You notice the squint and hesitation when Fat Amy makes an offhanded remark that has most of the Bellas chuckling through mumbled utterances of, "Oh nooo." You wouldn't have seen it if you hadn't been studying her face, but you were and you did. A second later she's smiling again, but it's stiff and she's no longer participating in the conversation.
You've seen her with all manner of emotion flitting across her face, but this is different. It seems personal. How you know this is anyone's guess. It's just an instinct you've developed over the past couple of years.
You know Beca Mitchell inside and out. What makes her tick. What ticks her off. Which smiles are dangerous and which jaw twitches mean laughter is about to bubble up from her belly. You know that for all the hardness she shields herself with, she's actually the most thoughtful, kind, honest person you've ever met. You know that she's a deep thinker. You know that she's smart. You know that she knows she's smart.
You walk your fingers across her palm under the table, friendly, letting her know that you can see that she's about done here, and she gives you a soft smile and a little squeeze in return.
And then there are classes to get to and homework to be completed, so your band of merry Bellas scatters across campus, and you let go of the squint and the hesitation in favour of enjoying fifteen extra minutes alone with your favourite person.
It only takes a minute for Beca to let her face relax into a stoney neutral expression. This isn't uncommon. When not actively emoting, Beca tends to look like the least approachable person in the world. You kind of love that she's comfortable enough with you to default back to that without worrying about whether or not you'll take it as a sign of anything other than exactly what it is: a default setting that is in no way indicative of her current mood or train of thought.
She's explained it to you before. She's told you about growing up with people, usually adults, telling her to smile and demanding that she tell them what the problem is. The first time you'd bitten your lip and tried to respect her gloomy silence by way of not talking to her at all, she'd asked you what was wrong.
"Dude, this is not a comfortable silence. What's wrong?"
"What? Nothing! ….I thought maybe you had something wrong."
She'd look at you, studied your face for the briefest of moments before shooting a small smile at you.
"Nothing's wrong. I'm just one of those people that doesn't really engage a whole lot. Like, I'm available to you. I know I don't look it... You just have to start it."
You'd made a face that she had somehow decrypted before the words could travel from your brain to your mouth.
"I know I look upset or whatever. Half the time I'm just, like, in my head having an epic NERF battle or something. Totally lost in some kind of adventure. Seriously, just knock me back to reality. And if I'm actually not into talking, I'll let you know."
"You sure?"
"Dude, trust me."
And that had been it. You've never let her silence deter you from talking to her again, and she's only ever told you she wanted to be left alone twice.
Which is why you bite your lip when Beca avoids your eyes and says she has to go do "something" that she didn't have any plans to do forty minutes ago when you'd asked her if she wanted to hang out after a super quick lunch with the Bellas.
And then she's swinging her backpack over one shoulder and tossing a few bills onto the table all in one fluid motion while turning to walk away.
"Wait! Beca!" You fumble through your bag for some cash of your own before jerking away from the table and taking long, hurried strides to catch up with her. "Beca!"
Beca stops walking and spins to look at you. "It's fine. I'm fine. We're good. Can I go?"
This is not how you had planned to spend your afternoon. This is completely out of the ordinary. This is confusing.
"Beca, what just happened?"
There's a flash of tattooed headphones when she raises her hand to push her hair back. She looks harried and apologetic at the same time. Like she knows exactly what this looks like, and like she's not really happy about not being able to fake something else.
"Nothing." Her jaw is set, but her eyes are soft, pleading.
You step forward, completely bypassing the borders of her comfort zone, and gently take her wrist in your hand. "Beca. Hey, look at me." She swallows hard. "Beca….. Bec. What's up?"
She's worrying the inside of her bottom lip with her teeth, and you get the sudden feeling that this side of Beca, this hesitant, uncomfortable version of your best friend that you haven't interacted with in a long time, is an altogether new edition that you haven't knowingly encountered before.
She shakes her wrist loose from your fingers. "It's… Look, I don't want to lie to you, okay? But it's not…"
"Not what?"
She huffs in annoyance, though whether it's at herself or you, you're not sure. "I just didn't like Amy's joke, okay?"
Your head jerks back in surprise. Fat Amy has said a lot of questionable things, and a lot of straight-up offensive things, but Beca has never reacted to any of it like this.
"Her joke?" You try to remember something specific that blurted its way out of Amy's mouth at lunch, but nothing stands out with a red flag attached. "Which joke?"
The muscles in Beca's jaw bunch up and relax a few times, like she's trying to make a decision.
"Hey," you say softly as you reach out to drag your fingers down her forearm and take her hand. "This is me. Safe place, right?" You hope you're handling this unknown Beca the right way. Her body language is practically screaming at you to tread lightly, to go for comfort rather than force.
A quick and heavy breath rushes in, then out through Beca's nose, and she finally lets her eyes lock with yours if only for the two seconds it takes her to make up her mind.
You lean forward ever so slightly in anticipation of finally understanding what the hell is going on.
When she finally speaks, Beca's words are packed tightly together and fall out of her mouth almost too quickly for you to catch.
"What she said about that guy blowing her off because he probably had to go home and cut himself. That's… That wasn't cool. That's not a joke."
Beca's eyes are blazing, and they're boring into yours like your reaction to her statement has the potential to ruin absolutely everything the two of you have built over the course of your friendship. Her jaw is tight and her nostrils are flared, and you realize that Beca is totally fighting against herself right now. She wants to run, but she needs you to understand something.
You squeeze her hand. "Okay. Okay, I can understand why that…" but you don't understand. "I'm sorry. I don't understand. Like, I mean I understand why that's not a good joke, but I don't understand why this is the insensitive Fat Amy joke that's gotten to you."
She's all but gnawing on her lip now.
"I do that–I did that. I used to do that. And just… it's not a joke, okay?" She's looking everywhere but at you, and you wish she'd settle for a moment.
"Look at me?" She does. "You hurt yourself?"
"Yeah. I mean I have. I did. Before."
"Before what?"
"Nothing. Just before. Before I now don't."
You don't know what to say. You're an adult. A very young adult, but an adult nonetheless, and this is something you've never dealt with before.
"So–"
Beca pulls her hand loose from your grip and adjusts her backpack on her shoulder. "Listen, can we just forget about it? It's not a big deal. I don't want–," she takes a breath, exhales through her nose, and continues a bit more slowly. "I don't need to talk about it. It was just a really shitty non-joke and I didn't like it and it's one of the very few things I'm actually sensitive about. Okay?" She starts to turn away. "Can we drop it?"
"Wait. God, Beca, stop walking away." You pull her back around, gently, kindly, and take hold up her upper arms. "We can stop talking about it, but I'm not going to forget." You raise your chin to prevent the interjection that's sitting on her lips from being released. "No, just let me say this, and then we can move on, okay? I'm not going to 'just forget about this.' This is important. And you are important to me, so... Give me a second."
Beca's posture has relaxed a bit, though she's still tense through her jaw and hands, like she's resigned herself to her fate, like she's been here before, and she's prepared to hear one thing, but is hoping for another.
Your eyes roam across her face, and you squeeze her arms once before locking your eyes on hers. This is important. You need her to see and hear your sincerity.
"I can't tell you that I understand how you feel right now. And I can't pretend to know what it is that makes you hurt yourself–"
"Used to!" She blurts it out.
"Right. Why you used to hurt yourself. I've never, well… It's not something…"
You huff in annoyance at your sudden inarticulateness.
"Beca, I love you, and I want you to be happy and safe. And I want good things for you. I'm not… You look like you're ready for the worst right now, and I'm not going anywhere, okay? This doesn't change anything. I mean, obviously it changes a little bit because now I know this about you and it's inevitably going to inform how I interact with you…"
You've opened some kind of ramble vault in your brain, and you force yourself to stop and breathe.
"Sorry. I'm trying to say that it's okay. That we are okay. And you can talk to me. About this. Or anything, obviously, you know that. But this too."
She's looking at you with an incredibly uncomfortable look on her face.
"Dude. That's really, um, sweet? Thank you. I'm good, though. I'm… I'm okay. Y'know?"
"Your reaction to what Amy said, and the fact that I had to physically keep you here, says otherwise."
She squints at you like you're the most annoying-yet-endearing person ever. "Fine. I'm not, y'know, okay or whatever, but I'm fine. Right now, I'm fine. I'm good. I'm a little off kilter, but I'll be fine."
Now it's your turn to squint.
"Honestly, Chloe. I mean… Okay." She seems to settle into herself, like she's planting her feet to get a more solid footing to support herself through what she's about to say.
"I love you too."
It comes out mumbled and it makes you smile. The mumble and the sentiment. She rolls her eyes at your grin.
"And because of that, the loving or whatever," her eyebrow quirks upwards as if to challenge you to question the flippant addition, "I'm gonna tell you exactly what's going to happen from here. Because I don't want you to be worried. Because now you know something, well, worrisome about me."
You blink slowly, tilting your head to the side just slightly. "Okay?"
Her eyebrow drops back into seriousness.
"What happens?"
"What happens is that I'm going to pull into myself. I'm going to be quiet for a while. Maybe a few days, I don't know. It's not an exact science. I'm going to be broody and dark. Shut up."
She pokes your shoulder in response to your smirk at the idea that she's going to get broody and dark. You know, as opposed to her usual sunny demeanor.
"I'm gonna withdraw, Chloe. Okay? And you don't need to worry that anything bad is happening. I'm just…" Her hands twist in the air in front of her, like she's trying to grab the correct descriptor. "Recalibrating? I'm just unwinding. Because I'm very tense right now."
"That's what's going to happen?"
"Yes." She nods decisively. "That's what's going to happen."
"And you're okay."
"Yes. I will be breathing my way through white-knuckling my through the next few days, but I'm okay."
You don't like that sound of that. White-knuckling her way through. That sounds, well, not okay, to be honest.
"And how will I know when it's okay to talk to you again?"
"Oh, dude! No, you can totally talk to me. It's just… I'm gonna seem not okay. Like, you can totally hang out in my room or whatever. Don't kid glove me."
Kid glove?
"Kid glove?"
"Y'know, don't– I'm not fragile. You won't break me. Treat me like normal. I don't know. Tackle hug me. Make fun of my height even though you're literally only two inches taller than me. Force feed me disgusting green smoothies. Steal my headphones." She locks her eyes onto yours. "Just be you."
You can do that. You can be you. You can be the you you've always been with this ridiculous woman. Slightly altered by new information, but you all the same.
And then you throw yourself at her in a tackle hug lite, and she chuckles as she pats you on the back.
She blows a chunk of your hair out of her mouth, and says, "All right. I have to go to class. I'll see you at the house tonight." She pats your back again before ever so gently shoving you away. Like normal.
And then you're parting ways, and you decide that you don't feel like going to your Russian Lit lecture. You want to go home and stare at the ceiling above your bed for a little while. To process everything you just learned about Beca. To marvel at how open and steady she was. To smile your secret sad smile because this revelation has cracked your heart, and you need to do some breathing of your own if you're going to be able to avoid donning the so-called kid gloves.
So you skip class and navigate your way through your brain jumble so you can get to the other side before Beca returns from her own day of schooling. Because even though she hadn't said it, Beca Mitchell needs you to be normal with an extra side of understanding softness.
And that is what you will be. Because you love her. Or whatever.