Warning: Chloe is a little OOC at first. She fades into her film character soon enough, don't worry.
PROLOGUE
January 14th, 2013
Beca Mitchell has creepy friends.
Perhaps that is not the best way to start a story; stories about uninteresting people must, of course, start with the traditional "It was a bright and sunny day". That's the way it has been done throughout the years, and who am I to question thousands of pre-schoolers, penning their first sentence, whilst adoring parents crowd around them, cooing and making proud, generic noises?
I'm just Chloe Beale. Not J.K Rowling, not J.R Tolkien, not Charles Dickens. I'm just a high school student, putting pen to paper for the sake of boredom. I'm not writing about dying orphans, or vampires, or wizards, or elves. Just… just life as it is.
And Beca Mitchell- DJ, popular rebel, and badass extraordinaire- is my current favourite thing to write about. So what of it? She's not so bad.
For example, just the other day, she spoke to me. "Dude, you're standing on my bag." Those were her exact words. Pretty cool, huh? Since she never speaks to kids like me, it was almost an honour to be addressed by the famous Beca Mitchell. Hah, I seem like a moron from reading this, I'm sure.
Well, that would be incorrect. I'd bet money that my grade average is higher than yours.
Here is it, for what it's worth: I dislike Beca Mitchell. She's obnoxious, full of herself, smokes weed, and seems to think that she's some kind of rock n' roll Joan of Arc. And you know the worst part of all of this? I wasn't even standing on her bag, like, on purpose. Being the journalist and photographer for the school newspaper means that you have to fit yourself into some pretty awkward places, if you get what I'm saying.
It's like today when Aubrey, the head of the school newspaper, decided to complain about how none of us have been getting decent pictures.
"You just aren't getting out there," she complained, tucking a pen behind her ear as she did so. She's the queen of organisation, Aubrey Posen, and is never seen without a pen somewhere on her body, as well as owning possibly the thickest pair of glasses I've ever seen in my life. Oh yes, and she's also my best friend.
As you may have noticed, I have some rather conflicting opinions. Deal with it.
"This is our last year, folks. And I, personally, want a story that will actually grab the attention of our peers and our teachers," Oh Lord, that was a rant. Aubrey's a really sweet girl, when you get to know her anyway, but she has this… well… obsession with doing everything absolutely right. We haven't had a good issue since Fat Amy launched a huge investigation into horse meat in the school lunches, before realising that everyone knows and nobody cares.
Not precisely a good issue. But since the picture was of Fat Amy eating a large burger and looking generally demented, most of the popular kids got hold of the paper just to torment her. Oh well, we made good sales.
Anyway, so Aubrey was marching around, shouting at us to get it together. With every word that escaped her perfectly glossed lips, everyone seemed to be getting more and more annoyed. I'd never seen Kimmy Jin's bitch-stare quite so penetratingly evil.
Then, somebody spoke. "Aubrey, for God's sake, shut up!"
Everyone went silent. Aubrey had stopped dead; her eyes widening to frightening proportions behind her ginormous glasses. Everyone had ceased their frustrated glaring, and seemed to be looking at someone, although it wasn't precisely clear who it was.
It took me a few moments to realise that everyone, including Aubrey, were staring at me.
"Uhm…" My whole body froze up, like somebody had poured an ice-cold bucket of water over my head. As I sat there, I could almost imagine the water dripping down my shoulders, sending icy droplets down my back and into my flats. There was a long, deadly pause. And then, Aubrey spoke.
"What would you propose, then, Chloe?" In the time it took for me to turn to look at her, a look of cold fury had come onto her face. She was standing too close for comfort- having moved during the period of time in which I was too interested in imagining the water going down my back to pay attention to the proceedings- and had her arms crossed, one plucked eyebrow raised.
If looks could kill, I would have died seventy times over. I probably would also have been dismembered, and maybe even partially eaten. God, I'd never stood up to her like that before; the fear that she was going to pounce on me and tear out my throat was the biggest thought in my mind.
You see, I'm not like that. I'm Chloe Beale, all around nice girl, who gets walked all over by multiple people. That, my darlings, is called acceptance. It took sixteen years, four months, and twenty seven days, but I've come around to it. I'm not currently sure on the hours, minutes and seconds, but I'm sure it'll come to me eventually.
Which is why, while Aubrey was staring at me like that, I very nearly keeled over and died on the spot. Crazy, huh? You should have seen her. She looked like a… a maddened wolf, readying herself to leap forth and tear my throat out. Alright, maybe that's not the best metaphor. Nevertheless, she was fucking terrifying.
And I could have kept my mouth shut. I could have just smiled nervously and apologised, maybe gone under police protection, whatever. But I just had to have a really good idea right at that point, didn't I? I'm that much of a genius that I couldn't help but tell Aubrey, my psycho scary boss- and best friend, of course- the idea that I'd been plotting over and thinking about for weeks. It wasn't like I'd ever planned to tell her about it, of course. Sure, I'd imagined the scenario dozens of times. You know: standing there, like "I have an idea, don't you dare kill me!" and being all proud and the like.
But that, sadly, did not happen.
The reality was me nervously standing up, smiling awkwardly at my co-workers (who looked like they might shit a brick), before directing my gaze towards Aubrey.
"I have an idea," I said. Initially, I'd hoped my voice might come out confident, possibly even tremulous. But that couldn't be the reality, could it? My voice cracked half way through the word 'have', and I was forced to repeat myself. The beauty was gone by the second time through, and my previously proudly beating heart had slowed to humiliation. And then, once more, to fear.
OhShitOhShitOhShit…
Surprisingly enough, when I eventually mustered the courage to look Aubrey in the eye once more, she looked a little thoughtful. Still irritated at my previous outburst, but like she was genuinely about to listen to what I had to say. After a few tense moments, she sighed, bringing one hand to her face. "Alright. You didn't have to say it quite so rudely," She shot me a killer glare, and I once more felt the need to throw myself off the top of the Science Block, "I get that we need an idea. And if I approve of it- if I think it's lucrative enough- then, I suppose, we can go with it." Aubrey visibly swallowed, as if allowing me to give my input was physically painful to her.
A small smile worked its way onto my face. The image of Beca Mitchell was once more running through my head, and shook my ginger curls around my face, trying to distract myself. Stupid, annoying, emo, hot Beca Mitchell… "Well, I was watching this movie the other day…" I chose not to tell them that I had been watching Never Been Kissed with a tub of chocolate ice-cream and multiple cats (not mine, my mother's!). "And it reminded me about undercover journalists, y' know? Going underground, and finding out the real story behind things. Like, go undercover on the… I don't know…" I barely stopped myself blushing. "Rebel scene."
The room was silent. Eerily so. I had a quick yet disturbing mental image of everyone having left the room during my tangent, and looked around nervously to see that everyone was still staring at me with wide eyes. Bracing myself for rejection, I clenched my fists.
But then, smiles appeared on their faces. A few of them even clapped, smiling brightly at me. Like I'd come up with this killer fucking idea that wouldn't get me into a shedload of trouble.
It was Aubrey's look of approval I sought out, however. And, when she finally met my gaze, she looked a little… what was it… determined? A small, rather fake looking smile came onto her lips, as she stared me down.
"Alright then, Chloe," she said, her gaze still cool. "Going underground on the rebel scene. Reporting how much pot they smoke, and how sensitive they really are… Infiltration. Behind the enemy lines, so to speak."
God, she made it sound like some kind of war mission. But then again, that was Aubrey Posen: with a father in the military, she could make pouring a drink sound like some kind of deathly serious procedure.
Now, I was feeling pretty good about this whole deal. Actually feeling like I was worth something for once, you get what I mean. And then, Aubrey dropped the bombshell.
"And you'll be the one doing the infiltration."
My heart practically stopped. My jaw hit the ground (not literally- that would probably result in death from bloodloss); my eyes turned into soup plates (once again, not literally). Put it like this: in any other situation, I probably would have fainted, hit my head on the way down, and died. Because that is the sort of thing that happens to me, because I'm just that kind of person.
"What?! No! I wouldn't fit in with them, even if I did have dyed black hair, a stick-on tattoo, and converse!"
A few people laughed. I can remember being absolutely crazed, practically leaping over my desk to grab Aubrey by the shoulders and get as close to her as humanly possible in order to back up my point. I knew that I couldn't fit in with the alt-kids and rebels. For Gods sake, the only alcoholic beverage I'd consumed was champagne at my auntie's wedding, and I didn't even like it very much!
Pure panic was running through me. Aubrey was trying to shake me off, muttering something about personal space, but I was persistent. After she'd tried to push me away multiple times, I ended up practically pinning her to the wall, eyes wide and frantic. She looked visibly afraid. Good. No way was I entering that crowd and hanging out with obnoxious, dumb, hot Beca Mitchell!
"Please! You can't do this to me!"
"Oh yes I can, Chloe Beale," Aubrey's gaze was colder than ever. Once again, the mental image of her tearing my throat out reappeared, and I stepped sheepishly backwards. Damn, I really had been awkwardly close to her, hadn't I? It's like that time I forced this teacher to give me a piggy-back, and he almost got arrested.
When I think back now about all those times, I wince. And then go and invade someone else's personal space, because that's just how I roll.
Apparently, my pleading hadn't been enough. The psycho-blonde-bitch-who-happened-to-be-my-best-fri end seemed pretty set on the idea that it would be I entering that hotbed of moral… um… turpentine. A hotbed of moral turpentine, and a cage of licentiousness, that's what I was entering into!
"You'll do it, if you don't want to be kicked off the newspaper, that is," her voice was sweet, but the tone behind it was venomous poison.
Then, she smiled. "I'll dig out that fake tattoo sheet. Fat Amy, fetch the hot water."