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“Chloe!!!” The three year old barrelled down the hallway, jumping up into the redheads arms.
She’d never admit it, but playing with Emily was one of her favourite things. She looked forward to their mom’s coffee dates, pestering every day to when the next one was. All her other friends would call it lame, that a ten year old liked to hang out with a toddler. But Emily brought happiness to the redhead, like a little sister she never had.
“Hey squirt,” Chloe ruffled her hair and bent down, giving Emily a big bear hug.
The young girl squeezed back as hard as she could, forcing a quiet laugh out of the redhead. “Can we do singing t’day?” Emily smiled up at her, big brown eyes shining happily as she bounced around.
Chloe nodded, her own smile never faltering.
“Promise you’ll visit, Chlo,” the toddler clung to her friend’s legs.
“I promise,” Chloe muttered, picking the tiny brunette up and kissing the top of her head all while blinking back tears. She wouldn’t be back. The fallout between their parents was too much for either family to handle, but Chloe had pleaded to see the little girl one more time. “Be good, okay? I won’t forget you.”
“Mhmm,” Emily nodded, kissing her cheek as she was placed back on the ground.
Tears ran free down the redhead’s cheeks as she climbed into the moving van, watching the little girl wave at her through the window.
She’d been 17, weeks away from her high school graduation when her dad had called her in the middle of Modern History, telling her that her mother had been pronounced dead on the scene of a car accident only a few miles from the house. From that day, she pledged to become a Barden Bella, a dream her mother always had for her.
And that was why she was now standing at the door of their campus sorority house, trying to find the courage to knock.
When she finally psyched herself up, she was met with more disappointment. Fat Amy going to close the door in her face after saying they couldn’t take anyone new.
“Wait, I’m a Junk!!” Emily pleaded as the door started to close.
“What’d you say about your junk?” A darker skinned girl caught the door and opened it for her again, making the freshman sigh a long breath she didn’t realise she’d been holding. “Follow me, lil' bit,” Cynthia-Rose nodded her inside and led her through the large entryway.
Emily’s eyes blew wide as she took in the shelves littered with past Bella groups, knowing her mother would be among them somewhere. Tears threatened to spill down her cheeks at the thought, but she blinked them back, following Cynthia-Rose into the living room where she was suddenly overwhelmed by the home-y atmosphere.
It was everything she didn’t but did expect.
“Who’s this?” Chloe asks, standing and looking up from the magazine Stacie was enthusiastically showing her. Cynthia-Rose shrugged and sat down on the couch before looking over at Emily expectantly, and the brunette felt herself stir with anxiety.
“I’m Emily. Junk.” The current Bellas looked at each other, eyebrows raising all around the room. The leader, now intrigued, looking straight at her, her face tight in thought. “I know it’s weird, my dad’s last name was Hardon, so…” she rambled. Idiot, why’d you say that of all things. “Um.. I’m a legacy. Junk. My mom was a Bella.”
Chloe’s eyes widened. The last person she expected to walk through that door was Emily Junk. “Your mother is Katherine Junk?”
“Who?”
“Only the top bitch of the 1981 Bellas. She pioneered the syncopated booty shake,” Chloe answered quickly, her arms crossing and uncrossing as she spoke. No fucking way was this happening. This was not Emily. It couldn’t be the little girl she used to babysit.
“AND word is she has a five octave vocal range,” Chloe prodded, knowing the truth in the back of her mind. She had to find out.
“Yeah she does.. did. You should’ve heard her doin’ it with my dad,” Emily sighed with a nervous laugh.
“What an odd thing to say,” Amy chimed in from the other side of the room, making the Bella leader roll her eyes. Obviously nobody else had caught on to the corrected past tense in the young girl’s words.
“If a legacy wants to audition we have to let her,” Chloe continued, trying to distract herself from her thoughts, grabbing her drink from Jessica (or was it Ashley) and taking a seat on the couch. “Show us what’cha got.”
Emily broke into a wide smile and the butterflies fluttered ridiculously fast in her stomach. “Right now? Riiiight here right now. Oh, yeah, okay. Um...” She took a deep breath before giving herself an introduction. “I’d like to perform an original song, that I’ve been working on um… I’m not, uh, I’m not quite finished with it though so…” the Bellas looked at her expectantly. “Let’s not be dicks about it.”
The girls’ exchanged glances and raised eyebrows again.
“I’m sorry, that was crass, wasn’t it. Fat Amy, you have a lovely vagina.” Nice save, stupid.
“Thankyou, proceed.”
Emily took in a deep breath and closed her eyes, the girl who had been invading her dreams with tight hugs and a soft voice flickering behind her lids as she started to sing.
Chloe’s brow furrowed, half listening to the girl singing, half working through the situation in her head. This was Emily Junk. She couldn’t ignore the too familiar big brown eyes or that voice even though it had matured a good 15 years. She’d broken a promise. Almost regardless of what the other girl’s said, Emily was going to be part of the Bellas. She had to make up for it.