For weeks now, Beca had been playing out a series of arguments with her parents over her 'career' - neither her mother nor father credited deejaying as a valid and sustainable career choice but her father had at least made a deal that he would fund her passion for music for 2 years and if it didn't work out she'd be on her own and ultimately forced to seek a 'real job'.

Much to Mr Mitchell's surprise Beca had actually managed to make quite the career out of those 2 years and she had only progressed since. What Beca's parents hadn't anticipated was their daughter's descent into drink, drugs and parties. It wasn't like the DJ had a problem, she had just lost herself a little somewhere along the way and it concerned her parents to see articles and damaging photos of their daughter every week.

After the mother of all arguments in which her parents teamed together to read Beca the riot act, the DJ hopped on a plane and flew out to LA to get somee advice from her best friend, Jesse. Except the young woman came away with some different sort of advice - or at least an attempt at - because as soon as she arrived the pair had a heated argument about Beca's tendency to drop in and out of people's lives without pre-warning. So the brunette abandoned her friend and headed for the nearest bar with the intention of drowning her sorrows.

"This is your last one, after this I'm not serving you anymore." The bartender warned as he slammed the shot glass down, masterfully pouring tequila into it at the same time. Beca frowned and rolled her eyes at the man's words.

"I'm not kidding, you're tiny and this is your 8th drink so I'd appreciate you calling it a night before you blackout in my bar." The man added with a stern look.

Beca frowned some more before doing a 360 degree spin in her stool. "Why do you that? All that magician crap with the bottles, what's wrong with just pouring a drink normally?" The bartender could just about decipher Beca's words between the slurs and giggles.

"To be honest, I don't really know, it's just for show; one of the requirements of being a barman is having the skill and agility to toss glass bottles and shakers over your shoulder and look cool while you do it. When you think about it, it's a pretty douchey thing to do; now go home!"

He was completely accurate in his assessment of the act, but as he busied himself with collecting glasses and serving other customers, Beca felt the need to try her own hand at this "magician crap." The brunette climbed across the bar to grab the tequila bottle and threw it in the air, over her shoulder. Predictably, she failed to catch it in time so as it smashed instantly after making contact with the floor, an almighty shriek filled the bar.

A tan, leggy blonde started freaking out and hurling abuse at Beca for the incident, "what the fuck are you doing?! You nearly hit me, you bitch!" She yelled in Beca's face.

Normally, Beca would be quick to apologise and resolve such a situation; but tonight, Beca was drunk, which meant the underlying cockiness in her personality came out to play. "Calm down, barbie. You said it yourself it nearly hit you, but it didn't, so quit your moaning and hop back on your podium and give the fine men here a dance. I bet you're itching to get out of that dress and milk these guys for every dollar in their wallet. Tell me, do you charge extra for a fumble in the back alley or do you just enjoy contracting an exotic range of STIs like they're stamps?" Beca winked at the blonde. Deep down she knew now wasn't the time to be making jokes about strippers, but she was drunk, so the brain-to-mouth filter was taking a night off.

Evidently the blonde didn't take Beca's words kindly because the next thing she knew, the blonde had latched onto the roots of Beca's hair and was trying to put the smaller woman in a headlock. What did she think this was, WWE? A full-on catfight ensued - complete with scratching, clawing, eye gauging and even a quick bite - but the killer blow of Beca's head being slammed down hard on the bar brought the fight to an abrupt end as the side of Beca's head made contact with her previously used shot glass.

The bartender tore the two women apart before ordering everyone to get out before he called the police. Beca had only come out to drown her sorrows, but here she was battered and bruised with blood gushing down the side of her face. She certainly never expected her night to end like this. She didn't even get a bandaid.

For a split second Beca laughed outrageously to herself. Her first bar fight, she thought, that'll make a good story for her to tell on her next tour. Ok, it wasn't much of a fight on her end, there were far too many typically girly techniques being used for it to be considered a real fight, but she had claw marks on her face deep enough to draw blood; not to mention the glass her face collided with. It was something.

Out of the corner of her eye she noticed something. It was one of those generic cliched posters designed with the intention of giving people a momentary sense of the ability to change their crappy, almost non-existent lives; you know the sort. The 6ft poster of a desolate, dimly lit highway surrounded by rows of forest pine trees was poorly plastered to the side of a brick building. Beca took a moment to adjust her blurry eyesight enough to make out the words slapped in the centre of the poster:

The worst mistake you can make is walking away from the one person who actually stood there and waited for you

Beca scoffed at the delusional message. "Why do people fall for that crap" she mumbled to herself while trying to maintain her balance. She wasn't even wearing heels but for some reason Beca felt the need to remove her shoes; there was something about the touch of the cold, hard ground underneath her feet that sobered Beca up slightly. She remembered the time her and Fat Amy went out and got so unbelievably drunk they decided to throw their shoes over a bridge and ever since then it had become tradition for Beca to walk home barefoot, her shoes hanging from the tips of her fingers.

The inebriated woman pulled her phone out of her pocket. Nothing. Just her luck, the battery had run out. So here she was in the middle of some unknown and eerily quiet street, alone and drunk, with less than 8 dollars in her back pocket, and now without a functioning phone. Awesome. The most prominent thought in her head wasn't how she was going to get back to her hotel, though. No, she was more concerned about where she could get a decent burger at 2 o'clock in the morning because she hadn't eaten anything all day and she had a sudden craving for a double cheeseburger.

No more than 30 yards down the street, an illumated vintage sign jutting out from the side of a building caught the attention of Beca and more importantly, the attention of her stomach.

Ed's Easy Diner

Beca didn't need anymore encouragement than that, she'd stumbled across a tiny slice of heaven on an otherwise somewhat catastrophic day and night and she planned to take full advantage of this minute bit of luck.

The diner was exactly like you'd imagine; retro and so unmistakably American, the diner possessed all the iconic symbols of a much loved period in time from the red stools and sofa booths, to the jukebox, and right down to the retro cash register. The manager had captured the spirit of the 50s so perfectly you would almost not care if the food didn't live up to the decor. Almost. Luckily for Beca this particular diner was a 24/7 place. Even better, there was nobody else in there besides the woman behind the counter so she didn't have to endure any uncomfortable looks and conversations about how she got the cut on her face.

It didn't take any time at all for Beca to obliterate the double cheeseburger and milkshake she'd ordered - the cashier took pity on her after seeing the state she was in and kindly offered the shake to her for free. Beca scanned her eyes across the room when she noticed a section of wall space at the back of the building was covered in illegible scribbles and drawings. Obviously, this intrigued her. She made her way over to the wall and began to trace her fingers over the various names and doodles.

"Ah, the mural." A rough voice uttered. "The manager had this genius idea when he first opened this place that regular customers could sign their names on that section of the wall. I've never really understood the point of it, he just mumbles something about it making the place feel more homely; personally I think it's a load of crap."

Beca agreed wholeheartedly but didn't want to say anything incase the woman was joking. It was pretty pointless, but it was also strangely endearing and Beca couldn't help but smile at some of the messages people had left. It was the next message she fixed her eyes on that made her smile the most, though.

Beca 4 Chloe Forever 3

At least momentarily, it did. As she traced her fingers along the outline of the words, a wave of joy and happiness washed over her. And then the consequential feeling of remorse and emptiness overwhelmed all of that. Beca couldn't seem to think of the good times she shared with Chloe without counteracting it all with the realisation that they were nothing more than distant memories now.

It had been 10 months since their break-up which, depending on how you look at it, was either undeniably long enough, or absolutely nowhere near long enough to have moved on with her life. Unfortunately for Beca there wasn't much choice, either she moved on or she moped around while the world moved on without her. She couldn't complain really, it was her fault they broke up. She fucked up and she only had herself to blame. Still, it was surprising she didn't recall this particular outing with the "light of her life". It was even more surprising that she didn't recognise the diner or the mural at all. Beca had a manic schedule but she wasn't so busy that she'd forget a place she seemingly frequented a lot whenever she came to LA to visit Chloe.

I'm spending way too much time thinking about this she thought to herself.

The brunette bid goodnight - or morning - to the cashier before stepping out into the brisk air of the early morning. She stood in the doorway, staring into the distance, before her feet took it upon themselves to lead her somewhere. She wasn't consciously aware of where she was really going until she found herself standing outside a large block of modern apartments. She raised her arms to the column of buzzers on the wall but as her hand hovered over the buzzer next to Beale she felt smaller than ever before. Why had she come here? What was she planning on saying to her? Would she even let her in? What if she had company?

A thousand 'what ifs' popped into Beca's mind. She slowly backed away from the entrance, certain that she was the last person Chloe would want to see at 3 o'clock in the morning. But at that exact moment a cute elderly man came out of the building with his dog - why he would go for a walk in the middle of the night, Beca couldn't undertsand - but he was holding the door open for her so she felt obliged to thank him and go in anyway. The ever-broken elevator and subsequent trek up to the 12th floor wasn't something she'd missed about visiting Chloe, because as always, she was gasping for breath by the time she reached Chloe's door.

The brunette stood, hand clenched, inches away from the knocker. A moment passed - the longest moment of her life - before Beca hesitantly and timidly knocked on the door. She instantly regretted it. But it was too late.