugo,” his mother said shortly.

He groaned.

*

Over the course of the next day, it was unclear who was more eager to spend time with her, Jenny or her mother. They’d hover in the kitchen, or the living room, waiting for Chloe to start a conversation.

At one point Hugo ran over to her as she was reading on the couch by the fireplace, announcing that he was so bored and needed someone to play games with him. So Chloe, as hopeless as she had been back during her year of friendship with Neha, stumbled her way through an hour of Super Mario Kart.

Jenny, not to be outdone, dragged Chloe away to her room to show her the current status of her science project, in which she was constructing a few models of different aspects of black holes with materials like tinfoil, paper, and fabric.

“Oh, yes,” Juliette said from the door, “Jenny’s the mad scientist of the family.”

Then, she lured Chloe away to have a look at the gardens she had landscaped at the back of the house.

No one else seemed to notice that the only person not frantically seeking her attention was the one person she was really there to see.

*

There were pictures on the wall by the guest room. She knew she shouldn’t look at them, but how could she not?

In one, they were all on the street of a city Chloe didn’t recognize. All she could tell was that the signs behind them were in French. Juliette, her short dark hair a little wavier than it was now, was holding the hand of a pre-school-sized Jenny, and her face was rearing back in laughter. And then there was her dad, his eyes closed shut as he pressed a kiss to the head of baby Hugo.

In another, she was pretty sure they were in Chicago. Navy Pier, right? They were standing together in front of the Ferris wheel, and Jenny’s and Hugo’s faces were exhilarated with what must have been their first ride.

(Chloe had never been on one. Her mom had always thought it was too scary.)

Her eyes focused on her dad, and especially on the Dora the Explorer backpack he was carrying dutifully on his shoulder.

She knew that her eyes (which were his) were hard to capture in photos; red-eye was just something she had come to expect.

This shot, though—who knows—it must have caught just the right amount of light, because his eyes were as clear, and as bright, as hers had ever been.

*

By the time Thanksgiving dinner was over, she was sure she wasn’t making it up.

He was avoiding her.

How else to explain how someone can sit across the table from you for an hour and never once catch your eyes?

Her throat felt tight and sore as she tried to swallow bites of strawberry rhubarb pie. She knew her smile must have looked a little crazy, but she had to keep it up if she wasn’t going to cry.

Jenny didn’t notice, anyway. Sitting next to Chloe, she was chattering away about elementary school drama. When Chloe would nod, or laugh at one of her jokes, her fair skin would flush a little with pride.

Surprisingly, as Chloe brought her dishes up to the sink, it was Hugo who seemed to sense something was off.

His mother was calling for him to go brush his teeth and get ready for bed from the hallway, but before obeying he backtracked a few paces and gave Chloe a quick hug, squeezing hard.

But as soon as she laid a hand on the mop of red hair pressed against her stomach, he was already running off.

*

After the kids were in bed, Juliette had invited Chloe to join her father and her for a glass of wine.

“I’m really sorry, Juliette, but I think I’m too tired. I’m really sorry.”

“Jules. And nothing to be sorry about, sweetie. Do you need anything?”

So much. Everything. Jenny’s black holes couldn’t contain the full extent of her wanting.

“Oh, no, I’m good,” she responded hastily. “Thank you so much for all of this.”

“So polite,” Juliette said warmly. “You know you don’t have to be. You’re—”

“Family, I know,” Chloe finished the sentence.

(She just couldn’t bear to hear her say it again.)

*

She couldn’t sleep.

It was obvious even before the half hour of trying. It just wasn’t going to happen.

She thought of Jenny’s sweet face, staring back at her with such quick, undeserved love. She thought of Juliette at dinner, trying to engage her whole family in a conversation about Chloe’s a cappella group. She thought of Hugo’s hug.

The thing was, they were pretty much strangers. They already loved her, and she just felt so…

Guilty? That was weird. She didn’t understand any of it, least of all why she had come there in the first place.

Her mind wandered.

She started replaying her argument with Aubrey in their kitchen. Her body tensed with regret. Why had she yelled at her? It all seemed so stupid now.

She needed Aubrey. She realized with a sudden stab that there was nothing on earth she wouldn’t give to be in the Baker Hall basement, listening to her best friend take her to task on the proper way to fold napkins.

Her phone was in her hand before she even got to the end of that thought.

*

“Chloe?”

Maybe it was the relief that flooded her, hearing her voice. Maybe it had just been building up from the moment she had entered that house.

Whatever it was, by the time she was able to say, “Aubrey,” it was already obvious she was crying.

“Chloe,” her friend repeated.

“I’m so sorry I yelled at you,” Chloe tried to whisper, not wanting to wake anyone up.

“Chloe,” Aubrey said for the third time, more gently. “What happened? Are you okay?”

She actually had no idea how to answer that question.

When Aubrey spoke again, her voice had regained its usual determined, business-like edge.

“Listen, Chlo, give me a second. I’m just going to put you on speaker phone.”

“Wha—why?” Chloe stammered.

“Because I’m in my car. I’m driving to you.”

She could feel her face twisting into a smile even as she heard herself saying, “No, Aubrey. You’re, like, four hours away.”

“I’m not even tired. And I’m already on the highway, so it’s too late.”

She didn’t know what to say.

“I should have been there anyway,” Aubrey added after a pause.

Chloe wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and took in a breath from her mouth.

“I love you, Aubrey,” she said quietly.

She could hear a deep breath on the other end.

“I love you too, Chloe. So much.”

*

It was almost four in the morning by the time her car pulled into the driveway.

Chloe prayed that the sound of her unlocking and opening the front door wasn’t enough to wake anyone up.

But there was no question it was worth it when she saw Aubrey’s face, or when she felt her arms wrap around her tightly. She closed her eyes and, just as she had a couple days before, rested her head against her shoulder. They stood there for at least a minute, maybe longer.

Aubrey moved her hands soothingly down Chloe’s arms.

“Are you okay?” she asked, looking straight at her.

Chloe nodded slightly.

“I’m so glad you’re here.”

*

It was probably good that they decided to stay outside, sitting on the wooden swing at the back of the house facing the mountains, because within five minutes they were laughing hysterically.

Apparently Alice’s prank call to Baloney Barb had backfired beautifully, as Barb had happened to be with her father, head of campus security, when it had happened.

Aubrey described her frenzied attempt to backtrack on her cruelty and maintain her cool in front of the other Bellas simultaneously.

“I can’t believe I didn’t hear any of that,” Chloe said through tears of laughter when she had finished.

“You had the water on.”

“And I was, like, sobbing.”

(Was it weird that they were still laughing? Chloe didn’t even know.)

When Aubrey finally regained her breath, she pivoted slightly towards her.

“You were right about everything,” she said decisively.

Chloe extended her hand, and Aubrey took it immediately.

Even with the stars out, Chloe could barely make out the outline of the mountains in front of her. She tried to imagine it, what it would be like to play outside there during the daytime as a kid.

She thought of Juliette and her tight hugs and the way she teased Chloe’s little sister and brother. She thought of her dad lugging the Dora the Explorer backpack at his side. And she thought of Aubrey fussily setting their first Thanksgiving table freshman year.

But even as she thought about all those things, all she really felt was: the crickets are singing so well tonight.

“And we are, actually,” Aubrey whispered. “You were right about that too.”

Chloe tilted her head, not understanding.

“We are family,” she clarified.

The words hung in the air for a few seconds.

Chloe leaned closer. Aubrey slipped her hand out of hers to bring it around her shoulder.

They stopped talking. It wasn’t much longer till Aubrey was asleep.

Chloe stayed up, waiting for sunrise.

Chapter Text

Part II: Beca: A Love Story

“Oh, what love this was, free, unprecedented, unlike anything else! They thought the way other people sing.”

—Boris Pasternak, Dr. Zhivago

Senior Year (November 2011)

Chloe was eight years old when she swam for the first time.

This would never fail to shock people who knew that she had grown up within a few miles of the ocean. If they had known her mother, who feared basically everything, it probably would have been less surprising.

It was one of the only memories she had of her parents together. It was one of his last visits. Why were they at the beach? It must have been his idea.

So many of her childhood recollections felt only half real, but that one was all bright colors, all the sweetness of the creamsicle in her sticky hands, the thick blue of the sea, the quickness of bare feet hopping over hot sand.

They were arguing in whispers. She had wandered away, pretending not to hear. Her dad—she glanced back towards them—moved bright red hair out of his eyes, squinting towards the water, his skin coloring despite the thick layer of sunscreen he had just applied, all in vain. Her mother tried to fix her anxious gaze on Chloe as she explored the beach, but as she moved out of sight to watch a group of high schoolers play volleyball, she seemed to lose track.

What was Chloe feeling then? She couldn’t remember. She just knew that it all changed the second she heard it.

Behind the volleyball game, at the edge of Chloe’s line of sight, some boys were jumping off a small cliff into the ocean. Their laughter, distorted across the water, combined with the mechanical jingle of the ice cream truck behind her to make a song which she could only think of as—magic.

They were leaping with no skill at all, their arms flailing, screaming wildly. When they hit the water the other boys would cheer and whistle, while whichever one had jumped flapped his limbs happily in the waves of broken water.

She was walking—skipping, really—to the water before she knew what she was doing.

Only a few steps away from the whole unexplored expanse of the Atlantic Ocean, she stopped and shut her eyes hard. She could hear them, still, shouting as they fell, calling out each other’s names, whooping. She heard her own laughter, coming out in high-pitched little peals, join their own, and when she opened her eyes, she was running.

It felt so nice, the cool water surrounding her up to her shoulder blades; she even liked the little specks of saltwater that startled her eyes with a twinge of pain. She stood still for a few seconds, her heart racing, when to her surprise she felt the sand shifting under her feet, dragging her towards the ground. Losing her footing, she tripped backwards, her back hitting the sand as the waves pulled her forward.

For a moment, they drew her underwater, and her stomach dropped. It was like—she thought later—that moment in the dark when there’s one more stair than you expected.

But only that long. She thrashed her arms around for a few seconds in fear, and then the tide pulled back. She was left on her back, gasping in a breath.

Her first thought as she exhaled was, I can do this.

Standing up, she wiped sand from her face with both hands and—as the waves rolled back—she let them take her along.

She was floating. It was the best thing in the whole world.

She didn’t know what came next, but she didn’t care. The waves pulled her below again, luring her backwards, then forwards, and behind her eyelids she could still see blue light reflected in every direction from the water. She was like one of the kids on the cliff. She was flying.

The next thing she knew, she was in her mother’s arms. Chloe could feel her t-shirt, wet and heavy, against her back, as she, one-handed, swam them backwards to shore.

Her father was calling out something from behind them, and Chloe knew—she was really in trouble.

But her mother’s face when they reached the shore, as she pulled darkened strands of hair out of Chloe’s vision, wasn’t what she expected.

She, for sure, wasn’t angry. Maybe she wasn’t even scared. Remembering it years later, after everything that had happened, would bring a lump Chloe didn’t completely understand to her throat.

Her mom’s expression was soft, so gentle. She wiped the saltwater out of her daughter’s eyes, and then knelt on the sand to meet her gaze.

She looked—was she sad? No, but she was watching her so carefully, like she was the most important, most precious thing in the whole world.

“My brave little Chloe,” she whispered, and the feel of her warm palms on Chloe’s wet face was so unfamiliar, so wonderful.

When Chloe went to bed that night, she dreamt of blue light, and of flying through the air.

It was her favorite memory.

And meeting Beca—well, it was something like that.

*

But not quite. As many comparisons as Chloe tried to come up with, they never really hummed like she did when Beca was around.

Chloe was completely in love.

Aubrey was on the warpath.

*

Confession: she did not see Beca for the first time at the Activities Fair.

That’s what she would say, and what both Beca and Aubrey would later believe, but it was lies, all lies.

Believe it or not, Chloe didn’t speak to her until the third time she saw her.

Professor Tarkovskaya had called her that morning, apologizing repeatedly and asking if there were any way Chloe, her new TA and ever her star pupil, could make her way to the airport, where she would be able to discuss the latest revisions to the syllabus before leaving for a week to go to St. Petersburg for her grandmother’s funeral.

Chloe assured her it would be no problem.

But, as always, she left late. She ran from the airport parking lot to the terminal, not stopping to look too carefully at where she was going.

She was supposed to meet her in the Atrium, but somehow she had ended up at the baggage claim. Cursing under her breath, she looked around frantically to find an airport employee to point her in the right direction.

And that’s when she noticed her.

At first it was only the sort of automatic lingering gaze she’d give to anyone who, let’s be honest, was so obviously her type. (Her real type, anyway, back from when she actually used to develop crushes on people.)

She was leaning against a pillar, dispassionately watching the empty carousel, those enormous headphones around her neck making her already diminutive frame seem even smaller. Chloe could see the hint of a tattoo on her shoulder, but couldn’t exactly make it out.

Chloe whispered a half-joking prayer that she was a Barden student. She was probably too young for her, but, hey, eye candy is fine too.

The mystery girl perked up when a sound started to go off, and craned her neck to get a better view.

But it wasn’t the baggage carousel alerting them. Other passengers started to look around for the source, gradually realizing that someone in the general vicinity probably had a cell phone with an alarm going off very loudly.

Twenty seconds in, no one had turned it off. It just kept going. People started grumbling and casting disapproving looks at no one in particular, hoping they were meeting the eyes of the culprit.

But the mystery-(hopefully-a-Barden)-girl was just smiling wryly at the whole situation.

Chloe watched her with warm fascination.

(Sorry, Professor Tarkovskaya.)

But what really got her was what she saw next.

It was unmistakable—the girl was tapping along on the pillar, at first in rhythm, then against the beat of that truly awful alarm sound. Chloe’s heart fluttered. For a moment, it was so clear this girl was the conductor at the Baggage Claim Symphony, and the whole world was singing along.

When the bags finally started coming through the carousel, the girl moved her headphones back onto her ears and started moving forward. Chloe shuffled out of her line of vision before she could see her, and at the same time noticed a sign directing her to her actual meeting-place.

Professor Tarkovskaya, being Russian, didn’t even notice that Chloe was late.

“Tak,” she said as Chloe finally approached. “I don’t think this will take very long. I know I can trust you while I am away, yes?”

*

So she was kind of shocked, but mostly just delighted when she saw the same girl wandering across the green to Baker an hour or two later. Chloe stopped in her tracks, placing the stack of flyers she was carrying carefully on the grass. She leaned against a tree as she watched one of the move-in assistants roll the girl’s luggage behind her.

So, she was a freshman. Yikes, okay. Back away from the freshmen, Beale.

She knew what she was doing. (Or she thought she did, anyway.) She’d been itching for a distraction for a few months already, ever since Aubrey’s episode had ruined their chances at the ICAA Finals and the realization had rushed down on her all at once that she only had one more year till everything was over.

Till Barden was over. Not everything. She tried to remind herself of that.

So—back away from the freshmen, she thought.

As tempting as it was to fixate on something else, she’d have to deal with this whole graduation thing eventually.

*

But maybe not, like, right now.

Because when she saw her cross her path for literally the third time that day, looking around aimlessly in front of the swim team’s table at the fair, it was like the universe was dangling this girl in her line of sight. Who was she to refuse a gift from the gods?

She pointed her out to Aubrey, more like a reflex than a calculated thought.

“Ooh, I don’t know,” Aubrey shook her head briskly at Chloe. “She looks a little too ‘alternative’ for us.”

And also, her meaning was pretty clear, for you, Chloe. It was the same subtle “absolutely not” look Aubrey had given her so many times during the days of Chloe’s wayward stray collection.

Chloe rolled her eyes, and called out to the girl before she could move on.

“Hi!” She held out a flyer. “Any interest in joining our a cappella group?”

It must have been the excitement of actually hearing her voice (“oh, right—this is, like, a thing now”) that caused her to spiral into a monologue about a cappella she couldn’t even remember later.

The only thing she did register, loud and clear, was her response.

It’s pretty lame.

I don’t even sing.

But (oh, it was so pathetic) she would catch herself rewinding and reviewing the memory later, so that, at the very least, she could hear again:

It was really nice to meet you guys.

*

The way Beca would tell it—much later—it was singing together in the shower that changed everything.

And, for sure, that had been amazing, hearing one of her lady jams in that incredible mezzo-soprano and knowing, immediately, to whom it belonged.

Even more, it was the first time she noticed it, that this girl (she still didn’t know her name!) made her not care.

She didn’t worry at all about scaring her away, as she, bloodhound-like, ran to the source of that voice. She didn’t care what came next. It was exhilarating.

(And then there was that shy, tender little smile of hers after they sang together, confirming beyond the shadow of a doubt what Chloe already suspected, that under all that bravado was a whole mass of sweetness.)

But that wasn’t—she doesn’t think—when she fell in love.

*

Chloe was thinking about it again, the night before her and Aubrey’s next Friendsgiving celebration.

She was nearing the end of the project she had been working on for Professor Tarkovskaya for over a year now, a translation of a selection of Anna Akhmatova’s poems, but her mind, as it so often was these days, was wandering.

She had saved one of her favorite poems till then, the one to which she, in English, gave the title, “Love Conquers Deceptively.” How was she supposed to focus on anything with titles like that?

As she strained to remember the meaning of one of the adjectives, her imagination flew back about two months earlier to the moment she knew, without any question, that she was in love.

(“And I’m leaving tomorrow, what-do-ya say?”)

She hadn’t been at her best before she showed up. It wasn’t only because her mystery girl hadn’t come to auditions that she was feeling so lonely; the girl sitting next to her didn’t quite feel like her Aubrey.

She didn’t want to push it. She could remember with a chill that feeling, lying in bed in her father’s guest room, wondering if by challenging Aubrey she had thrown away the one person in the whole world who really knew her and loved her anyway. She couldn’t forget that moment of panic, that frantic longing to make everything right.

She still felt like she had caught a lucky break in not having ruined everything. She wouldn’t make that same mistake again, no way.

So no matter how weirdly Aubrey was acting, no matter how much (she wouldn’t tell her this) she was even at times starting to remind her of Alice, she promised herself she would do nothing but love and support her. Even—and this was what it felt like that day—when it didn’t seem like Aubrey was totally there anymore to support.

She could keep it all under control, even the weird shooting pains she was starting to feel from ear to ear when she sang. (She had a doctor’s appointment set up for the next week.) Aubrey had always been there for her, and now she just needed to do the same.

So as auditions wrapped up, and she could hear the Trebles behind her standing up to leave, she was thinking how right Aubrey was, actually, to advise her to avoid falling for emotionally stunted artists. What did she need all that drama for, when she had all she’d ever need in a best friend?

—which didn’t exactly stop her from going temporarily dizzy with excitement when she saw the one person she wanted to see emerging from the wings.

“Oh, wait! There’s one more.”

She looked beautiful.

It was the first time, actually, that Chloe had seen her with her hair down around her face like that. She hadn’t realized how light it really was, how, depending on the angle, it caught streaks of gold.

Watching her from below the stage, it was like Chloe could see her a few years in the future, when she was no longer an awkward freshman waving nonchalantly back at her greeting. She looked strong and smart. She looked steady.

(And, you know, the cleavage didn’t hurt.)

For a brief moment when she knelt down and leaned forward, Chloe seriously wondered whether she was dreaming. Then saw what she was reaching for.

But how on earth was she supposed to have prepared herself for what happened next?

She didn’t know where to look or what to hear. Her eyes alternated between the hands’ movements around the cup and those eyes which kept flitting up to meet her own. She struggled to listen to the words—some sweet company—while letting that deeper voice wash over her.

But the cup.

It just—Chloe didn’t have the words. She’d never met someone before who understood her secret.

Everything was singing.

All bets were off. She was far gone. And for the first time in a long while (she tried to ignore it), she felt the magical rush of having something to hope for. It felt like someone had stumbled on a light switch inside of her she hadn’t even known was there.

Maybe Aubrey could sense that. When she turned to look at her, she knew it wasn’t just the girl’s piercings or dark nail polish which troubled her face.

Chloe, on the other hand, had just glowed with happiness. Now, her whole body felt warmer at the memory of it.

But realizing how distantly her mind had wandered, she returned to the poem.

She translated the final lines quickly, eagerly.

Even the stars looked bigger,
Even grass, even
The autumn grass smelled different.

She went to sleep reciting it to herself.

When she woke up, she thought: meeting Beca was like dreaming in a foreign language for the first time.

Yeah, something like that.

*

She loved waking up to the smell of Aubrey’s cooking.

It was ten thirty, and who knows how long that girl had already been up. But when Chloe lazily made her way into the kitchen, still in pajamas, Aubrey wasn’t cooking at all. Rather, she was sitting at the kitchen table, working on something on her computer, occasionally lifting her eyes to look at a Rubik’s cube in front of her on the table.

(It had been one of her birthday presents from Chloe—she had tracked down the original Rubik’s cube used for the initiation of the 1981 Bellas. She had included with it a note subtly encouraging her to put her mind elsewhere whenever she started obsessing over something.)

“Morning, Aubrey,” she said hoarsely, moving towards the cabinet with the coffee.

“The bane of my existence will soon be over,” Aubrey announced summarily. “This thing has been bugging the crap out of me. And I had to wait for the rolls to bake, anyway.”

“Oh, no. What are you doing?”

Chloe prepared herself for an insane answer to that question as she stood on her toes to reach the box of coffee filters.

“I’m working out an algorithm to end it once and for all.”

“Bree. That was not the idea.”

But it would do. The point was, Aubrey wasn’t pacing the kitchen lamenting the current state of the Bellas as she so often was these days. Judging by the satisfied grin on her face as she looked at the screen, she was even in a good mood.

Her face lit up as she greedily grabbed the cube from the table and proceeded to twist it until, victorious, she held up her prize, yellow-side upwards, for Chloe to see. “There.”

The coffee was ready.

She flashed a smile at Aubrey as she began pouring some into her mug. It was their day. It was going to be so good.

She was surprised about how excited she was to welcome the new Bellas into her home. For sure, they had a lot to learn, performance-wise, but most of them actually reminded her a bit of Aubrey and herself as freshmen—totally hopeless and totally searching for some corner somewhere where their weird selves would be welcome. She wanted to gather all of them under her wings, only a little bit figuratively.

And, maybe, maybe Beca would come.

She picked up her phone, checking for the millionth time that she hadn’t somehow missed a message.

Almost everyone had responded to her invitation via group text a few days ago.

(Fat Amy: Aw yeah, first American holiday. Prepare for me to crush the wishbone game. Stacie: Hell yes, I’m coming! Cynthia-Rose: ;) Then you know I’m there.)

After agonizing over it for only about an hour yesterday, she had decided to send a text directly to Beca to check on her plans.

Friendsgiving party won’t be the same without you! Come be our DJ? ;)

Nothing yet, but Chloe wasn’t panicking. Beca rarely responded to the texts she would send her after almost every Bella rehearsal, but lately she’d begun to start bringing them up, almost bashfully, the next time she saw her—only when no one was looking.

Like the week before, when, during a five-minute bathroom break to which Aubrey had reluctantly agreed, Beca had stayed in the room with Chloe as it emptied and, out of nowhere, announced: “You know, I think what you said in your text might be right… I think Lilly did say that she collects the skulls of things she kills the other day. I am also terrified.”

Or the previous day, when Beca had arrived early to rehearsal and instead of a greeting had started with: “So, my legs were also killing me after last practice. I almost gave up walking up the stairs to my room and decided to sleep in the basement.”

So she just had to hope she was planning on coming.

And until then, no doubt Aubrey had a list of chores for her to keep her distracted.

“So what’s the schedule?”

Aubrey tilted her head as she turned her cube over a few times, still gloating.

“Relatively free, actually. I think I’ve mastered the science of this holiday. And I couldn’t sleep last night, so I set up the big table in the living room.”

Chloe leaned over the counter to catch a glimpse of the already fully decked table. She noted with pleasure that the little orange candles and fake leaves had returned to this year’s tableau.

“Oh but Aubrey, that’s like the one job I know how to do.”

“Not true! You are the mingler par excellence. God knows I’ll need help with that, with our guest list this year.”

“Oh, you’ll be fine.”

Aubrey grabbed her notebook on the table, reviewing her to-do list while humming “I Saw the Sign” under her breath.

“You’re in a good mood today.”

Aubrey shrugged, standing up to check on the rolls.

“It’s my favorite holiday,” she said. “And besides, I watched some videos the Sockapellas posted on YouTube today. Frankly, it was garbage. We are going to destroy them.”

She paused to pull a cookie sheet out of the oven and stick a fork into one of the rolls.

“I know we’ve had some… setbacks, and I have to admit losing my most performance-ready soloist to nodes has been a challenge—no offense—but I think if we all just focus on our goal, we really will get there.”

Chloe watched Aubrey multitask impressively between two pots on the stove and the oven as she gave her speech.

“Can I at least pretend I’m helping? I could chop… things. Like, with a knife.”

Aubrey winced comically.

“Ooh, it might be best for everyone’s safety if you didn’t. Also, Fat Amy apparently is coming over soon to help with the cooking.” Her face went slightly sour. “She told me she knows at least seven different ways of skinning and cooking a Tasmanian devil, like that would give me confidence.”

“So you really don’t need me?”

“Not yet. I have you on call, though, right?”

“You know it.”

*

But that was okay, right? She had tons of stuff to do.

(Like check her phone every thirty seconds. For instance.)

But it was actually kind of a surprise that when she finally pried the phone out of her hands to reach for a book, she heard her phone ding with the sound of a new message.

Please, please be coming, she whispered as her hopes were confirmed in seeing Beca’s name on the screen.

But the hope was short-lived.

Not much of a party person. Or a group person. Gonna have to raincheck on this one. Hope it goes well!

Chloe stared back at the message, trying to salvage at least something good from it. But before she could come to the conclusion that nope, there was nothing, her phone shook in her hands with another message.

But I’m free right now if you want to hang out.

Yes. She really, really did.

*

She should have told her to text instead of using the doorbell. Aubrey’s voice had an artificial tone to it when she called out, “Chloe, you have a guest.”

But when Chloe rushed out of her room, she wasn’t looking at Aubrey.

Beca was wearing one of her favorite shirts, a red and blue plaid button-down, with dark jeans. She was fidgeting with one of the bands around her wrist, and stopped for a second when she noticed Chloe.

Her smile was sweet—maybe not as genuine as the one she’d given her in the shower, but definitely not her typical sardonic grin, anyway. She was wearing her hair down, the way Chloe liked it best.

Today was such a good day.

“You didn’t tell me you were inviting people over,” Aubrey broke the silence, her upbeat tone belying her meaning.

Chloe decided to ignore the hint in Aubrey’s voice.

“Aren’t we having everyone over?”

She walked over to Beca—there was definitely a bounce in her step—and threw her arms around her. Beca made a little noise, almost a squeak, as she squeezed. Adorable.

“Okay, let me know if you need any help, Aubrey!” she called hastily to her unimpressed friend, dragging Beca by the wrist to her room.

*

“Wow, that is a lot of books.”

—was the first thing out of Beca’s mouth when she saw Chloe’s room, and specifically its nearly wall-to-wall shelves, for the first time.

“Oh, I know. I basically can never leave this place; it would be such a pain to move them.”

“You do know you’re graduating in the spring, right?”

“Shhh,” Chloe shushed her, moving to sit on her bed.

Beca was still picking at her wristband, walking around by the bookshelves, squatting down to read the titles.

Suddenly, she gasped.

“Dude, what is this little mouse… bear… thing? I’ve seen it before.”

Chloe smiled as she saw her pick up the little figurine from the top of one of the shelves.

“That’s Cheburashka!”

Beca stared back blankly, tiny child’s toy in hand.

“Cheburashka,” Chloe repeated. “It’s from a Soviet children’s series. He is the cutest. He has, like, this sweet little voice… I can’t even explain it. You have to watch it with me sometime.”

Just because she couldn’t explain it didn’t mean she wouldn’t try. She started from the beginning, when the grocer found Cheburashka in a carton of oranges and took him to the zoo.

“And then they rejected him because he is an ‘animal unknown to science.’ It’s super sad.”

Beca was trying to maintain a mocking expression, but kept slipping up.

“So what happens next?”

“So then the grocer, what an ass, gives him to this creepy toy store and the owner makes him live in a phone booth.”

“The fuck? This is a children’s show?”

“A Russian children’s show. But anyway, good news, he sees a personal ad from a crocodile who is looking for friends.”

Beca tilted her head skeptically, but the eyes watching Chloe were warm.

“You are shitting me.”

“I’m not! I swear.”

“Tell me, where does a Soviet crocodile learn how to read and write?”

Chloe noticed gladly that Beca was taking steps closer to the bed, Cheburashka still in hand.

“No solid info on that. But he works part time at the zoo, so who knows what you can pick up there.”

Beca moved up on the other side of the bed, situating herself almost at the edge. Still observing the little creature in her hands, she looked like she would start laughing at any moment.

(She was so close to her. Chloe inched over a little to the left.)

“It’s so weird, though; my dad has the same toy in his office.”

Oh!

Mitchell. Beca Mitchell.

“You’re Professor Mitchell’s daughter?!”

Beca’s eyes widened in what appeared to be horror. Chloe was surprised she didn’t fall off the bed.

“Please,” Beca said, waving the toy in her hand, “please don’t tell me you’ve taken a class with him.”

“Oh, I’ve taken a bunch of classes with him. I’m in his ‘The Future Gone Wrong: From Huxley to The Hunger Games’ course right now. Did you know that all of his classes have, like, the same name? He really needs to chill on the alliteration.”

Beca’s mouth was open in an exaggerated grimace, dropping Cheburashka on the bed so she could bury her face in her hands. When she brought them back down, her face settled itself into its usual flat affect.

“We can no longer associate,” she deadpanned.

Chloe giggled. “Come on, it’s not that bad.”

“Oh, believe me, it’s that bad.”

They were facing each other on the bed now, the space between them being bridged ever so slowly by Chloe. As Beca tried to suppress a smile, Chloe reached over to give her a friendly nudge.

Beca fell off the bed.

“Whoops!”

“It’s fine! I’m fine,” she heard from the floor.

Chloe couldn’t stop laughing.

Beca looked a little cranky at Chloe’s laughter as she pulled herself back up onto the bed.

“I’m…” Chloe paused to breathe. “I’m sorry.”

Beca kicked off her boots before resuming her position on the bed.

Chloe’s breath steadied as her laughter died off.

Beca’s arms were crossed across her front, and Chloe just unabashedly stared at her. She moved so that she was propping up her head on her left hand, her elbow against the headboard. Beca caught a glimpse of her in her peripheral vision, and crossed her arms a little tighter.

“So what do you want to do now?” Beca asked helplessly.

Chloe didn’t answer that question totally honestly. Obviously.

“Well, I was thinking maybe we could watch a movie?”

She picked up a stack of DVDs she had set aside on her nightstand.

“I mean, I don’t know what kind of thing you like, so I have lots of options. Mindless lady comedies,” (she held up Clueless, the first in the stack), “or music-themed plots,” (she moved Clueless to the back of the stack to reveal Almost Famous), “or, then I thought, maybe she’s into art films?” (Ivan’s Childhood was last.)

Seeing Beca’s blank face, she added quickly, “and I mean, there’s always Harry Potter.”

“Or we could just gouge our own eyes out.”

It took Chloe a second to figure out what Beca was even saying.

“Oh, you just mean you don’t like movies?”

“I mean…” Beca looked like she was searching Chloe’s face for the right answer. “I guess they’re okay.” She paused. “No, they’re not. I hate them. Sorry.”

“No, that’s fine!” Chloe responded.

She looked for a second at the stack of DVDs in her hand. Then, she turned towards the door and threw them in the direction of the trashcan.

She oriented herself back towards Beca, whose eyebrows were raised in amusement.

“What are you doing?”

“I hate them too.”

“No you don’t.”

Chloe leaned forward a little.

“No, I don’t. But there are plenty of other things we could do.”

Beca just stared back at her.

But when Chloe inched closer, she tilted her head down, breaking eye contact. She scooted off the bed.

“I’m gonna get your movies out of the trash now,” she gave by way of explanation.

“Oh, yeah! Okay.”

Chloe sat up straighter.

“I’m kind of hungry,” Beca said, depositing the movies back on Chloe’s nightstand. “Do you want to get something to eat?”

*

Eating in the kitchen—Aubrey’s kitchen—was clearly not an option.

Beca waited by the door of Chloe’s room while Chloe made her way to the kitchen to update Aubrey. Evidently, while they’d been in her room, Fat Amy had arrived. As Chloe walked into the room, Aubrey was impatiently trying to get her to dice, not quarter the tomatoes while Amy obliviously and in much detail described to her a summer in which she had worked with a traveling carnival in New South Wales.

Aubrey’s good mood looked officially over, and Chloe knew Fat Amy’s double life as a showie wasn’t the only factor. She could see her craning her neck to see Beca scrolling through her phone down the hall, and turning back to Chloe with disapproving eyes.

“Beca and I are going to get some lunch,” she said meekly. “Is there anything I can pick up for you while I’m gone?”

Aubrey pressed her lips together tightly as she took in a deep breath.

“Just don’t be too long, okay?” she said sharply.

Chloe took a step back automatically at the sound of Aubrey’s irritation.

“Do you need help? I thought…”

“Oh God, there it goes! There goes my finger.”

Fat Amy held up her left hand and Aubrey and Chloe cringed to see it covered in red.

“Nope, no, false alarm—it’s mostly tomato,” she corrected after a moment, moving her cut finger to her mouth.

Aubrey held a hand up in the direction of Amy and exhaled dramatically while bringing her eyes back to Chloe.

“Just… not now.”

“Okay. I’ll text you when I’m on my way back?”

“That’s fine,” she answered shortly.

“Okay. Good luck with all the cooking… and if you need anything…”

She waited for a response, but Aubrey was busy reaching under the sink for a stool to reach the first aid kit on the top shelf of the cabinet.

“So, we wash the blood off the rest of the tomatoes, then?” she could hear Amy suggest as she quietly walked back towards her room.

Beca was waiting with expectant eyes, her hands stuffed awkwardly in her pockets. Though still stinging a bit from Aubrey’s disapproval, Chloe couldn’t help feeling that rush of excitement which always accompanied her time with Beca.

“Everything okay?” Beca asked with more concern in her voice than Chloe would have thought she had within her.

Chloe brightened.

“Perfect.”

*

She was learning so much.

She now knew that Beca loved onions, was afraid of big dogs (one had passed them on the street as they ate at a table outside), was surprisingly polite to wait staff, and really, really didn’t want to spend Thanksgiving with her father.

“God, it’s just…” she shook her hands in frustration. “It’s, like, he’s everywhere. He’ll drop by my room unannounced, he’ll show up after class… and Thanksgiving is something I do with my mom’s family. I mean, against my will, because holidays are awful, but still.”

Chloe nodded along, a little dizzy from the novelty of hearing Beca talk so much at once.

“Well…” she cut in when Beca stopped talking to take a bite of her burger, “I mean, it is kind of nice that he wants to spend time with you.”

“That’s one word for it.”

“I mean… it seems like he wants to make things right.”

Beca’s eyes narrowed a bit as she chewed.

“It’s just that my family is kind of the worst.”

Chloe reached for a fry.

“But I bet you have one of those families where everyone gives each other hugs all the time,” Beca added, smiling fondly. “Plans surprise breakfasts in bed. Wears matching outfits. Takes group photos on the stairs. Am I ringing any bells?”

Chloe took a little longer chewing than she needed to.

“Not exactly,” she muttered.

“Well, what are your Thanksgiving plans?”

Yikes. How to change the subject?

“I can’t even think about that till after Friendsgiving… which I still think you should come to.”

“Did you not hear my monologue about how much I hate holidays?”

“Loud and clear. But if you did, we could hang out longer.”

Beca was maybe blushing when she started shaking her head.

“I don’t really think Aubrey’s planning on me being the guest of honor.”

“Oh, she’ll be fine.” Chloe waved the thought away dismissively with her forkless hand.

“She didn’t seem fine when we left your place earlier.” Then, her voice lowering: “You know, it’s not cool how she orders you around.”

Chloe pushed one of her salad’s cherry tomatoes with her fork.

“It’s not like that.”

“Isn’t it?”

“You don’t know her.”

She hadn’t realized her voice could take on that edge when talking with Beca. They chewed through three seconds of awkward silence.

“Okay, no, you’re right, I don’t.” She sounded apologetic. “But it just looked like you were kind of hurt, dude.”

Chloe relaxed.

“She’s just really stressed right now.”

The waiter came by with the check, and Beca reached across Chloe’s outstretching hand to grab it.

“Oh, I got this one,” Chloe interjected.

“No,” Beca shook her head. “I’m the one that basically forced you out of your apartment.” She took out her card and handed the check back to the waiter. “Thanks so much,” she said.

“I have cash,” Chloe offered weakly.

“It’s not a big deal,” Beca replied, avoiding her eyes.

Chloe leaned forward, resting her head on her hands. “I’ll just have to get it next time, then.”

Beca pretended she didn’t hear that as she awkwardly took the receipt and her card back from the waiter.

Chloe watched her sign the receipt, realizing suddenly that she was left-handed. She was learning so much.

Happily, she noted that she had tipped their waiter nearly 30%. Such an enigma, this Beca Mitchell.

*

As they sat back down in her car, Chloe checked her phone. Nothing yet from Aubrey. She took a breath to counteract the tightness she was feeling in her chest when she thought about it.

On her right, Beca was buckling her seatbelt. She looked up at Chloe questioningly when she didn’t start the car.

The midday sun through the window was in her eyes, coloring them such a deep blue. Squinting a bit, she put a hand on her forehead, shielding her line of sight.

“Ready to go?” she asked.

No. Chloe didn’t want to. For a second, it hurt to pretend that this—a nice meal with a friend—was all she had wanted from this outing. God, she was so hopeless.

But she started the car, leading them back on the highway as Beca re-connected her phone to the car speakers, finding an appropriate soundtrack for their ride back.

(Wait, why did Beca even have Taylor Swift on her phone? A mystery, for real.)

In her peripheral vision, she could see her tapping out a rhythm—not the song’s—against the center console.

“Hey,” Chloe heard herself saying before she knew what would follow it. “Um. Do you wanna do something else? We don’t have to go back yet.”

Beca’s eyes flitted to the time on the car clock.

“Like… what?”

Chloe smiled brightly, seeing what exit they were coming up to.

“Like this.”

*

The absolute best part of the day so far was that Beca had to use the largest child’s size for her golf club. Its rubbery blue handle was literally leaking glitter onto her hands.

“This is not what I had in mind,” she complained.

“No, it will be totally fun. I’m really good at mini golf.”

“That is… not something to brag about.”

The truly amazing thing about this mini golf course was that it was endangered species-themed, a monument to early-90s environmentalism. Chloe guessed that when the pale, yellow-brown tiger statue guarding the first hole had been installed, it had probably been orange.

“Why the fuck is there a tiger sitting on a windmill, anyway?” Beca asked as Chloe swung her club.

Her bright red ball hit against one of the windmill blades and rolled back towards their feet.

“Really good at mini golf, huh?” Beca teased.

“Just wait. You’ll see.”

Beca looked distastefully at the yellow ball in her hand.

“This sucks.”

“Just putter up, Mitchell.”

Beca dropped the ball on the ground and stopped it from rolling away with her foot. She half-heartedly touched her club to it, and it lurched forward a few inches.

“Okay good game, time to go home now.”

“Nice try.”

Chloe placed a hand on Beca’s back as she moved around to where her own ball had stopped moving.

(It definitely wasn’t chilly enough for the weather to be the cause of Beca’s shiver.)

Beca took a step back as Chloe gave a second swing.

This time, the ball rolled quickly under the windmill, straight into the hole on the other side. Chloe applauded herself.

Beca took the scoring sheet and pencil out of her back pocket.

“Oh, don’t bother with that,” Chloe stopped her. “I never keep score.”

*

For Beca’s sake, that was probably for the best. Chloe waited patiently, around the fifth hole (cleverly nestled in between two snuggling giant otter figures), as Beca aimlessly knocked her already off-course ball into the nearby grass, cursing under her breath.

“Okay, I’m calling it on this one, Beca,” she said, squinting to see it. “You can just walk it to the hole if you want.”

Beca carefully moved the ball from the grass to the sidewalk. “No, wait, I can do it.”

Chloe keenly watched her determined face as she took another five swings, till finally she all but dragged it into the hole.

“Yay!”

“Okay, calm down, Chloe. I suck at this.”

Chloe linked her into a side hug as they walked towards the next hole.

“You do, kind of. But you’re doing great.”

*

The final hole was quite a sight to see. In a chlorinated tank at the top of an incline sat a giant statue of a blue whale, with large white spots where the paint had chipped off. A waterfall trailed out from the tank next to a ramp which led down to the green. The idea was to hit the ball from the bottom of the ramp (avoiding triangle-shaped obstacles) to the top, where the hole sat next to the whale’s tail. If a ball fell back down from the ramp, it would roll into a tunnel, collecting the ball for the end of the game.

“I should probably just throw it in, right?” Beca asked. “I’ll have better odds that way.”

Chloe tilted her head side to side appraisingly.

Before she could answer, Beca tossed the ball forward, springing up on her toes to get better height. It landed in the tank.

She shrugged.

“Good enough, right?”

Chloe laughed. “So close.”

“Okay, yeah, yeah, now your turn, Tiger.”

It’s funny, because she was still looking at Beca, not at the ball, when she swung her unlikeliest hole-in-one yet.

Beca’s jaw dropped.

“Oh my God! Dude.”

And she actually laughed—full-throated, elated—when a giant stream of water spurted out from the blue whale statue’s blowhole.

Chloe didn’t even see it. She was just looking at Beca.

Within about ten seconds, an employee was walking towards them with a stuffed animal of a whale. Beca gestured towards Chloe with her thumb as he came closer.

“All her, dude,” she said, still shaking her head with amazement. “I had nothing to do with that.”

Not totally true.

“Congratulations,” said the bearer-of-the-stuffed-animal unenthusiastically, and handed the whale to Chloe. “You’ve won Wilbur the Whale. He comes with this informational flyer on how to help protect our earth’s most threatened species. Please come again.”

And with that, he turned around and walked back towards the building.

She stood there, whale and flyer in hand, just bewildered.

Beca was laughing again, and Chloe could barely stand how much she liked the sound.

“Oh my God, that was so insane.”

Chloe walked a few steps closer to her, and thrust Wilbur into her arms.

“All yours,” she told her. “Guard him wisely.”

Beca glanced down at her new aquatic friend.

When she looked up, she steadied her face.

“With my very life,” she said.

It wasn’t till they got back to the car that both of them finally stopped laughing.

*

Settling back into her seat, Chloe pulled out her phone again. Still nothing from Aubrey, but a wave of anxiety ran through her when she saw the name on her most recently received email.

She knew it was rude to keep Beca waiting while she read emails, but she couldn’t stop herself from pulling it up.

“Dearest Chloe, I know that you will not be able to share Thanksgiving with us this year, but I do hope you know how welcome you are in our home any time…”

“Hey,” she heard from the seat next to her. “Are you okay?”

Chloe closed the email immediately and dropped her phone back into her bag.

“It’s nothing.”

“You sure?”

Chloe didn’t respond.

Beca lifted up her new stuffed animal to Chloe.

“Want to talk to Wilbur about it?” she asked her. “He’s incredibly emotionally intelligent.”

As she said it, she winced slightly, unsure if joking was the right course of action.

Chloe chuckled a little, taking Wilbur out of her hands temporarily.

“It was just an email from… from my stepmother,” she explained.

Beca’s eyes widened with recognition.

“The stepmonster, huh,” she said. “I’ve been there.”

“No.” Chloe shook her head. “It’s not really like that. I don’t know.”

They sat in silence for a moment before Chloe decided to say the sentence which, with each repeated use, started to feel less real.

“My mom passed away my junior year of high school,” she said, glancing up quickly at Beca before just as quickly turning away. “I lived with her then… I don’t… um… my stepmother always wants me to come stay with them for Thanksgiving.”

She wished she could look up at her. She knew whatever her face looked like, even if it were full of pity, she needed it. But she couldn’t.

Then, she heard Beca gasp, and glanced up to see her covering her face with her hands.

“Oh my God, Chloe,” she said. “Our conversation at lunch. I’m so sorry. I’m such a dick.”

Chloe handed Wilbur back into Beca’s arms.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said.

Beca awkwardly placed a hand on Chloe’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

Chloe smiled softly. She took a breath.

“Okay, well, this car needs some music. Ready?”

*

She stopped the car by the back entrance to Baker.

“You sure you don’t want to come to Friendsgiving?” Chloe pleaded, trying to make her eyes super inviting. “You can even bring a plus one,” she said, gesturing towards Wilbur.

“Do you really want me to come?”

Yes. Obviously.

“Not if you don’t want to.”

Beca shifted a little in her seat uncomfortably.

“I just… I really don’t think Aubrey wants me there.”

Chloe couldn’t really reassure her on that point.

“But I want you there. Like, a lot.”

Chloe leaned in, finding her eyes. She reached across the center console to put a hand over Beca’s left one, which was resting on her leg.

As her arm brushed against Beca’s front, she could see her clench her jaw and turn away.

“Um, I gotta go,” she said abruptly, pulling her hand out from under Chloe’s and reaching for her bag.

“Beca—”

“No, it’s fine. Have a really good party, okay?”

She opened the door hastily, then stopped as she was halfway out of it.

She turned back around to meet Chloe’s pleading eyes.

“Hey, thanks for a really good day,” she said, and her voice was genuine. “I’ll see you at rehearsal soon, right?”

“Oh, yeah. Totally,” Chloe stammered.

Beca turned back, closed the door, and walked quickly towards Baker, crossing her arms against herself.

It probably shouldn’t have bothered Chloe so much that she had left Wilbur in the car, belly-side-up on the floor.

*

Dearest Chloe,

I know that you will not be able to share Thanksgiving with us this year, but I do hope you know how welcome you are in our home any time. It was such a gift to have you at our house last year.

I overheard Jenny speaking to one of her friends the other day about her big sister who is in college and is so beautiful and smart. I want you to know that the kids adore you, and that I am so happy they have you to look up to.

I hope I am not being too forward in contacting you again. I understand how hard this may be for you.

If it seems too difficult to be here for a visit, I was wondering if you would be open to me giving Jenny your address so that she could write you a letter. I think it would mean a great deal to her. But if this would be uncomfortable for you in any way, please don’t worry about it.

I look forward to reading your response. Happy Thanksgiving, dear. Please send our love to Aubrey.

Gros bisous,
Jules

*

She was late to Friendsgiving.

If she would have driven straight back to her apartment after dropping Beca off, she would have been twenty minutes early. But she didn’t even look at the time as she drove in the opposite direction, circling around campus.

Her thoughts blended together, too saturated for her to pick any one out of the morass. She just drove.

When she finally made her way back to her place and opened her door, she could hear the Bellas cheering that she had shown up.

But Aubrey’s face was cold.

*

“Here, Aubrey—let me do it.”

Aubrey was stacking the used dishes so aggressively Chloe was afraid they would break.

She ignored her. Chloe came around behind her, reaching for the washrag.

Aubrey pushed her hand away.

“What are you doing, Chloe?” she asked pointedly.

Chloe lowered her eyes. “I just thought I’d do the dishes.”

“No, I mean, what are you doing?”

Chloe could feel the heaviness that she’d carried around with her in her chest all day start to brim over. She tried to brace herself for what was coming next.

“You were late. To our Friendsgiving. Why? Because you were with Beca?”

She said the name as if Chloe had stood her up to have a date with flesh-eating bacteria.

“No, we—I was back on time…” Chloe muttered.

“But you weren’t here on time. God, Chloe, you’re all over the place these days. You aren’t focused on Finals, you don’t care about school, you aren’t planning for next year at all…”

Chloe wrapped her arms around herself, feeling her face start to warm and her eyes sting. She couldn’t argue with any of it.

She just wished everything would stop moving so fast for one second.

“The only thing you are focused on is some tattooed, emotionally stunted freshman with bizzaro ear piercings who you already know isn’t even into you. You’ve seen her with Jesse. It’s obvious.”

Was it true? Had she really been that stupid?

Was that why she had run away from her?

“I just…” Aubrey’s voice took on a gentler tone. “I feel like you’re regressing, Chloe, for serious. It’s like you’re a sophomore again handing in your paper late because you were busy proofreading your emo boyfriend’s atrocious poetry. I’m really worried.”

“I don’t know…” Chloe tried to speak, her voice hoarse as her throat constricted. “I don’t know what to do.”

Aubrey stared back at her, her face twitching slightly as she responded. “I just wish you would have been here on time.”

Oh, Chloe had hurt her. She hated it more than anything in the world.

“I’m sorry, Aubrey. I’m so sorry.”

Aubrey nodded.

“It’s all right,” she said shakily. “Let’s just do the dishes together, okay?”

She held Chloe’s hand briefly as she passed the drying towel into her hand. She squeezed back hard.

It was not at all an efficient cleaning method to have the person drying the dishes loop her arm around one of the arms of the person washing them, but—at least for a minute—she didn’t pull away.

Chapter Text

Supersenior Year #1 (November 2012)

She couldn’t believe she was still there.

She was still at Barden, taking notes, getting coffee between classes, lying on the quad, going to parties on weekends. She tried to remind herself that she had asked for this.

Like, literally, she asked for it.

More specifically: begged for it, through tears, to Professor Mitchell: “Please. Please don’t pass me. I can’t leave.”

Of course he had refused, of course he had tried to refer her to the counseling center, and of course she had just apologized and hurried away.

So then she purposefully failed his “From Samovars to Samizdat: 19th and 20th Century Russian Literature” exam.

He had tried to make a case for extenuating circumstances, but she had refused every solution he suggested. He had to fail her.

He wasn’t talking to her much these days.

*

He wasn’t the only one.

Professor Tarkovskaya, whose exam she had also intentionally bombed, was furious that her favorite student had all but destroyed any chance she had at going to graduate school on a whim. She wasn’t even answering Chloe’s “zdravstvuite, Professor” when she passed her in the hallways anymore.

Chloe’s aunt, who had stopped being the custodian of her inheritance when she had turned 21 that summer, had taken two hours out of a busy work day on the phone with Chloe trying to plead with her to change her mind, finally resorting to throwing in a few guilt-tripping comments about what her mom would say if she were there. It hadn’t worked. Chloe hadn’t heard from her since (although honestly, that wasn’t that unusual).

But all of that, hard as it was, didn’t matter compared to the fact that Aubrey was gone, and wasn’t returning her calls.

Chloe was still living in their apartment, and couldn’t bring herself to place an ad for a new roommate. It was a waste of money, sure, but so was an extra year of Barden’s tuition.

Actually—and she knew this was the sickest part—she wanted to waste it. When the lawyer had forced her to sit through a few-hour long discussion of her mother’s financials (bank accounts, stocks, bonds, property), she had looked at the sheets of paper in front of her with mounting frustration.

What had been the point? All those long hours at work, all that time she was never home so that—what? It was just sitting there.

So she woke up every morning in an empty apartment and wondered what the answer was to that question Aubrey had asked her nearly a year ago: what was she doing?

*

But then there was Beca, who showed up at her door almost every morning, coffee and a bag of pastries in her hands.

Most of the time they didn’t even talk that much.

They’d eat in her room—Chloe would eat a lemon-blueberry turnover on her bed, and Beca, usually swiveling lazily in the desk chair, would slowly make her way through a cinnamon bun.

(Chloe tried to avoid the kitchen as much as possible those days. She was probably never going to learn how to cook, in any case.)

They would occasionally do homework, but more often Beca worked on mixes or Bella arrangements on her laptop while Chloe would read or stare in front of her at the blank journal she was sure she was going to fill sometime soon.

But eventually one of them would come across something funny, or Beca would find just the sound she wanted, and she’d come join her on the bed to share it with her.

Chloe was getting used to leaning her head against her shoulder, used to the gentle nudges on her arm when she accidentally fell asleep before she had to go to class, used to the sound of her laughter when it was completely free from sarcasm.

She was so close to being so happy.

*

It was after the back-to-school party Chloe had hosted in August that the daily routine had started.

She shouldn’t have let Cynthia-Rose bartend. Her drinks were always so strong, and Chloe always drank one more than she should, anyway.

Fat Amy was cutting it up in their living room with what she termed “pirate dancing,” and the others were circling around her, egging her on.

Beca, as usual, was standing off to the side, sober, a somewhat mortified smile on her face as she watched her friends’ antics.

Chloe eyed her avidly from across the room. She was wearing a shirt combination she remembered (a white button-down over a brown tank top), but her wrists were bare and her nails, for once, were free of polish. Her hair was up, but loose strands on both sides were framing her face. She looked older than when she had seen her last spring, a little more her.

She had kind of hoped that when she saw her again, she’d realize the whole thing had been stupid, some distraction she had made up to postpone her entrance into the real world. Instead, seeing Beca again was like realizing she’d been holding her breath for three months.

She walked to the kitchen counter to get another drink.

“You sure you want another one of these?” Cynthia-Rose asked as she offered her the cup. “‘Cause after this one, I’m cutting you off.”

Chloe just shook the cup impatiently. “Please,” she added politely.

Cynthia-Rose shook her head as she juiced a lime into a cup, then reached for the vodka.

“Hey.”

The voice from behind her she would have recognized anywhere even if it weren’t the one she had been straining to hear all night.

She turned around, leaning back on the counter for balance. It was weird, how she suddenly felt shy around her. Beca had made her feel a lot of things in the past, never that.

“Beca,” was all she could say.

And for the first time she could remember, it was Beca who reached out for the hug. She pulled Chloe closer, who then hunched down slightly to let her chin rest on her shoulder. She was a little shaky from the drinking, but all she could think about, closing her eyes, was how good she smelled.

When she pulled back, she could see Cynthia-Rose tilting her head, clearly intrigued, as she handed her back her cup.

“You’re here,” Beca said, as if it was a surprise that Chloe was in her own apartment. But she knew what she meant.

Chloe had about a million things she had noted to herself to remember so that she could tell Beca when she saw her, but she couldn’t recall a single one.

“Yeah,” she said. “I am.”

The music changed abruptly from Kelly Clarkson to “Call Me Maybe” as the Bellas in the living room played with Chloe’s iPod. The dancing that followed sounded from the kitchen something like a sudden stampede.

“How… how was your summer?” she tried.

Beca leaned against the counter next to Chloe.

“It was fine, whatever. I did absolutely nothing. Except respond to your thousands of text messages.”

“It was not that many.”

“Dude, my mom had to change our phone plan to accommodate it.”

Chloe took a sip of her drink, savoring the gingery kick as she swallowed.

“Well, I missed you,” she slurred.

That wiped the smile off Beca’s face pretty quickly. But she didn’t run away.

“I… missed you too.”

She could just hear Cynthia-Rose snickering to herself from behind her.

“Oh, I found a good one! I haven’t heard this song in forever.”

That was Stacie. As soon as it started playing, everyone laughed.

I’ve got my sights set on you
and I’m ready to aim
I have a heart that will
never be tamed

“Ah, the musical stylings of Miley Cyrus,” Beca mused.

“Don’t start with my girl Miley,” Cynthia-Rose cut in. “I’ve seen you rock ‘Party in the USA’ before; we all know about that.”

Beca turned to Chloe to share the joke, and realized something was wrong.

“Chloe?” she asked hesitantly.

(She could still see it so clearly: Aubrey sliding her right hand across the piano in the Baker Hall basement, her nervous smile as she watched Chloe dance, the rush of realizing they had four whole years to spend together.

Looking back on it, they both seemed so innocent and small.)

She started walking towards her room.

From behind her, she could hear Beca tell Cynthia-Rose, “No, I got it.”

So she wasn’t surprised that as she struggled to shut her door, she was stopped by a light push from the other side.

“Hey, can I come in?”

It was the strangest thing. She had wanted to open the door for Beca, but instead found herself sitting on the floor. How much had she had to drink? Her heart was fluttering, rapidly, unevenly, and even though she couldn’t feel it, she could hear herself taking in strained breaths.

Wait. She knew what this was. She had seen it so many times before.

Beca was on the floor next to her, kneeling, her hands hovering near Chloe, unsure if she should touch her.

“Chloe,” she said.

From the other room, she could hear the girls switch the music to another song.

She wished Beca’s face weren’t so worried. But as she stared back at her, and a minute passed, she could feel her breath evening.

“I’m okay,” she said, as soon as she felt she meant it. “Embarrassing. At least I didn’t throw up.”

“Do you want, like… water? I can get water. Food? No, no food, obviously, if you’re feeling nauseous. I’m an idiot.”

“I’m okay. Thank you, Beca. I’m sorry.”

“Oh my God, don’t apologize.”

Chloe moved her hand into Beca’s.

“Could you just help me up?”

Beca did, steadying her with a hand to her back.

“So does Miley always send you into a fit of existential terror?” Beca asked, trying to break the mood. “I can sort of understand that.”

Chloe laughed weakly.

“Kind of a long story.”

Standing up was the worst. As was keeping her eyes open.

“Um, Beca?”

“Yeah?” Her voice was so eager.

“I know this is, like, a lot to ask, but I kind of just need to sleep. Could you maybe… I mean you don’t have to, but could you maybe be in charge of the party?”

“Do you want me to kick everyone out?”

“Nooo, no, they’re fine.”

“I’d be really good at kicking everyone out.”

Chloe smiled, lightly grabbing Beca’s forearms.

“I know you would. But no.”

She doesn’t really remember going to sleep, or how she even got into her bed.

But she does know that in the morning, when she finally wandered out of her bedroom in search of some painkillers, Beca was at the kitchen counter reading something on her phone, taking a sip out of a coffee cup, sitting just in front of a bag from the bakery.

And when she finally left for class later that day, Chloe had asked, “want to have breakfast here again tomorrow?”

She did.

*

The day before Thanksgiving break, they were in her room again. Chloe had finally managed to write a sentence in the journal in front of her.

There must be a reason I’m still here.

Beca was sitting on the floor by one of her bookshelves. To Chloe’s delight, she was wearing the same shirt she had worn for auditions the year before, the sleeves pushed up a few inches past her wrist.

She was picking books aimlessly off the shelves and flipping through them. Chloe looked up to see her holding The Brothers Karamazov, and, wow. Why hadn’t she thought before about how hot it would be to see her reading these books?

Beca stopped on a page, her curious face transforming suddenly into a wide grin as she kept reading through it.

“What is it?” Chloe asked in a low voice, so as not to disturb her reading.

Beca looked up at her, not breaking her smile.

“I think I finally get why you’re into this stuff, dude.”

“Yeah?”

“I mean, I don’t get these ones.” Beca gestured at the pile of discarded books on the floor through which she had just finished thumbing. “There was a lot about land disputes and duels and honestly I was bored to tears just touching them.”

Chloe put her journal down by her side. “Okay, yeah, but that’s not all that—”

“No, I know,” Beca interrupted.

She found her place again in The Brothers Karamazov and started reciting.

“‘Kiss the earth and love it, tirelessly, insatiably, love all men, love all things, seek this rapture and ecstasy. Water the earth with the tears of your joy, and love those tears. Do not be ashamed of this ecstasy, treasure it, for it is a gift from God, a great gift, and it is not given to many, but to those who are chosen.’”

She held up the book from across the room to Chloe, who could see that she had underlined those very words.

“Oh yeah,” she agreed. “Father Zosima is the tits.”

“It’s so you.”

Beca was looking down at the words again with a pleased expression on her face, as if she shared an inside joke with them.

“C’mere,” Chloe said finally, patting a space next to her on the bed.

Beca dutifully obeyed, carrying the book with her.

She settled beside Chloe, who reached round her to flip through the book in her hands, pulling her closer as she did so.

“I love this part,” Chloe said, more or less reading into Beca’s ear. “‘I want to live, and I do live, even if it be against logic. Though I do not believe in the order of things, still the sticky little leaves that come out in the spring are dear to me, the blue sky is dear to me, some people are dear to me, whom one loves sometimes, would you believe it, without even knowing why...’”

She could feel Beca’s pulse rushing against her. If only she would just turn her head towards her, like, an inch…

But then she had to start talking again.

“So, um,” she said, shaking herself out of Chloe’s grasp. “Is it okay if we leave around seven tomorrow for the airport? I know it’s like ten minutes away but my mom gave me this whole lecture on the phone today about traffic and lines at security and I just don’t even have it in me to pick a fight on this one.”

Chloe placed the book down on the nightstand.

“Whenever you want,” she answered.

(Beca asking her to come spend Thanksgiving with her was just about the greatest thing that had ever happened to her not only for one but for two reasons—it was in the course of the invitation that Chloe learned Beca and Jesse had broken up a few weeks previously.

“Oh my God, yes, I’d love to,” she had replied. “But wouldn’t you rather… um, shouldn’t you see if Jesse wants to come?”

It was the first time his name had even come up in a conversation between them. Hopefully it would be the last.)

“And also,” Beca went on. “I’m going to do my best to curb the shittiness of the whole family-gathering thing. You won’t have to small talk with my great-uncle or anything.”

“I would love to small talk with your great-uncle.”

Beca cringed.

“Okay, well, then you might want to get started on googling fly fishing before Thursday. And NCIS.”

“Got it.” Chloe mimed making a note in her journal. Then she straightened herself a little on the bed. “But really, Beca… thank you. I didn’t know how I was going to get through this holiday.”

They both mentally filled in the end of that sentence, without Aubrey.

Beca put her arms around her knees, looking at Chloe thoughtfully. She was so small.

“It’s no big deal,” she said. “Besides, holidays drive me insane. You’ll keep me from going Lizzie Borden on everyone.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Chloe replied with a wink, and looked back down at her journal.

*

Beca was not a morning person, and was adorably afraid of flying. So all in all, she was not at her best as they waited at the gate.

Chloe considered telling her—she really wanted to—that this same building was where they had technically met, but thought better of it.

“Okay, so, you know I’m going to be totally out as soon as we get on the plane, right?” Beca asked, her face scrunching with anxiety, as she held up a small box of Benadryl. “Just so, maybe you could wake me up when we land.”

“Don’t worry,” Chloe laughed, tucking hair behind Beca’s ears. “I so got this.”

Did she imagine feeling her lean in a little against her hand?

“You won’t be bored on the plane?”

“It’s only five hours, Beca. I have, like, seven books in my carry-on.”

She was pleased that she got a little smile out of that one.

“You didn’t think that was overkill?”

“Well, how am I supposed to know what I’ll want to read when I get up there? Fiction? Poetry? Biography?”

“Now boarding Zone Two; all passengers from Zones One and Two may board…”

“Oooh, that’s us.”

Beca tensed.

“Come on,” Chloe nudged her, and she stood up, reaching for her hand.

*

She wouldn’t tell Beca later that she had spent the majority of the flight drooling on her shoulder.

Chloe felt happiness inside her like it was something small and fragile she could hold against her chest.

There was only one thing shadowing it. She spent an hour and a half mentally composing a two-sentence text message, which she sent as soon as they landed:

I hope you have a great Thanksgiving, dear Aubrey. I miss you.

*

Beca’s mom was tall.

Chloe had never in her wildest dreams imagined such a possibility, but there was the incontrovertible evidence right in front of her, waving towards them in the parking garage.

She had Beca’s nose, and the same eye-shape. But most importantly, she had the same look of judgmental horror.

“Take those enormous sunglasses off right this second, Beca; do you think you’re Angelina Jolie now?”

The aviators were Chloe’s. She had lent them to poor, moody little Beca as she emerged from her Benadryl-induced stupor.

“Good to see you too, Mom.”

Her mother switched to a grin as she came closer, and gave Beca a short hug.

She turned to Chloe.

“So, you’re the aca-stalker.”

She wasn’t sure what to say to that.

“Ugh, Mom. Stop.” She turned towards Chloe. “She just means because you texted all the time this summer.”

“Oh,” said Chloe, and managed a tense laugh. “It’s really nice to meet you. Thank you so much for having me.”

Both Beca and her mom seemed a little taken aback by her formality. But her mom returned the handshake.

“Sure thing, Chloe,” she said. “It’s great to have you. I’m Cathy.”

*

Beca and her mother were arguing within ten minutes of arriving at the house.

Chloe sat out on the porch while they, unaware she was in earshot, debated where she would sleep.

They were at the cottage in Maine that Cathy owned and managed as a bed and breakfast, the location of every Thanksgiving and Christmas celebration for her closest relatives.

Chloe, despite the thick sweater she was wearing, shivered as the wind reared in from the ocean. It was hard to believe the dark blue waves lapping up against massive, flinty rocks in front of her were part of the same body of water next to which she had grown up.

“Mom, you have two open guest rooms right now. Can you just not, for once, and let Chloe have the upstairs room?”

“Oh my God, Beca. You know someone is coming to stay in that room an hour after you two leave on Sunday. You’ll be fine in the kids’ room; take it down a notch. It’s not like either of you are too tall for those beds.”

Chloe could hear Beca make some indecipherable sound of frustration, and she couldn’t help smiling to herself.

Beca emerged out onto the porch, warming at the sight of her welcome.

She pulled over one of the white, wooden porch chairs and dragged it next to Chloe’s. The wind pulled strands into her face as she moved against the breeze.

“So I’m really sorry,” she said, crossing her arms as she sat, “but I think we’re going to have to stay in the kids’ room. It’s naval-themed. I’m literally dying of embarrassment right now.”

Chloe just watched her serenely.

She pointed across Beca to the lighthouse on the horizon, the view partially blocked by a tree whose orange-brown leaves were shaking in the wind.

“It’s so beautiful,” she said.

Beca kept her eyes on Chloe.

“Yeah, it is.”

*

Dinner wasn’t too awkward. Actually, it was kind of hysterical how alike Beca and Cathy were, and how it was exactly that similarity that caused them to keep butting heads. With a lurch of her stomach, Chloe imagined briefly if Beca would be like that—you know, if she decided to have kids with someone.

After dinner, Cathy went upstairs to her office to do some work, and Chloe and Beca moved to the living room. Beca disappeared for a minute to return with a bottle of wine and a corkscrew.

“So classy,” Chloe teased.

“Listen, do you want the booze or not?”

“I’ll get the glasses.”

Wine in hand, Beca settled down on the small powder blue couch which faced out the window at the sunset. Chloe sat on the other side, but brought her legs up on the couch to spread them across Beca’s lap.

She watched with amazement the way the gold skyline caught the clouds over the water. When they stopped talking, she could still hear the wind.

“Did you come here a lot as a kid?” she asked Beca, who looked approximately five times more mature than she actually was while sipping wine.

“Um, we would come up for weekends a lot during the off-season. Before my dad left. I guess my mom was kind of too busy after that to come here except for business.”

Beca probably hadn’t even noticed that she had started to fidget with the hem of Chloe’s jeans with her right hand.

“Yeah,” Chloe said quietly.

“Yeah,” Beca repeated. “But I did use to like it, I think. I remember being excited to come.”

Her fingers accidentally brushed up against Chloe’s ankle, and she felt it like a shock. Beca looked up at her as she flinched.

Chloe brought her feet down to the floor.

“I love it here,” she said.

Beca, having lost Chloe’s jeans to fidget with, picked at the edge of the cushion.

“Well, enjoy it while you can before tomorrow.”

Chloe leaned forward to place her empty glass on the table in front of them, using the opportunity to scoot closer.

“It’s gonna be a full house, huh?”

“Kind of. But the great thing about my family is no one knows how to cook, so no one will even be here till five. My aunt picks food up at the store; it’s hilarious.”

“No one knows how to cook dinner?”

She turned towards Chloe, leaning an elbow against the back of the couch.

“Oh, like you’re any better, Beale.”

She gave Chloe a nudge on the arm. Beca was definitely feeling the wine.

“I am an excellent microwaver,” Chloe defended herself. “For serious. I hardly ever over-cook something.”

She wasn’t sure how to interpret the mischievous look on Beca’s face at that moment. She definitely wasn’t prepared for the next conversation topic.

“This is why we could never date,” Beca announced.

(Chloe’s heart skipped a beat.)

“We would actually starve to death as a couple,” she explained.

She caught Chloe’s eyes, goading her to play along.

Okay, I’ll take the bait.

“I mean, it wouldn’t be that bad. We’d just have to hire a chef.”

Beca smiled broadly. But as soon as Chloe could catch it, she resumed a more skeptical expression.

“Yeah, okay, and who’s paying for that?”

“My super famous music-producing girlfriend. Obviously.”

Beca choked on a sip of wine.

“Oh, yeah, obviously.”

“Which,” Chloe went on, reaching out to trace a pattern on Beca’s leg (jokingly, she thought, she will think it is jokingly), “brings us to another huge problem. Maybe insurmountable.”

“Yeah, and what’s that?” Beca asked, steadying her voice.

“We’d need a house big enough to fit all those Grammys.”

“And your books.”

“Right. So inconvenient.”

“And lest we forget, we’d need room for all the people who’d lie around our house all day because you insist on being nice all the time.”

Chloe shook her head. “You’d have to kick them out.” She lowered her voice, hoping it still sounded flippant. “So we could have alone time.”

Beca’s leg jerked. Just a little.

“Yeah, see, that’d be so distracting,” she said eventually. “Groundbreaking music doesn’t just produce itself, missy.”

“But think how much time you’d gain from having someone help you. There’d be, like, a whole army of Beca supporters. Me and the kids.”

Okay, whoops. Way too far. She moved her hand back onto the couch apologetically as she braced herself for Beca’s response.

“Jesus Christ, I have one glass of wine with Chloe Beale and I’m already the mother of her children. Put a shotgun to my head, why don’t you?”

Okay… so, it wasn’t way too far, then?

“Not, like, tons of them. Maybe just like two girls and one boy.”

“Not weirdly specific at all. You have names picked out too?”

Chloe looked straight at her.

“Do you?”

The conversation stalled.

Beca, face flushed, reached for the bottle of wine on the table.

“Do you want some more?” she asked apprehensively, holding the wine up next to Chloe’s empty glass.

*

By the time they’d made it through a second bottle, Chloe was once again making use of Beca’s lap, this time as a pillow. She tried to keep her cool as the other girl lazily moved her fingers through her hair. Every one of her senses—the sound of that voice, the feel of that body against hers moving with each breath—was Beca, just Beca.

So she could blame it on that, maybe, or the way the room was starting to rock ever so slightly, for why she suddenly got so serious.

“I only have one name picked out.”

She felt the fingers pause for a second against her scalp.

“Yeah?”

“Mmm. Naomi.”

“Huh. It’s more, I don’t know, traditional than I would have thought for your taste.”

Chloe bit at the chapped skin on her lips. After a moment, she explained.

“It was my mom’s.”

Beca resumed the hair-stroking.

“Naomi,” she repeated.

Chloe swallowed hard at the sound of it in her voice.

“Yeah.”

Beca’s fingers moved carefully to press up against Chloe’s temples. She closed her eyes at the touch.

“I think… that’s really beautiful. I think she’d be really proud.”

Chloe turned away slightly, slipping out of Beca’s hands, moving the right side of her face against her lap.

“Really, Chloe. She would be.”

Through her sweater, she could feel an open palm against her back.

“I don’t know,” she said roughly.

“Chloe…”

Beca was sobering up; she could tell. Her voice was hesitant again as she searched for the right words.

“Chlo, who wouldn’t be proud to be your mom? You’re basically perfect. It’s annoying.”

Chloe relaxed against the hand on her back.

She wanted so much. The ocean couldn’t contain it.

“I don’t know,” she said again, struggling to rein in her thoughts as the room shook from side to side. “I was a little… um. I was never what she wanted. I don’t think. Maybe.”

God. Why did she always drink too much and get like this at the end of the night? She kept making the same mistakes, over and over.

Beca’s fingers were back in her hair, and it wasn’t until one ghosted against her ear that her eyes went blurry and her mind filled with things better left behind.

(She had wanted to hug her so much, that day at the kitchen table, sophomore year of high school, when she had come home from the doctor’s appointment. Chloe didn’t know yet what the words meant: metastatic, stage four. Her mom had been trying to explain it to her when it happened.

It wasn’t the first time she had seen her gasping for air like that, or trembling. She always told Chloe to leave. But Chloe didn’t, that time; she couldn’t.

Can you be calmer, Chloe? Don’t you think it’s a little much? You don’t want to scare her away.

She had rushed up from the table and run to her.

But when she’d tried to wrap her arms around her, her mom had pushed her away with both hands.

Chloe had just stood there, uselessly, no clue what to do next, wishing not for the first time that she were better, that she knew what to do to make her happy.

Lying there in Beca’s lap, she felt like she was still standing there.)

It was maybe a minute before Beca spoke again.

“Chloe… family is just, it’s so complicated. But just… you couldn’t be different than you are. God, that would suck. You couldn’t possibly be better.”

Beca was stumbling, but Chloe could hardly believe the sincerity of the words coming out of her mouth.

She wanted her so badly.

“I like you so much, Beca,” she mumbled.

She shuddered as she felt the light touch of fingertips on the back of her neck. She turned to meet the eyes above her. Beca, her mouth slightly parted, head just tilted, was watching her with what had to be wonder.

“I really like you too, Chloe Beale,” she said.

*

At some point, Beca must have helped her make her way into the twin bed, rolling her on her side and tucking her hand under her chin. She remembered it vaguely.

When she woke up to the sight of her anchor-decorated comforter and the waves beating against the rocks through the window, Beca was gone.

The memories of their conversations the night before came to her piecemeal, and she kept expecting embarrassment to follow, but it never did. She wouldn’t take any of it back for the world.

She was sitting on the bed against the headboard, arms around her knees, when Beca came back into the room.

Now, obviously, it wasn’t like this was the first time she’d seen Beca in a towel. For God’s sake, the second time they had spoken to each other they had been nude.

But they had never been wary like this before.

Beca hunched her shoulders, pulling one of her arms around herself as she slowly carried her shower basket back to the closet.

Chloe knew she should avert her eyes, but it took her a few seconds to draw her gaze away from her back, imagining without being able to help it kissing down from her neck to the base of the tattoo on her shoulder blade.

(She turned away.)

“Hey, good morning,” she heard her voice.

She turned back to greet her. Beca’s arms were still around her front, and she was smiling at Chloe so timidly.

“Good morning, Beca.”

Her smile widened, resuming some of its usual nonchalance.

“Wow, that was like, three times more cheerful than I thought you would be after last night.”

Well, it was weird, but she wasn’t feeling hungover at all. Glancing at the lifesaver-shaped clock behind Beca’s head, she could see that that partially was because she had slept for approximately forever.

“Oh wow, it’s so late,” Chloe gasped. “Am I being rude? Is your mom mad?”

“Dude, no, chill. I just woke up too, and my mom’s not even here.”

Note to self, Chloe thought. We are alone in the cottage.

“She’s not?”

Beca tried to rifle one-handedly through her bag on the floor for an outfit without revealing any unnecessary skin. It was precious.

“No, she has, like, some errands or something, and then she’s going to pick up food with my aunt later.”

“Oh.” She brightened up. “Well then, we’ve got some time on our hands.”

Beca scrambled up from the floor with her chosen articles of clothing, and told Chloe she’d be right back.

*

Two bowls of Quaker’s Instant Oatmeal later, they were out on the rocks.

It was actually less chilly than she expected, and it was funny that Beca, the Mainer, was the one shivering as stray drops of water crossed their path.

To be fair, she was dressed less warmly than Chloe was. Beca’s blue plaid top wasn’t even buttoned, revealing the grey shirt underneath. She hadn’t bothered to do anything with her hair that day, and it hung loosely around her shoulders, wavy as it dried from the shower.

Beca pointed to a line of large, slippery rocks along the shore.

“So my cousins and I, we used to run across those when we were younger.”

Imagining it—as she pulled the sleeves of her sweater over her hands—made Chloe so happy.

“A daredevil, huh?” she asked.

She nudged her with her elbow, earning a nervous laugh.

“Actually, I have a scar to prove it, from when I fell once.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“I mean, I can’t show it to you now. I’d have to take off my jeans.”

She blushed as the words left her mouth. Chloe didn’t even make a comment; it was just too easy at this point.

They climbed down closer to the waves, only a few feet from the farthest reach of the tide. It was so magical, how the rocks changed colors every time the water receded.

“The ocean here is so different than where I’m from,” Chloe said. “It’s, like, stronger somehow.”

“Do I need to leave you here to compose some odes or something?”

“No, you can stay.” She looked at Beca, who hadn’t pulled down the sleeves of her shirt below her elbows despite the goosebumps covering every inch of open skin. “My tiny muse,” Chloe added for good measure.

Beca took off her boots and socks and effortlessly climbed up onto a rock overseeing the view. Chloe slid hers off as well, but walked further down, just up to the edge of the water.

“I kind of want to go in,” she called back.

“Chloe, no,” Beca implored. “I don’t think you get how cold and gross it is.”

“I just want to go in a little bit. Like up to my knees.”

“Oh my God, please don’t get hypothermia and die.”

“So much for my daredevil,” Chloe teased, bending down to roll up her jeans.

Beca shifted forward on the rock, as if she were deciding whether or not to jump in and stop her.

Chloe turned around, facing Beca as she lifted her sweater up over her head, her back to the ocean.

“Come on, just join me!”

Beca winced as Chloe walked backwards into a cresting wave.

Oh shit. It was really effing cold. Her feet were red as the water pulled back.

Even so, it was amazing. She gritted her teeth as she could hear another wave rolling back behind her. The wind was getting stronger, blowing hair over her eyes so that she could see Beca only through a patch of red.

But, still, she could clearly perceive her climbing down from the rock and coming in after her, cursing rapidly under her breath.

“Shitshitshitshitshit. Fuck. Shit. This is cold.”

Chloe’s heart was too full as she stared at the girl who, so it appeared, would follow her anywhere.

And then as Beca almost reached her, water inching up her calves, her hands suddenly flew up in a wild attempt to regain her balance.

She must have tripped on a stone. Chloe rushed forward, bending down into the water to catch her.

She caught hold of her arms just in time to soften the fall as Beca sunk downwards. Chloe exhaled with relief.

Beca, she was surprised, didn’t start cursing about being halfway submerged in the freezing water, and didn’t offer some sarcastic comment about Chloe’s great ideas.

She was just breathing steadily and staring at her as Chloe shifted her hands to drag her up off the bottom.

She was trembling, her clothes soaked to just above her waist. Poor little Beca.

Chloe steadied her as they stood up and started to move away, when she was stopped by a pair of hands moving to rest on her lower back.

Beca was holding her, a little shyly but, still, firmly. Chloe felt immediately light-headed. Beca looked up, and her face was totally calm, absolutely sure.

She leaned forward timidly, touching her forehead to Chloe’s and resting there for a moment. Then, moving to meet her eyes again, she pressed her hands against Chloe’s back so that their bodies, suddenly, were flat up against each other. Chloe’s arms moved around her automatically as she struggled to keep her balance.

She couldn’t tell if that thumping was only her heartbeat, or Beca’s too, but it was strong. Her feet under the water had advanced from burning with the cold to being completely numb, so it might not have been the water itself causing her hair to stand on end.

Beca’s eyes darted abruptly from Chloe’s own to her lips, and it was so sweet, it was the most wonderful thing in the world when she brought her hand up to Chloe’s face, her thumb brushing against her cheekbone.

The sound Chloe made was entirely out of her control. She watched Beca watch her, like she was in awe, like she couldn’t believe it.

And as she bridged the distance, Chloe could only think—she was so happy, she was so happy Beca had kissed her first.

*

—which is not to say Chloe didn’t end up taking the lead.

Back on the couch in the cottage, she was kissing her slowly, gratefully, and Beca was so endearing, she thought, so nervous and uncertain, her lips barely parting at first till Chloe invited them open further with a sweep of her tongue. When Chloe trailed a hand down from her shoulder to her chest, she had gasped.

But the other girl didn’t know, she had no idea, how good she felt, how long Chloe had waited for a moment just like this, Beca’s hand resting weakly against her back, the taste of saltwater still lingering on her skin as Chloe’s lips wandered to her jawline.

They had already helped each other out of their soaked jeans, which lied discarded on the floor along with Beca’s plaid shirt and her own sweater. It made Chloe dizzy, how little skin they had left covered, but she held herself back, reverentially keeping her hands to the upper part of her body.

But then Beca grabbed her wrists, stopping her. For a split second, she felt a wave of fear that it was over course through her, till she saw that she had only moved away to reach down to the hem of her remaining shirt, lifting it up over her head.

Oh, wow.

But, no. Of course she noticed that she was shaking.

“Beca,” she said, her voice deeper than she expected. “You don’t have to… are you okay with this?”

She was nodding rapidly even as her eyes bashfully moved to Chloe’s hands resting on the couch.

“I want it,” she managed, her face reddening.

“Are you sure? I know this is… it’s all really new…”

But with that, her eyes snapped up in exasperation.

“Oh my God, Chloe, this is not new. The pace has been grueling. Will you just put your hands on me now?”

And with that, any further questions—like, why now?, and, are you still thinking about Jesse?, and, do you have any idea how much you could hurt me?—vanished.

*

What was singing?

There was her own steady heartbeat, the sound of the ocean out the window of the guest room, and the sweetness of that little cry when she finally found that scar, hidden halfway down Beca’s inner thigh.

There was Beca’s breath quickening as Chloe pressed her lips against her collarbone, or the insides of her arms. There was that disappointed noise she had let out when Chloe broke away to reposition herself.

There was the way that Chloe heard her own name whispered into her ear, more than once.

And there was Beca in her arms, afterwards, her messy brown hair tickling her neck, humming a song she probably wouldn’t have let Chloe hear if she had known that she also knew the words:

Your hands, they move like waves over me,
Beneath the moon, tonight, we’re the sea.

*

Beca was basically a whole new human being, grinning ear to ear as she pulled the sheets off the mattress. Chloe stayed close behind her, playfully pulling her hair away from her neck so that she could plant a kiss there, one arm looped around to place a hand on her stomach.

“This is so awkward,” Beca said, looking down at the comforter on the floor. “My mom is totally going to know we remade the bed.”

“I’m sorry.” Chloe pulled her a little closer, resting her chin on her shoulder. “But there was no way our first time was going to be on a tiny couch or a bed with a ship wheel mounted over it.”

First time. She wished she hadn’t said it that way.

Beca tilted her head to lean it against Chloe’s, and moved her hand over the one on her front.

“Okay, but now get off me. You’re distracting and I need to do laundry.”

*

Small talking with Beca’s family was super easy.

Within fifteen minutes she was BFFs with Arnie, Beca’s great-uncle, who, as it turned out, had tons more interests than fly fishing and procedural dramas.

First of all, he owned a rare and antique bookshop in Boston. Second of all, Beca hadn’t even mentioned that Arnie had worked as an organizer for the Communist Party in his youth before becoming an anti-Stalinist and leaving for the Socialists. Like, what? Apparently he had even visited the USSR a few times, which of course peaked Chloe’s interest.

“You mean to tell me, young lady,” Arnie gruffly interrupted her, “that you’ve never been?”

“No, not yet.” Chloe shook her head. “But I’m dying to.”

Arnie called out from the couch to Beca’s aunt, Eileen, who was looking out at the ocean through the window, a glass of white wine in hand.

“Rebecca’s friend here speaks Russian like a goddamned native and she’s never even been over there.”

Eileen raised her eyebrows.

“You know you don’t have to humor him,” she said to Chloe. “He’s just as happy rambling to himself, and then no one has to kill themselves out of boredom.”

“Aww, no,” Chloe said through a laugh.

“There’s only one solution,” Arnie went on, either ignoring Eileen or possibly (Chloe noticed his hearing aid) not registering what she had said. “We’ll go together to Mother Russia. You, me, and we’ll drag along Rebecca and Cathy. Eileen would just be dead weight, I’m sorry to say, though she is my own flesh and blood.”

Chloe’s delighted eyes scanned the room to find Beca standing by the dining room table with the store-bought appetizers spread out on it, clearly in the middle of an argument with one of her cousins. She stared until Beca returned the gaze, stopping midway through her sentence to break out into a radiant smile.

Chloe felt so warm and light as she kept her eyes fixed on hers. Why was she so far away from her, anyway?

That was soon remedied.

“Come on, comrade,” Arnie said. “Let’s get some hors d’oeuvres.”

*

Beca’s eyes were already fluttering shut at ten o’clock that night as they all sat in the living room, drinking wine and making fun of each other. Chloe learned more and more about her every time her relatives opened their mouths.

She placed a hand lightly on Beca’s arm.

“You’re tired?”

Her eyes still mostly closed, she smiled and nodded, then moved a bit so that she could rest her head against her shoulder.

Chloe leaned forward as carefully as she could to place her wine glass on the table without disturbing her. Then, she sat back, moving her left arm around her snugly.

Well, she thought, I guess Beca’s relatives are probably learning about her today too.

Soon after, they were walking back to their room, fingers laced together. When they got there, Beca, too tired to bother with pajamas, more or less collapsed on her twin bed.

It looked like she had fallen fast asleep, but when Chloe started to pull up the comforter on her own bed, she heard a quiet voice from across the room.

“Chloe,” Beca said, patting the space next to her.

Hearing it, she breathed out with relief.

When she settled into the bed, Beca rolled into her side, burrowing her face in the hollow of her neck, draping an arm over her waist.

Within a minute, she could feel the warm breath against her neck settle into a steady rhythm.

She already knew the next sentence she’d write in her journal (when, you know, she could move again).

There must be a reason I’m still here.

I am here to learn how to love Beca Mitchell.

Her fingers itched to write it.

*

November 25, 2012

Dear Jenny,

Thank you so much for your last letter. I am so proud of you for winning the piano competition! And I know how complicated that song is too… my friend used to play it sometimes. I would love to hear you perform it whenever we next see each other.

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving! Say hi to your family for me, too. I had a really great holiday myself. I was all the way up in Maine and was at a cottage where you could look out at a lighthouse. It was super cold but really beautiful.

I want to thank you for being so honest with me and telling me about Zach. I think you should probably talk to your mom about this, though! So ask her for advice first. I don’t know how she feels about you dating in middle school. But if she’s okay with it, I would say, just ask him! Liking someone is probably the best feeling in the whole world, especially when they like you back.

Could you tell your mom that I think I’d like to come up and visit sometime this summer? If that doesn’t work out for her or for Dad, that’s not a problem at all. Just let me know.

Looking forward to hearing from you soon! Tell Hugo I loved the picture of his Halloween costume. Were those actual knives glued to his fingers for the scissorhands, or were they plastic?

Love always,
Chloe

Chapter Text

Supersenior Year #2 (November 2013)

There must be a reason I’m still here.

I am here to learn how to love Beca Mitchell.

*

“Now, you sure you don’t want tea, honey? I have chamomile and Lemon Zinger.”

The raspy voice coming from behind the glittery gold tassel door wasn’t exactly giving Chloe enormous confidence in its owner’s psychic power. But really, she wasn’t quite sure why she had even walked in there in the first place.

She had only been in the neighborhood to pick up an early birthday present for Hugo from the local novelty/alternative superstore to give to him at Thanksgiving, somewhat enabling, she knew, his growing interest in everything that was totally weird. She couldn’t help wondering, staring at the heaps of bizarre junk piled around her, if Aubrey would have an allergic reaction just from knowing this place existed. She smiled to herself, though the thought stung a little.

Really, she had just wanted to pick up some food on the way back to her car, the recently-purchased zombie makeup kit in a bag on her arm, when she stopped to see the sign in front of the strip mall storefront.

Are You Still Hurting?

So, it wasn’t like Chloe believed in that sort of thing, but it wasn’t like she didn’t believe, either. Still, she probably wouldn’t have reached for the door if she wouldn’t have been waiting, day in and out, for someone to ask her just that question.

She regretted it a little (only a little) as she waited for the woman inside the place to get her “reading tea” ready while complaining through the fringed doorway about the ongoing construction on the street next to her business.

“Doesn’t it seem like these days they’re always working on something? I waited a year and a half for the racket next door to stop… they were renovating that building down the street, you know, with the bar and the thrift store. And so, anyway, they finally finish, I finally get ready for some peace, and before I know it they’re tearing up the street and I’m back to losing my train of thought and having to bullshit the way through the rest of a session.”

Chloe responded with intermittent sympathetic noises as the monologue continued. She glanced at a pile of mail the psychic had left on a folded wooden table near her. The addresses on the front all bore the same name: Brenda Delfino.

Madame Pythia, alias Brenda, was back in the room, carefully carrying a tray bearing both a pot of tea and a plate of tiny poppy seed muffins. She walked stiffly, leaning a little from side to side as she stepped.

She settled down on a three-legged stool across from Chloe (although why she chose to sit in such an uncomfortable seat, while Chloe sat in an armchair so soft she was almost sinking into it, was a mystery). Madame Pythia balanced the tray on her lap as she swept away the mail from the table with her free hand, letting it fall to the floor, and then slowly lowered her tray onto the surface.

She sighed dramatically.

“All right,” she said. “You want a muffin before we start?”

“No, thank you.”

“Your call,” she answered, pulling a morsel of her muffin off a loose strand of her wiry black-grey hair.

She wiped her hands against the lap of her dress, getting rid of the crumbs, then held out a palm.

“Your hand, sweetheart.”

Warily, Chloe laid her hand, facing up, on hers.

The change on the woman’s face was immediate.

She took in a little breath of surprise. Her nostrils flared, and she shut her eyes like she was waiting for a pain to pass.

“Oh, honey,” she said finally. “Someone really hurt you, didn’t they?”

Chloe thought, this is fake.

Of course anyone who wandered in there, seeing that sign, was as totally brokenhearted as she was.

But she couldn’t help it—it was true. So all she could do was nod, yes.

“I’ll bet they did.” Her voice was suddenly kind. “Was it a boyfriend?”

She shook her head.

Madame Pythia narrowed her eyes in thought. “Girlfriend?”

Chloe took a few seconds longer to respond to that one, but shook her head a second time.

“Then what?”

She shrugged, trying to find the words to explain it. “My… um. Beca.”

“Your Beca, huh? Well, your Beca’s done a number on you, I can tell you that.”

Chloe wanted to say: it wasn’t her fault.

Beca had probably been right. Chloe shouldn’t have… there were so many things she wished she could have done differently.

Instead, she just made a sound that she had originally wanted to come out as “mmhmm.”

The psychic reached out to take Chloe’s hand a second time.

“You’re no good at all at protecting your heart, are you, sweetie?”

“Um,” Chloe attempted.

“No, you’re not. Me neither.”

She gave her hand a commiserating pat.

“How long ago was it?”

Was what? There were so many things, and all of them kept playing through her head without her being able to stop them.

But from the concern in the woman’s eyes, Chloe knew she only meant one thing: when Beca had broken her heart.

“It’s been, um, a little over seven months.”

Madame Pythia leaned back a bit in astonishment.

“Seven months? And still so fresh?”

Yes. Still.

She knew it was probably an act. But she couldn’t help feeling like this woman was staring at some exposed part of her she had halfheartedly attempted to hide, the part that, no matter what she did, wouldn’t stop feeling this way.

“You said…” she started, her voice small. “On your sign outside. It says you can heal people?”

The psychic blew out air through her lips, seeming to rack her brains for an answer.

She shook her head.

“I help. But I can’t fix this, honey. I don’t think so.”

“Oh.”

It had been stupid anyway. Had she really thought this would make a difference? She shifted in her seat a little, getting ready to leave.

“Well, um, thank you, anyway.”

“No, not so fast. Sit back, dear. It’s just that this one of those things you have to do on your own.”

Hadn’t she tried? Hadn’t she been trying? She knew she must have looked exasperated.

“You keep a journal, don’t you?”

“What? Um—yes.”

“Good. That’s good.” She was holding Chloe’s hand firmly now between both of hers. “You have memories, don’t you? Moments that keep pushing up against your mind. You’ve been trying to forget them.”

Chloe couldn’t deny any of that. She nodded.

“Here’s what I want you to do. It’s simple. I want you to go home today, make yourself a nice cup of tea—really, just do it, there is nothing that isn’t made better by tea—and sit down somewhere where you can be real quiet for a while.”

Was that all? She could feel frustration welling up in her chest.

“Then I want you to remember. Just one of the memories. It’ll hurt at first, but I want you to remember everything. All five senses. Your heart. Can you do that?”

She honestly didn’t know.

“Then when that’s passed, I want you to write it down in your journal. The whole memory, with all the details you can remember.” She took a sip of tea. “Then, whenever you’re ready, the same thing. Just one memory at a time till you start to breathe a little better. All right?”

At this point, what harm could it do? Chloe was so tired of fighting her own brain.

She made a noise of assent.

Madame Pythia stared at her defeated face for a moment.

“Oh, but you’ll be fine, honey. I can see such presence—there’s enough love around you to crush you flat. You aren’t alone.”

She wanted to nod at that, but couldn’t. Nothing in the world felt less like the truth than what she had just said.

“Thank you,” she said weakly.

As they stood up, the woman handed her a business card. “Let me know how it all goes, will you?”

“Of course… what do I owe you?”

Madame Pythia waved away the notion like a mosquito.

“This one’s on me.”

Chloe thanked her a few times in a row as they their way to the door.

As she reached out to push it open, the psychic called out to her from behind.

“Oh, honey?”

“Yeah?”

“I want to tell you a secret.”

The woman smiled triumphantly, a couple of poppy seeds stuck in her incisors.

“This story,” she said. “It has a happy ending.”

*

Memory #1

It’s kind of hard to know where to start.

At the cottage? By the ocean? In that guest room? But the thing I can’t get out of my head happened after that, so I guess I’ll just try to start there.

It feels really weird to write this down. I mean, I already know what happened, and there’s nothing I can do to change anything about it. But I’m trying.

We were at the airport. It was like we had switched places—Beca was being warm and touchy and I was feeling so worried about everything. We were going back to Barden and I was sure our new thing, whatever it was, was going to end and there was nothing I was more afraid of than that.

There were these kids who were running around by our gate, playing hide-and-seek, I think, and Beca was making fun of them, trying to get me to place a bet on which one was going to nosedive first onto the floor, and she was totally playing up her whole grumpy routine because she wanted me to think it was cute. (I really did.)

Oh, and wait. She was wearing this red fringed scarf and a grey button-down jacket which still smelled like her family’s cottage, and her hair was down and really wavy, the way I’ve always liked it best. I remember that she kept making this high-pitched laugh which was so weird for her. That seems important to remember.

I kept telling myself to stop freaking out and just enjoy her because this was all I had thought about for, like, over a year and suddenly Beca was actually giggling at my jokes and asking me twice if I wanted anything from the Starbucks kiosk near our gate.

It’s kind of hard to write this but I think it was the happiest I’ve ever seen her, before or after that.

She came back from the kiosk with a blueberry scone in her hand, and as she sat down she said, “your pastry, m’lady,” because it was the closest thing that was there to a lemon-blueberry turnover. She split it in half and actually twisted her hand over the other so she could give me the bigger piece.

Anyway, at some point Aubrey texted me.

I was actually really surprised because I thought if she would have texted me back any day it would have been Thursday, and honestly, I wasn’t really expecting a response at all.

It said: “I miss you too, Chloe, so much. I hope you had a great Thanksgiving.”

And I just sat there staring at the screen, like, I don’t live in Antarctica, if you miss me you could drive an hour sometime and come say hi. But really I just felt so bad because I was the one who had messed everything up.

I don’t think Beca meant to read it, but she saw I was upset and just looked down to see why.

She asked me, “it’s Aubrey?” and I said yeah. And it looked like she didn’t want to say anything because it’s not like they were best friends or anything. But I was actually really surprised when she asked me if Aubrey was mad at me because of her. She looked so concerned, or guilty, or something like that.

But no, I told her it wasn’t about her, and of course it wouldn’t be about her. Bree had just been really stressed the year before. Of course she had to know how great Beca was, really.

No. It was about me, and how I hadn’t told her that I was planning on failing on purpose. And maybe she felt that I had left her to graduate all alone?

Beca was pulling off little pieces of her scone and crumbling them on the paper bag she had gotten them in. She totally wasn’t eating at all. Anyway, after I talked about that for a bit, she asked me if I was okay talking about why I hadn’t wanted to graduate.

And I was definitely okay talking about it, but I didn’t really know the answer myself, even. It just had felt like everything was going so fast and everyone was leaving and I wouldn’t be a Bella anymore, or Aubrey’s roommate anymore, and I didn’t even know what I was supposed to do. So it was like pressing on an emergency brake, almost. Does that make sense?

And Beca nodded, I mean, she was super polite, but I could tell she didn’t really get what I was saying. That’s okay, because it didn’t really make sense to me either. There must have been, like, a thousand other things I could have done that would have made more sense than handing in a bunch of blank exams and one-sentence papers. And anyway, the emergency brake hadn’t even worked, had it? I lost Aubrey.

I said that. Beca shook her head and said, no way had I lost her forever, Aubrey wasn’t that much of an idiot (her words).

And then she was shaking the blueberry scone crumbs off her fingers and telling me that even if not graduating on purpose was completely insane, which it was, it was better than just getting some stupid job because that’s what people think you’re supposed to do.

She said, “And, you know, I really like that you never do anything except when you want it with your whole heart.”

Then she followed that with something like, “oh my God, who am I right now?”

The answer to that, though, was that she was my favorite thing in the entire world.

So I leaned across the arm of the seat and kissed her.

The kids who had been playing around us started yelling “ewww” and screaming to their parents that people were k-i-s-s-i-n-g.

We heard them, and Beca laughed into my mouth, accidentally hitting our teeth together, but that just made her laugh harder even as she took my face into her hands and said, “sorry, Chlo, are you okay?”

I was so okay.

So I asked her, kind of joking, if she would still kiss me like that when we were back at Barden.

And she just said, “Chloe, honestly, I will do literally whatever you want me to.”

*

Hugo opened the front door, dressed head to toe like Jack Skellington, mask and all. Chloe beamed, spreading her arms around him into a bear hug. It seemed like he’d shot up a few inches since she had seen him that summer, though he still seemed short for his age.

“Hi Hugo,” she said as she let him go. “Is this this year’s Halloween costume?”

“It’s my life,” he replied, straightening his bat-shaped bow tie.

Yikes. She decided to interpret that one as a joke.

“Chloeeeeeeeeeeeee.”

Jenny crashed into her at a run, nearly knocking her over.

Chloe hugged her back tightly. She had grown, too. How was she almost her height now?

“That is Hugo’s Halloween costume, right?” Chloe whispered, still just a tad concerned.

“It was at first, anyway,” Jenny explained. “But don’t even bother with him; he’s such a weirdo. Just come in.”

*

Her dad was at the kitchen island, dropping marshmallows into large mugs of hot cocoa, following Jules’ instructions.

Chloe wished her heart didn’t race like it did when he looked up to see her. She had kept repeating the phrase to herself on the way there: I haven’t seen him in three years.

Maybe childishly (she admitted it), she had chosen to visit that summer during the one week she knew he would be away on business.

Jules had mentioned, during that last visit, that he had taken up running. He looked now like he had just come back from an evening run, dressed in a loose t-shirt and shorts.

It bothered Chloe, for some reason. It made her feel like she had intruded upon their home without warning. Like she should apologize. But that—she tried to tell herself—that was all in her head.

Seeing her standing in the hallway, Jenny and Hugo close behind, Jules was the first to react. She looped around the island to approach her with widening arms.

“Happy Thanksgiving, honey,” she said affectionately. It seemed to surprise her when Chloe relaxed into the hug, and in response, she pressed a light kiss onto her head.

“The drive was okay?”

“Oh, totally fine.”

“Not too much traffic?”

That was her dad, who had made his way out from behind the island to join them. He carried a mug in each hand, offering one each to Chloe and Jules as he approached.

She opened her hands to receive the warm cup, taking a sip to mask her disappointment. But it was so stupid; what did it matter anyway if he hugged her?

“Thanks—um, yeah, it was kind of bad. There was an accident on I-85 which made it worse.”

“Oh, no,” Jules cut in. “How long did that set you back?”

“Just—I don’t know; maybe an hour?”

Chloe didn’t want to talk about traffic.

She was thankful when Hugo, ever-reliable in situations like this, announced that this conversation was “dull as crap” and started pulling Chloe away by her open hand. A little wave of cocoa spilled over the brim out onto the tile floor.

“Hugo, don’t be rude. And could you at least take off that mask while your sister’s visiting?”

He reluctantly slid the skeleton’s face off of his own.

“But Chloe, so sorry to make you stand here while my offspring shames me; come take a seat.” She gestured towards the living room.

Her dad placed a hand on Jules’ arm.

“I’m just going to take a quick shower,” he said.

Chloe thought she could see a flash of annoyance in her eyes, but it was gone as soon as she noticed it.

Maybe it was because she was busy looking at Jules that he startled her as he came closer, reaching out and pressing a scratchy kiss on her cheek.

“I’m so glad you could make it,” he said.

Caught off guard, she had recoiled a little, and wished immediately, as he moved back, that she could have a do-over.

When Jules spoke, it was with just the slightest hint of a sigh.

“Come on, sweetie.” She started walking towards the living room. “Tell me about how school is going.”

*

Memory #2

I love, I really love, to watch Beca working on her music.

Like, if I had to choose one thing in the world to do for the rest of my life, it would probably be that. She just gets so serious, and her headphones make her look so tiny, and when she figures something out she lights up. I could watch it all day. (Actually, I have watched it all day.)

But anyway, this memory is kind of a mixture of a bunch of favorite things, because Beca was working on a new mix while wearing exactly zero pants, and her shirt was totally unbuttoned.

It had taken me forever to convince her to get out of her bed so we could listen to what she was working on. She was being kind of cranky about it. Also, she kept saying that she was trying something a little different, and she wasn’t sure if it was working. And, “I’m not done yet, in case it sucks.”

(You know, it’s funny to me how she and Aubrey never got along, because in some ways they are basically the same person.)

She said she had to change a few things she had just thought of before I could hear it, and I was just like, um, when did you “just think of” things to change? Like five minutes ago when my tongue was on your stomach? And she just got really red—but anyway, none of this is the point of the story.

I guess like she felt she had to be hospitable or something, so she kept pointing out what she was doing, trying to show me what all the little lines in front of us meant, but I wasn’t even trying to follow along. I was just watching her.

After a million years, she told me it was ready for me to listen to it, and moved the headphones onto my ears. Then she looked back at the screen and just sort of awkwardly shook her hands for a second before deciding it was okay to play it.

And at the beginning it was just, like, a full orchestra playing an overture to something I didn’t recognize. And Beca was right—it was so not her usual style. But about thirty seconds in, layered over the instrumental music, the chorus to “We Found Love” came in. It was surprising how pretty it sounded. I was so happy because, like, first of all, when does Beca just sit around listening to Rihanna? And second of all, because she thinks about putting things together I never would.

But as it kept going… I don’t know what it was. Maybe it was because there were those string instruments in the background, or because she had slowed Rihanna down a bit, but it just began to seem just kind of sad. I mean, don’t get me wrong, you could definitely still dance to it, but the way she had put it together suddenly you realized how the lyrics were describing something kind of broken and desperate. But it was so beautiful, and it wasn’t like anything else I’d heard her put together before.

My eyes were definitely tearing up by the end because… well, I don’t know why. I just kept thinking, like, Beca made this, she must have felt the way this song sounds at some point, and I just really hated that thought. I never wanted her to feel that way ever again.

She saw my eyes, I think, so she got really apologetic and started asking me what was wrong. I didn’t really know what to say, so I just told her she was so talented. She made some stupid comment about how she’s really not, so I just smiled back at her as hard as I could until she gave up on being annoying about herself.

So then she started showing me some other things about how it all worked, but she was giving me all these answers to things that weren’t my real questions.

I asked her, how did you get into this stuff in the first place? She seemed kind of surprised by that. It took her a minute to answer.

She told me she had started mixing songs about three years ago. She was staring at her computer screen and not at me—I think because she knew that I knew that three years ago was when her parents had split up.

I asked her how she even found out about it, though, and I didn’t say it but I was thinking, like, no way was little teenaged Beca wandering around the club scene of Portland. She looked kind of embarrassed but finally told me that her cousin Patrick (I had to remind her that I had just met him two weeks ago in Maine) had forced her to watch this documentary called Speaking in Code which is about electronic music, I guess…

And before I could let her finish the story I was just like, well, well, well, the great Beca Mitchell, turned on to DJing by a movie, of all things. But she insisted that she hadn’t liked the movie itself, which was “totally fucking boring.”

So I asked her what it was about it, then, and she had to think for a second. She was taking too long to answer so I just started moving my fingers along the side of her leg, which, in all fairness to me, as I already said, was pantsless. I don’t think that helped her think much, but she managed after a while.

She told me—this part I couldn’t ever forget—that she had kind of realized watching the thing that music might feel like something totally wild, something that just kind of sweeps you away, but actually it’s something you can control, if you know how to do it. Something you can make better. And you can make other people feel that too.

The way she said it, I don’t think she had ever really put words to it before.

But it was like I could see her, so clearly, as she must have been back when she was sixteen, realizing that all of the awful things she was feeling could change into something wonderful if she could just find the right equipment to transform it with. It made so much sense to me.

I think what I love most about Beca is that crazy drive she has to take so many lonely pieces, of songs, of whatever, and put them together into something beautiful and whole. All her sharp edges, all her moodiness—it totally makes sense when you realize how many things she’s trying to feel at the same time, all the scraps she’s trying to connect.

She makes things better. She does it all the time with her music, she definitely did it with the Bellas, and I think, at least a little bit, she did it with me.

Anyway, I just asked her to play it for me again.

It was even more amazing the second time around.

*

“What’re you doing?”

Chloe had been so caught up in writing, she had almost forgotten where she was. The hot cocoa on the table, half-finished, had gone cold a few hours ago.

Jenny was in her pajamas—a faded shirt from the softball team she had recently quit, and sweatpants. She might have been Chloe’s mini-me, but she had never really bothered with clothes the way her older sister had.

Chloe patted the seat on the couch next to her.

“It’s just my journal.”

Jenny moved into the space next to her, leaning against her arm.

“You have a journal? Do you write in it every day?”

“Almost. But I only write when I want to.”

Jenny reached out to touch the light blue cover of the book in Chloe’s hands.

“Dad keeps trying to get me to keep a diary. He says it will be fun to read later. For the memories and stuff.”

“Oh.”

“Actually, he wrote a bunch when he was a kid. He still has them. Hugo and I read them out loud to him once and it was so funny. He was such a nerd.”

She laughed a little, remembering it, and Chloe tried to join her.

“I could show them to you later, if you want.”

“Oh, no, that’s okay.”

Jenny opened the book slightly, without reading it, letting the pages fall. Chloe let her.

“Are you writing about us?”

“Not right now. But I have written lots of pages about my lovable but nosey little sister, FYI.”

Jenny smiled as she opened the book slightly again before letting it drop.

“Then what are you writing about?”

As with her recent psychic encounter, Chloe regretted she didn’t have a word to describe what Beca was to her.

“Um, about someone I know.”

Jenny gasped. “Your boyfriend?”

She was almost sorry she had to disappoint her. “No, definitely not.”

“Oh. A friend?”

“Sort of. I guess.”

(Beca, honestly, had really never been that to her, either.)

“Is it Aubrey? I really liked her.”

Chloe had forgotten she had met her, over breakfast after Aubrey had unexpectedly come up that other Thanksgiving. Which, like, how could she have forgotten? It had been so cute to watch them realize they could do that piano duet together.

“Oh, no, not Aubrey. But she really liked you too, Jenny.”

Her sister looked a little more serious as she offered her next guess.

“Is it Beca?”

Chloe was sure all of the color in her face must have drained out immediately.

“How… how do you know about Beca?”

“Um, from you, obviously.”

Chloe just looked back blankly. Jenny rolled her eyes.

“Hold up a second. I’ll be right back.”

She scurried off, returning a minute later with a large pile of envelopes in her hands—Chloe’s letters.

She cleared her throat dramatically as she sat back down, pulling a letter out of one of the envelopes.

“Exhibit A. ‘So I won’t know if I’ll be able to come over spring break, since I might be going to the Finals for my a cappella group then. I’ll definitely let you know. But honestly, there’s no way we won’t make it, because my friend Beca who arranges all our music is a total genius.’”

All right, so, that wasn’t that bad.

“Oh, okay, yeah. I guess I did mention her, then.”

Jenny shook her head.

“Exhibit B.” She opened up a letter under the first. “‘I’m actually taking a course this semester on audio engineering (like, mixing music) which I never would have taken, except that my friend Beca is really into that kind of thing and maybe I should have some idea of what she’s talking about, like, one tenth of the time.’”

Whoops. That was worse, but at least she didn’t sound totally obsessive.

“Exhibit C.”

Crap.

“‘I get why you’d be scared of them, but dogs are so awesome! My friend Beca is actually kind of afraid of them too, but I made her come to a dog park with me last week and I think we’re making some real progress. She even kind of smiled when a little one jumped up on its hind feet to lick her face. It was so cute.’”

Okay, fine, whatever, she was a stalker.

Around Exhibit J, Chloe placed a hand on Jenny’s, halting her.

“Please stop. Yes, I am writing about Beca.”

She looked smug.

“I thought so.”

Chloe picked up some of the letters left in Jenny’s pile. Skimming through her own words, it seemed that Beca’s name did come up about once a letter.

Even after she had broken it off. God, she was in so deep.

“You should tell her to come here sometime,” Jenny said hopefully. “I feel like I know her already, anyway.”

“I don’t know.” Chloe reached over to the cold cup of cocoa, if only for a distraction. “I don’t know if she’d want to.”

“Why?” Jenny rummaged through the pile. “Here. You had Christmas with her family, didn’t you? She probably wants to meet yours, too.”

Yes, she had.

(Reflexively, she tried to push away the image that forced itself immediately into her mind: Beca, cheeks red from the cold, handing Chloe a book with woolen-gloved hands.)

“Maybe,” Chloe said, too softly. “Maybe next year.”

That was good enough for Jenny, anyway.

“Or I could come visit you. At college.”

It’s possible that had been her plan all along. Her eyes glowed with the prospect.

“If it’s okay with your mom and dad, you and Hugo could come, like, any time. Really.”

Jenny gagged. “Ew, no. You don’t want Hugo there. None of your friends would want to hang out with someone so weird.”

Actually, Chloe thought, he’d probably fit right in.

“I think he’d be okay. But—” she playfully flicked one of her letters at Jenny. “It is way past your bedtime, isn’t it?”

“I’m thirteen. I don’t really have a bedtime.”

“Well, I’m going to sleep, anyway.”

It wasn’t really true.

But she needed to say something.

She wanted to have some time, when she got back to her room, to write down what she couldn’t help remembering. Otherwise, she knew, it’d push its way into her dreams.

*

Memory #3

I spent Christmas in Maine.

It wasn’t even really a question, really. Beca just started talking about what we’d do while we were there, and maybe she didn’t want to ask, like, is there anyone else you’d rather spend it with? But there was no one else.

I had never actually been in real snow before. I mean, I’d seen snow (like, falling from the sky) most of the years I’d been at Barden, but this was something totally different.

We were making our way through almost a foot of it, I think, by a brook near the cottage. It was so quiet. Well, except for Ethel Rosenberg, Arnie’s ancient dog, who kept barking whenever she found something moving in the snow that scared her.

Beca kept saying how annoying she was, and complaining that her mom had asked us to walk her, but I think both of us were totally happy to have an excuse to be out there together.

The snow looked so soft, I was kind of surprised when I reached down to grab some and it hurt to hold it. I mean, obviously I knew it was frozen, but it just looked so pretty. Beca kept literally rolling off her gloves and offering them to me, and I kept saying I was fine.

Beca said she didn’t know why Arnie insisted on bringing Ethel to Christmas every year if he couldn’t even walk her. Why didn’t he just leave her with his neighbors like over Thanksgiving? I said I thought she was totally sweet. Beca warned me not to say that to Arnie because he already liked me too much and kept expecting us to hang out with him. I said I thought he was totally sweet, too.

She told me that her family was about ready to trade her for me, which, she added, she was honestly okay with, and I blurted out, who do they think I am to you?

It was the question that, I think, neither of us had really wanted to bring up, because at least for me, I had no idea what the answer was. I just knew I wanted more and more Beca, and I was getting it, so why ruin it? But I couldn’t stop myself from asking.

She was wearing this long grey scarf over her coat and as soon as I asked she started fidgeting with it, like she always does when she’s nervous. She said she didn’t really know what they thought… they just knew she really wanted me there.

Ethel started barking at a stray dry leaf which had blown over from the brook. Beca looked distracted for a second, but I really couldn’t stand for that to be the end of the conversation.

So I asked, what do you think we are?

Ethel started tearing apart the leaf with her teeth. Beca shrugged and said she didn’t know.

I reached over to take her hand and said, me neither. I was so worried I’d scare her away. I told her all I knew was that I really didn’t want it to end. When I said “end” she started shaking her head. And she said, “me neither.”

But then she went on: “well, I don’t know, I guess it’s a thing to experiment in college, right?”

I remember whatever happiness I was feeling kind of plummeting when she said that.

Was that all we were? Was that all she felt when I touched her? And meanwhile, I had been comforting myself by saying that “girlfriend” wasn’t a good enough word for what I wanted from her in the first place.

I didn’t really respond. Her hand was still in mine and I remember being annoyed by some snow that had made its way into my boots. I kept repeating in my head, I could be home right now. I could be warm.

We walked without speaking for a while. I’m pretty sure she knew she had said the wrong thing—she was kind of kicking at the snow as we went.

I was thinking about all the records I’d picked out for her in my bag, her Christmas presents. I was so glad I hadn’t given them to her yet.

Then, Ethel decided to stop moving.

Who knows what was going on with her, but she had literally just decided to lie down on a rock next to the brook and not get up. Beca was calling her, but without much luck. She took her hand out of mine so she could walk over and try to pull her by the collar back into the snow. Ethel whimpered. Poor baby.

Beca just kept trying to bargain with her, as if she understood English, telling her she’d feed her scraps under the table later if she came. She took a little treat out of her bag and dragged it in front of the dog’s face. Nothing.

I still wasn’t that happy, but Beca was so cute as she tried to lift under Ethel to carry her back. She kept slipping out of her grip.

So finally I came over and knelt down to say hi to the dog’s sad little face. When I opened my arms to pick her up, I swear, she basically melted into me.

So we started walking back, my arms full of dog (she was shivering against me, such a baby), and I could feel Beca’s eyes on me, even though I wasn’t looking at her.

When we could see the cottage, Ethel leapt out of my arms and started running lopsidedly towards the porch where she knew Cathy would let her in.

I moved to follow after her. But then Beca said “wait,” and held out her hand for me to take again.

I looked at it and just felt so tired, like, what were we even doing?

But I was never any good at saying no to her, so I took it.

She walked me out to the rocks and, like, of course I knew where she was taking me. I remember thinking kind of angrily, like, oh, here’s where all that experimenting started. We didn’t go as close to the water, though. We stayed back, leaning against the rocks.

The sun was setting, and I had to give up trying to be mad at winter. The snow on the shore kept catching all kinds of pink and golden light and, watching it, I didn’t even feel cold anymore.

And Beca was there, holding my hand, wearing a wool hat and looking not at all like a badass.

I wasn’t mad at her. Really. I was just mad that I couldn’t stop loving every stupid detail of who she was, and she didn’t love me back.

Well, that’s what I was thinking, anyway.

Then she asked, “Can I give you your Christmas present now?”

I wasn’t ready for that question at all. She was so eager, like, there was this little smile on her face she kept trying to kill as it came back.

I said, but it’s not even Christmas Eve yet.

“Please? The waiting has sucked.”

And I still don’t get it, like, how does she go from calling me an experiment to being so desperate to give me a present in the span of, like, five minutes?

So I said she could do whatever she wanted.

She reached into her bag and pulled out this really thin book, and I remember she kind of held onto it and looked at it for a second before handing it to me.

And I took it from her hand carefully—the binding was kind of coming apart—and then I saw the title: У самого моря, “by the sea,” and I thought, oh my God, she planned this, she totally planned this whole thing.

She stumbled a bit as she tried to tell me that Arnie had helped her choose it, and it was a first edition if that mattered to me, and she was my favorite poet, wasn’t she?

She was. And I was already holding it like it was made completely of gold before I opened up the cover and saw the inscription.

And I was just like, oh my God, do you see this? And she obviously just stared down at the Russian words like, what are you expecting me to get out of this, Chloe, but I was so excited because she had actually signed it. I translated for her—“with love, A”—and I showed her the signature, which I already knew so well, the A with the line through it.

And I think I was rambling at that point, wondering who the inscription was for, telling her that Akhmatova had had all these lovers so it might have been one of them, and Beca was just really quiet and smiling at me.

At some point I finally stopped talking and I realized that I had been completely out-gifted. That had basically never happened to me before, and it was Beca who had done it.

The sky was getting darker, and redder. I put the book back in her bag so that my hands were free to move to her face—she was so cold, but so were my fingers—and I remember thinking, if she needs to call this “experimenting” to feel safe, then okay, that can be the word we use for it, just please, please don’t let it end.

*

The next morning, Chloe was standing bewildered over a cutting board, hoping that there wasn’t actually a wrong way to chop vegetables. She was doing her best to conceal that despite being twenty-two years old, she had never done it before.

And, really, it was hard enough to focus on not slicing her fingers off without also starting to think, every few seconds, about that text that had woken her up at 3 AM that morning, from just the person whose hold on her she had been striving to loosen.

Just had an idea for the Semi-Finals set that’s going to blow your mind. Your mind, specifically. I’ll tell you about it when we get back. Happy Thanksgiving, Chlo.

(This whole “being good friends and co-captains” thing… it was overrated.)

“Are these carrots the way you want them? Like the right size?”

Jules tilted her head as she looked at the results of Chloe’s attempt, then gave a generous nod.

“Those are fine. Maybe just a little thinner.”

Chloe scrambled to split the chunks she’d already chopped in half.

Jules had just emptied a small bowl of chopped onions into a skillet, and it was weird how quickly the smell brought Chloe back to her days of sitting uselessly in the kitchen while Aubrey cooked for them.

“That’s great, Chloe; I don’t need more than that. Could you grab me the unopened grinder of pepper from the cabinet?”

“This cabinet?”

“Yes, thank you, sweetie.”

Thankfully, the pepper was close to the front of the spice shelf. She didn’t really trust herself messing with any of this, no matter how small the detail.

“Thank you; that’s perfect,” Jules said, undoing the plastic wrap around the bottle of pepper. “So, tell me, what are you thinking about for your plans next year?”

Oh, that.

“I’m not really sure yet.”

Jules used the knife to empty the cutting board full of carrot slices, then a second cutting board of celery, into the pan.

Maybe she was just focusing on the food, but she didn’t speak for about a minute.

“You know, Chloe, if you wanted to take some time off after graduation, you could always come stay with us for a while. You wouldn’t have to ask. You’d just tell me when you were coming and that would be it.”

Chloe felt her face warming up as she offered it. How could something said so kindly make her feel so awful?

“I wouldn’t… thank you, Jules, but I wouldn’t ask you for that. And things are great at Barden.”

Jules continued silently sautéing the onion mixture.

“And anyway, I don’t think I could leave the Bellas right now. We’re just starting to get noticed. We actually just got invited to perform at this event for the President’s birthday; it’s totally insane.”

“Are you really—” Jules stopped herself. She turned off the heat on the stove, and turned towards Chloe. “Are you really thinking of failing on purpose for the third time?”

Well, when she said it that way, it did kind of sound crazy.

“I’m just finding it very hard to understand.”

You and everyone else, Chloe thought. She chewed on the inside of her lips, trying to come up with some explanation for her choices.

“I’m just… I’m not ready, I don’t think.”

Jules, her arms folded, was looking at her with unbearable sympathy.

“I know it’s not my place,” she said eventually, softly, “but there are people at Barden who can help you talk through this… not that you need… just, it’s normal to be afraid of graduating. I know I was.”

Chloe was shaking her head unconsciously as Jules went on.

“If you wanted me to sort it out, to call and make an appointment for you, or anything… Chloe, I just want to help.”

How to say, like, oh no, I have an alternate plan, it involves following the journaling instructions of a psychic I met in a strip mall and staying a Bella forever; I definitely have my life under control?

“Thank you, Jules. But, um… I would let you know. If I needed help.”

Jules turned the heat on the burner back on, but, judging by her face, she didn’t believe what she had just said in the slightest.

“I’m sorry,” Chloe added timidly.

It was surprising how comforting the hand on her arm was.

“No, honey. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

There was more to it than that, they both knew; there was so much more to say. But Jules just turned off the heat again and started scraping the contents of the skillet into a large bowl.

Chloe stood there, she wasn’t sure how long, as Jules kept adding ingredients, afraid to ask if there was any other way she could help.

“Well, that should do it for now,” Jules said as she placed the bowl in the refrigerator. “Thank you for allowing me to use you for hard labor.”

She was just being kind, obviously, unless Chloe’s handing-pepper-to-people skills were more impressive than she had realized.

“Well, thank you for teaching me some of this stuff. I’ve never cooked for Thanksgiving before.”

“It’s late enough for wine, isn’t it?” Jules asked, already opening a bottle with a corkscrew. “I think it’s time for a break.”

*

Memory #4

Stacie threw a party for all the Bellas on the afternoon of Valentine’s Day. It was kind of a surprise, because, like, out of all the people you’d think would be busy that day… but it felt right, anyway, to spend a holiday about love together as sisters.

Which would have been great and all if the Trebles hadn’t crashed it.

Okay, “crashed” is a strong word. I think it just started with Amy inviting a few of them as her “plus three” and it was kind of a slippery slope from there.

And I’m really just being cranky as I write this down because I didn’t know they would be there, and when I showed up at Stacie’s apartment after I got out of class, Beca was drinking punch in a corner of the living room with Jesse and Benji.

I want to be really clear on the fact that I’m not, like, a crazy jealous person. Of course Beca can talk with anyone she wants to! It’s just that when I walked in she was laughing at someone’s joke, and it definitely wasn’t mine.

I guess my expression was pretty obvious because Cynthia-Rose’s first words to me at the door were, “get it together, girl.” So I did my best to smile through a hug with Stacie, who was already drunk and slowly taking off pieces of clothing.

It was when I pulled back from Stacie that I saw that Beca had noticed me. I guess that should have made me feel better, because she looked so happy.

When I came a little closer, she shrugged her shoulders a bit shyly before I pulled her into a hug. I mean, considering that I had just left her room like seven hours before that, it wasn’t a bad welcome.

Oh my God. I miss her so much.

I was still kind of holding onto her hand when Jesse and Benji said hi. I asked them what they were all talking about, and Jesse answered they were discussing going to see The Hobbit together.

I pointed out that Beca doesn’t like movies. Jesse said, “oh no, I fixed that years ago.” And Beca was like, “jerk, I’ve only known you for a year and a half.” Then he mentioned something about it feeling like so much longer, being such an epic saga.

Basically, the whole conversation was awful. Benji was kind of cute, though. He kept trying to talk about how he and Jesse had dressed up for the premiere, but Jesse was more interested in telling Beca they’d have to watch the original trilogy together before they all went.

And it was probably the first time that I wished that Beca and I talked about him, like, ever. Why had they broken up? Did Beca still like him? Why had she been okay with dating him and not me?

Anyway. Jesse offered to go get more drinks, and I think I’m probably making this up, but I really thought I heard him say to Benji as he walked away, “and so Round Two begins.”

So then we were alone, kind of. And I must have been feeling kind of defensive because I actually whispered to her, I will never make you watch a movie about hobbits, I swear.

She was still wearing the same shirt as that morning and it was one of those things that was driving me crazy because, really, did no one else notice she was walking around all day smelling like my perfume? And I guess not.

She laughed and told me she had a story to tell me later. And I was like, when later? Like tonight for dinner? She said, “if you’re free,” which, I mean, obviously.

As we decided that, Jesse came back with drinks and I don’t even want to keep talking about this part of the day because it’s not the point and it makes me sad. The good news was that he invited her over to watch The Fellowship of the Ring that night and she said that as wildly tempting as that offer was, she had plans.

So, anyway.

We met up again like two hours afterwards in front of her dorm. I don’t think anyone but me would have realized that she had dressed up, or, well, as much as Beca really dresses up, meaning she had put on a scarf and let down her hair. It made me feel better, anyway, about the forty-five minutes I had taken to decide on the dress and jacket I was wearing.

She didn’t see me approach from behind her, so I just slid my arms under hers and craned around to kiss her on the cheek. She started a little bit when I touched her, but relaxed as soon as she realized it was me. “Oh, hi, there.” And she asked, “Ready to get dinner? On this totally casual, not-at-all-significant day of the year?”

I kissed her on the cheek again and said, if you say so.

We walked to my car. She has this way of kind of hunching her shoulders and looking down as she walks, but that day I remember she kept glancing up at me.

When I was about to open my car door she looked across from the passenger side and said, “you look really pretty.”

It was so like her to wait until we had a whole car in between us before saying that.

I was feeling pretty great about everything as I drove us to my favorite restaurant. I had basically forgotten the whole Middle Earth threat (let’s call it that) even existed. I just let Beca plug her phone in and take over choosing the music, like she always did, and it seemed so normal, like why wouldn’t we do this every day for the rest of our lives?

Okay, so, also, when I had made the reservation on the phone with Anan, who owns the restaurant and is really friendly, it wasn’t like I had asked him to set up something romantic for us. I just mentioned I was coming in with Beca and apparently I have a problem because he took that to mean he should set aside a table in the corner with rose petals and candles and everything the other tables didn’t have.

I apologized a lot to Beca as soon as he walked away from our table. I promised it hadn’t been my plan. She just said it was hilarious, told me to chill, and tried to throw a petal at my face.

After they came by to pour us glasses of pink champagne (I apologized again), I asked Beca what her story was that she wanted to tell me.

She said, “Oh, right. I was just going to tell you that my dad was talking about you at lunch today.”

Which is definitely not what I expected, but okay.

I asked, wait, does he know about us? And Beca (I remember) shook her head really hard. She said he didn’t mention me by name—he just talks about his students sometimes.

I was back in one of his classes that semester, “Prison Literature: From the Gulag to Guantánamo,” and he was starting to forgive me for the whole failing thing.

She said that he was really hoping I would apply to grad school for next year. He told her that he could totally understand why someone with a soul would want to stay away from academia, but that (I guess he said this, or maybe Beca was exaggerating) I was the most talented student he’d had in years.

How do you know he was talking about me? I asked.

She said, “apart from the whole, you failed his class once for no reason thing? It was obvious.”

Apparently he told her it wasn’t even that I was smart that he thought I would make a good professor. It was (she lowered her voice, imitating him) that I understood how hard it was to be a human being, and still loved the world anyway. He said that students need to learn that from their teachers.

Beca looked really pleased with herself, or with something, when she said that.

Anan came over himself to take the order and when he turned to Beca actually said, “and for the lady?”

Oh my God, it was embarrassing. Looking back on it, though, he was being really sweet.

When he left Beca leaned in and whispered, smiling, “‘the lady’? What does that make you?”

But when we got over that, she asked me, “so do you think you’re gonna do it?”

When I asked what she meant, she reminded me: grad school. “Are you going to apply? He said a lot of programs have spring deadlines, especially abroad.”

Abroad? Why would I move anywhere I’d have to take a plane from if I wanted to see her?

I told her I didn’t know if I would even get in, and she said, “I don’t know. The way he put it, you’re sort of hot shit.”

I told her I didn’t know if that’s what I wanted to do. I was thinking of maybe looking into music teaching programs, but I didn’t know. She started asking questions, like what programs, where were they, when would they start.

The truth was, I didn’t know.

Or I could just stay here, I said.

I think she thought I was joking.

*

“Oh—I’m sorry, Chloe; I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“What?—oh… no, you’re not.”

“I thought you and Jules were cooking.”

Hearing her name, Jules moved into the living room from the kitchen hallway.

“We were just taking a little break. Do you want a glass of wine, honey?”

Chloe set down her journal on the table, leaving her pen on top of it. She scrambled to bring her feet back down to the floor, in case he wanted to sit down on the couch.

“Sure, that would be great.”

Her dad sat down in the armchair next to the fireplace, across the room from Chloe.

“So,” he said. She smiled feebly in response.

“This is always how Jules cooks, you know,” he told her after a moment. “Twenty minutes of work, then an hour-long wine break.”

Jules couldn’t hear them, but that didn’t stop her from joining into the conversation loudly from the kitchen.

“So Chloe was telling me,” she intoned, “that her a cappella group was just invited to perform for the President.”

“Well, no,” Chloe corrected hastily, looking at her father. “I mean, there will be lots of groups there. It’s a big event.”

“That’s incredible.”

“Isn’t it?” Jules asked, entering the room and walking towards the armchair with two glasses of wine in hand. “We’ll have to try to get her to sing for us, finally, at some point this weekend.”

“I mean, it’s really more about the whole group. The girls are amazing.”

“She’s being modest,” Jules explained, coming around to sit next to Chloe on the couch. “As if the group’s captain has nothing to do with its success.”

“Um, co-captain, actually. And Beca…”

She didn’t even finish her sentence. She was too exhausted to explain how good Beca was.

“Oh, stop. It’s no use pretending you aren’t talented. We’re not fooled, are we, David?”

She flashed him a look that resembled a warning. He smiled, and shook his head.

“Not at all.”

“You know,” Jules said, turning towards Chloe, “the high school Jenny will be starting at next year has a very strong arts component. It’s one of the reasons we chose it; you know how creative she is.”

“Oh, yeah! She told me in one of her letters. She’s super excited.”

Jules took a leisurely sip of wine.

“And actually,” she added, “we’re good friends with the head of the Music department. I know you had talked once about maybe wanting to teach music… if you want, I could talk to her about job openings. You know, if you’d be open to moving just a little north.”

So they were back on this again. Chloe bit at her bottom lip as she tried to think of what to say next.

“I’m sure she has her own plans, honey.”

There was no mistake about it this time; Jules was definitely sending him a death glare. He looked a little chastised as he lazily swirled his wine.

“Well, just let me know,” she told Chloe, still looking over at her father. “You know we’re all in your corner.”

It was uncomfortable.

“I will. For sure.”

The conversation, after what felt like a long pause, moved steadily to Jenny’s and Hugo’s summer camp plans and the month they were all planning to spend in Québec that summer.

All way easier topics for Chloe to handle, even if her mind kept wandering back to the memory she hadn’t quite finished putting down on paper.

*

Memory #4, continued

So, I kind of got off topic. The important part happened after we got back to my place that night.

We were pretty much already nostalgic about how amazing the food had been, so we opened the leftovers and started slowly picking through them on the couch.

Anan had actually put all of these little carrot hearts into the incredible green papaya salad, and that had been mortifying at the restaurant, but at my place Beca was sitting really close and kept reaching over with her fork into the container I was holding to take more of them out.

We were talking about the Bellas.

The girls are used to winning now, I said, so we’re really going to have to push them to practice for the Semi-Finals.

Beca made this, like, little groan, and suggested we just give everyone a week off during midterms that semester. The American History class she was taking, she said, was kicking her ass.

I told her I was just worried we’d get complacent.

She rolled her eyes.

“Since when do you care about winning? You don’t even keep score for mini golf.”

I loved that. For a second, it was like none of the stuff that happened after that day existed, like I was still watching her chase after her runaway golf ball and gape at me as I kept getting hole-in-ones.

I don’t know, though, I guess she was right. I didn’t use to understand why Aubrey cared so much about if we won or not, but I definitely get it now.

If we don’t win, we stop practicing as much. And if we stop practicing, we drift apart. That’s exactly what happened after Semi-Finals Beca’s freshman year. Winning keeps us together.

I remember I just handed her the whole container of the salad at that point, because she was the only one eating it.

I told her, I would feel bad if we didn’t win. Her music was so good that there was no excuse if we lost.

She put the salad container down on the table and said, “Chloe, you know you’re better than some stupid a cappella competition, right?”

I remember she was still kind of chewing as she said it, and there was also this little piece of cilantro from the salad she had just finished demolishing stuck in her teeth. I was so far gone because I was watching her like, you look beautiful when you chew, please keep doing that.

But I didn’t even really know what she meant. Winning at a cappella was like, the one goal we shared together. I didn’t even want to think about it not being a thing.

So when I didn’t respond, she said, “it’s important to me that you know that all of this is bullshit compared to you.”

I reached over and tucked a strand of hair that kept getting in the way of her serious little face behind her ear.

I asked, what is?

“All of it. The Bellas. Barden. We are all actual turds by comparison.”

I just kind of scrunched my face and shook my head because, no, Beca, that’s gross. But she kept going and using other kinds of synonyms for poop and I was just like, oh my God, we are eating, but she didn’t stop so eventually I threw some rice at her face.

She looked so offended. It was precious. Her jaw actually dropped.

And the rice had fallen onto the couch and she gestured to it and was like, “do you see the mess you’re making?” But then she grabbed a huge handful and threw it at me so it spilled all over the front of my dress.

And it was just one of those moments I’ve had with Beca where it’s like, so are we as fully grown adults really going to have a food fight in my living room now? And, yeah, we did.

She immediately jumped up after throwing that handful because she knew I was going to retaliate, and ran to the other side of the room.

I grabbed some and ran after her, and she started guarding her face with her arms and shrieking, “no, please, I surrender.”

So I stopped. But as we walked back to the couch she grabbed the rest of the carton and literally shook it out over my head. So she was laughing hysterically when I tackled her to the ground and started pelting clumps of it at her, saying something like, you little weasel.

I feel like I’m not describing this right, like I’m making it sound charming, but in real life the rice situation was really gross. Like, it was stuck in our hair and on the palms of my hands all meshed together with carpet fibers, I mean, it was just disgusting and I all-around do not recommend it.

But at the same time we were cracking up so hard I couldn’t even focus on actually meeting her lips as I leaned down to kiss her face.

She stopped laughing. I felt her hand on my shoulder, pushing us both up.

We sat on the carpet, looking around at what we had done.

“This is gross,” she said.

I said it really was. But it was her fault.

She scooted next to me and reached up to pull a few grains of rice out of my hair. It hurt a little as she slid them off, and when I flinched she started apologizing like crazy. She moved her hand to my head, as if that would undo the pain, but then she just stopped.

We sat there for a few seconds, her hand in my hair, just looking at each other. But then she moved in and kissed me on the cheek, so softly, just the way I had kissed her in front of her dorm earlier that night. I must have looked surprised—she was blushing.

Then she kissed my cheek again, just as sweetly, and then the corner of my mouth, and then she turned my face just a little more towards hers and brought our lips together. I was just thinking, like, wow, Beca keeps getting better at this.

And at some point she stopped and I whined, why.

But when I opened my eyes she looked like she had just remembered something extremely important.

“Oh my God, Chloe.”

I asked, what? Is everything okay?

She nodded. Her face was really thoughtful, even though it was kind of hard to take her seriously while we were still covered in rice.

Then what is it? I asked.

Her voice was so small when she said it.

“I love you.”

I think I actually forgot to breathe for a few seconds.

Even so, answering that was probably about the easiest thing I’ve ever done.

I love you too, Beca.

*

Chloe stared down at the words she had just written for at least a minute.

She had told Jules she would join her ASAP to keep helping with the cooking, but the thought of leaving her room to walk to the kitchen almost made her want to cry out of frustration.

Obviously, this stupid journaling task wasn’t working. Wasn’t she supposed to be breathing better? It was like she could feel her lungs caving in every time she re-read that three-word sentence.

Had it been real? Had she really whispered that? Why did it matter so much to her that no one, no one else knew what Beca said that night?

And how was it that there were only two months between then, when she had kissed her on the cheek like that, and the time she had left her alone on that park bench?

But that’s always how it ends for you, Chloe, isn’t it?

The voice in her head was even crueler than it had been for the past few months.

You’re always watching someone walk away.

She grabbed for her phone and plugged in her earbuds. Music doesn’t heal, maybe, but sometimes it distracts.

She moved to the bed and burrowed under the covers, pulling a pillow tightly against her chest, trying as hard as she could not to remember what another body would feel like there in its place.

*

She wasn’t sure how long she’d slept.

The nap, anyway, was interrupted by the sounds of harsh words outside her window. Her eyes fluttered open in confusion, and she took out her earbuds as she tried to determine if the voices were directed at her.

As she came to her senses, she thought, they must have just walked into the garden. Jules must have needed to pick some lettuce.

But telling that to herself was really only a way to distract from the meaning of the words she couldn’t help moving forward on her bed in order to hear more clearly.

“—she needs you, not me, David.”

“Who says she needs anything? Did she ask for your help?”

“No. She’s—”

“You’re pushing her, Jules. You keep pushing her into your life.”

“You mean into yours.”

“I didn’t say that.”

Chloe tried to think of any other possible interpretation of what they were saying, of anyone else they could be describing. But of course, as the tightening in her chest signified, it had to be her.

“Do you think she can’t tell that you don’t want her here? She’s a bright girl; she gets it.”

“Jules, I never said that!”

“You didn’t have to. It’s horrible, how you are when she’s here. Like she’s a distant cousin forcing herself on us.”

“The only one who’s forcing anything is you.”

Chloe considered closing the inch of the window that was open, but was too worried they’d hear her do it. She considered, alternatively, running away in the opposite direction as far as she could. But with all those possibilities in mind, she just sat there on her bed, unable to move, unwilling to tune them out.

Jules’ voice, when she spoke next, had softened.

“She’s so good, David. She’s sweet, and smart, and kind. And you’re missing all of it—just because being around her makes you feel guilty.”

Waiting to hear her father’s response to that was awful. But he didn’t say anything.

“She can’t help it that when she’s around, you remember that you hurt her. That you left.”

“It wasn’t like…”

“I know! But you did. You left her, with someone who was barely able to take care of herself most of the time. And you feel terrible about it.”

Chloe expected more screaming after that. She expected him to deny at least some of it.

But when he responded, his voice was strained.

“That… it wasn’t Naomi’s fault. She was a complicated person.”

“I know that. I’m sure she was.”

Their voices lowered, and Chloe couldn’t quite make out the words. In the meantime, what Jules had said echoed in her ears.

Barely able to take care of herself.

You left her.

It wasn’t long until her stepmother’s voice rose again.

“None of that matters now, David! What’s important is Chloe. She needs help. She needs to know that she’s not alone.”

“She knows that.”

“Can’t you see…?” Jules paused. She made an exasperated sound as she tried to find her next words. “It’s so clear that she doesn’t.”

“She knows we’re here for her. If she needs us.”

“My sense? She’s always felt alone. And she can’t leave Barden, because then she’s sure she will be. She—”

Her father cut her off.

“Jules, I can’t have this conversation any longer. You’re not a social worker anymore, and she’s not your client. She’s my daughter.”

“Yes, she is. So can you get over your shit and just be her father?”

*

Chloe was barefoot when she made her way along the path from the back door to the driveway. She hadn’t bothered to grab shoes, or even her phone, or anything but her keys.

Her father and Jules were still in the garden, and probably could hear her starting the car. She couldn’t bring herself to care.

She had no clue where she was going.

*

According to her car’s clock, it was four thirty in the afternoon when she pulled into the lot by the park.

It was weird—she knew she was weird, walking gingerly over twigs and stones with her bare feet on the trail, following the sound of the river. She exhaled thankfully when she got to the bank and saw it was empty.

But of course it was. Everyone was at home, getting ready for Thanksgiving dinner.

She closed her eyes and listened to the sound of the muddy water moving past the rocks. She didn’t understand why, but even after everything she had just overheard, the voice she kept hearing in her head wasn’t Jules’ or her father’s at all.

It was still Beca’s.

She could see her, too: leaning forward as she sat on the bench, her hands resting together in between her legs, staring at the ground as she realized what she was going to have to say next.

“You can’t stay for me, Chloe.”

But, of course, she had stayed. She hadn’t known how not to.

Maybe Jules was right.

*

She found her, after a while. She must have seen her car from the road.

Chloe’s eyes were still closed when she heard from behind her, “it’s so pretty out here, isn’t it?”

She didn’t answer.

“Especially in autumn. I love the leaves on the water.”

Chloe opened her eyes, and Jules was next to her, leaning against a tree.

She had prepared herself for that horrible look, the one she knew way too well by now: pity. But it wasn’t there. Jules’ eyes were only fond as they sought her own.

“I’m so sorry, Chloe,” she said. “I didn’t want you to have to hear any of that.”

Chloe could feel the corners of her mouth turn down of their own accord. No, please, she thought. I don’t want to cry.

She could her hear her own voice, higher than she wanted it to be, just like it always was when she got upset.

“He doesn’t want me.”

Jules brow furrowed with sympathy. She looked like she was about to contradict what she had said, but Chloe stopped her, holding up a palm.

“That’s okay. I mean, I already knew that, anyway.”

“That’s not... I know what it might have sounded like, honey, but it’s not true. I won’t lie to you; I’m angry at your father right now. But he loves you.”

Chloe shrugged.

She didn’t know how to tell Jules, like, it was fine, honestly. When had she ever not loved someone more than they loved her back?

She’d always been too much. She’d always held on too hard, and for way too long.

But sometimes even she had to let things go.

Jules squinted in thought. She took her phone out of her back pocket and took a minute to find something on it.

“Can I show you something, Chloe?”

She was holding out her phone towards her. Hesitantly, Chloe moved a little closer to take it.

It was a picture of an older woman with short grey hair and Jules’ own dark, warm eyes. She was laughing. Chloe had no idea why Jules was showing her the picture, but she found herself immediately liking the woman in it.

“That was my grandmother,” Jules explained softly.

Chloe looked at the wrinkles around the woman’s eyes. She could definitely see it.

“She’s beautiful.”

Jules smiled faintly. “She was. You know, she raised me, for all intents and purposes.” Her look was pointed. “My mother died when I was very young.”

Chloe moved her eyes away from Jules’ gaze.

“My grandmother, though,” Jules went on, resuming a more casual tone. “She was a really unique woman. Very funny. Filthy sense of humor, actually.”

Chloe laughed a little, turning back to the image on the phone. She could see that too.

“But not always the easiest woman to live with. She was…” Jules exhaled expressively. “She was a complicated person.”

A complicated person. Her dad’s words were still fresh in both their minds.

“She could get very angry. Temperamental.” She was silent for a moment. “Have you heard of the residential schools? In Canada?”

Chloe shook her head.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, honey, it’s okay. I think they called them boarding schools down here. They were schools where Aboriginal—you’d say Native American—children were sent, you know, to be ‘civilized.’ They were… well, they were often very violent. Abusive.”

“Oh. That’s… that’s so horrible.”

“Yes. Well.” She held out her hand, and Chloe gave her back her phone. “Anyway, my grandmother attended one.” She turned off her phone’s display. “I spent a long time feeling very upset about what had happened. What it did to her. Who she might have been…”

It was strange. As Chloe felt tenderness for her stepmother stir inside of her, she noticed she was breathing steadily for the first time all day.

Jules put her phone back into her pocket. She looked straight at her stepdaughter.

“People like you and me, honey… we carry around a lot of pain with us, and most of it isn’t even our own.”

Had she known that saying that would hit her the way it did?

Chloe folded her arms, smoothing over the goosebumps.

“I want you to know—this is really important to me—I want you to know that you aren’t failing. You aren’t,” she emphasized as she saw her shake her head. “With everything you’ve been through… it must feel impossible sometimes even just to get up in the morning. I know how hard you’re fighting. I am so proud of you.”

Her eyes, anyway, promised that she wasn’t lying.

So Chloe moved in until she was close enough for Jules to pull her in. She hiccupped, trying to force down tears, and her stepmother just shushed her comfortingly, as if she were a child. It felt so nice.

“Oh, Chloe,” she said, moving a hand gently over her back. “I know. I know.”

*

In all the commotion, they’d burnt the turkey. Jules and Chloe found David and Hugo googling ways to salvage it when they returned.

When her father saw Chloe come into the room, he stopped in the middle of his sentence.

“Oh, no, the turkey,” Jules said, bringing a hand up to her head. “That’s my fault.”

“The internet says we can just tear off the burnt skin,” Hugo shared. “But it’s kind of weird inside, too.”

Jules grabbed the pan holding the turkey with the oven mitts and unceremoniously relocated it into the large trashcan.

“So, pizza?” she asked, and Hugo pumped his arm in celebration.

David was still trying to catch Chloe’s eyes. When she moved quietly into the hallway to head back to her room, he followed her.

“Chloe,” he called out.

She stopped walking, but didn’t turn around.

“Listen, I… I’m not sure what you heard before…”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“No, it does,” he said, and his voice was so contrite, she had to turn to see him. “I want you to know… I mean, of course I want you here. I’m glad you’re here.”

He looked kind of puzzled as he said it, like he knew there was something else he was supposed to add but couldn’t remember what.

Chloe felt similarly. She didn’t know what he wanted her to say.

“Oh. Okay.”

They stood in the hallway for a minute, waiting for the other to break the silence.

It was her dad who finally did.

“I never wanted to hurt you.”

She guessed—she could believe that was true.

The thing is, though, on any other day, a conversation like this would have gutted her.

But when she thought back to Jules holding her at the riverbank, it just felt like nothing else really mattered. She felt—well—she felt kind of strong.

“I know,” she said.

She wanted to add, “it’s okay,” but couldn’t, not quite.

For the time being, it was enough.

*

After dinner, she stared at the next open page in her journal determinedly.

Exhaling a deep breath, she picked up her pen.

*

Memory #5

I guess I was always going to have to write this one down eventually.

We didn’t talk about what she had said on Valentine’s Day again. Part of me really wondered if I’d made it up. I would have been sure I did, if I didn’t have some proof of that night from the rice that, no matter how many times I tried to deep-clean, kept showing up whenever I sat down in my living room.

If anything, she actually felt a little more distant after it. Not literally, because we were still together almost every night, and we were spending more time on the Bellas than ever, but, I don’t know. She wasn’t being sweet like she had been that night.

That year, when we went to Lincoln Center for the Finals, we decided to spend a few extra days there staying with Beca’s aunt Eileen, who lives on the Upper West Side. Patrick, her son, was visiting from Boston, and was totally just there because Beca is his favorite cousin, but both of them can’t even admit that they like hanging out with each other so he was saying he was there to visit friends from home.

The night we got there, Patrick let us into the apartment because Eileen wasn’t going to be back in the city till the next day. He led us up onto the rooftop terrace on the top of their apartment building, and we sat down in these, like, futuristic chairs and looked out at the city all lit up.

Patrick was sitting really low in the chair, with his legs spread apart, like Beca does sometimes. Everyone on that side of her family is basically exactly the same. He reached into his pocket to pull out a pack of cigarettes and asked us, “anyone care for a cancer stick?”

Beca’s eyes got really big, and she looked at me quickly for a second before hitting him on the back of the head. “Asshole,” she said.

It was okay, though. I guess he is an asshole, kind of, but I like Patrick.

But Beca did take a cigarette. When he held up the lighter in front of her, her face was caught in the glow. Even though I really wanted to reach over and put that stupid thing out, she looked so pretty I could hardly stand it.

He started talking about this documentary he was working on, which I guess was about anarchist punk collectives in his neighborhood of Boston. Beca was telling him that he was a walking cliché and he was like, “what, should I be making a documentary about college singing competitions instead?”

Finals was the next day and I think Beca, even though she would never tell him that, was actually feeling kind of nervous. We were both feeling the pressure, I think, whether or not we’d be able to win for a second time.

I said something like that, maybe just to let her know that I was worried too, that after not winning three times and then having won, it’d be hard not to win again.

And Patrick did the math in his head and was like, “how many years have you been at school?”

I told him I was a supersenior.

“She’s graduating this year,” Beca said, like it wasn’t even a question. I felt kind of nervous, but I didn’t contradict her.

He asked me what I was planning to do afterwards and I didn’t say anything, so she said I was thinking about teaching music, or going on to grad school to study literature.

I said, well, we’ll see, I’m not sure yet what I’m going to do, and before she could say anything else I asked if I could get drinks for everyone. Patrick gave me the key to the beer fridge they have up on the roof. To be honest, I was kind of hoping for something stronger, but I think that’s all they had.

So when we went to bed later, I definitely wasn’t drunk, just a little bit buzzed. I didn’t think Beca was either, but she was acting, I don’t know, kind of strange.

Patrick had gone out to meet up with friends, and I had asked her if she could give me a tour of the apartment, but she just pulled me by the hand into the room we were staying in and started kissing me hard.

As I’m writing this, I’m thinking, maybe it wasn’t that strange, but I think that part of what was weird about it was that Beca, even after all those months, was still always kind of shy when we were together. And she was never rough, not at all, like, she wouldn’t bite my neck or push me on the bed or any of the things she was doing that night.

So after I had let her pull my shirt off over my head I stopped her and asked, Beca, are you okay?

And I don’t think I was imagining it—she looked so sad. And it was kind of scary, like, how intensely she was watching me. Like she was starving and I was in charge of the food.

She didn’t say anything so I asked, what’s wrong? And I stopped her again from kissing me.

She had been pressed up so close, and when I said that, she let go of me and moved back.

“Maybe we should just get some sleep,” she said. And then she mumbled, “I’m sorry.”

I tried one more time, like, do you want to talk about anything?

And she said, “no, I’m just pretty beat.” She hopped off the bed and walked over to her bag to get her toothbrush.

So I sat up and bent down to pick up my shirt from the floor. And I think I just sort of sat there on the bed with it in my hands until she came back from the bathroom.

She wasn’t looking at me. I told her I was just going to go change, and I got up to get my pajamas. And in the bathroom—this is sad, but I feel like I have to write it down anyway—I stared at myself in the mirror for a while, until I was sure it didn’t look like I was upset. My lips were sore and really red, and my body still wanted her. I told myself to stop being stupid.

I’ve been trying to figure out since then what was going on with her that night, but the explanation that keeps coming up is one I really don’t like—that she already knew what she was going to decide later on that trip.

Anyway. The next day, we won.

The morning after that, Eileen was showing all of the Bellas around her favorite parts of New York as a celebration present. We stopped at the High Line, which, according to what Eileen told me as we got on the train, was Beca’s favorite place in the city. I totally understood why. Something about the abandoned railroad tracks being made into something so alive and green… it’s just like her.

Eileen told us when we were going up the stairs that spring was really early that year because of how weird the winter had been. So the trees were supposed to be amazing.

They totally were. I didn’t even know trees up north could be that color of pink, or purple.

Oh, and Amy had bought us all ice cream from this farm store when Eileen had walked us through Chelsea Market. She said it was her second gift to us, after having won us Finals again that year. So Beca and I were sharing two scoops together in a bowl as we walked, one blueberry, one ginger. When we said we were going to share, Amy said something like, “anyone who’s shocked, raise their hand,” and no one did.

We didn’t talk much, on the High Line. She pointed out some of the pieces of art she liked, and this one spot where she and Eileen always brought bagels to eat when she visited.

She had straightened her hair that morning, and while I always like it best when it’s a little wavy, I loved how much like an actual, professional adult she seemed while she was showing me around.

Then she said that if I was okay with ditching the group for a bit, she had another spot she wanted to show me. I was so happy that she had planned something for me, again.

So we left the High Line on a different stairway than the one we had taken to get there, and I followed Beca as we walked up a few streets across to what at first looked like a giant warehouse. I didn’t understand why she’d taken me away from somewhere so beautiful to bring me there, but as we came closer I realized we were walking towards a pier.

I said, oh, I love the water, and she said that she knew that. I took her hand as she led me through this path full of trees and flowers to a park right on the river.

I pointed at the buildings on the other side of the water and asked, what’s over there? She said, “that is New Jersey, Simba. You must never go there.” And I didn’t even tease her about having used a movie quote as a joke, she was just so cute. I picked up the hand I was holding and kissed it, and it still tasted like ginger ice cream.

I was happy. I was, even though I did still feel like something was off, like Beca wasn’t totally there.

When we sat down on one of the stone benches, she said, “two a cappella championships under your belt before you graduate, that’s not bad.”

I didn’t get why she was so hung up on the graduating thing. It made me worried, like she wanted me to leave.

I said, Beca, if I stay, we can have two more years together.

I bit my lip after I said it. I was so nervous. I knew I was going to scare her away.

She moved her fingers to the hem of her shirt and started fidgeting with it.

After a moment, she said, “that’s kind of a lot.”

I wanted to say a lot of things. Like, Beca, you know it’s not experimenting, you love me, please don’t make me leave you.

All kinds of things.

But instead, I told her, I just mean, what’s the rush? Why not three a cappella championships? Why not four?

She wasn’t looking at me anymore. She wasn’t even looking at New Jersey. Her eyes were just turned towards the ground.

Then she said, “I hate this.”

I didn’t know what she meant. But she said it again.

“I hate this.”

She just seemed so sad. My hand was just about to reach out for her face, to bring her closer to me, maybe to kiss her, when she looked up.

It was like I had just been punched, hard, seeing those tears in her eyes. I had never wanted her to feel that way, never.

She told me, “Chloe, you can’t stay for me.”

I didn’t even respond.

She took in a breath, and said, “I think we should stop.”

I said, Beca, please. My voice was so low.

She pushed away my hand. I think that’s what hurt the most.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and she really looked it.

And, you know, I had never really been angry at her. I wasn’t angry when she left that stuffed whale in my car and ran away, or when she snapped at me after Semi-Finals, or over Christmas when she said what we were doing was normal in college.

And maybe I still wasn’t mad at her, sitting on that bench. But I was angry, for sure. I was furious that she couldn’t just leave it alone, that she couldn’t just let me stay and love her.

So I said, you should probably go.

And she just looked around at the park, and then at me, and said, “Chloe, I can’t just leave you here.”

And I told her, yes, you can, I have a subway card. And I said, I’ll sleep on the couch tonight. I said it a few times.

She looked so helpless. I didn’t want her to do anything I was asking her to do. I just wanted her to love me.

It actually kind of surprised me when she stood up. She didn’t move at first. She just looked at me.

“I’m so sorry, Chloe,” she said again, like it would make it better.

And then I watched her walk away.

*

Friday morning, Chloe was back at the river.

Jules had told her that there would probably be a few other families there that day, and there were. She watched two little boys climbing over the rocks, dipping their toes in the water. Jenny was watching for birds, carefully noting down finds in her ornithology notebook (which, apparently, was a thing).

Chloe felt strangely calm. She’d been so worried about remembering that last memory, but as soon as she’d finished writing it, her mind had gone totally blank and she’d went straight to sleep.

Now, she watched morning light hit the water and, with a flash of joy, she saw a dragonfly with bright blue wings skimming the surface.

Why was she happy, looking at it? It was so small, and its little green body looked almost jeweled. It’s kind of a waste, isn’t it? she thought. So much beauty for such a tiny thing.

The two boys had noticed it too. They were pointing at it as it flew away from the water, in Chloe’s direction.

The memories were all in her head, still, but it was weird. They weren’t pressing up against her mind anymore, not at all. She could flip through them like a book.

She thought of Beca’s earnest face, telling her that she liked that Chloe never did anything except with her whole heart.

She thought of her sitting in her desk chair, half-naked, trying to explain to Chloe so cautiously that when she was a teenager she’d thought she could use music to put everything broken back together.

She even thought of how she had stared at her, so hungrily, miserably, that night in New York.

All of Chloe’s want, all of her need for her was still there—she could feel it under the surface—but for the moment, all she felt was gentleness. She just wanted Beca to be so happy, to be totally whole.

The boys were running after the dragonfly, their bare feet kicking up the mud.

She felt so much.

Suddenly, with the sound of a bloodcurdling cry, Chloe realized that the smaller of the two boys had tripped over a stone as he ran.

His father heard him, and started running over from a nearby tree. Chloe, closer than the dad, rushed up and asked if everything was okay.

The little boy was grabbing his knee tightly and screaming.

“He’ll be fine,” the dad said to Chloe as he approached. “All right, Caleb, what happened to your brother?”

His older son explained as the dad sat down next to the injured boy, trying to get him to uncover his knee so he could look at it. “Come on, Noah,” he said.

Chloe watched the boy wiping away tears with the back of his hand, just like she did sometimes.

“Do you need me to get some Band-Aids? Or something?” she asked.

The father shook his head, lifting his bag towards her to show that he had some with him.

Eventually, Noah calmed enough to let his father put some Neosporin on his shaking leg, which had barely been scratched.

Caleb, the older brother, had found the dragonfly, resting on a leaf. To Chloe’s dismay, he moved quickly enough to crush it under his bare foot.

“Was that really necessary?” his father asked.

Noah having calmed down, his father picked him up, and called for Caleb to follow along.

He thanked Chloe as they turned back towards their car.

“Oh—no problem,” she replied hastily, watching them leave her alone on the riverbank.

She knelt down on the ground, and looked at the dead insect. Its legs were skewed in the wrong direction, and one of the wings had been torn off.

It was still really beautiful, she thought.

What happened next was kind of weird.

All at once—she can only describe it this way—she felt very close to things.

She felt close to the dragonfly, which was so small, and so fragile. She felt close to that kid, reaching with the back of his hand over his pained face to blot out tears. She felt close to Jenny, who was watching her as she knelt by the river now, wondering what was going on.

And elsewhere, too: she knew with total certainty that many things, many people, even ones she didn’t know, were near her broken heart, pressing in on every side. In that moment, anyway, she was the furthest thing from alone.

She thought of what Jules had said to her, that she held so much pain, and most of it wasn’t even her own. It was true, but it wasn’t only pain that she carried along with her, not by a longshot.

She could still hear Beca’s voice from across her room, just over a year ago, reading from one of Chloe’s favorite books: “Water the earth with the tears of your joy, and love those tears.”

“It’s so you,” she had said, and smiled.

Maybe it was.

She knew she looked totally ridiculous, but she almost couldn’t help it. She bent down and pressed her lips to the dirt.

She took in a breath of that sharp, sweet smell and let the earth smudge her forehead, pouring herself out in front of the fallen dragonfly, as if the love which filled her then was sacred enough, was devoted enough to raise the dead.

Chapter Text

Part III: Home: A Family Story

Who shall I thank—tell me: who—
for the quiet joy of breath, of life?

I am a gardener, but I am flower,
I’m not alone in this world dungeon…

Let this moment trickle uselessly down:
that lovely design is fixed forever.

—Osip Mandelstam, Stone (8)

Intermezzo: Junior Year of High School (November 2006)

When Chloe got home from the store, Aunt Sarah was smoking on the porch.

Sarah had asked Jonathan, the hospice nurse who visited a few times a week, if it was okay for her to smoke outside, and he had said it shouldn’t be a problem.

Chloe hated it. She wished she’d known her aunt was going to ask, so that she could have told him to lie—he probably would have. Chloe really liked him.

She rolled her bike into the garage and moved around to the front of the house. The ferns in the garden, she realized with a little embarrassment, were getting kind of out of control.

She carefully set down the grocery bag on the bench next to her aunt.

“They were out of cranberry sauce,” she said. “But I got everything else on the list.”

Sarah inspected the contents of the bag with her open hand.

“That’s okay. Thanks, Chloe. To be honest, I don’t know if she’s going to eat anything anyway.”

Chloe bit at the inside of her lower lip, and flinched at the pain that followed. She’d been doing that a lot lately, and it was sore.

“Jonathan said that was okay,” she said. “That it’s normal. I mean, that she doesn’t want to eat.”

Her aunt tapped her cigarette against the ashtray on the arm of the bench.

“That seems strange, though, doesn’t it?” she asked. “You’d think the body would put up more of a fight.”

There was a ladybug on the collar of Sarah’s shirt. Chloe followed it with her eyes as it fluttered its wings and sped off.

She grabbed the grocery bag.

“Um, so, the butter is probably melting. I’ll put it away.”

But as she moved to make her way to the door, her aunt placed a hand on her arm.

“Wait.”

Chloe knew the gesture was just meant to stop her from going inside, but she couldn’t help savoring the touch.

Her aunt was squinting against the sun, her other hand on her forehead over her glasses, looking directly at Chloe.

“Naomi told me what you asked,” she said.

Oh. That.

“I guess I’m kind of surprised,” she went on. “I thought you would want to be with your father, after.”

After: a word they had been using frequently, without ever finishing the sentence. No one wanted to be the first to say it.

Chloe looked down towards the floor of the porch as she answered.

“Well, I mean, my school is here. And, stuff.”

Sarah didn’t respond at first. Chloe added anxiously, “it’d only be till college.”

The guilt filled her as soon as the words left her lips. It felt like signing a death warrant.

“Of course you can stay with me, Chloe, if that’s what you want. But I want you to think about it first, all right? I’m not home very often; I usually get back from work pretty late. And there’s no one else there.”

Chloe shrugged.

“That’d be okay. I wouldn’t, like… you wouldn’t need to be around a lot. Mom wasn’t, usually.”

She blushed after she said that—it sounded like she was blaming her.

Sarah watched her curiously.

“All right… well, just think about it,” she said. “Hopefully it’ll be a long time before we have to make that choice.”

They both knew it wouldn’t be.

“Yeah. A really long time.”

Her aunt nodded, and put out her cigarette.

*

“Mom? It’s Chloe.”

Jonathan had told her: introduce yourself when you see her. She might start to get confused; it’s nothing to worry about.

So far, that hadn’t been a problem. Her mom looked back at her from the hospital bed they had set up in her room with total recognition.

It was strange; she was actually starting to resemble the mother Chloe remembered a little more than she had for most of the past six months. Her hair had been growing back, maybe a little wavier than it had been in earlier years, and she wasn’t as confused as she had been during rounds of treatment.

As Chloe had come into the room, her mom had been squinting at the pages of a book in her hands. That was her new obsession. She hadn’t had much time to read before she got sick, but sometime during her first hospital stay she’d started making her way through a couple hundred pages a day.

It was good, Chloe guessed, that she had something else to think about. But about a month ago, her vision had started to fade.

“Hello, Chloe.”

She held out the book towards her daughter.

*

Chloe read to her every day. All day, really—as soon as she got home from school till she went to bed, and sometimes in the mornings as well, whenever her mother wasn’t sleeping.

They’d started with a list of books her mom had wanted to read: Fermat’s Enigma, Annals of the Former World, Unweaving the Rainbow.

Then, totally unexpectedly, one day her mom somewhat self-consciously asked if Chloe could pick up a Bible from the library. Neither of them had ever cracked the spine on that one before.

Her mom had listened without comment as Chloe made her way through the first few chapters. But after the sentence, “Enosh lived after the birth of Kenan eight hundred fifteen years, and had other sons and daughters,” she told Chloe to stop.

“Never mind,” she had said.

They’d gone back to some book by Stephen Jay Gould her mom had requested. But the next day, her mom, with less awkwardness the second time, asked, “could you bring a Qur’an, maybe?”

So they tried that one too. Then, on following days, they read the first few chapters of the Bhagavad-Gita, and maybe three pages of the Tao Te Ching.

Her mom never said anything as Chloe read, but she’d always stop her after a few minutes of reading scripture and ask her to go back to some other book.

One day, Chloe had just gotten to “yet through his actionless activity all things are duly regulated,” when her mom said, again, “never mind.”

“Okay,” she had responded, watching the space next to her mother on the bed and daring herself, as she did every day, to go lie down next to her. She never did. “What do you want to read next?”

Her mom had shrugged. She looked so tired.

“You choose something,” she said. “One of your books, maybe.”

That was surprising. She’d never asked anything like that before. Chloe’s mind spilled over with possibilities, all the different things she loved that, if her mom loved them too, would maybe mean something.

She went to her room and stared at her shelves with trembling excitement. There were so many options, but when her eyes stopped on the book she did take off the shelf, she knew she wouldn’t have really been able to choose anything else.

It was the closest thing she had to a Bible, anyway.

So she sat back down across from her mom, turned the cover that was almost falling off of the paperback, and began:

“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much…”

*

The book her mom was passing to her that day was Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Chloe tried not to recoil, as she took the book from her hand, when she noticed that her mom’s fingernail beds had gone a kind of bluish color.

“This scene really just won’t end, will it?” her mom asked, pointing to the spot on the page where she had left off. “Very heavy exposition. Sloppy writing in this volume on the whole, I think.”

Chloe sat back down in the chair.

“I guess,” she said. “It’s important for later on, though. You’ll see.”

“If you say so.”

She coughed.

“Are you okay?” Chloe asked.

She coughed again, and Chloe shuddered at the sound, the rattle of it. It doesn’t cause her any pain, she reminded herself. That’s what they had told her, anyway.

“Fine. Start reading.”

Chloe did.

“‘Five years ago you arrived at Hogwarts, Harry, safe and whole, as I had planned and intended. Well—not quite whole. You had suffered…’”

Her mom never said anything while she was reading, which is why it was such a surprise when she stopped her after only a page.

“Read those last few sentences again,” she said.

“Um, from where?”

Her mom flicked her hand dismissively. “Oh, you know, the part about the ‘ancient magic.’”

Chloe found the spot.

“‘You would always be protected by an ancient magic of which he knows, which he despises, and which he has always, therefore, underestimated—to his cost. I am speaking, of course, of the fact that your mother died to save you.’”

She knew her voice was wavering, and hated it. She cleared her throat.

“‘She gave you a lingering protection he never expected, a protection that flows in your veins to this day. I put my trust, therefore, in your mother’s blood. I delivered you to her sister, her only remaining relative—’”

“Stop.”

Chloe couldn’t tell if she was in pain, or just thinking.

After a few moments, she said, “that part doesn’t make any sense.”

She looked to her daughter, waiting for an explanation.

“Oh.” Chloe nervously played with the corner of the page. “Um, well, in the first book, if you remember…”

“No, I remember,” her mom interrupted her, pulling herself up with difficulty into a sitting position. “The ‘love leaves a mark’ comment. It bothered me then too. Are we supposed to believe Lily Potter uttered some sort of, you know, incantation as she died? Is that how the protection was transmitted? Was she using her wand?”

It was a lot of words. At lot more than her mom usually said at once, even before it had been a struggle to get them out. She stopped a few times through her speech to catch up with herself, taking in shallow breaths.

Chloe wanted to tell her, please don’t waste your strength on magical theory. But she knew it wasn’t about that, not really.

“It’s just… it’s love.” Chloe shifted a little in her seat. “Dumbledore says it a lot, you know, like, love is the real magic.”

“I understand that. But it’s so vague.” She was loosely gesturing with one of her hands, the other pressed against her chest. “If it’s only love, do Muggles just not love enough to give that kind of protection? Didn’t Harry burn someone’s skin off with it? I mean, could anyone whose parent died for them do that? Or is love actually not the real magic at all?”

Chloe could feel her ears warm, and her eyes start to sting. She cleared her throat again, mustering whatever strength she could to keep her voice steady.

“I don’t know,” she managed.

Her mother was looking straight ahead at the wall.

“It just doesn’t make any sense,” she repeated.

No. It didn’t.

Without having received whatever answer she was hoping her daughter would give her, she carefully lied back down, her head on the pillow. Chloe couldn’t help feeling like she had disappointed her—but maybe she was just tired.

Chloe closed the book on her finger, keeping her place. She walked up slowly around the hospital bed till she was at the opposite side.

Her mother looked confused, but didn’t protest as Chloe climbed over the side rail to lie down next to her.

Her gaze moved back in the direction of the wall as her daughter kept reading.

When Chloe reached the last sentence of the book, she closed the back cover against the pages and rested it on her stomach. She didn’t look over to the person lying beside her; she just shut her eyes and strained to sense the pressure of the arm that almost touched hers.

But at the unexpected feel of cold fingers on her cheek, she opened her eyes.

Her mother had turned towards her. She was smiling softly, even if her brow was furrowed. She pressed her hand lightly against her daughter’s face and watched her, took in the sight of her as if she had never wanted to do anything else.

Chloe didn’t tear her eyes away, not for a second, not even when her mom dropped her hand to rest it against Chloe’s shoulder and closed her eyes.

Within a few minutes, she was fast asleep.

Chapter Text

Supersenior Year #3 (November 2014)

Aubrey got the Bellas a house.

Not like she bought it, obviously; facilitating corporate retreats isn’t that lucrative a business.

Chloe knew, even if Aubrey didn’t exactly say so, that it was her way of apologizing to her for all the months of silence. It totally wasn’t necessary, though: Chloe forgave her the minute she walked up to her apartment and saw Aubrey sitting on the porch stairs.

*

She was there literally as soon as Chloe got home from North Carolina after the past year’s Thanksgiving.

She glanced up furtively at Chloe as she saw her approach, and then nervously looked back down at the Tupperware container she held on her lap.

Watching Aubrey avoid her gaze, for some reason, filled Chloe with tenderness. Aubrey was there; she could hardly believe it.

As she reached the porch steps, she let her bags slip off her shoulders onto the ground, and then sat on the bottom step next to her best friend.

Aubrey turned towards her.

“I’m so sorry, Chloe,” she said, her face strained with worry.

Chloe gently took the Tupperware container out of Aubrey’s hands and looked at it.

“You brought me food?” she asked.

Aubrey smiled, hesitantly.

“I know you… well, you used to like my mashed potatoes.”

Chloe unhinged the top of the Tupperware. She could smell the garlic immediately.

She scooted a little closer.

“I’m sorry, too,” she said, almost in a whisper.

Aubrey unhooked a plastic fork from the side of the container, and handed it over. Chloe had forgotten what it was like, how much safer she felt when she was with her.

She moved to scoop out a bite of potatoes with the fork, but Aubrey lightly placed a hand on hers before she could.

“Wait,” she said. “I’ll say grace.”

Chloe, remembering, let out a little laugh. She bowed her head.

“Thank you,” Aubrey intoned emphatically. “Thank you for bringing us together. Thank you—for Chloe.”

Her voice cracked as she said that. She took a deep breath, struggling to stave off tears.

Chloe took over, even if she didn’t know exactly what to say.

“Thank you,” she repeated, but she was looking at Aubrey. “Thank you.”

She reached over to wipe the stray tear off her friend’s cheek.

“Amen,” she said.

*

Aubrey had also brought three bags of groceries. She set up shop in her old kitchen, chopping onions and garlic, listening to Chloe, who was sitting on the kitchen counter, describe the Bellas’ adventures since she had graduated. Whenever Chloe mentioned Beca, Aubrey’s eyebrows raised slightly, but she didn’t say anything.

When she ran out of stories, Aubrey quietly transferred the onions to a skillet and stared at them for about thirty seconds.

“I missed you every single day, Chloe,” she said.

Chloe looked back at her, taking in the warm, familiar smell of her cooking, wishing she could show her friend with her eyes just how happy she was to see her.

“I think I thought…” Aubrey shook the pan a little, her eyes darting to Chloe every few seconds. “I couldn’t understand why you would do what you did. Why you’d fail.”

Chloe looked down at her hands on her lap. She still didn’t really understand either.

“I think…” Aubrey sighed. She covered the pan with a lid. “I was angrier at myself. That I hadn’t helped you. I thought—I could have.”

“Bree…”

Aubrey held out a hand, halting her.

“I told myself I was angry that you didn’t want my help. That you hadn’t asked.” She paused. “That you didn’t need me.”

Chloe shook her head automatically.

“No,” she interrupted. “No. I’ve always needed you.”

Aubrey walked over to lean next to the counter where Chloe was sitting.

“I know,” she said quietly. “And I screwed up, again.”

Chloe’s heart lurched with the knowledge that she was one of the few people in the world, probably, who understood what that word, “again,” meant to Aubrey. She was always so afraid of failing.

“No, Aubrey. No.”

She reached down to place a hand on her shoulder.

“It was totally my fault,” she said. “It was my own choice. And I didn’t tell you anything.”

Aubrey tucked some hair behind her ear. She looked like she was thinking.

Chloe squeezed her shoulder.

“You’re here, Aubrey. And I love you so much.”

Her friend’s eyes snapped to hers, brightened by a shy smile.

“Yes,” she answered. “I’m here.”

*

The house had been donated to the university by a middle-aged entrepreneur whose business had more or less been saved from certain destruction by one of Aubrey’s retreats. He had told Aubrey about the house when she mentioned she was a Barden graduate; it was right down the street from the school. It had belonged to his grandmother, he had said.

It was possible, Aubrey later admitted after Chloe pushed it, that this guy maybe was trying to impress her into dating him, but she didn’t think there were any strings attached. He said, anyway, that he wanted to support the arts.

Aubrey had done the research, contacted Barden about donating property for special interest housing and met with a slew of experts about making it happen. She hadn’t told Chloe about any of this.

Shockingly, the person she had tapped as the Bella contact while she made these arrangements was none other than Beca Mitchell.

Chloe was sure, when she discovered it, that nothing weirder had ever happened in the history of the world.

*

Less than a month after Aubrey had shown up on her front porch, she had found them conspiring together in the empty dance studio.

They were laughing.

Chloe wondered briefly if she were having some kind of wishful hallucination of her two favorite humans hanging out together, but even after blinking hard they didn’t disappear.

It was Aubrey who had noticed her first. She was pretty sure she could read the word, “crap,” on her mouth from across the room. What was going on?

Beca turned to see her, and her face went red.

But she only took a few seconds to compose herself.

“C’mere, Chlo,” she called out, tilting her head towards the whiteboard. “Come see the plan.”

*

The idea, anyway, had probably been to give Chloe one last semester with the Bellas in a home that would carry on their legacy, and that she could come and visit, after she left.

But it was November, again, and she was still there.

So, by the way, was Beca.

And, some of the time, Jesse.

*

How was Beca back with him?

It was almost too obvious, a direct message from the universe: you’re repeating yourself. You’ve done this before. Time to move on.

And at the same time, Beca was everywhere. Beca was always close. She was in pajamas in the kitchen, making Ramen noodles. She was sitting low on the couch with her feet up on the footstool, staring at her laptop screen with her headphones on. She was knocking on Chloe’s door and asking if she wanted to add anything to the grocery list.

It made Chloe feel lonelier than she’d almost ever felt.

But she couldn’t turn away. She couldn’t ignore her texts. She wouldn’t say no if Beca asked her if she was planning to go to a party.

She’d never been any good at that sort of thing.

*

She woke up the day of Friendsgiving with a craving for Aubrey’s butternut squash dinner rolls.

The happiness that she was there—that she was in the kitchen, probably already prepping them—was almost enough to soothe the steady pulse of panic she had been feeling recently, every time she realized that her time was almost up.

That the Bellas were nearly over, and she’d have no excuse to stay.

Let’s not think about that today, she thought.

When she walked downstairs, Cynthia-Rose and Amy were already setting up the table in the living room. Her heart warmed. She watched them, from the hallway, throwing the tablecloth over the two folded tables Aubrey had brought with her in the back of her car. She didn’t know where they had moved the couches.

She felt a pang of regret for having snapped at all of them during their last rehearsal. It was so strange, how she kept doing that. It just felt like sometimes she was saying things, like, “we need to win the Worlds,” and no one could hear her till she screamed them.

“Good morning, ladies,” she said warmly.

“Morning?” Cynthia-Rose asked teasingly, straightening the tablecloth. “It’s afternoon. Where’ve you been?”

The truth was, lately, Chloe hadn’t been sleeping that well. She’d lie awake for hours before finally nodding off around 3 or 4 AM. Unsurprisingly, she’d been waking up later and later every day.

“Is that Chloe?”

She grinned reflexively at the sound of the voice from the kitchen.

“It’s me,” she confirmed.

Aubrey moved into the living room, donning the Bellas apron Chloe had commissioned as one of her birthday presents. Chloe rushed across the room towards her, pulling her into a hug.

“Happy Friendsgiving, Aubrey,” she whispered.

Aubrey softly pressed her hand against Chloe’s back. She gave her a kiss on the cheek before pulling away.

“Did you see the pamphlets I put under your door?” she asked, holding Chloe out at arm’s length.

Chloe averted her eyes.

“Oh, yeah. Totally. I saw them there last night.”

“Did you read them?”

She cringed. This was Aubrey’s new thing—sending her information about jobs or grad programs or volunteer work for the next year. Ever since she had come to stay at the house a few days before, it had started to get out of control. The pile of pamphlets on Chloe’s desk was about ready to topple over.

“Not yet, Bree. Later. After Thanksgiving. I promise.”

Aubrey narrowed her eyes skeptically, but she didn’t push it. This was a new thing for her, the gentle nudging. Well, as gentle as Aubrey got, anyway.

“How can I help? Place settings?”

Aubrey locked eyes with her, her smile only mildly terrifying.

“You can read those pamphlets.”

“You’d better just do what she wants, Chloe,” Fat Amy called out from across the room. Then, sure she was out of Aubrey’s line of sight, she surreptitiously mimed a vomiting action while significantly catching Chloe’s eye.

Chloe scrunched her face with distaste.

“I can clean, maybe.”

Aubrey shook her head.

She gestured precisely with her hands in front of her chest as she repeated her instructions.

“Chloe, your job is to research plans for next year.” Her face softened. “I’ll take care of everything, okay?”

Chloe shrugged. Aubrey was leaving in a day, and then Chloe would be able to resume her focus on the Worlds. For the time being, though, she could suck it up.

“Okay.”

*

So let’s get one thing straight.

Chloe knew where Copenhagen was. Eighteenth century Russian history literally makes no sense without a handle on what was up in the Baltic Sea region. The Great Northern War, anyone? Come on.

(P.S. “Maps” is not a class.)

She just wanted to keep the Bellas in line. Honestly, the fewer questions they asked about where they were going, what they were doing, and what chance they had at winning, the better. She could just feel them slipping away.

No one more so than—

Well, that doesn’t matter now, she thought.

So she left unread the pile of pamphlets in front of her, and made her way, as she had every day for months now, through the streets of Denmark’s capital on Google Maps.

She paused as, on street view, she came up to a fountain in the middle of a square with colored stones decorating the ground. None of it looked real; it was like a dream. It would be so easy there, she thought, to forget everything.

*

She didn’t have to ask herself who it was that was knocking so lightly on her door. She hated that she even recognized—and loved—the sound of her knuckles against wood.

“Beca?” she asked quietly.

The door opened.

Beca was wearing a blazer over her shirt, like she had been doing a lot more recently. It probably should have made her look more grown up, but it actually was just adorable. She had straightened her hair that day, and Chloe’s fingers itched at the distant memory of having moved through the varied textures of Beca’s hair—straight and thin, wavy and soft, messy and damp.

“Hey,” Chloe said breathily.

Beca smiled back at her.

“Hey, uh,” she gestured behind her towards her own room, “do you have any idea why there are a bunch of couches in my room? Like, actually filling it.”

Well, that explained where they went.

“Wow, um—it must have been Amy and Cynthia-Rose. They moved them out of the living room.”

Beca’s forehead wrinkled in confusion.

“So, they carried them… upstairs? Into our bedroom?”

Chloe shrugged. She had never claimed to be an expert on Fat Amy’s logic.

“Okay, so… I can’t even get around them to reach my laptop.”

Chloe turned the computer around in front of her on her bed and pushed it forward an inch.

“Do you want to borrow mine?”

Beca stared uncertainly at the space on the bed in front of the laptop. It was like her freshman year again, when she could only let herself sit on the edge of Chloe’s mattress.

“No, it’s just—music stuff.”

“The set for the Worlds?” Chloe asked hopefully.

Beca folded her arms against herself.

“No, just—something else. Never mind.”

Chloe looked down at her computer as she turned it back around. She ignored the sinking feeling in her stomach, and that taunting voice that reminded her, she used to play all of it when you asked, all her music for you.

Get it together, Chloe.

“Do you need help, like, moving them?”

*

Beca was actually decently strong, but she had this weird fear of dropping things on her toes, so she kept asking Chloe to stop and put the couch down every few inches so she could reposition it in relation to her feet.

Chloe teased her, but dutifully dropped the couch whenever she was asked.

As soon as they had moved them both far enough towards the railing to clear a pathway to her bed, Beca sighed dramatically and collapsed—not on the bed—on one of the couches they had just moved.

Hesitantly, Chloe moved in to sit next to her.

Beca was still breathing pretty deeply. Chloe knew it was a bad idea for them to be alone together. She ignored it.

“Hey, thanks,” Beca said when her breathing had returned to normal.

“Oh, yeah. No problem.”

She moved off the couch to retrieve Beca’s laptop from her bed, headphones attached.

“Thanks, dude,” Beca said as she handed them to her.

She waited for Chloe to sit back down next to her before putting her headphones on.

*

Of course it was a bad idea for them to be alone in a bedroom. That was, like, her most important rule for them those days, but it wasn’t her fault. She was actually physically incapable of leaving while Beca was working on music.

Beca didn’t seem to mind. At one point, she accidentally grazed her elbow against Chloe’s arm, and didn’t say anything when she took in a startled breath.

After about a half hour, Beca handed the computer to Chloe and told her to choose some music for a break while she was in the bathroom.

She opened YouTube to search for Katy Perry, simply because she wanted to annoy Beca with the most obnoxious pop music she could think of, but as soon as she typed “k” she stopped to read what instantly popped up from Beca’s search history:

kommissar das sound machine
kommissar dsm
kommissar german a cappella gay
kommissar german lesbian

“Still waiting on music, Chlo,” she called out as she washed her hands.

Chloe erased the “k.” Instead, she started playing a video somebody had recorded on their phone of Das Sound Machine at the car show.

Beca stopped dead in her tracks as she recognized the sound.

When she came out the bathroom, somewhat shamefaced, Chloe smiled sympathetically.

“You really like her, huh?”

(And, okay, the thought that Beca liked someone else normally would make her feel as if she were being slowly stabbed to death with multiple dull knives—please see above re: Beca being with Jesse again—but this was just so sweet.)

Beca grimaced.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she said, trying and failing to deadpan.

“Aww, Beca.”

Chloe paused the video, and searched for some real music to put in the background.

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” she declared gently, as she chose Amy Winehouse’s “Tears Dry on Their Own” and pressed shuffle.  “As long as you’re still ready to ‘kick ass’ at Worlds,” she added with a wink.

Beca slumped back down next to her on the couch.

“Yeah. I mean. It’s nothing. She’s just making me sexually confused.”

Chloe narrowed her eyes, turning towards Beca.

She knew it would come dangerously close to doing that thing they never did (i.e. talk about it), but she had to ask.

“Yeah, you’ve said that before, Becs. But um, but don’t you think it’s, like, a little late to be confused in that way?”

She had meant her tone to be a little more light-hearted than it ended up. Beca moved away from Chloe, repositioning herself so that her back was against the arm of the couch.

Her voice, maybe, was also more serious than intended.

“I guess I always just thought you didn’t count,” she said.

Chloe moved her hand aimlessly over the mousepad, staring down at the keys.

“Oh,” she responded, her voice laced with disappointment.

“No!” Beca interjected, reaching out a hand in Chloe’s direction. “I mean—dude, that’s not what I meant. I just…” She moved her hands through her hair, thinking. “I guess I always felt like none of the rules applied to you. You were just Chloe.”

Chloe turned to meet her sheepish eyes. They were both breaking all of their unspoken rules, for real.

“I’m still Chloe,” she said quietly.

“Right.” Beca’s voice was wavering. She seemed a bit at a loss. “Yeah. I didn’t mean…” She sighed. “I’m sorry.”

There was just enough emphasis on her last words to remind Chloe of all the other occasions she’d used them.

“It’s okay,” she told her, maybe a bit too sadly, and passed her back her computer.

Beca looked like she wanted to say something else, but she didn’t. She reached for her headphones and went back to work.

*

I should go, she thought.

Why can’t I ever just go?

She could smell the scent of onion and celery wafting up from the kitchen. Aubrey thought she was reading informational booklets about volunteer programs at that very moment. Instead, she was watching the very slight rise and fall of the computer partially balanced on Beca’s stomach, and the way her left hand kept moving up to massage her neck and shoulders.

She was just about to force herself off the couch when Beca pulled her headphones down around her neck and looked blankly ahead for a second.

“Chloe,” she said, “I have sort of a weird question.”

Her heart sped up. Stupidly.

“Yeah?”

“Do you ever have, like…” She frowned. “Something happened this morning, while I was working on this thing.” She turned towards her, leaning on her elbow against the couch, the laptop still resting on her lap. “I was feeling, I don’t know, I guess I was feeling stressed out? About a lot of things.”

Chloe listened intently. She had almost forgotten how soft Beca’s voice could be when she was being sincere.

“But it was so weird,” she went on. “I was so caught up in all these thoughts, and then I just happened to put these two things together…” She gestured towards her laptop. “And it made this sound... well, it’s not even like it was special! It’s what I literally do every day. But I just heard this sound and it was really, like, it was good. And I just felt so calm all of a sudden. Like I was so sure everything was going to be okay.” Her eyes darted to Chloe’s nervously. “In the end, I mean. Even if I didn’t get how.”

Chloe’s mind flickered back to last November, kneeling at the riverbank, the way it had felt like her heart’s walls had been dismantled for a solitary minute. She hadn’t told anyone about it; she still had no idea what it meant or what to do with it.

“I know that sounds…”

“No,” Chloe interrupted her, reaching to place a hand on her knee. “I know exactly what you mean.”

Beca breathed out with relief.

“Really?” she asked.

Chloe nodded.

“I thought you might,” Beca said, her voice barely audible.

They sat quietly, letting the moment hang in the air.

Beca, eventually, turned around, her back to the couch, and reached up again to massage her shoulders.

Chloe was reaching before she realized what she was doing. She stopped Beca’s hand with her own, and, moving it aside, she began slowly kneading the tight muscles in her neck.

She could see Beca’s ears immediately go bright red. But she didn’t say anything; she just pushed her laptop onto the cushion next to her. She turned slightly so that her back faced Chloe, leaning forward just far enough so that she could take off her blazer.

This wasn’t even breaking rules. This was, like, actively sabotaging the whole system. But Chloe couldn’t help feeling dizzy at the chance to help Beca—not even to touch her, she’d have sworn it—just to take away some of that weight she was always carrying with her.

Chloe pulled off the hair tie around her wrist, delicately gathering up Beca’s hair to move it into a bun. She stared at the bare shoulders, but for the straps of her shirt, that she had revealed.

Beca’s hands, flat on her lap, were maybe shaking a little.

It wasn’t exactly what Chloe wanted to do—her lips, after all, were not involved—but it still felt so good to reach over and lay her fingers against her. She dragged the side of one hand along the length of each shoulder, pressing down hard, then moved her thumbs up the back of her neck.

She was so tense.

It seemed like she was trying to hold her breath, but when Chloe pushed a flat palm hard against her shoulder blade, she exhaled with what—in other circumstances—Chloe would have interpreted as a moan.

She kept wondering when Beca would stop her, but she didn’t. Chloe moved fingers up around the front of her shoulders, dipping down into the skin around her clavicle; into her hair, scratching at the scalp underneath; lightly behind her ears, carefully avoiding her piercings.

She could feel tears welling up even without understanding them. She wasn’t even sad.

Beca, she was pretty sure, had closed her eyes. Chloe took one of her hands off her shoulders, and with the remaining one just lightly rubbed her back.

For a second, she thought maybe Beca had fallen asleep, till she felt her lean back into her touch.

Chloe lifted her hand. She felt guilty.

Jesse, she thought. She loves Jesse.

Beca turned around. She looked like she might have been thinking the same thing.

But, even if she regretted it, that didn’t stop her from reaching over and grabbing Chloe’s hand, squeezing it hard.

“Thank you, Chloe,” she said.

You’re welcome, she had meant to say. Words, at the moment, anyway, were hard.

And after a few minutes, as she was a lot of the time those days, Beca was gone.

*

Aubrey was beautiful, she thought, at Friendsgiving.

Chloe loved watching her friend move around with the newfound comfort in her skin she must have picked up after leaving Barden, laughing easily at the Bellas’ jokes and not freaking out too much when Lilly took a sip from the gravy boat.

Chloe tried to focus on Aubrey, on the continued miracle of having her back, not on the wild longing that filled her when she realized that she could still feel Beca on her fingertips while, so weirdly, her plus one sat across from her at the table.

Jesse was sitting next to an empty chair.

“She said she’s going to try to make it,” he had said.

What did that even mean? Where was Beca? Was it so awful to be around her that she had to leave Jesse there in her place?

Whatever.

*

She and Aubrey were mostly quiet as they did the dishes.

It was Chloe who broke the silence.

“It’s so weird,” she said, “that you’re leaving tomorrow.”

Aubrey put down the drying towel temporarily to place a hand against Chloe’s back.

“I’m not that far away, Chlo.”

Chloe nodded. That’s what she should do, she thought. She should visit Aubrey. A lot.

But with all the preparation they needed to do for Worlds…

“And I’m… I guess I’m sorry. If I was pushing you too much with all the emails. And pamphlets.”

Chloe shook her head. The thought of Aubrey not feverishly scheming on her behalf stunned her with a jolt of fear.

“No, Aubrey; it’s not too much. I promise.”

Aubrey picked up the towel.

“Yes, well. I’ve been told in the past that I might be too controlling.”

Chloe rushed to apologize, but Aubrey stopped her before she could even start.

“I’m kidding, Chloe. You were right, then. But I won’t stop, if you don’t want me to.”

She needed words. She needed all the words to tell Aubrey exactly what she meant to her, how much braver she felt knowing she was at her side.

Instead, she just whispered a plea.

“Please don’t,” she said. “Please don’t give up.”

Aubrey placed the last dish onto the pile.

She reached over to take both of Chloe’s still soapy hands into her own.

“Never.”

When she said it, it felt like the promise of a happy ending.

She could almost believe it.

Chapter Text

Duet : The Retreat (April 2015)

You can’t hurry love
No, you just have to wait
She said, love don’t come easy
It’s a game of give and take

*

Beca watched civilization get sparser and sparser out the bus window with growing annoyance. On a list of things she should have been doing at that moment (starting with #1, creating music that wasn’t completely worthless), this whole lady-bonding excursion didn’t even make the top twenty.

But at the very least, she’d banked on having somewhere to charge her laptop.

She hadn’t prepared for a camping trip. She hadn’t prepared for anything, as it turned out. How was she graduating in a month with no plan at all for what came next?

That was what was bothering her—really—not just the arm that had unexpectedly looped around hers a few minutes before, or the head resting lightly on her shoulder.

What was even happening?

It had been hard not just to cave in that morning when Chloe had knocked on her door, travel mug in hand, flashing a smile brighter than Beca had seen on her (she thought guiltily) in two years. It had been so hard not just to play along and act like everything was fine, like they were—she didn’t know—happy?

But something was definitely off. It didn’t feel right, how Chloe had suddenly gone from being the semi-fanatic cheerleader she’d been that entire year to nuzzling into her on the bus.

Beca couldn’t deal with it. The fact that Chloe existed was honestly already usually about enough to cause her to fall apart completely, without having to worry about her going through some kind of nervous breakdown.

Didn’t Chloe know she was only hanging on by a thread herself?

She moved her arm out of Chloe’s grasp, and grabbed the pillow on her right to place in between them. She crossed her arms and shut her eyes hastily, just knowing what the face next to her had to have looked like as she’d done that.

Hurting Chloe was literally Beca’s least favorite thing on the planet, and somehow she just kept doing it.

*

“It’s going to be aca-awesome,” Aubrey reassured Chloe on the phone, doing her best imitation of her friend’s own optimistic tone.

And Chloe had been excited. How couldn’t she be? Aubrey would not fail them. Chloe was barely able to choke down her exclamations of enthusiasm as Aubrey walked her through the plans, all the special exercises she’d planned for their team-building and sound-discovering. It was perfect—Aubrey perfect. It was just what the Bellas needed.

She could see it, for the first time: winning the Worlds. It had been her only goal for the past eight months, and she hadn’t even once believed it was possible until then.

It wasn’t till after she hung up (it took them five whole minutes to say goodbye, as Chloe kept thinking of new ways to thank her for her help) that it hit her.

Winning the Worlds didn’t matter. Not at all.

The Bellas, okay, maybe they’d still exist, but the girls she knew… they’d be gone.

She’d be gone.

Chloe had thought about that before, obviously. But suddenly it was like she could see it—she could watch it like a movie she hated—what it would be like being at Barden without Beca.

She’d be living in the Bella house, still, teaching freshmen how to do laundry in their basement and hoping at least one or two of the new members knew how to cook.

Chloe would start re-using Beca’s arrangements—of course she would. How couldn’t she, when very idea of having to do that job, replacing Beca’s music with her own, filled her with debilitating sadness? Beca would have to lie in her emails when she saw the performances on YouTube, telling Chloe they were doing better than ever.

Maybe Beca would visit over Homecoming, and it’d be all Chloe would think about for weeks. She could see herself rummaging through the closet, taking half an hour to choose which blankets to spread out on the couch for her. She’d maybe convince herself for five minutes that it wouldn’t be too weird to offer her the other half of her bed before facing the fact that having Beca’s body beside her would be even worse.

They’d catch up over coffee. It’d have to be at somewhere new, definitely not at the bakery they used to go to all the time that year. Chloe would do her best to brighten her voice.

Tell me everything about the job. And your new place!

My classes are fabulous. I’m taking one with your dad.

Oh… how is Jesse?

Thinking of it made Chloe feel so alone, her arms involuntarily wrapped themselves around her body.

It wasn’t exactly panic she felt coursing through her. It was more like an emotional rebellion. It was a no.

She couldn’t let Beca go, not quite yet.

As she tried to fall asleep that night, she made a mental list of what she had done wrong that year they had been together. She knew it must have been the same things as always.

She was too much. She held on too hard. She pushed too far. She made it too real. It wasn’t really a surprise: she’d scared her away.

And she thought, maybe if she had been what Beca had wanted in the first place.

Happy. Fun. Experimenting.

She could do that.

*

Beca had thought Chloe would snap out of it if she ignored it, but it was honestly just getting worse as they lied down to go to sleep in the tent that night.

“You know, Beca, we’re very close, but I think this retreat is really gonna let us discover everything about each other.”

Why was she being such a weirdo?

And what was she even talking about, with the experimenting thing? Had she somehow forgotten the five months they’d spent sleeping in each other’s beds? Beca definitely hadn’t.

Before this new weirdness started, she would never have thought that Chloe had forgotten either.

How many times over the past couple years had she seen Chloe stand anxiously at the top of the stairs by her bedroom, not wanting to come too close? How many times had she seen her hands reach towards her before dropping halfway?

Chloe was so careful around her, always, like she was worried about bothering her. It made Beca feel like the worst person in the history of the world.

But suddenly, in the tent, Chloe’s fingers were on her forehead, trying to brush hair from her face. Her lips, whispering insane words or not, were right in front of her eyes, and all that red hair was so close to her hands that it would take more strength than she had—she knew—not to let them sink into it.

She turned away.

She really wanted to go home.

*

Chloe didn’t know what Beca wanted. Nothing was working.

Couldn’t she do anything right?

Just smile, Chloe, she thought. You don’t need to make this weird.

*

Beca didn’t really sleep that night.

She could have blamed it on her surroundings, if someone had asked. She wouldn’t have told this to Chloe, who was so excited about whatever excruciating plans Aubrey had in store for them, but she had never been camping before. She was seventy to eighty percent sure the crunching noise she kept hearing from outside the tent was a bear.

But, no. That wasn’t the cause of her insomnia, and she knew exactly what was.

Chloe’s hands were folded over her stomach, and she hadn’t budged an inch since she’d closed her eyes. It was so different than all those nights when it had seemed like reaching her arms around Beca had been like some kind of reflex for her.

The bright smile that had been plastered on Chloe’s face since that morning had completely disappeared. Beca hated the worry that etched itself onto her forehead, and, even more, how once or twice she flinched through whatever stupid dream was upsetting her.

Beca couldn’t help it. She rolled an inch closer, and, after a moment’s hesitation, reached out to move a hand gently through her hair.

“It’s okay, Chloe,” she whispered.

She didn’t know why it filled her with dread, how Chloe’s face immediately calmed.

It was useless.

What was even the point of denying it? She’d always loved her.

She’d loved her so hard, for so long, way before she’d figured out what it was she was feeling—all the way back to the time Chloe had sketchily invited herself into her shower freshman year.

Disgusting, humiliating amounts of love.

And it was just the worst, because it’s not like Beca had even come to Barden wanting to fall for someone. She hadn’t wanted to come to Barden at all, to be honest.

She had never been one of those girls who wanted to be with somebody. She’d just wanted to make something cool—music—and if people were into it, that was cool too.

So maybe if she had been capable of blaming anything on Chloe, she could have blamed it on her, how instead of using the past couple of years to develop an airtight five-year plan in the music industry, she’d mostly just spent them recalling over and over what she’d made Chloe’s face look like that day in New York.

It must have been because she was still thinking of that that she couldn’t bring herself to pull her hand out of Chloe’s hair. She couldn’t stand being the cause of even one more expression of pain.

She knew she couldn’t let herself fall asleep like that, touching her. It’d be too weird when they woke up.

So she stayed awake—just for another hour, maybe—wondering if it were possible, if it would even be acceptable, for Chloe ever to forgive her.

*

Chloe still loved everything about her.

Beca was trying so hard that morning to act like she wasn’t terrified by the challenges Aubrey had set up for them, and it honestly made Chloe’s arms ache with the urge to wrap around her (which, okay, maybe she did for a tad too long as Beca passed her on the log).

But it was overwhelming, how every tiny detail warmed her heart even more.

She loved how Beca’s skinny legs flailed as she held onto the zipline hook for dear life, and the way she shut her eyes.

She loved how she sputtered so overdramatically when a mosquito flew into her mouth.

She loved how she rolled her eyes even while improvising harmonies that were, Chloe admitted it with joy, better than any of theirs put together.

She loved the way she kept checking for ticks obsessively, and how she thought no one else noticed what she was doing.

She loved the way she watched her and Aubrey fight with the hose in the mud.

She loved everything.

*

Chloe was smiling again, nudging Beca playfully, winking at every opportunity.

Beca didn’t know if it confused or enraged her more, whatever was making Chloe feel like she was supposed to fake happiness.

But—to be honest—Chloe’s current weirdness aside, Beca really couldn’t resist any of it.

She kept thinking, this is why we can’t spend this much time together.

And yeah, okay, maybe that was something she thought pretty regularly. Maybe it was the same thought she’d had the week before, watching the final scenes of The Return of the King on her bed with Jesse, when she’d heard Chloe’s voice from the stairwell and wished there were a way to ask him to take his arm off her without sounding like a jerk.

(In that moment, she couldn’t remember even one reason she’d ever been with him that hadn’t involved trying to forget the terrifying amounts of in love she still was with someone else.

Which made her an asshole on multiple fronts, she knew.)

But out in the woods, she was digging herself in deeper than ever.

She couldn’t focus on anything but Chloe’s adorable yawning face as she woke up, or how she kept smiling to encourage Aubrey, or how she was so modest about adding in her harmonies but they were always so good.

She kept clapping and cheering for everyone as the Bellas failed at those stupid trust exercises, and her eyes just lit up whenever one of them hit a high note or pulled off a run.

Beca couldn’t stop watching for her reactions—who else is like that? Who else actually wants everyone to do better than her?

It wasn’t even just the way strands of her hair kept falling out around her face, or how incredible her arms looked, or how the sun made her eyes seem unreal.

It was things like… Chloe was screaming as she slid down the water slide and it brought out this bizarre protective instinct in Beca. She felt like some sort of extremely awkward mother bear, swimming towards her in the lake before realizing, what was she even going to do in that situation, Chloe was fine.

Chloe started laughing when they were in the mud and the thought came to Beca unwillingly: even if she were three thousand times better at making music than she was, she would never be able to create something that sounded even remotely that good.

*

Chloe knew how defeated she sounded when she said it to her:

“Beca, come on.”

It really had been the whole theme of the retreat for her, if she were being honest.

Come on, Beca. Just care about me, please. Just be happy. Don’t leave me.

And so maybe that’s why it hurt so much when all she did was yell in response, “I’ve got more important things to do!”

She knew it wasn’t fair to be so upset that Beca didn’t even want to spend one more month singing with her. It wasn’t fair to want to reach over and tear her frustrated hands away from her face, to make her look at her. It wasn’t fair to expect Beca to tell her whatever had been so wrong all year, or to wish she could have had the chance to help.

She could see Aubrey in her peripheral vision, fumbling her hands in front of her with increasing anxiety as Chloe started to yell back.

She got it. She was worrying herself, too.

*

Beca could hear the words coming out of her own mouth and they were horrible, but she couldn’t stop.

She was so mad. Her hands were actually shaking with it. Had she always been this angry?

It hadn’t felt like that, she didn’t think—not that first time when Aubrey had texted her and asked her what the hell she knew about Chloe failing two of her Russian classes, or even the next year, out to dinner, when Chloe had changed the topic with lightning speed away from what an amazing teacher she would be.

She wouldn’t have described it as anger at all, what she felt when Chloe had told her on the park bench that she was planning to stay at Barden for two more years.

It had been more like nausea. Like fear.

But maybe, actually, she’d been furious all along. At least, it was one hundred percent rage that she felt surface as Chloe tried to tell her the most important thing she could do was focus on the Bellas.

Didn’t she see what she was doing to herself?

“This has been my family for seven years.”

Didn’t she get it? All of them—they were just holding Chloe back.

And Beca was too.

*

Chloe was ready to hear it—she had to—to hear Beca tell her once and for all that she didn’t want her, that she had to let go.

And… what?

Of all the terrible things she’d imagined coming out of Beca’s mouth, the news about her internship had not been among them.

And it was so Beca, the way she told her, talking so quickly, so defensively, so that maybe it would sound like no big deal.

But it was huge! Why hadn’t she told her? Chloe had never wanted anything for her but that. For a second, she stopped feeling anything but pride.

But before she could even respond, Beca was turning away from her to the Bellas, yelling about how Chloe wasn’t thinking about graduating at all.

Of course she had to bring graduation into it. Again.

Why did Beca care so much? Why couldn’t she just leave it alone?

It was the first time Beca had yelled at her, the first time she’d even snapped at her since that time at Semi-Finals when she’d told her that she didn’t have to pretend she had a say in the group.

But, there by the lake, Beca’s face was so close, and she was actually screaming.

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re too scared to leave! Sack up, dude!”

Chloe hated the tears in her eyes as she tried to defend herself.

So you’re just going to flake out?

You’re just going to leave me again?

*

“We all have to eventually, Chloe; it might as well be now.”

Beca couldn’t stop herself from turning around once more as she said it.

And—yes—she’d hurt her again.

At least it’ll be the last time, Beca thought, maybe with more than a twinge of pain.

And just before the bear trap lifted her off the ground, she told herself—

She’ll be better off without me.

*

After the Bellas had determined Beca hadn’t broken any essential body parts falling down in the net, she and Chloe went for a walk on a trail through the woods.

Both of them were walking with their arms folded across their chests, but close, with no more than an inch between each other.

Chloe listened to the sound of their shoes crunching the red-brown leaves below them. Beca looked like maybe she was scowling, but Chloe knew she was just lost in thought.

She took in a deep breath, and loved the tree smell that followed.

The trail must have looped around faster than she realized, because somehow they had made it back to the lake. The setting sun was rippling light across the water, and Chloe thought of other sunsets they’d seen together, on other evenings—from a powder blue couch out the window, or out on the rocks, watching snow catch orange and rose.

She wasn’t sad anymore.

They’d stopped walking, and all she could hear was the quiet chirps of the crickets in the grass. She could feel Beca’s eyes on her. For a second, she loved the thought of her gaze so much, it didn’t even matter that she wasn’t looking up to meet it. Just being there with Beca was more than enough.

She wished she had done everything so differently.

“I’m sorry, Beca,” she whispered.

Beca looked confused.

“For what? You don’t… there’s nothing for you to be sorry for, Chloe.”

Chloe sat down on the grass, and Beca quickly followed suit.

She was right next to her, but Chloe threw her arms around her knees, guarding the space between them.

“I’m sorry…” Chloe sighed deeply. “I’m sorry about everything, I guess. I’ve been so crazy about the Worlds. And you were going through all this stuff, with your internship, and it’s really important, Becs; I’m so proud of you. But I didn’t even realize you needed support.”

Beca reached forward to pick at some grass.

“It’s not like I’ve been letting you in on the details,” she said.

Chloe shook her head.

“But I don’t…” Her voice strained into a high pitch. “I know I don’t always make it easy, Beca. I know I can be kind of… too much.”

Beca’s fingers dropped the blades of grass they were holding. She looked at Chloe like she had said something profoundly offensive.

“Is that what you think?”

Chloe bit at the inside of her lip.

“Is that… seriously?” Beca looked at her with surprise. “Oh my God, that’s so wrong.”

Chloe’s voice was breathier as she tried to explain.

“I just mean… I know I can be kind of clingy. And, like, emotional. I want things too much. I know…” She shrugged. “I know that’s what I did to us, too.” Her voice was so high now that it was hurting her throat. “I know that’s why you… um. Why we stopped.”

Beca’s hands moved to her head.

“Chloe, no.” Her eyes were wide. “That is not what happened.”

Wasn’t it, though?

“I wanted too much from you,” Chloe admitted quietly. “I know you didn’t want…”

“Of course I did.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. Beca hesitantly placed a hand on her arm.

“I wanted everything from you,” she said.

She stared down at the fingers on her arm. What?

Could that really be true?

“Is this what that was about last night?” Beca asked. “When you said you wish you’d experimented more?”

The sun was getting lower. Maybe Beca couldn’t tell how embarrassed she looked.

“You said that,” she answered hoarsely. “Christmas, that year.” Beca watched her blankly. “You said that it was a thing in college.”

Beca’s hand was still on her arm, and as Chloe said that, she pressed down more firmly.

“Chlo… I don’t remember that at all.”

Chloe was so confused. She struggled to recall it—Beca kicking the snow as she walked, Chloe wishing she were home and warm again.

“And if I did say that, I was a fucking idiot. But Chloe, don’t you remember everything else?”

There were a few pieces of leaves still stuck in Beca’s hair. She didn’t know if she wanted to keep talking about this—she just wanted to reach over and take them out.

“What… what else?”

Beca took her hand off Chloe’s arm, moving her hands to her face to rub her eyes.

“Like… the turnovers I brought to your apartment every day. For months.” Her shoulders tensed as she struggled to say what she needed to. “The mix I made you with a full orchestra in the background saying that we found love in a hopeless place. I mean, I don’t even like that kind of thing. I emailed my great-uncle like seven times a day—for weeks—in this painfully boring brainstorming thread so we could choose the book I gave you for Christmas. Chloe, am I really so horrifically bad at this that you had no idea how I felt?”

Chloe felt more and more dazed as she listened. She replayed her memories in her mind, trying to see them from Beca’s-eye-view.

“No…” She shook her head. “It’s not your fault that I didn’t…” She interrupted herself. “But then why did you leave me?”

She wished she could rephrase a little. She didn’t want to sound so hurt.

The sun had almost tucked itself away under the horizon. They should get back soon, they both knew.

Beca exhaled, exasperated at the memory.

“I would never have forgiven myself,” she said decisively.

Chloe wasn’t sure what she meant. She moved her hands over her bare arms as the evening breeze chilled them.

“For… what?”

Beca shrugged, helplessly.

“I wanted to be so selfish, Chloe. But I just—gaahhh.” She shook her hands in frustration. “I couldn’t let you self-destruct just because I wanted you to stay with me.”

Chloe took in her words.

“I should have said that then,” Beca went on. “Instead of making you think it was your fault. God. I’m so sorry, Chloe. I’m such a dick.”

She still didn’t understand. What did she even mean by that, self-destruct? What did any of this have to do with their relationship?

All she could ask—in a low voice—was, “you wanted to be with me?”

“Chloe.” Her voice was almost angry. “Are you even listening?”

This was all so weird. It had felt, for the past two years, like she had even made the whole thing up, the way they never talked about it. But maybe it was because it was now totally dark, as they sat there by the lake, that Beca was able to say it.

Her voice, Chloe thought, was such a pretty descant over the steady melody of the crickets and the bass line of the frogs.

“But Chloe… listen. You are the opposite of ‘too much.’” She paused, searching for the right words. “It makes me so angry when you hold back. When you let us hold you back.”

Chloe could just make out Beca’s hand reaching again to pick at the grass.

“Listen. I’m graduating so that, if I’m lucky, I can go make music that people will dance to at stupid parties they don’t even really want to be at. And you… it’s like you don’t even know. God.”

She moved both of her hands to Chloe’s wrists, catching her eyes through the darkness.

“Do you have any idea how much this sad little world needs you? Needs someone who loves like you? It’s starving for it.”

Beca could see, she was sure, how the chill passed through her whole body then.

“Just, you need to graduate.” She tempered her voice. “Do whatever you want. Go to grad school. Teach music. Dance exotically, for all I care.” Chloe choked on a laugh, her eyelashes catching tears as she moved. “Just, please, Chloe. You’re too good. Go out into the world and be awesome. Okay? Be better than us.”

Chloe slipped a hand out from Beca’s grasp and reached over, gently placing it against her face, willing her with the touch to remember everything she wished she were allowed to do next. Beca leaned into her palm, and closed her eyes as Chloe moved a thumb over her cheek.

But she didn’t kiss her.

“Beca,” she said, her voice resonant with unspoken meaning.

“Yeah,” Beca answered, holding a hand over hers. “I know.”

*

Beca could see the Bellas getting the fire ready from across the water as they walked back.

She would have been nervous—she usually was—to walk in the dark, but Chloe held her hand the whole way back.

When they sat down with the others, she felt so unprepared for the sight of it, how the glow from the fire made Chloe’s hair light up, gold on red.

Chloe must have known, she guessed, when she started singing, that, like a loser, she had been about ready to cry.

She couldn’t believe she’d remembered the song.

It might be the least cool thought Beca has ever had—but singing it with her felt like coming home after a long, long time.

*

Everyone was singing.

Chloe could see every one of her friends—her sisters—shining in their own way. They were all so beautiful up against the light.

Maybe even me, she thought. Maybe in the right angle, I can be the person Beca thinks I am.

Looking at Beca, she felt like she was floating. It was the most wonderful thing in the world.

She was just so proud.

She sat there, remembering the mystery girl freshman at auditions taking hold of her heart as casually as she’d emptied out her yellow cup. Chloe had thought while it was happening that maybe she had been dreaming, but, as she remembered it, nothing else felt real.

Beca had come so far since then, it was almost like she was a totally different person. But if that were true, Chloe loved both of them more than she could ever say.

Okay, Beca, she thought.

Okay.

I’ll try.

Chapter Text

Boston, Massachusetts (November 2015)

It had been seven months since they’d sat around a fire with their friends and sang, just to each other. It had been six since Beca had broken up with Jesse, and five since she had invited Chloe to her new apartment to help her finally unpack.

They’d only made it through one box.

Stopping Beca as she started to open a second one, Chloe grabbed her open hand and kissed it.

She had kept going—pressing her lips soft against her wrist, up her arm and neck, behind her ear, along her jaw—every patch of skin she’d missed for every moment of the past two lonely years.

*

But almost half a year later, they were still taking it slow.

Judging by the longing look in Beca’s eyes at the end of most nights, it was maybe too slow, but she never pushed it.

It was Chloe’s decision. The thing was, she knew by now that getting caught up in Beca was about as easy for her as breathing oxygen, and, right now, she needed to focus.

Which was hard enough to do, like, even just having kissed her.

Even just being in the same room.

One night, after a long day at work, Beca had accidentally fallen asleep in Chloe’s bed. Chloe moved to her desk chair, but couldn’t help looking up from her laptop to watch her—how her arm was tucked under her chin, how her lips were parted.

She felt the shock of happiness like an actual pain in her chest.

But she had taken Beca’s words to heart—she wanted to go out in the world and be awesome.

So she turned back to her laptop, and focused on editing her paper.

*

That had been Professor Mitchell’s idea.

He had emailed her a couple months before, asking if there were any way she would still consider applying to graduate programs in literature. She had written back, thanking him for thinking of her, but she didn’t think any school would accept someone who had failed so many classes.

She wrote: it’s okay, though. She was working as an afterschool teacher at an elementary school, and it was so sweet. She loved the kids. She even was getting to teach a few music classes. There were lots of things she could do, and she had time to figure it all out.

That hadn’t deterred him. He responded: if you are still considering the option, don’t give up just because of the grades. He would vouch for her, he said. He’d write the recommendation to end all recommendations.

And, he wrote, at the very least, she really should consider reworking her final paper for “From Harlem to Hanoi: Political Poetry in the 20^th Century,” the last course she had taken with him, for publication. He told her he had never advised an undergraduate student to aim for that before. It had been, he said, truly extraordinary work.

Needless to say, he added, having a published article already under her belt would be quite an achievement if she did decide to apply to MA programs.

She’d been kind of overwhelmed by all that. She’d passed her phone to Beca when she received the email, and Beca had mocked a whine.

“It’s going to be so annoying when we tell him about us,” she said. “He’s going to be so happy.”

“You’re going to tell him?” Chloe had beamed.

“Dude, yeah.” She moved a little closer to Chloe as she passed back her phone. “I’d pretty much tell everyone in the world if I thought you wanted that.”

Chloe pressed a kiss to Beca’s temple.

“I want that,” she whispered.

*

So, she was editing like crazy. Beca would ring the doorbell at Chloe’s new place when she came by after work, and smile when she’d see the little piles of books strewn around the living room.

“You don’t think this is overkill at all?” she’d ask, and Chloe would shake her head happily.

And Beca would kiss her. Chloe’s heart never stopped beating harder with every time her hand made its way around her waist.

Her fingers would find their way home, back into her wavy hair, back along her neck, back against the shoulder of the arm which held her close.

*

They were going to Boston for Thanksgiving, and their itinerary was packed.

Now, obviously, spending Thanksgiving with each other’s families was probably not on the “taking it slow” top ten list, but it actually had been kind of an accident.

Chloe’s father’s family was spending the holiday in Boston this year—though not really as a holiday—as they were going mostly so Jules, as she had wanted to for years, could go to the National Day of Mourning at Plymouth. They were staying with Jules’ friend who lived in Cambridge and went every year. Jules told Chloe she knew it was maybe contradictory to the purpose of their trip, but they were going to have dinner (her friend insisted they did not call it a Thanksgiving dinner) on Wednesday at his house, and she wanted Chloe to come.

She probably would have said no, if she hadn’t just been feeling so optimistic about everything lately. Her one condition, which of course was accepted enthusiastically, was that Aubrey could also come.

A week later, the mail came while Chloe was lounging around in Beca’s apartment. After a twenty-minute conversation with Freida, Beca’s new mailwoman, about how her new mail routes compared to others she had worked, Chloe looked down to see a bright red envelope on the top of the stack.

The invitation, she realized with a flash of excitement, was addressed to both of them.

Arnold Fitzpatrick Reilly & Ethel Rosenberg

cordially invite you to a Thanksgiving potluck

“from each according to his ability,

to each according to his need”

Thursday, November 26, 2015

at five in the evening

270 School Street, Somerville, MA 02145

It was confusing at first, because wasn’t Thanksgiving always at the cottage? That was explained later when Beca learned that her mom had decided to pass on the duty to Arnie this year in a bout of frustration about how busy she had been at work.

But the bigger surprise for Chloe was seeing her own name on the envelope. Beca must have told Patrick about them. That was the only explanation.

She was glad Beca wasn’t there; she knew her grin must have been kind of ridiculous.

Not that it was any dimmer, that evening, when Beca had suggested they just do both dinners together.

*

First, though, get this—

Aubrey, Chloe, and Beca were spending the Tuesday night before Thanksgiving on the futon of the former captain of the Bellas, Alice Chaput.

Crazy, right?

*

She must have seen that they were coming to Boston via Aubrey’s daily Facebook countdown.

Aubrey had thought it was a joke, at first—most likely the prelude to a mean punchline. She hadn’t even told Chloe the first time she messaged her.

But she wrote again. Aubrey had taken a screenshot of the second message and sent it to Chloe.

I don’t know if you saw my last message, but I really *would* like to see you girls if you have time while you’re in Boston. I get that you might not want to. I was a bitch in college, pretty much all the time. Let me buy you lunch and make up for some of that?

Aubrey still thought it was a trick, somehow. Chloe wasn’t sure.

People can change a lot, she told Aubrey.

So she made one of her rare trips to her own Facebook account and messaged Alice herself.

Hi Alice! Bree and I could totes meet for lunch while we’re in Boston. And you don’t have to buy us anything. I think we’ve all grown up a LOT since we last saw each other, and I def wouldn’t want you to feel bad about anything that happened a million years ago. We’re flying in (with my girlfriend Beca) on Tuesday and could meet then or on Wednesday… which day would be better for you?

(It was also, by the way, the first time she had used the “g” word about Beca.

She wasn’t even sure if that’s what they were, but she refused to write “friend.”)

Chloe hadn’t realized that she was opening the floodgates of Alice’s emotional world by sending that message.

She had responded with what was basically a short essay on how terribly she felt about how she had treated everyone, especially Chloe and Aubrey. Other things, apparently, had been happening in her life, which she related in detail in her message.

Aubrey said it was the most bizarre thing she’d ever read.

Chloe didn’t think so, though. Alice’s biggest excuse was that she had been stressed about her older brother, who had spent part of her junior year in a rehab facility, and had relapsed when she was a senior.

Chloe forgave her.

Family, as someone had told her once, was so complicated.

Alice, please DON’T WORRY at all anymore about any of that! I’m just glad things are good for you now, and for your family. :) So Tuesday is better?

It had turned into an invitation for them all to stay over at her place.

Beca—who knew of Alice only as someone who had once hurt Chloe’s feelings—was not excited.

*

They, thank God, switched seats on the plane so that Chloe was in the middle.

Chloe still didn’t really understand (despite it being one of her favorite things in the world) Beca’s and Aubrey’s friendship. They argued over everything—when to drive to the airport, where to park, where to get food when they got past security, whether or not the airport WiFi was working—but when Chloe came back from the bathroom near their gate, they were laughing so hard Aubrey’s face was red.

She thought, as she had many times before, about how much money she would pay to see a video of how they had even started bonding during their secret house donation meetings in the first place. She still had no idea.

Beca, always reluctant to fly, started to tear anxiously at the perforated edge of the bag of nuts Aubrey had bought as a snack as she heard the boarding announcements begin.

Chloe, as she had the last time she and Beca were at the airport together, considered telling her how they had really met. She smiled brightly to herself, remembering her fingers absentmindedly tapping against the pillar at the baggage claim.

She couldn’t believe she was hers.

*

On the plane, Aubrey leaned across Chloe to lecture Beca on the side effects of the sleep aid she was about to take as she hastily tore open the box.

Chloe stroked Beca’s hair.

“You’ll wake me up when we land, right?” Beca asked, her voice low with worry.

Chloe kissed her on the forehead.

“Of course,” she said softly. “Sleep well, okay?”

Judging by the predictable amount of drool that accumulated on the shoulder of Chloe’s shirt, she did.

*

Patrick had dictated directions for taking the T to Beca over the phone. It probably should have been obvious that he wasn’t going to be that thorough about the details, and that Beca, in turn, wasn’t going to ask too many questions.

They couldn’t find the Silver Line, and Aubrey was about to lose her shit.

“Aubrey, don’t yell; her head hurts,” Chloe mediated, placing her hands lightly over Beca’s ears.

Beca, cranky and still fairly drugged, shook herself out of her grasp.

“Oh my God, we’ll just take a cab. I’ll pay.”

She returned to sleeping on Chloe’s shoulder as soon as they took the seats in their taxi. Aubrey, sitting in the front, crossed her arms and shook her head for the first two minutes of the ride.

It turned out their cab driver, Yuri, was from Belarus, and he and Chloe started the journey small talking in Russian. It deepened pretty quickly, though; within ten minutes, she was counseling him through his ongoing divorce.

By the time they reached Coolidge Corner, he was calling her “Chloechka” and assuring her all three of them had an open invitation to stay at his mother’s place in Minsk.

He refused to let them pay. Chloe pleaded, to no avail. Beca’s eyes were still closed, but as Chloe switched to English to thank him so much, she was sure she saw Beca smile.

*

They spent the two hours waiting for Alice to come back from work at a huge bookstore.

Beca had seen Chloe’s eyes linger on the bright red letters on the storefront. She switched her suitcase to her right hand so that she could lace their fingers together with her left, and started walking them towards the doors. Aubrey followed along, smiling at the excitement on Chloe’s face.

(There was definitely at least one thing Beca and Aubrey always agreed on.)

Aubrey trolled the self-help section, researching new motivational methods for work.

But Chloe stopped on the lower level of the store, where there was a $1 used books shelf. That was dangerous.

Beca sat down next to Chloe on the floor, reading over her shoulder as she turned the pages.

*

Alice had dyed her hair since college—it now fell around her shoulders in dark blonde curls.

Chloe couldn’t help it; even after their Facebook share sessions, she still felt a wave of anxiety automatically as Alice’s eyes reached hers.

But the hug, definitely, was a new experience.

Alice went for Aubrey, too, with open arms, but was stopped by the stiff extension of her hand. She shook it, almost smiling.

Beca didn’t even uncross her arms.

*

They walked to a European-style coffee shop a block away from Alice’s house.

Beca absentmindedly crumbled biscotti with her fingers as Chloe quizzed Alice about the details of her life.

“Are you in touch with anyone else from Barden?”

Alice cringed slightly.

“Not really, to be honest. For a while, Megan…”

Aubrey’s smile had a shade of artificiality to it.

“Oh, right. How is Megan?” she asked.

“We’re not really friends anymore. To be honest.”

“Oh,” Chloe said sympathetically. “That’s too bad.”

“It’s hard, isn’t it?” Alice asked, moving a stirrer through her coffee. “Making friends after college? I guess it’s never going to be like that again, the way it was with the Bellas.”

Chloe felt so bad for her. She must have been so lonely, to be nostalgic for those times.

“Well, once a Bella, always a Bella,” she said, hoping it was helpful. “You should come back and see them perform sometime! You can stay with one of us.”

Beca and Aubrey narrowed their eyes simultaneously, which would have been cute in another circumstance.

Alice thanked her, politely.

It was all a little awkward.

*

That night on the futon, Chloe was in the middle again. Aubrey had, slightly uneasily, offered to sleep on the floor, and Chloe had shouted “no!” in response.

She hoped it wasn’t too weird that she and Beca were more or less spooning next to her.

Beca was the first to break the silence.

“Well, that was an extremely uncomfortable evening,” she said.

“Mmhmm,” Aubrey agreed.

Chloe lowered her voice, unsure if Alice could hear them from her bedroom.

“I feel bad for her.”

Beca moved a hand down to Chloe’s, which was draped over her stomach.

“No one should have to be that lonely,” Chloe added.

Neither of them contradicted her.

She thought about their plans for the next day—the thought of seeing her family usually was enough to cause a stomachache, at least.

But as she was literally flanked by the people she loved most in the world, she didn’t feel anything but warm and safe.

She was the first one to fall asleep.

*

She woke up early to work on her paper.

Beca’s thin limbs were spread out wildly over the futon, while Aubrey, flat on her back, hadn’t moved at all, her hands folded across her chest.

The last few paragraphs Chloe had revised, she thought, almost got to the point she wanted to make.

*

Akhmatova dates her poem, “There Are Four of Us,” with the note: “November 1961 (in delirium).” It would have to be a kind of delirium, anyway, that let her speak with the three people—her friends—that it addresses. She was the only one still alive. Mandelstam had died first in 1938, a victim, like Akhmatova’s husband and son, of Soviet repression. Tsvetaeva was next: she committed suicide in 1941 after the execution of her husband. Pasternak had just passed away the year before, in 1960, of lung cancer.

It probably shouldn’t surprise us, then, that Akhmatova begins with the line, “I have turned aside from everything / From the whole earthly store.” Traveling on the paths above the world, she strains to listen to what she has so badly missed hearing, the “two friendly voices” of Mandelstam and Pasternak. But no, she corrects herself—even as she stops to hear them, she has to turn to the “east wall,” so obviously bursting with new life. Because what she sees there, in a “tangle of raspberry,” in a “dark and fresh” branch of an elder tree, is clearly, she tells us, “a letter from Marina.”

The poem brings us back, and then some, to the world. Akhmatova can’t give up on it, not totally. She is returned to the earth by the people who loved her in this life, who never really left her. An early poem of Akhmatova’s, written during the devastation of World War I, promises that “the Mother of God will spread her white mantle / over this enormous grief.” After another half century of loss and struggle, she’s not quite as sure about that. Still, she never expected her readers to carry that “enormous grief” on their own.

To be sure, loneliness is a constant theme in Akhmatova’s as well as other Silver Age poets’ works. But there is also, if one looks for it, a quiet celebration of the way the pain they experienced actually opened their hearts up to each other. In Mandelstam’s poems, the fear of being on the outside always surfaces—of hanging on, unwanted, to “someone else’s tribe,” owning only the key to “someone else’s apartment.” But under the pressure of this anxiety, his real desire is revealed:

How I long to get caught up in the game,
be lost in conversation, tell the truth,
evaporate this gloom, send it to hell,
take someone by the hand and say: ‘Be kind.’
To tell him: ‘I’m going the same way as you.’

Without this longing for connection, and the knowledge that others had been walking alongside him, would Mandelstam really have been able to write the line, only a year or two before his death: “in warm-hearted books and in children’s games / I’ll rise from the dead to say the sun is shining”?

*

Alice had left breakfast ingredients on the kitchen table before she left for work, with a note telling them to use whatever they wanted.

Chloe’s stomach rumbled as she waited for Aubrey to get up.

When she finally did and started making them all omelets, Chloe laughed, reminding Aubrey of how Alice told her that her breath smelled like egg that one time. She didn’t know why it seemed so funny now.

It looked like Aubrey didn’t think it was.

“I hate her,” Beca called out grumpily from the futon.

*

That afternoon, Aubrey met up for lunch with business contacts that lived in the area.

With a few hours to kill, Beca followed Patrick’s cryptic instructions (Chloe had to ask for help from strangers a few times) to what he said was one of his favorite places in the city—a giant reflection pool next to a big domed church.

Chloe loved it.

She put down the takeout bag they had picked up on the way on the ground, and walked along the side of the pool, loving how at the end the golden trees were mirrored in the water below.

When they sat down to eat, Beca wasn’t talking much. She was just smiling, watching Chloe tear off pieces of bread to scoop up bites of the stew in the Styrofoam container. She nodded intermittently as Chloe pressed on through her monologue about what she thought Yuri the cab driver could still do to save his marriage.

When she stopped talking to take a sip of the Diet Coke they were sharing, Beca said the words that she had only ever said to her once before.

“I love you, Chloe.”

Her stomach flipped.

She had wanted to respond with the same words—God knows, it was the truest thing she knew how to say—but it wasn’t quite what came out of her mouth.

“Thank you,” she said, nearly breathlessly.

She was smiling so hard, her face started to hurt.

Beca reached over and took the Diet Coke bottle from her hands.

“I just wanted to make sure you knew,” she explained, unloosening the cap.

The amazing thing was, she had.

*

Jenny was fifteen, which felt totally unacceptable. When had that happened?

She was waiting outside on the porch for them when they came up. They were late. Boston was super confusing, and Google Maps wasn’t much help because apparently there was an Amory Street in both Cambridge (where they wanted to go) and some other area called Jamaica Plain, and they had gone to the wrong one.

They’d called Patrick when they couldn’t find the house. Beca had described their surroundings to him and Chloe could hear him yelling, “you’re in JP? Jesus, you are idiots.” Aubrey grabbed the phone and scolded him for a solid two minutes about his incompetence in direction-giving.

They took a cab again. Their driver this time, Jean-Claude, was perfectly nice, but didn’t respond much to Chloe’s small talk overtures.

Jenny waved to them as she saw the taxi pull up. Beca gasped when she saw her.

“Oh my God, Chloe. She’s you. But… little.”

She wasn’t, actually, that little anymore. In fact, she was slightly taller than Chloe, something she didn’t realize until she pulled her into a tight hug.

Jenny whispered from within Chloe’s squeeze, “is that her?”

Chloe let her go. She nodded cheerfully.

Jenny, her face glowing, rushed over to Beca and surprised her by taking her into her arms.

“Oh!—oh, hi.”

“I’m meeting you! Finally.”

Beca, bemused, patted Chloe’s sister on the back.

Aubrey was smiling, but Chloe could tell that she was feeling a little left out by Beca’s exuberant welcome.

She called out, “and you remember Bree, right, Jenny?”

“I mean, duh,” Jenny responded, setting Beca free to go and greet her.

*

The minute Jenny opened the door, Beca actually jumped a little in fear at the sight of the Rottweiler charging towards them.

What was hilarious was that apparently her instinct was to position herself in between the dog and Chloe and cover her face with her arms.

Chloe laughed, calling the dog to her. It bypassed Beca to lean enthusiastically against her.

“Aww, look how sweet.”

“Ew, Chloe,” Aubrey noted with disgust. “He’s drooling all over you.”

“That’s Sirius,” Jenny explained.

Chloe gasped, squatting down and taking the dog’s face in her hands.

“Like Sirius Black?”

She already knew she’d like whoever Jules’ friend was who lived here.

*

His name was César, and he had been Jules’ best friend in graduate school. He and his husband Matthew had adopted Sirius only about a year before.

“We call him The Grim for short,” he said with a wink when he heard what Chloe’s reaction had been.

“Is that Chloe?”

It was Jules’ voice, from the kitchen.

She stepped into the hallway, glass of red wine in hand.

Chloe’s wide smile as she saw her was tempered only a little when she saw her father following her into the hallway.

*

During dinner, Chloe thought—it seemed like he was trying to be better.

At least he was, like, giving more than one word answers, for once.

But it almost didn’t matter.

Her eyes kept moving to Beca, whom Jenny had briefly convinced to switch seats with Hugo. Chloe’s brother’s new thing now that he was officially a teenager was not talking to anyone, ever, so it wasn’t really her fault that her attention was wandering.

Jenny was listening intently to whatever story Beca was telling her. Chloe couldn’t make out the words, but at one point, Jenny’s hand flew to her chest like she was really touched.

She’d have to remember to ask Beca later what all that was about.

*

Jules’ friends went hard. Sitting in their living room following dessert, Chloe was realizing that Matthew’s drinks were maybe even stronger than Cynthia-Rose’s. Yikes.

Aubrey, who had stuck to wine, was still only mildly buzzed. But Beca—poor little Beca—was no match for the third drink she had been too nervous to refuse.

She was all but pressed up against Chloe on the couch as she struggled to keep her eyes open.

Chloe wasn’t quite on that level, but she was drunk enough to be having a really hard time focusing on anything but the smell of Beca’s hair on her shoulder. 

“And so you are thinking of grad school?”

Jules’ face was so encouraging. Chloe wanted to tell her, please, don’t get your hopes up.

The slurred voice which interjected itself then, surprisingly, belonged to the body beside Chloe.

“She’s going to win. Win at grad school.”

Chloe squinted, trying to figure that one out.

“Beca,” she said softly. She turned to Jules. “I’m sorry. The drinks are, um. Kind of strong.”

“Oh, they’re very strong,” Matthew corrected from across the room.

But Beca wasn’t done.

“She’s so smart.”

“Beca, just stop,” Aubrey chastised her.

Chloe took a breath to steady herself. It was overwhelming enough to be grilled about future plans by her family, without having to keep Beca and Aubrey from fighting.

“Programs in literature?” Her father asked. “Or also in other fields?”

“Literature or, um…” She was distracted as Beca hiccupped. “Or cultural studies… maybe.”

César asked, “are you looking at programs all over the country?”

Chloe reflexively turned to catch a glimpse of the face beside her. Beca’s eyes were open now.

“Um, yeah. And… abroad, too. Maybe.” She felt, suddenly, kind of sad. “But I don’t know,” she revised. “I don’t even know if I want to do it. I’m just, like, applying. And stuff.”

Beca’s face was blank. Chloe couldn’t tell if she were lucid enough to follow the conversation.

“Well, I think that’s really exciting,” Jules told her, passing her empty wine glass to Matthew. “Keep me updated, please. We’re just so proud of you, Chloe.”

“Mmm,” Beca hummed, her eyes closed again. “Me too.”

Chloe brought her arm around her.

*

The plan had originally been to make it to Patrick’s place that night, but as the night went on, it became more and more obvious that they weren’t going anywhere.

Especially when they told César and Matthew they needed to get to Allston.

“Heavens forbid,” Matthew had exclaimed, a hand against his chest. “We can’t send you away to be eaten alive by rats.”

“Or frat boys,” César added.

“Even worse.”

“And besides,” César went on, “we have so many couches here for you to sleep on.”

“A veritable surfeit of couches,” Matthew declared.

“This is how he talks when he’s drunk.”

Jules said she would get them some sheets and blankets.

It was probably for the best; Beca was barely standing. She looked like maybe she was going to be sick.

“Hey,” Chloe whispered, pulling her arm around her. “Are you okay? Do you want to get some air for a second?”

Beca smiled lazily at her. She guessed that was a yes.

*

They were on the porch.

Beca was leaning with almost all her weight against the railing, and Chloe was steadying her as she moved her hand in slow circles over her back.

“Poor thing,” she said sympathetically.

Beca was shivering a little in the mild cold. She really was the worst New Englander ever. Chloe quietly slipped off her jacket, and laid it on Beca’s shoulders.

She grabbed the sides of it with both hands, pulling it around her. She turned towards Chloe, still leaning against the railing on her side.

“You should do it,” she said, her words a little less garbled than they had been on the couch. “Even if it’s far away. You should go.”

Chloe didn’t want to think about any of that.

“I’ll—just—I’ll apply,” she said. “We’ll worry about that later.”

Beca’s bare hands holding the jacket around her were red with cold. Chloe wished she’d brought gloves.

“I’ll…” Beca’s brow furrowed. “I’ll visit you, you know. Like every day.” She shook her head. “No, that’s weird. Sorry, I’m drunk.”

Chloe laughed. “I know.”

“But I will,” Beca pressed on determinedly. “I’ll visit you.”

Watching her struggle, Chloe couldn’t remember even one good reason why she’d ever choose not to stay right beside her.

Beca’s face still looked troubled.

“Just please don’t break up with me,” she said, so fast it was hardly understandable.

But Chloe understood. Her head was shaking before she could even finish the sentence.

“Beca,” she said, pulling her close and pressing a kiss against her cheek. “Never.” She kissed her again. “Never.”

Beca relaxed against her, her face moving into the crook of her neck.

“I promise,” Chloe added quietly.

She thought she could feel her nod a little.

“Okay.”

*

Jules and her friends had set up three couches with blankets, but as soon as everyone else had gone up to bed, Beca stumbled off of her own to find her way through the dark to Chloe.

It wasn’t like there was enough room for two people on Chloe’s couch, but Beca—tiny Beca—just fit so well against her.

“Night night, Aubrey,” Chloe called out across the room, hoping she didn’t feel too left out.

“Mmm,” her friend responded, maybe already half-asleep.

*

When Chloe woke up, Beca was still in her arms.

She could feel her body moving against her as she breathed steadily. She was so warm.

Chloe wouldn’t have woken her for anything in the world.

That job had to go to Sirius, who ran over after his walk directly to Beca, wildly licking her face.

Chloe felt bad, watching her wake up in a panic, but that didn’t stop her from laughing.

*

Aubrey, apparently, had woken up three hours earlier and made everyone an enormous breakfast.

By the time Chloe and Beca woke up, most of it was gone, but Aubrey had fastidiously set aside plates for them before leaving for her daily run. Chloe noted with some amusement that Aubrey had clearly saved a little more of everything for her own plate than for Beca’s. It didn’t matter, anyway—of course she and Beca would share each other’s food.

She put one of the plates in the microwave and went to go brush her teeth. When she came back into the kitchen, she was delighted to find the two most antisocial people in the house talking avidly over cups of coffee at the table.

Hugo was covering his face with his hands in excitement as Beca described working (in her new role as production assistant at Residual Heat) with a member of Hugo’s favorite band. He was listening to a lot of metal right now, which, no, but Chloe guessed everyone had to go through the whole “being thirteen” thing at some point.

They were laughing because, according to Beca, this guy in real life was apparently as not hardcore as one can get.

“I swear to God,” Beca was saying. “He goes to bed at nine thirty every night. He has three cats and he’s obsessed with them.”

Hugo was straight up giggling as she went on, reaching for her phone so she could show him pictures of the guy’s cats.

Chloe walked up behind Beca’s chair and moved her arms around her.

“Good morning,” she said cheerfully.

Beca leaned back and tilted up her head to see her face.

“Hey.”

Hugo had returned, apparently, to his vow of silence.

Chloe let Beca go so that she could fetch their plate from the microwave.

*

As she tested a bite of the hash browns to see if they were ready, she heard her father’s voice from behind her.

“Did you sleep okay?”

Chloe took out the plate, and turned back to him.

“Oh, yeah. Thanks so much for having us over. I know we got a little, um…”

He was shaking his head.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m glad we get to spend more time together.”

She nervously took a bite of the eggs with her fork.

“It’s really…” He took in a breath. He looked furtively over at Beca and Hugo, who were watching a video on her phone. “It’s good to see you this happy.”

He was moving his hands a little awkwardly, like he was unsure what to do with them. Chloe wondered if they’d ever be able to have a conversation that didn’t feel like this.

But it did mean a lot, what he said.

And anyway, it was true.

“Thank you, Dad. I really am.”

*

By the time they had to leave for the third leg of their whirlwind trip, they were all exhausted. Chloe was making sure not to talk unnecessarily to Aubrey, who seemed to be waiting for the right opportunity to scream at someone.

César insisted on driving them to Somerville. Beca started to mention that Patrick had given them bus directions, but Aubrey cut her off before she could finish.

“Yes,” she said. “Please. That would be great.”

Chloe looked at the streets out the window as they made their way to Arnie’s house, loving the sweep of the dry leaves on the ground and the saturated blue of the sky.

It only took them about ten minutes.

As César escorted them out of the car, Patrick was already making his way down from the porch. Chloe wasn’t sure, but it definitely looked like it was seeing Aubrey make her way out the car door that made him stop dead in his tracks for a few seconds.

Interesting, she thought. She made a mental note to come back to that later.

*

Arnie was so excited to see her—almost as excited as Ethel was.

The dog had merely given a low growl when Beca had half-heartedly reached over to pat her head, but upon seeing Chloe had started wagging her tail and whining plaintively until she came closer.

Arnie was in his living room watching Law & Order when he heard Patrick open the door and Ethel start whimpering. He had reached for his cane to come greet them, but Chloe had called out to him to tell him to stay where he was; they were coming.

“It’s been too long, comrade,” he said as she walked into the room, using the arm of his chair to help him stand up.

Chloe rushed over to give him a hug.

“Arnie,” she said as she pulled away, “this is Beca’s and my friend, Aubrey.”

“We’re using the term ‘friend’ here pretty loosely,” Beca clarified as Aubrey moved to shake Arnie’s hand.

Aubrey kept smiling, even if she narrowed her eyes.

*

Patrick offered to take the Tupperware full of butternut squash rolls Aubrey had literally brought with her from Georgia into the kitchen.

She was the only contributor to the “potluck” who had actually made something. Arnie had emptied a bag of lettuce into a bowl and declared it “salad,” while Patrick had brought several large frozen pizzas to bake in the oven. Apparently Cathy and Eileen were going to stop on the way to Arnie’s from the airport later that afternoon to pick up some more food at the store.

Aubrey insisted on setting up the table, and Patrick, again, volunteered to help.

“Wait, are you being ironic?” Beca asked. “Since when do you help?”

Chloe thought it was pretty obvious what was going on, but it wasn’t going that well for Beca’s cousin. As she settled down onto the couch to watch Law & Order with Arnie, she could hear Aubrey scolding Patrick about washing his hands before touching the food.

“Idiot,” Arnie snapped at the screen. “Letting him go. It’s so obvious he did it.”

Beca crossed her arms, sitting low on the couch next to Chloe.

“He thinks he’s a detective,” she told her.

“I think the wife did it,” Chloe offered.

Beca turned towards her skeptically. “We’ve been watching for two minutes. How do you even know what’s going on?”

Nevertheless, by the end of the episode, it had become clear Chloe was right: it was the wife.

No one seemed happier about this plot twist than Beca.

*

A pizza and a half into the potluck, Chloe was keenly watching Beca and her aunt, actually reduced to tears of laughter, tell a story about a time they had accidentally left Patrick in a McDonald’s ball pit as a child. According to them, after Eileen had driven back for him, he had spent the ride home sobbing and saying he wanted a divorce (he hadn’t been that clear on what that meant).

Patrick’s grumpy embarrassed face was so like Beca’s. His eyes were avoiding the entire right side of the table, where Aubrey was sitting.

Arnie, his hearing aid turned low, interrupted the story to lean towards Chloe on his right and ask her when he should buy his plane tickets to come visit her in Leningrad.

Beca had told Arnie earlier that there was a chance Chloe might end up doing a one-year MA program in St. Petersburg, and it seemed he had gotten a little ahead of himself in planning.

As he asked her, she felt that familiar wave of anxiety at the idea of voluntarily living 4,982 miles away from Beca.

(She’d looked it up, obviously.)

But it was strange. Beca had turned to her when she heard him, and even though she was still catching her breath from all that laughing, her eyes were nothing but hopeful and proud as she waited for Chloe to respond.

Do you have any idea how much this sad little world needs you?

She’d spent the past seven months hearing Beca’s question echo in her mind. She still didn’t know if it was true, but every time she thought of it, her heart would hit a note she hadn’t even known was in its range.

If Beca kept looking at her like that, she thought, there was absolutely nothing she wouldn’t be game to try.

Chapter Text

Tutti : The Send-Off Party (August 2016)

Aubrey

The retreat group was scheduled to depart in an hour, but considering how slowly the minutes were whittling themselves away, it might as well have been all day. Aubrey was terrorizing a particularly whiny assortment of participants that afternoon, and she decided to do what she’d never done before: cave in to their demands for a lunch break.

Well, it worked for her too, in any case. She needed to do something that would keep her from constantly checking her watch, counting the seconds till it was time for her to drive to the Bella house and start setting up for Chloe’s surprise going-away party.

She still couldn’t believe it had been Beca who’d come up with the idea. She really hadn’t expected her to snap out of the marathon self-pity session she’d been holding about Chloe’s departure long enough to think about everyone else who might want to send her off. In this case, Aubrey was happy to admit she had been wrong.

She was walking in the direction of the trail behind the lake before she knew exactly where she was heading. Maybe in the woods, sheltered from the midday summer heat, she’d be able to think more clearly.

There was absolutely no reason to be worried, she knew. Chloe wasn’t exactly the hardest person to please, and besides, it had actually been one of the easiest events Aubrey had ever put together, logistics-wise.

The venue had been obvious. She and Beca had worked so hard to get the Bellas a house precisely for a situation like this—a time when Chloe needed a home to which she could return. Besides, most of the invitees were connected with the Bellas in some form, so it just made sense.

The food, too, wasn’t a problem. Anan, the owner of Chloe’s favorite Thai restaurant, had reacted to her question about catering the event as if she had just announced he’d won the lottery. He offered to do it for what Aubrey knew, having had her fair share of events catered, was essentially nothing.

Alcohol was handled by some contact of Beca’s named Dax, who had just opened a microbrewery. On the phone, Aubrey thought he sounded like a complete tool, but Beca assured her the beer was good.

None of the normal challenges presented themselves, planning-wise. It was more a question of, how could the party possibly be worthy of Chloe?

How, for serious, was she supposed to express to her how proud she was, how much she loved her?

Aubrey veered to the right and ducked between two bent trees onto the hidden path that began in between them. She realized suddenly that she should have shown it to Chloe during her last visit. It was quiet, and beautiful, and Aubrey liked it—all things she knew would make her best friend so happy.

Maybe next year.

She sighed involuntarily at the thought. She couldn’t imagine a year without Chloe (not again), no more than she could imagine her life without her in the first place.

Really, who had Aubrey even been before she’d met her?

At best, maybe, she’d been the third most gifted Posen sibling. At worst… well, honestly, she’d usually felt like it was the worst.

She had known immediately, that first Thanksgiving, even just having struggled through that Chopin piece, telling herself she could have done so much better—she’d known, as soon as she saw Chloe smile like she was the most talented person on earth, that there really wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do for her.

And that was before everything else: how Chloe defended her in every Bellas rehearsal, how she talked her through every Christmas visit to her family, how she sat with her through every meltdown.

How was she supposed to thank her?

*

Chloe

The night before the party, about twenty-four hours before Chloe flew out, she and Beca were finally watching the Cheburashka films together.

Beca’s head was on her lap. Looking down at her, Chloe felt a rush of protectiveness. Beca had been trying so hard all day not to seem anxious or upset. She’d been making a lot of jokes about Chloe’s lack of packing skills.

Over lunch, she had gone silent for a minute, and it seemed like maybe she had given up on faking her good mood, but she had rebounded with the comment, “you know, Chloe, it’s not even really a year, right? It’s like ten months. Not even. That’s like nothing, right?”

But that night, watching a stop-action crocodile and an animal unknown to science become friends on Chloe’s laptop screen, she had gone back to being quiet. Chloe moved a hand through her hair, gently trailing fingers along the side of her face.

Beca gave a few half-hearted laughs at some of the more ridiculous lines, and, slightly more genuinely, when Chloe had started doing her Cheburashka voice, but mostly she just stared.

Towards the end of the film, she grabbed Chloe’s hand and pulled it against her chest. Chloe let her palm rest softly against her, feeling the beat of her heart.

Beca’s voice was low and rough.

“I want you to do this, Chloe. But I’m really fucking sad.”

Chloe moved hair out of Beca’s face with her other hand.

Her response came out so high-pitched, it was almost a squeak.

“I am too.”

Hearing the sound, Beca let go of Chloe and pushed herself up off her lap, settling onto the bed so that she was facing her.

She gently moved her hands up to frame Chloe’s face.

Chloe felt that familiar urge—to turn away, not to want so much—but she kept her gaze firm.

“You are going to be so amazing,” Beca said insistently, even if she looked like maybe she could start crying at any moment. “And I’ll be fine, like, I don’t know. Amy invited me to come with her and Bumper on an across-the-country jelly wrestling road trip, so…”

Chloe shook her head wildly.

“Yeah, that’s… probably not a good idea,” Beca agreed.

“No.”

Beca sighed, letting go of Chloe’s face to wipe her eyes with the heels of her hands.

“We’ll talk every day,” Chloe declared. “No exceptions.”

Beca tried to smile, her eyes fixed on the bed.

“Yeah.”

“And I’ll write you letters,” Chloe went on, a little more brightly.

Beca looked up.

“Yeah?”

“Mmhmm. Every day.”

It looked like she thought that was funny.

“I will,” Chloe insisted.

Beca leaned in, close enough to kiss her.

“I know you will.”

Chloe moved an arm around her before had a chance to pull away.

It was so stupid, the distance she was going to put between herself and that face.

“Beca,” she said, surprising herself with the need in her voice. “Kiss me.”

Beca moved a hand up into her hair. Chloe shivered as her thumb brushed against her earlobe.

“Please,” she added, and Beca didn’t hesitate.

*

When they were together, it was almost always Chloe who kissed, who touched, who undressed, who explored more and more of Beca.

That’s usually the way Chloe wanted it.

But that night, she shut her eyes and felt Beca’s body moving against her, wondering why she would ever do anything else. She wanted to memorize all of it, everything.

It’d be months, she knew, before she’d feel fingertips moving so lightly up and down her arms like that. She strained to find at least a few words which would evoke it later, something that would capture the wave of longing which rushed through her as Beca started—slowly, eagerly—to trail kisses down her throat to her chest.

But there wasn’t, she was sure, any substitute, even memory, for how much she loved the feel of the hair in her fingers, her hand reaching out for Beca as she made her way down her stomach.

Beca’s lips lingered gradually longer with each inch she moved downwards. When, so much more boldly than Chloe was used to, she bit gently at the skin at her hip bone, Chloe’s eyes flew open.

Beca looked up. Her face, as nervous as it had been four years earlier when she had asked Chloe to put her hands on her, waited for her permission. Chloe watched her tenderly, savoring the warmth of the fingers resting tentatively against her leg.

If words had been her thing, at that moment, she would have been able to tell her, Beca, you can have absolutely any part of me that you want.

But instead, she just smiled, and closed her eyes again.

Don’t let me forget this, her whole body begged wordlessly as Beca moved to start kissing along her thighs, and closer—hesitantly at first, but so awesomely—moving to meet where she ached for her.

*

Chloe woke up in the middle of the night.

Beca, fast asleep in her arms, was holding Chloe’s hand against her chest again.

Chloe leaned in, taking in a breath of her hair. How, how had she ever ended up this lucky?

She pressed a kiss behind her ear, and Beca stirred, but didn’t wake.

“I love you,” she whispered, and relished the sound of the words.

She whispered it again and again, as if what Beca heard while dreaming would last her through all the nights to come.

*

Ari

It had taken Ari about a week to find the picture she wanted. She’d almost given up when she found herself (as Erika’s eardrums can attest) shouting happily at its discovery. The flash drive that contained it had somehow migrated to the back of their sock drawer.

Eventually, she told herself, she would get around to talking with Erika about how “shoving things into drawers” was not the same thing as “cleaning.” At least in that moment, however, she was just happy she’d found it in time for the party.

She was thrilled that Aubrey had invited them, especially as they hadn’t really kept in touch since she and Erika had graduated.

Her first thought when she’d heard Aubrey’s voice on the phone was that she must have seen their wedding pictures on Facebook, and was calling to congratulate them, but she was even happier to hear the real reason.

Erika usually wasn’t as sentimental as Ari was, but when she’d come home from work that evening and Ari had told her about the invitation, she’d held her hand to her heart and said, “oh, Chloe.”

“I know, right?” Ari had commiserated.

Chloe didn’t know this, but she had been a big part of her and Erika finally getting together. The first time they’d even hooked up was after that Thanksgiving dinner Aubrey and Chloe had thrown senior year, probably because Chloe had been asking so many leading questions all evening.

But it was more than that. Ari hadn’t actually even told Erika the most important part.

It was one of her favorite memories from college, that time Chloe had stayed after rehearsal with Ari for a few hours to learn some vocal percussion tricks and she’d asked her all about her life. She just had been so nice, and so interested in everything she was saying. She’d asked so many questions.

Ari would have felt weird saying it to her, because it wasn’t like they knew each other that well, but talking with Chloe that day made her feel like she was, actually, pretty great. Like, maybe great enough for Erika to like her back.

She had definitely been her favorite underclassman.

So when Aubrey had told her she was asking everyone to bring photos of Chloe, Ari already had one in mind.

Erika had reached over to take the Bella performance photo album off the shelf as soon as pictures were mentioned, but Ari shook her head.

“No, I want one from the graduation barbecue,” she’d told her. “Didn’t you have all of our pictures from senior year on a flash drive somewhere?”

Erika’s grimace had been precious. Organization wasn’t really her strong suit.

But even with all the digging, it was worth it.

The picture was so cute: Ari was sitting on Erika’s lap, watching the camera, and Erika was looking at her, laughing. And on the side, it looked like Aubrey (she used to dress so differently when they knew her—she was wearing sweatpants) was explaining something to Chloe. Chloe’s eyes in the picture were wide open, her whole body oriented towards Aubrey, listening intently.

“It’s so her, isn’t it?” Ari had asked. She liked it so much.

Erika had cautiously suggested that they choose one where she was actually smiling, or, you know, looking at the camera.

But Ari insisted—and, as usual, she got her way.

When Chloe saw it later, at the party, Ari did her best not to gloat. Chloe called Aubrey over from across the room and showed it to her, a broadening smile on her face.

“Okay, yeah, you were right,” Erika conceded, moving an arm around her wife.

*

Hugo

Beca was probably the coolest person Hugo had ever met. If she and Chloe ever broke up, he had plans to petition the government (or however it worked) to transfer to Beca’s family instead.

He had been hoping they would have a chance at the party for her to show him how she made mashups, but there were a lot of people there, so that was okay.

And, he guessed, she was busy sitting on his sister’s lap the whole time, which was just fucking weird, but whatever. As long as that continued, Beca stayed in the family, so he could let it go.

She came over about an hour into the party, while he slouched in a chair at the kitchen table and watched the adults start to get drunk in the next room. Chloe and her friend Aubrey were dancing together to some truly horrible Miley Cyrus song, and Beca had moved away from Chloe’s side for the first time all night.

“How are you surviving this?” Beca shouted over the music as she refilled her cup. “Should I get you a vomit bag or something?”

She was so awesome.

“Sorry, I’ve already gone deaf from how much this song has made my ears bleed,” he told her.

He tried to hide his excitement when she laughed at that.

She pulled out a chair and sat down next to him.

“Hey,” she started. “How are things, Hugo?”

When he just shrugged in response, she tried again.

“How’s your family?”

He rolled his eyes forcefully.

“It sucks. As per usual.”

He waited for a second laugh, but Beca just took a sip of her drink and stared back at him. Shit. He’d said something stupid.

But, out of nowhere, she smiled, and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Yeah, it can feel that way,” she told him. “But you know? It could be a whole lot worse.”

He tried to think of some way to change the topic—maybe he should ask her about what new bands she was working with—but she was distracted, looking over at Chloe with this stupid grin on her face.

She turned back to him.

“Hugo, not everything is shitty,” she said. “Sometimes it’s better to just let things be good.”

She stood up, leaving her cup on the table. She looked at him again (it really seemed almost like she was trying not to laugh), before turning towards the other room.

And then—honestly, he was a little embarrassed for her—she ran up to Chloe and Aubrey and started dancing with them like an idiot.

Chloe cheered and pulled her so close. It was pretty gross.

He didn’t really know what all that was about.

*

Jesse

He was definitely not expecting an invite to that party. Not that he and Chloe had ever had problems—he thought he was handling the gracious ex-boyfriend scenario with aplomb—but there was the whole issue of Beca being there.

He’d been walking to his car from work when he’d gotten her text. It wasn’t exactly the most encouraging message he’d ever received:

Hey, Chloe says you should come. All the Trebles are here.

He really missed her.

He did, even if he usually couldn’t remember exactly why. If he were being honest, she hadn’t always been the greatest girlfriend. He felt like he’d spent the whole time they’d been together waiting for her to open up to him—at all. It helped a little when he told himself that she probably wasn’t even capable of loving someone in that way.

The last time he’d visited home, his mom had suggested (in the course of a long conversation over huge mugs of hot cocoa) that he probably just missed being in a relationship. Maybe that was it. It had been great to have someone there whose job it was to share all the things he loved and cared about most. Maybe it wasn’t Beca he missed at all.

When he read her text, though, he hadn’t been able to stop the sudden flood of memories that followed.

He felt a buzz of excitement in his chest as he thought of her laughing—really laughing—something he’d only made her do a few times. Once (this was among his greatest life accomplishments), she’d even snorted.

He thought of the first time they’d sat at her desk, listening to her music, when he’d realized how good she really was. That had been when he’d first started to plan their future as the Jay Z and Beyoncé of music production in his head.

But the image he kept coming back to was of his laptop in front of them, all those lazy evenings beside her on the bed. He’d always liked her face best while watching it react to a new movie. He was pretty sure he’d never forget what it looked like that one day, when she’d been so moved by the final scenes of The Return of the King that she’d actually teared up.

No, he thought; it was her he missed.

So he said—sure, okay—he would come.

He texted Benji next, to let him know he was coming, and drove over. He knew it wasn’t his finest hour, but he intentionally kept his badge on from work, so that Beca would see that he was starting to live the dream (even if he was scoring games, not films yet).

But when the door of the Bella house opened in front of him, it wasn’t Beca’s arms which wrapped around him.

He’d forgotten how tightly Chloe always hugged everyone. That was a little glimmer of hope, anyway. Beca didn’t even like being touched—there was no way she’d put up with all that squeezing forever.

“I’m so glad you could come,” Chloe told him, gesturing for him to follow her through the living room, and it didn’t sound like she was lying. “All the Trebles are in the kitchen; let me show you.”

He thanked her, scanning the crowd for a glimpse of Beca. Where was she?

She wasn’t among the group of former Bellas waving at him as he passed. (How were they all there? Didn’t most of them live out of state now?) She wasn’t with the group he assumed had to be the current Bellas, or helping Aubrey realign the decorations on the wall, or anywhere else he looked.

His eyes were brought back from sea of humans all around him as he felt the tug on his neck—Chloe had grabbed his badge.

“Oh, wow! This was like your dream, right?”

She was so excited. Could she already be drunk? She usually did get pretty wasted, from what Jesse remembered. But it was sweet.

“Yeah—yeah it was,” he had to answer. “Thanks.”

“Are you liking it?”

He opened his mouth to reply with the response he’d prepared for Beca, but the conversation was cut short by the Trebles’ cheers from the other end of the kitchen. Bumper met him halfway, foisting a Solo cup into his hand, and Benji pulled him into an enthusiastic side hug.

And then, he found her.

Cut to the threshold of the kitchen. She was walking towards him, and her expression was sweeter than he’d ever thought possible.

It was the perfect scene. He knew just how it would go. The camera would zoom in on his face; he was sure he must have looked smitten. It wouldn’t pan back to her till she was close enough to kiss.

And—well, it almost did happen that way.

It’s just that he wasn’t the one she was walking towards. By the looks of it, she didn’t even notice him standing there till Chloe had shaken herself out of her arms.

“Look, he made it!” she told Beca brightly.

It made him feel a little better, that she looked so guilty.

“Oh—hey! Jesse,” Beca said, reaching out for a hug. It was stupid, but he patted her on the back. He couldn’t believe things had gotten that bad between them.

“Did you see his badge?” Chloe asked excitedly, grabbing it again and holding it out to Beca.

And, you know? That was the part he still didn’t get.

How he had lost such an epic chess match to someone so completely unconcerned with defending herself?

*

Jenny

“It’s not like we haven’t done this before, Chloe,” she told her sister, who was gripping her tightly by the shoulders, staring with teary eyes. “It’ll be like old times! Writing each other letters.”

Oops. That just seemed to make her even more emotional.

“I can’t believe you’re going to be seventeen when I come back,” Chloe whispered. “You’re so grown up.”

She looked totally serious, but Jenny had to force down a laugh. It was so funny to her that she’d ever worried about if her older sister liked her. Chloe’s hold on her arms showed no sign of slackening, and it looked like she was having at least seven different feelings at once.

But she didn’t lose it till a minute later when Jenny started showing her the pictures she’d brought of them together.

“I don’t even remember these being taken!” Chloe exclaimed, holding out a picture of Jenny explaining a science project to her.

“That’s just Mom being a creeper,” Jenny explained. “She’s always taking a million candid shots on her phone when you visit.”

Jenny watched Chloe happily as she moved along the wall, gasping and grabbing almost all of the photos hanging there. Her reactions increased in intensity as she went on, until, finding a shot of herself watching Jenny play the piano, she started shouting.

“Oh my God—turn the music off! We need a duet. Right. Now.”

Jenny hadn’t even played piano in over a year, but she couldn’t really say no to Chloe.

Aubrey seemed similarly reluctant to throw a spontaneous concert, but she just shrugged as she turned off the music, asking Jenny if she knew Debussy’s Petite Suite.

She did, sort of. Aubrey raised her eyebrows a few times as Jenny stumbled over the notes, but Chloe, watching them from an armchair she had dragged near the piano, didn’t seem to notice.

Beca was leaning against her, and Chloe kept moving her hands through her hair and looking back and forth from her to the piano like she didn’t know which made her happier.

Jenny breathed a sigh of relief. She had been so worried the whole party would be ruined when Chloe realized that their dad had left early. Jenny was so pissed at him.

But later, as Chloe hugged her sister goodbye, she told her, “Jenny, nothing could have made this better than it was.”

The way she said it made Jenny think she wanted her to know—even that was okay.

*

Patrick

He hated it when Beca would tell the story later and say that he had only flown in from Boston so that he could try to mack on Aubrey. He’d correct her every time—that had been only 30, maybe 35 percent of his decision to come.

He really liked Chloe. She tended to make Beca slightly less of a dick, which was always a plus. And, he thought, it was actually kind of nice to see how much less of a cranky old dude Arnie was when he and Chloe were hanging out together.

It was after she had visited Boston the year before that Patrick had started visiting Arnie every week. He knew it was weird that his eighty-eight-year-old great-uncle was kind of his best friend in the city now, but it was true.

Arnie was the one who insisted Patrick go to the party. He’d said making the trip would be too much for him himself, especially as he was planning to make it all the way to Russia (he called it the Soviet Union) in the spring, but he felt strongly that some representative of the family should be there.

“I mean, I don’t really think it’s a big deal or anything,” Patrick had told him, and Arnie had smacked him on the head with that day’s issue of the Globe.

So, Patrick flew to Georgia.

Aubrey being there was just an added bonus, even if he had to try to avoid looking at her when Beca was paying attention. That whole year, his cousin had made a point of mocking him about it whenever they talked.

“What is wrong with you? You do know she will probably kill you in your sleep, right?”

He couldn’t help it.

Like, she looked so good—it was the first time he’d seen her with her hair down around her shoulders like that, and she was wearing this skirt that was making him avert his eyes from her legs constantly—but that wasn’t even it.

He didn’t know. Maybe it was because he officially had never cared about anything that he thought it was so cool how much she cared about everything.

When he listened for her voice, he’d hear her snapping at whoever was trying to help. But when he looked for her, he’d see her eyes flit nervously again and again to Beca and Chloe, monitoring how they were doing. She cared so much.

And—Patrick thought—he was such a fucking jerk, but he wanted her to care about him too.

*

Alice

She wished she would have known Beca’s smoking hot cousin was also planning to fly in for the party from Boston. They could have traveled together.

Not that he was paying that much attention to her. He was focused on—ugh. She couldn’t make sense of it. There is no accounting for taste, evidently.

But all that was really just a distraction. She moved to the kitchen to refill her drink for what was probably the eighth time, more so that she’d have something to do than anything else.

She wondered if anyone else had noticed how extremely uncomfortable she had been for the whole party. Why had she thought coming to it would be a good idea? She hardly knew anyone, and the people she did know weren’t exactly excited to see her.

Erika and Ari were polite—more than Chloe’s girlfriend was, in any case—but it wasn’t like they were that happy that she was there.

She got it. Really. She knew she couldn’t do everything over, as much as she might want to.

From the kitchen, she watched the current Bellas dance together, laugh at each other’s jokes, get each other drinks, listen to each other’s stories. It didn’t remind her of college at all. She wished someone would have told her it could have been like that.

It gets harder, she thought, as you get older. She had no fucking idea what it would take for her to start being a good person so late in the game.

But—whatever. She wasn’t there for any of them, anyway.

It surprised her, how sad she was that Chloe was moving out of the country for the year. She didn’t know if she would have time in Russia to do less important things, like, oh, for example, respond to her messages on Facebook.

She was still answering them, and Alice knew she should have just left her alone, but how could she resist it, knowing she had a chance to be totally honest with someone and get a response back that wasn’t judgmental or sarcastic or gloating at all?

It was like that warmth Alice had felt when Chloe had found her, about five minutes into the start of the party. Alice couldn’t remember the last time someone had hugged her—it might actually have been the year before, when Chloe had visited Boston.

“Beca, you remember Alice, right?” Chloe had asked cheerfully, and her girlfriend had given her a half-hearted smile with more than the shadow of a warning in her eyes.

Alice couldn’t help feeling a little satisfied with the confusion on Beca’s face when Chloe dropped her hand to grab Alice’s, dragging her to a couch.

She’d quizzed her for the next twenty minutes—how was her family doing? Had she considered going to the meet-ups in Boston Chloe had linked her to?

Right, okay, Alice thought. This is why I flew in.

Awkward party or not, those twenty minutes alone were worth the plane fare.

*

Jules

She kept thinking about it, during the party—how maybe she should have pushed harder, all those years ago when Chloe’s mother passed, to have her come live with them. David had been insistent: Chloe didn’t want it. She wanted to stay with her aunt, and of course they couldn’t have disrespected her choice.

But how could Chloe have known then—the innocent fifteen-year-old child that she was—that there were people in the world who wanted her, who could love her?

When she came to their house for the first time that Christmas, it was immediately clear to Jules that it was more than grief that distanced her from them.

Truthfully, Jules wasn’t sure exactly what it had been, or how to interpret David’s stories about his first wife. Her mind jumped automatically to diagnostics—some kind of untreated mental illness, certainly, but who could really say? In any case, she had never been around much for her daughter. When Jules had met Chloe for the first time, she was so used to loneliness that she likely hadn’t even known what it was.

It had been so many years since then, but she still couldn’t stop thinking about it, even as everyone celebrated around her. Would it have been better for Chloe, if she had forced it? If she had been able to take her in—to be her mother?

But none of that mattered anymore, not really.

She had to keep wiping her eyes—hoping Hugo, who would definitely make fun of her, wouldn’t see it—as she watched Chloe move from person to person at that party.

Everyone was looking at her like she was precious and beautiful, like they knew exactly how special she was.

No one more so than her sweet girlfriend, who couldn’t keep her eyes off her, who rushed to ask if she wanted her to get her more food or beer whenever she ran out, who kept whispering things into her ear that made her smile so warmly, or burst into laughter.

It was everything Jules had ever wanted for her, even if she wasn’t the one who had given it.

She hated more than anything that she had brought with her to the house the only shade of bad news. David, as he said goodbye, told Chloe what was true—that he was going to the hotel to answer some work calls—and didn’t add what they all knew was also true, that of course he could have waited.

Jules was exhausted. What she had said to him three years before after Chloe left their house (“if you are not someone who can be her father, you are not the person I fell in love with”), she’d thought, had been just enough of a threat to jolt him into trying.

She had given up trying to understand why it was so hard for him. She didn’t know what she was going to do next.

But when she went over to check on Chloe after he left, she just shook her head, looking around in disbelief at the people filling the room.

“Jules,” she said, and she was almost glowing with happiness. “My family is here.”

Sweet, lovely Chloe, she thought.

Chloe pulled her stepmother into a hug so tight she could barely breathe.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

Jules couldn’t have been more grateful for the slight pain her arms caused as they pressed around her rib cage.

She whispered back what she’d said many times before, and still meant as much every time:

“I am so, so proud of you.”

*

Beca

Talking to Hugo at the party reminded her of a lot of things. Like, of being a teenager and hating everyone. Herself the most, honestly.

It made her remember that time that she had thrown her laptop, with all her first mixes on it, into the dumpster—she still couldn’t believe she had done that. She didn’t totally understand why she had.

It was a dick move, for sure, considering her dad had paid for it. She had just hated it, how nothing she created came close to expressing what she was feeling, how pathetic it seemed to pretend that she was ever going to make things better with some stupid mashups or whatever.

Beca didn’t like to think of herself at that age that much. She had been awful, she thought—just this miserable little person who went around saying mean things to people and who fantasized about living in a studio apartment in LA where she’d never have to talk to anyone about anything except music.

And now…

Chloe loved her.

No matter how many times she thought about it, it never stopped blowing her mind. She was sure she’d never done anything to deserve it. She didn’t even think she could.

She wished she were better at this. She wished she knew how to tell Chloe just how much she’d totally changed her.

She couldn’t.

And at the party, she honestly couldn’t even do anything but remember the night before. Why—she asked herself—had she ever wasted her time doing anything but being the cause of those little sounds Chloe had made? And she thought, that’s one way to tell her, if words don’t cut it.

Her fingers kept moving again and again to the spot behind her ear where Chloe had kissed her, waking her up only a few hours after they had gone to sleep.

Beca usually hated waking up in the middle of the night—it was so hard for her to fall back asleep—but it was the sweetest, it was so Chloe, it was maybe the best thing she’d ever felt, to be woken up like that, surfacing from sleep not in fear or confusion for once but with the realization of how safe and, well, cherished she was in her arms.

She was sure Chloe had thought she was still asleep when she’d kept whispering, telling her exactly how much she loved her.

So—it wasn’t Beca’s fault that she was all over her at the party. And Chloe, for her part, kept looking at her like she was this other person, this other Beca who was maybe worthy of being loved by Chloe Beale.

When it was almost time for them to leave to go to the airport, Chloe moved Beca’s hair away from her ear and whispered, “I have something for you.”

Beca cringed with regret. Like an idiot, she had been so busy with getting things ready for the party that she hadn’t even thought about getting Chloe a gift.

She started to apologize, but Chloe just rolled her eyes.

(That’s my move, Beca thought.)

She led Beca out to her car, and opened the front door to turn on the ignition. She must have put the CD in the car beforehand—Beca recognized the sound immediately. It was that “We Found Love” orchestral mix that she had made back during her sophomore year.

Chloe closed the front door, and shut her eyes for a few seconds, listening to the music. The smile that spread across her face then made Beca dizzy with happiness.

Opening her eyes, Chloe moved back to meet her by the trunk, and leaned against the car. She patted the space next to her, and Beca followed helplessly, moving into her arms.

“This was for me?” Chloe asked, her voice low and hopeful.

Being better at words, once again, would have been awesome for Beca, so that she could have told her: everything is for you.

Instead, she just said, “of course it was.”

Chloe moved her fingers through hers, watching her carefully as they listened to the whole song play out. Beca was completely quiet. The mix was longer than she remembered, but she hated that it even had to end at all.

When it finished, Chloe took in a deep breath and stood up straight, moving Beca along with her. She popped open the trunk and grabbed one of her bags, unzipping it without taking anything out of it.

“I don’t want you to be all alone while I’m gone,” she said.

Beca almost started crying with panic. If Chloe were about to suggest an open relationship, she was honestly not above falling down on her knees and begging her to reconsider.

But what Chloe pulled out of her bag was something way less terrifying than that—it was Wilbur the Whale.

Beca brought both of her hands up to her face in shock.

“You kept him? Oh my God.”

She couldn’t believe how happy her voice sounded.

“I kept him,” Chloe admitted.

She passed the stuffed animal to Beca, trailing her hands along the sides of her arms as she pulled away.

“How is this even possible? I had no idea.”

Chloe’s smile seemed a little embarrassed.

“I didn’t want you to think it was weird,” she said quietly.

Beca hated that she’d ever thought that—that she’d ever let her think that.

“I missed him,” she told Chloe, just as softly.

Chloe moved closer, placing a hand on Beca’s back so that Wilbur was somewhat uncomfortably pressed in between them.

“All yours,” she declared, her eyes finding Beca’s. “Guard him wisely.”

Beca laughed, as much because she remembered everything about that day as because she knew exactly what she was supposed to say next.

“With my very life.”

The cheesiness was worth it to see Chloe smile like that. Her eyes were so full and blue, even if they were still a little teary from the party.

What was Beca even going to look at for the next ten months if she couldn’t gaze into them?

Jesus Christ, Chloe, she thought, willing herself not to blink. How are you even real?

*

Chloe

Their faces were everywhere, all over the Bella house.

Beca and Aubrey had done it, she knew. They must have gotten there early when she’d thought Beca was out getting them food, and they’d decorated the whole place with everyone’s pictures.

They must have put most of it together in advance. They’d linked the paper shapes they’d mounted the pictures on with strings that had also been connected to white Christmas lights—Aubrey probably got the idea from Pinterest or something—and everyone had written messages on the backs.

And they were all there, smiling, waiting for Chloe to see their contributions. She was too busy trying and failing not to cry even to say anything.

Something came to her mind as she looked through all the pictures. She couldn’t remember where she’d heard it before.

“There’s enough love around you to crush you flat.”

Maybe it was from a poem. She’d look it up later.

But wherever it was from, it was the weirdest feeling to know with her whole heart that it was true.

*

Aubrey

Okay. She had always been a little jealous of Beca.

Not, as Chloe would say, for that reason. It’s just that Chloe was, without question, the person she loved most in the world, and it was a little hard to admit that there was someone else Chloe loved more than her. Especially someone so infuriating, but she could concede that that ship had sailed.

So, it was difficult at first to watch Chloe fall apart at the airport in front of the security line as she tried to kiss Beca through sobs. But it made Aubrey feel better—it did—to see Beca join her, crying, if anything, even more sloppily.

It was so unlike Beca, how she threw her arms aimlessly around Chloe’s neck, how she rested her forehead against hers and closed her eyes. She had clearly stopped thinking about what she looked like to anyone else.

Good, Aubrey thought.

Chloe kept trying to tell Beca something with what little breath she had left. Aubrey worried that she was having some kind of minor breakdown because what she was struggling to get out didn’t even make sense—something about having met Beca at the baggage claim. Beca wasn’t following it, anyway. She just kept saying “yeah” before darting forward to trap one of Chloe’s lips between hers.

They were a mess.

Aubrey interrupted them.

“Ladies,” she counseled, touching both their arms. “Ladies! Are you or are you not Barden Bellas?”

They stopped to look at her. Chloe sniffled “yes” while Beca wiped her face on her sleeve.

“Do we or do we not sing through the pain?”

Chloe said “yes” again, but Beca just glared at Aubrey—like an outraged raccoon, she thought—before turning back to Chloe.

“No, we don’t sing through the pain,” she told her. “I’ve been telling you that literally for years.”

“It’s a metaphor, Beca,” Aubrey clarified testily, not breaking her smile.

Neither of them replied, so she went on.

“We have to face this next challenge head on.” She put on her best drill sergeant voice. “No crying! No falling apart! Time to go, Bellas.”

Why was Chloe looking at her like that?

Chloe let go of Beca and pulled Aubrey closer by the hand, reaching over to wipe the tears she hadn’t even known were there off her face.

She moved into Aubrey’s arms, squeezing her as tightly as she always had, resting her head against her shoulder.

They got Chloe through security eventually.

Aubrey and Beca wouldn’t mention ever again the ten minutes they both spent silently staring into space in Beca’s car.

As they pulled into the Bellas’ driveway, Aubrey was ready to say goodbye.

Beca watched her thoughtfully as she rummaged through her bag for her keys.

“So,” Beca said, and judging by the expression on her face, she was already regretting the rest of her sentence, “I’m FaceTimeing Chloe in fourteen hours. Do you wanna just stay and join me?”

Aubrey was nodding—yes—before she could even think about how to respond.

Chapter Text

St. Petersburg, Russia (November 2016)

Chloe hadn’t even owned a winter coat before moving to St. Petersburg; she’d never had to.

It was only November, and the winter was going to be long.

She didn’t mind it, though. Not usually. She kind of liked that the Summer Garden, where she went on a walk at least daily, had started emptying out as soon as the snow started. The silence was almost magical as she walked alone, looking out at the patterns the thin sheets of ice formed on the Fontanka River. “The wide rivers of glistening ice,” she thought. That’s how Akhmatova had described the very same sight.

It was pretty exciting, being in the city where all the writers she loved most had lived. It had become so easy to pretend they were her friends. She’d become super invested in her imaginary version of the love affair that maybe had existed in real life between her two very favorite poets. Beca probably knew more about that now from Chloe’s daily letters than she had ever wanted to.

But that day, anyway, she could do without all of it. The biting cold didn’t seem magical at all. She felt a sudden longing for home—not, for once, for her real home in Atlanta, but the home of her childhood. She tried to remember what sunscreen even smelled like.

She thought of that day on the beach as a kid, when she’d swum for the first time. She heard the echo of someone’s voice—

“My brave little Chloe.”

At the moment, however, she didn’t feel very brave at all.

Beca had cancelled their FaceTime date for the first time since Chloe had moved there. She knew she shouldn’t be so dramatic about it. It was just one day, after all, and if Beca had to go in really early to work, there wasn’t much she could do about it, obviously. But, even if it was silly, she really had thought that “no exceptions” rule they’d agreed on was real.

It was more the surprise that, if Beca had cancelled, it meant that their chats didn’t literally keep her alive from day to day the way they did for Chloe.

It’s not like they even had to talk, really. Sometimes they wouldn’t—they’d just lie on their beds next to their laptops and stare at each other.  Technology is so awesome, Chloe thought, but also kind of a mean lie. There were times that she’d almost convince herself she could reach through the screen and touch her face before she remembered how ridiculously far away she was.

Beca had looked like she wanted to do the same when she told her she wouldn’t be able to talk the next day. Chloe had tried to keep her emotions in check, but could hear how hoarse her voice was when she responded that that was totally fine.

“Chloe, no,” Beca had said quietly, and her fingers actually started to reach over before she realized what she was doing. “It’s just this one time, I promise. I hate it. Please don’t be so sad.”

She’d nodded a few times, hoping she was holding it together convincingly enough. Probably not, though, because Beca had kept apologizing.

It was stupid, how much she missed her. But there was also a sharper edge to it. Why did it have to be that day, of all days, that Beca had cancelled?

She walked back, past the university, to her apartment, but as she reached for her keys, her hand faltered.

She kept walking.

It was such a pretty city, after all, and the light cover of snow on the ground was so bright against the subdued colors of the buildings: pale yellow, cream, copper.

She didn’t know exactly where she was going till she turned the corner on Ulitsa Pestelya and saw the domes of the cathedral a few streets ahead.

It was just about time for the service.

*

Chloe didn’t know why she had started visiting the cathedral. At first, it was just out of curiosity, like, what was Dostoevsky even going on about in all his novels.

She hadn’t really liked that the first time she went in, someone had rushed up, high heels clacking against the floor, to force a headscarf into her hands. It felt like she was being scolded for something—having hair, she guessed.

But it was beautiful. Like so many of the older buildings in Petersburg, it was so bright and pure: all gold, and white, and blue. It felt like a dream.

That would have been enough, even without the singing. Oh, it was a cappella paradise, when the choir started. Aubrey would have loved it.

She had been surprised that she didn’t understand most of the words. When she had asked one of the priests about it, afterwards, he’d explained that services weren’t in Russian at all, but some older form of the language.

But, actually, that was kind of better. If she didn’t understand any of it, it’s not like she felt like she had to believe anything.

She just listened to the music, and felt.

*

She had only been coming every other week or so.

There was a part she liked at the end of this evening service they did where they brought out an icon, covered in a metal sheet with jewels on it, of a woman—Mary, she guessed. But there were all these little people around her on it who were looking up at her, like they were expecting her to do something. Chloe could understand the name the priest called the image: “Joy of All Who Sorrow.”

But that day, she was there in the morning, and they didn’t bring the icon out. She was weirdly disappointed by that. Not knowing exactly what to look at, she just listened to the music.

She closed her eyes and struggled to remember the exact contours of a face which, despite how hard she’d always tried, she had nearly forgotten.

*

If she wasn’t going to talk to Beca all day, she’d just have to do it in her imagination.

So as Chloe moved out the cathedral doors, taking the scarf off her head to replace it with the hood of her coat, she started the conversation in her mind and pretended she was listening.

Soviet Cinema class was great this morning, she told her, but oh my God, Beca, you would have hated it. I think sometime we should watch, like, fifteen minutes of a Tarkovsky film together just to see how long it takes you to start crying with boredom. I’m betting ten minutes, tops.

She smiled to herself as she imagined the response.

I’m totally kidding, Becs. You know I would never make you watch a movie! Oh, stop, you loved Cheburashka. And that was, like, one time.

She was so caught up in it, it was almost like she could hear her grumbling back.

No. Wait.

That was actual grumbling.

Chloe stopped dead in her tracks on the street, straining to hear what she was sure must be an auditory hallucination, or just some Russian who happened to sound a lot like Beca.

No, the voice was definitely speaking in English.

“Stop—stop. Oh my God, I have this; just give me the map.”

“We’ve gone too far, Beca. Will you look at the screenshot on my phone? She lives here.”

Chloe gasped. Aubrey.

There was no way.

*

If it were true—how could it be?—they were right around the corner. Surprisingly, Chloe didn’t run. She walked calmly to the end of the street, taking a deep breath as she turned to face the two people who more or less jointly owned her heart.

They didn’t see her at first, caught up in their bickering. Beca had shoved her hands into the pockets of her puffy winter coat, causing its sides to move a little as she gestured in frustration. Her cheeks were so red; Chloe’s fingertips immediately ached to warm them. Aubrey looked like she was on her last nerve, lecturing Beca about something on her phone with one gloveless hand.

Beca saw her first. Aubrey kept on arguing, not noticing that she had gone completely silent.

As soon as Beca caught sight of Chloe, she took in a startled breath. Her brow wrinkled like maybe she was going to cry—but she was smiling, so sweetly.

Chloe kept walking, gradually faster, towards her. Aubrey probably didn’t figure out what was going on until Chloe’s arms were already around Beca.

She moved a hand up to her face, warming it with her palm.

“You’re here.”

Beca turned slightly to kiss the pad of her thumb.

“I’m here.”

Chloe knew she must have looked crazy with happiness.

“You didn’t stand me up.”

Beca was still smiling as she rolled her eyes.

“No exceptions, right?” she asked.

Chloe instinctually moved her tongue over her chapped lips. She couldn’t even believe she was touching her, that Beca was there to lean forward and bring their mouths together—like she did.

It was nice of Aubrey to wait till they had stopped to tap Chloe on her shoulder.

“Oh my God, Bree!”

She let go of Beca to all but tackle Aubrey, who only narrowly caught her balance, keeping them from falling to the ground.

“But I don’t—how are you guys even—why didn’t you tell me?” Chloe managed.

Aubrey reached over to pull her friend’s hood back onto her head.

“Happy Thanksgiving, Chloe,” she said fondly.

Chloe wrapped her arms around her and squeezed again.

*

It was about a twenty minute walk to Chloe’s favorite lunch place, a little Georgian café right off Nevsky Prospekt.

The waiting staff greeted Chloe enthusiastically at the door, and were even more excited when she told them she was with her two favorite people in the whole world, visiting from America. Their waiter, Saba, switched to halting English immediately, taking Aubrey’s and Beca’s suitcases into his hands and rolling them next to their table.

Aubrey asked for a menu, but Chloe stopped her, telling Saba they’d like khachapuri and pkhali, with a round of tea.

Beca looked with amusement at the kitschy decorations on the fireplace next to their table.

“This place is so cute,” she said, and reached over to take Chloe’s hand in hers.

(Chloe hated it, but at some point that day she was going to have to have the conversation with Beca about not being too touchy in public there. But not yet, she thought, savoring the sensation of the thumb tracing her wrist.)

“You’re so cute,” she replied. “But, you guys, how long have you been planning this? And how long are you here? Please say forever.”

“Forever,” Beca answered obediently.

“No—Chloe, don’t listen to Beca,” Aubrey cut in. “We’re here for two weeks.”

Chloe’s eyes widened.

“Two weeks?” she asked excitedly, locking eyes with Beca.

“It’s not long enough,” Beca complained. “I’ll just stay. I don’t need a job, right?”

Chloe shook her head.

“No,” she said affectionately. “Not right.”

It was, however, a really tempting offer.

*

Chloe really hadn’t expected, after they had settled into her apartment and she had asked them what they wanted to do next, that Aubrey would suggest she and Beca should go spend some time together on their own. Chloe always scolded Beca whenever she would refer to her best friend as “world-class third wheel Aubrey Posen,” but it was true that she wasn’t usually that shy about spending time with them.

She said, anyway, as she rummaged through her suitcase to find a plug adapter, that she would work on their Thanksgiving plans for the following day.

Well, as thrilled as Chloe was to have Aubrey there with her, nothing gave her more joy than the thought of all the hours left in the day she had to share with Beca.

Assuming, of course, that Beca could manage to stay awake. While it was actually about six in the morning Eastern Standard Time, who knew what time it was in her head as, apparently, she had basically not slept at all on the plane.

“You didn’t?” Chloe asked with concern after Aubrey explained, stroking Beca’s hair on the couch. “But thirteen hours is so long. And you hate flying.”

“I forgot to bring sleeping pills.” Beca shrugged. “It was okay—stop. I was fine.”

“She was a complete mess,” Aubrey clarified.

“Beca.” Chloe’s hands moved up and down her arms comfortingly. “Do you just want to sleep? It’s okay if you do, really.”

Beca shook her head adamantly.

“I want to be with you,” she said, and Chloe wondered if those words from Beca’s lips would ever stop making her heart race.

*

She had wanted to take her on a walk around Palace Square and along the canals, but it was pretty obvious even as they started to cross the Fontanka that that plan wasn’t going to work for poor, shivering Beca.

So Chloe improvised. It wasn’t like art museums were really either of their thing, but the Hermitage at least was somewhere beautiful where they could walk around without Beca freezing to death. As they made it through Palace Square to reach the museum, Beca looped an arm around Chloe’s.

“This is not what I expected Russia to look like, at all,” she said, pausing to take in the panorama.

Chloe looked around and saw it newly through Beca’s eyes. She wondered what it would be like to walk through the city without knowing all of its sad and tangled history. It might seem peaceful.

“Yeah?” she asked, leaning her head against Beca’s. “What did you expect?”

Beca shrugged.

“I don’t know, like, a barren tundra. The mafia. Vodka. Bears.”

Chloe pressed a kiss into Beca’s hair.

(So much for laying off the PDA in Russia. She had never really been any good at controlling herself around Beca, anyway.)

“That’s totally accurate,” she said, and winked.

*

“Chloe, are you happy here?”

She was pretty sure Beca didn’t just mean, like, in that ornate hallway full of marble sculptures.

She thought about it for a moment.

“Um, yeah, I am. I think. I mean, most of the time.”

“Yeah?”

Beca looked so sincere, waiting to hear what Chloe had to say as she fidgeted with the cuff of her shirt sleeve.

“Um, yeah. I guess—it’s so great to actually see it. And I’m learning so much.” She sighed. “I haven’t decided if this is what I want, though, Becs. I mean, for my life.”

Beca’s eyebrows raised in alarm.

“Wait, are you considering staying here forever?”

“No—no! I mean, the whole professor thing.”

Judging by the relief in her eyes, Beca had just passed through a near death experience.

“Oh. Yeah,” she said, recovering. “But you have so much time to figure all that out, Chlo. I’m just so happy, you know, that you’re here and you’re learning. And I’m sure, like, blowing everyone else’s mind.”

Chloe smiled weakly. “Yeah,” she said. “Maybe.” She paused. “It’s maybe not the best day to ask me. I just want to go home with you right now.”

Beca smiled.

“Then maybe it’s a good day to ask.”

“Yeah. Maybe it is.”

They walked on a little further, till Chloe stopped to admire the wings on a statue of Cupid and Psyche.

“I like how his arm conveniently covers both of her nipples,” Beca shared. Chloe laughed—she guessed she didn’t have to worry about Beca getting too mature.

*

They moved on, quietly. Beca stopped to look at a few things, but mainly held on tightly to Chloe’s fingers, intertwined with hers.

Chloe was distracted. A nagging thought kept bringing her back to their previous conversation.

“You know, Beca,” she said, as they passed a giant Egyptian sarcophagus, “it’s not just because you’re with me that it’s a bad day to ask me that question.”

Beca turned towards her, wordlessly inviting her to go on.

“Which is why it’s just—so—it’s magical that you’re here. It’s like a gift.”

She bit at the inside of her lip, struggling to decide what to say next.

“What is?” Beca asked, cautiously.

They were coming up to the stairs, but Chloe diverted them, leaning lightly against the wall.

“Um, well, I guess it’s been ten years today. Which I hadn’t really thought would be such a thing. But it is. Actually.” She knew Beca was waiting for her to explain what she meant, so she took in a deep breath. “I mean, since my mom died.”

Beca’s eyes widened.

“I’m okay,” Chloe added hastily.

“I didn’t… Chloe, I had no idea,” Beca said, reaching over for the hand of Chloe’s that she wasn’t already holding.

“I never told you.” She stared down at their linked hands. “Or even Aubrey, I don’t think. It was Thanksgiving.”

Chloe glanced up nervously at Beca. It seemed like she was putting something together in her mind.

“That’s… God, Chloe. I’m so sorry. It must be so hard to be this far away from home today.”

Chloe shook her head, pressing her fingers lightly against Beca’s palms.

“I’m not,” she said. “I’m really not.”

*

As they walked back to her apartment, Chloe thought about what it might have been like if her mom could have met Beca. It was so weird to her that she hadn’t been around long enough to get to see the most important part of Chloe, which is what Beca was.

Maybe they would have bonded, actually. Chloe smiled to herself at the thought. She imagined what it would look like, as, in real time, she watched Beca attempting to stifle her repeated yawns, hugging herself against the chill.

Aubrey would make them all a Thanksgiving feast in her kitchen, and her mom just would listen while Beca explained musical mechanics to her. Maybe they all could have a group discussion to resolve the “love leaves a mark” problem in Harry Potter.

(God, Chloe thought. She never even got to read the last two books.)

Maybe Beca would be the one to settle the issue—even though she’d never read the series. Chloe could see the whole scene so clearly in her head.

“Jesus Christ, Naomi, it’s not like love is a vaccine.”

(Not even for Harry, Chloe would interject helpfully.)

“Love’s just what makes the whole thing bearable.”

And her mother would nod, because she knew.

*

It was only about four thirty in the afternoon, but Beca was literally nodding off as she walked. It didn’t help that the sun was already setting.

When they got back to the apartment, Chloe led her carefully onto her bed—a twin, but it’d be more than enough for both of them. She sat down next to where Beca was lying, unwilling to tear herself away just yet.

Aubrey brought Beca’s suitcase into the room and unzipped it, starting to take out a few items she had stuffed in for herself.

“I can stay awake, I promise,” Beca whispered crankily, her eyes closed.

Chloe picked up Beca’s arm and placed it on her lap, moving her fingers along the skin below her wrist.

“I’ll be here in the morning,” she told her. “I also promise.”

Beca made a dissatisfied sound, like that wasn’t enough.

She kept almost nodding off, then prying her eyes open to stare up at her. Leaving her side was the last thing Chloe wanted to do, but she knew she was distracting Beca from getting a much-needed rest.

She moved off the bed and came round to kiss her—first on the forehead, then softly on both closed eyelids, then—lingering slightly—on her lips.

“Sweet dreams, Beca.”

She tried to walk as quietly as she could out of the room.

*

As she moved into her living room, she was surprised to hear their voices still speaking in whispers—

“So you didn’t…?”

“Dude, no—she’ll hear you!”

Well, that was something to come back to later.

*

Beca somehow managed to sleep in till ten in the morning. It really was quite a feat. Chloe missed her morning class (it was okay; she had already decided to skip both of her classes that day) watching Beca breathe and sprawl out into ever-expanding positions on the tiny mattress.

Chloe had gone with Aubrey to the market near her apartment the evening before to pick up groceries for breakfast and for their Thanksgiving dinner. Aubrey had made omelets around seven, assuming Beca had to wake up soon, but had eaten Beca’s herself as soon as it became clear that that was a pipe dream.

By the time Beca’s eyes finally fluttered open, Chloe had settled back into the bed. She was lazily thumbing through Sofia Petrovna while actually just watching the fall and rise of Beca’s chest.

Beca looked confused for a second upon waking, before turning to see the anticipating eyes that were fixed on her. Her whole face lit up.

“Good morning,” Chloe said quietly, and Beca moved her hands to her eyes, leaving them there for a few seconds as she composed herself.

When she dropped them, she still looked just as pleased.

“Chloe,” she said, and moved to nuzzle into her.

*

“Aubrey! Omelet, please!”

She hoped her friend could hear her through the door.

“Beca’s hungry,” she tried again, as the hungry person in question nipped playfully at Chloe’s neck.

They both were laughing pretty hard before they heard Aubrey’s response.

“Beca has legs, doesn’t she?”

*

By the time Beca finally did use her aforementioned legs to make her way, with Chloe, to the kitchen counter, she was, in fact, fairly ravenous.

She devoured the omelet in approximately twenty seconds, while Chloe delivered a monologue about their various sightseeing options for the day.

“I’ll just stay here and prepare dinner,” Aubrey said, catching Beca’s eyes.

“Oh… all day?” Chloe asked. “Well, then, Beca and I can totally stay with you and help. I know you don’t believe me, Aubrey, but I know how to chop vegetables now.”

Aubrey shook her head, scrubbing the pan she had just purchased the day before at the store.

She definitely was glaring at Beca again.

“I think you and Beca should spend some more time together again today.”

Beca was inspecting the back of the container of condensed milk in front of her as if it were extremely interesting. Strange, given that Beca couldn’t read Russian.

“Are you sure, Bree? I’d feel bad if we didn’t help at all.”

She moved the pan into the drying rack, also a recent purchase.

“Trust me; this plan is better,” she said.

She’d have to take her word for it.

*

Chloe’s main plan for the day was a tour of the city from her best friend in Russia, Nikolai Semyonovich, or as she had recently started calling him, Kolenka.

He had, in fact, only been her best friend for about three weeks, but she was pretty sure it would stick. The thing was, she actually had had a whole other group of friends for nearly the first two months she was in Petersburg.

That hadn’t really worked out.

She wasn’t really that close with the other American and European students in her program. She liked them, for sure! It was just that—well—they were all kind of competitive in a way that made her feel nervous.

So she had made friends elsewhere—at cafés, in bookstores, along the embankments. She had met Sasha and his sister Tanya at the minimarket near her house, where Sasha worked. He was very funny, and she was really excited that she understood his jokes in Russian. Tanya was an aspiring concert pianist, and when she’d heard that, her heart had just said Aubrey until she decided those two would be her best Russian friends.

It was about a month and a half before they and their other friends realized that when she said “girlfriend” about Beca, she meant girlfriend.

She really didn’t get it—why that would matter. Definitely not why it would make them not want to be her friends anymore.

Maybe it was weird, but in all her years of loving her, Chloe had basically never even thought about the fact that Beca was a girl. She’d just thought that she was Beca, which was, like, a million times better, anyway. Those people clearly had no idea how incredible she was and how stupid it would be not to be in love with her.

It all had kind of thrown Chloe through a loop, to be honest. She knew some people thought like that back home, too, but she guessed she had just gotten really good at ignoring it.

Kolenka was a lawyer who offered legal aid at the LGBT center at which Chloe had started volunteering. He had some pretty horrible stories about everything he had seen, but he worked so hard. Chloe thought he was pretty much the greatest.

She knew she had a tendency to switch to the “ty” form and to start calling people by their Russian nicknames sooner than she was supposed to, but actually it had been Kolenka who had suggested it.

He wasn’t much for jokes, but he had burst out with laughter one day at the thought: “Chloe and Nikolai. We’re Chloenka and Kolenka, aren’t we?”

So that’s what they were.

*

He was a St. Petersburg native, and knew the city like the back of his hand.

“Everyone sees the Winter Palace,” he told them, his voice dripping with disdain—and his thick accent. “Allow me to show you something more bizarre.”

“Oh my God,” Beca whispered to Chloe. “Your friend is insane. I love it.”

He led them across the Neva to this beautiful district Chloe had never visited before, but he cautioned them that they weren’t there to see buildings. He marched them straight to an ethnographic museum where, he explained, the giant collection of human and animal fetuses owned by Peter the Great, the tsar who had founded the city, was held.

Chloe was actually kind of horrified, but Beca thought it was hilarious. She took a few pictures to send to Hugo later.

After that, the tour got a little less terrifying. He brought them back across the bridge and showed them several hipster-y exhibition spaces, halfheartedly pointing out a handful of the city’s most prominent churches on the way.

Chloe winced a little and mouthed “sorry” a few times, but Beca was just extremely entertained by the whole thing.

“I love all the weirdos who cling to you, Chloe,” she said at one point, while Kolenka was embroiled in an impassioned negotiation over a ticket price.

“But you’re my favorite one,” Chloe teased, giving her a nudge.

“I better be.”

In any case, neither of them could complain about Kolenka’s choice of lunch spot, a dirt-cheap blini joint. Both Chloe and Beca gorged themselves, hoping they’d still have at least some room for Aubrey’s dinner that evening.

*

When they parted ways with Kolenka, Chloe was prepared to offer Beca a series of options for their next destination.

But Beca, to her shock, announced she would be taking over from there.

What did that even mean?

She pulled an honest-to-God physical map out of her back pocket and started scrutinizing it, eventually pointing Chloe in the right direction. When Chloe tried to peek over Beca’s shoulder to see where she was taking them, Beca folded the map closed.

So—that was interesting.

It took them a long time to get there, but Chloe recognized the area. It wasn’t even that far away from where she lived.

“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” she asked, pointing to the palace building. “And the gardens are awesome, even though, like, obviously you can’t tell right now.”

“Yeah, it is,” Beca answered. Why was she shivering? It wasn’t even that cold out. “It’s really pretty.”

Chloe moved an arm around her waist to pull her closer.

“You know, Beca,” she said, looking down the street, “I haven’t looked up exactly where yet, but somewhere around here—”

“Is where Anna Akhmatova and Osip Mandelstam met. Yeah, I know.”

Chloe’s heart skipped a beat.

Beca moved a hand into her coat pocket and removed an envelope. She unfolded the letter inside it—Chloe’s letter—and pointed out the sentence where she had mentioned it to her.

“That’s why I brought you here,” Beca said, her voice shaking.

Chloe didn’t know what to say. She was definitely light-headed as she took Beca’s offered hand, following her lead down the street to stop at what looked like a luxury apartment on the corner.

“Wow,” Chloe managed, at a loss, staring at the building.

Beca didn’t say anything else at first. But when Chloe looked to her questioningly, her face flushed.

“You… uh, you said you wanted to go here and imagine it, right?”

Right.

Chloe shut her eyes gently, picturing her young face and his.

He must have been the one to fall first; she was sure of it. He—the redhead—would be the one who couldn’t stop talking, and she’d be the one looking unimpressed.

When she finally opened her eyes, Beca was watching her curiously, waiting for her to be ready.

“I really do think they were in love,” Chloe told her, as much because she was nervous as for any other reason. “People don’t agree on that, and she always said no, but I think they had to be.”

“I know,” Beca said. “You wrote that, too.”

“It’s just…” Maybe her voice was wavering, too. “Both of them were so sad. The way I imagine it, they made each other really happy sometimes.”

Beca nodded rapidly.

“Yes,” she said, and she was definitely choking back a sob now. “They did.”

She carefully folded the letter into the envelope and moved it back into her pocket.

When she brought her hand back out, she was holding something else.

“Oh, Beca,” Chloe breathed.

She didn’t get down on one knee. She just took a step forward, holding the ring out to her with both hands.

The only reason Chloe knew she was crying was that she couldn’t focus on it—it was just a blur of white and blue.

“Please don’t cry,” pleaded Beca, a renegade tear making its way down her own cheek.

“Beca,” she said, wiping her eyes on her coat sleeve. “You have to ask me.”

Beca smiled, just as sweetly as she had that first time in the shower.

“Chloe Beale,” she said (and if her voice was still trembling, it was from happiness), “I love you with my whole stupid heart. Will you marry me?”

Chloe laughed. She wasn’t sure why. Her face was wet with tears, her nose was running, and she was so thankful she thought her chest might burst with it.

She held out her hand, and let Beca—stumblingly—move the ring onto her finger. It was just a little loose; they’d fix that later.

“Of course, Beca,” she told her, her voice strengthening at the sight of the ring on her hand. “Of course I’ll marry you! I’ll love you forever; I promise.”

*

Dinner was ready when they returned to Chloe’s apartment.

Aubrey didn’t have to ask when she saw them—their eyes and faces were both red from crying. She walked up to Chloe and picked up her hand, smiling proudly as she looked at it.

She brought her into a hug.

“Congratulations, Chlo,” she whispered, and Chloe squeezed her tighter.

When Aubrey pulled away, she announced, “well, now that Beca finally has done what she was supposed to do, dinner awaits.”

*

They really shouldn’t have worried about overdoing it with the blini earlier in the afternoon. All the emotional upheaval had brought back both of their appetites with a vengeance.

Chloe piled mashed potatoes on her plate, while Beca made her way through the pelmeni Aubrey had made from scratch as a Russian complement to the more American-style dishes.

“You know,” she said between bites, “we should look into hiring Aubrey as our chef. So we don’t starve to death.”

Chloe blushed. It never stopped thrilling her that Beca remembered so much.

“Yeah,” she answered, almost too dazed to banter, “paid for by my super hot, super talented music-producing wife.”

Aubrey, clearly flattered by the praise, offered the bowl of butternut squash rolls to Chloe in case she wanted more.

“So does that mean that you also told her about your big break?” she asked, glancing towards Beca.

“What?” Chloe asked.

Beca shook her head anxiously.

“It’s nothing. Someone wants to work with me. It’s not important.”

“Right, someone named—”

Beca flicked her napkin at Aubrey’s face.

“Tomorrow,” she said. “I want today to be about Chloe.”

Chloe placed her hand on Beca’s arm.

“It’s kind of about you too, Becs.”

She shrugged.

“If you say so.”

Chloe took another bite out of one of Aubrey’s rolls—they seriously got better every year—and tried to think of anything in the world that would make this dinner better than it was. She was coming up blank.

You know what? she thought. Tolstoy was full of it.

All happy families are totally not alike.

It’s unhappiness, actually, that gets so boring. Happiness—the kind that came with Beca, with Aubrey, her family—was always surprising her in new, weird, and awesome ways.

“Okay, fine,” she gave in. “But first thing tomorrow, we’re going over every detail.”

“Whatever.” Beca turned with a sly grin towards Aubrey. “Now let’s all have a conversation about Aubrey’s new pen pal, my scumbag cousin.”

Chloe gasped, elated, even if she was a little worried that her best friend might stab her fiancée with a fork.

*

As she brushed her teeth that night, Aubrey walked over, leaning against the doorpost.

Chloe beamed at her as she kept brushing, a little toothpaste running out onto her face.

Aubrey shook her head contentedly.

“My Chloe,” she whispered.

Chloe spit into the sink, and wiped her face with her hand. She turned to meet Aubrey’s delighted eyes.

“I’m so happy for you,” Aubrey told her.

Chloe glanced down at her ring finger again before looking back up at Aubrey. She couldn’t stop smiling.

Aubrey’s face, suddenly, took on a more serious expression.

“And if she hurts you, I swear to God I will murder her in her sleep.”

Chloe laughed, offering her friend her hand.

“I’m not worried,” she said brightly, leading them out the door.

*

Aubrey made a big show of putting in her earplugs as she settled onto the couch. Honestly, Chloe thought, she was probably going to end up needing them.

But in her room with Beca, they were both feeling surprisingly shy. Chloe sat, fully clothed, on her bed, getting a good look for the first time at the ring.

It was old, for sure—definitely vintage. It was simple, too, which Chloe loved. But the best part was all the little blue sapphires dotted along the band.

Beca sat down next to her, nervously taking her hand into her own.

“Um, it was my great-aunt’s,” she explained.

Chloe turned to her, reveling in the realization.

“Does that mean—?”

“Yeah.” Beca nodded. “It was Arnie’s wife’s. Molly’s. I am about ninety-nine percent sure he would not have given this to me if I were marrying anyone else, by the way. But I thought—I don’t know, I thought you’d like that it was from my family.”

Chloe nodded. She still wasn’t used to it, this feeling of being known so well.

“I do. I do like that. And it’s so beautiful, Beca.”

Beca put Chloe’s hand down gently on her lap.

“And I thought…” She was blushing. “I thought the sapphires—I mean, with your eyes.”

She looked up to meet them with her own, staring so intently that Chloe felt completely, wonderfully exposed.

“Oh my God, Chloe. I love you too much.”

Poor Beca looked totally overwhelmed, but actually, Chloe reflected, she thought she loved her just the right amount.

“Me too,” Chloe said, grabbing Beca’s hand and moving it against her own heart. “Me too.”

Beca inched forward, closing the distance between their bodies, moving her hand from Chloe’s chest to pull her face towards hers.

Chloe shut her eyes, and let herself feel it—happiness sweeping her away like a wave at high tide.