CHAPTER TWO.
(I know, I know- I just keep on coming up with these brilliantly titled chapters. They're revolutionary, it's okay to be amazed. ^^ )
9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.
10 But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."
13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, 14 "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests."
-Luke 2: 9-14
The Bible
First day of college.
As if Aubrey Posen could possibly deny Chloe Beale, they were roommates as well as long time friends.
Barden University wasn't such a bad place, Aubrey considered; a good school to attend in order to get a basic education before she goes back to a law school such as Harvard or Yale.
That's one of the things she told her father in order to get him to agree that attending Barden would be okay. It took some time, but he eventually did agree. This was a major relief for Aubrey. For some reason, she sincerely couldn't imagine spending the next few years at a college without Chloe. Perhaps it was crippling to a degree to depend on one person so much, but Chloe was her best friend. Chloe literally knew everything- she means everything- about her. Considering just what Chloe knew that no one else (save her father, of course) did, this was a big thing. The one, specific thing that no one else knew about was... well... To save face, she reacts rather badly when she's particularly nervous. It's unfortunate. To her, it's devastating; but Chloe knew enough about that one thing that she knew how to calm her down and help her. Aubrey is forever grateful to her for that.
This was another not-quite-worded-this-way reason that she gave to her father in order to attend Barden. Her... anxiety. And, as that thing she does is rather embarrassing for anyone to do, let alone a Posen, (her father was a very proud man) he wouldn't run the risk of letting her ruin their family name. After little more convincing, he agreed on the condition that she shape out of it before she graduated. Aubrey would be damned if she wasn't on time. Posen's are punctual. She'll figure it out.
Another reason she gave to the older Posen for "Why Barden" was that it was a laxer environment than either of them were used to, one in which they both knew obtained students who weren't as... educationally oriented as she was. Barden was rather liberal. It would be interesting to see if she could keep her head around these students with differentiating ideals. Plus, in the angle that she played, she was already set to rise up to the first of her class.
The card she played on was the Posen Pride, again.
It worked very nearly every time.
And the times that it didn't, well, then she knew there was no point in pressing the issue.
For a while as she was debating the issue with her father, she was concerned that there would be nothing she could do to change his mind. Her father can sometimes be a very difficult man to read. The thought of it almost gave her an anxiety attack. She really wasn't sure if she could handle a day without Chloe in her life, let alone four years- possibly more- in a strange place without knowing anyone. The two of them hadn't ever acknowledged openly the fact that they'd both thought they'd be friends for life. Neither had ever felt the need to before. Aubrey was sure that Chloe would be able to go on without her perfectly fine; Chloe wouldn't have panic attacks. It was just that, when push came to shove, she wasn't able to say the same thing.
Over the years Aubrey had adapted- come to depend on, even- Chloe's particular brand of affection. It grew to the point where she felt she'd spontaneously combust without one of her best friend's smiles flashing at her at least once that day; she needed them in order to make it through the week. They were the best of friends; so close that they were like sisters. Chloe might have a lot of siblings, and Aubrey might be an honorary Beale, but... she's not as close with anyone else as she is with one Chloe Beale. Chloe is her only "sister".
Aubrey had only ever started to think otherwise that first day of college.
It was so exciting and freeing for her to think that she was however many miles away from direct contact with her father. He, in Florida, and she, in Georgia. She felt like she was in a cage when she was around him. And even though she knew that it was up to her to make the decisions that would effect her future, that it was her choice and no longer her father's; even though she felt free of that cage, she still felt like she was in a fenced in yard. One with walls that stretched up forty feet high, with guards and towers and barbed wire at the top, and she was dragging around in chains.
They were unpacking their things at their on campus apartment- well, she was unpacking- with the CD player on loud. Chloe had slipped in a disk with some songs that she pulled offline. A song came on. She didn't think anything of it when Chloe blushed a scarlet red and excused herself to the bathroom.
Not having heard the toilet flush after a couple of minutes and figuring her friend to be still be busy, she walked into Chloe's bedroom to put a couple of her boxes in the closet and-
"What the hell, Chloe!?" Aubrey dropped the boxes, throwing her hands over her eyes and twisting around spastically.
Chloe fumbled with her clothes behind her, practically yelling a "Sorry! I'm sorry!" Aubrey felt Chloe's hand touch her shoulder and she startled, jumping away. The image of what she'd just seen was burning beneath her eyes.
"Don't touch me! Did you wash your hands?" There was a reason for Aubrey to ask; she knew where those hands were a second ago. Chloe should keep them to herself.
"No! I am so, so sorry Aubrey." And Aubrey knew she was. She could hear the sincerity in Chloe's embarrassed tone. "It's just-" Aubrey finally pulled her hands away from her eyes, just in time to see Chloe look at her in the reflection of the tall mirror that hung on the door with hungry, dark eyes. She wasn't sure if she wanted to know what was coming. "- that song does things to me." Aubrey swallowed.
"Okay, great! Just great! Lovely, even!" Her voice sounded overly happy and content; fake. "This was all about a song-" she wasn't sure what she meant by that statement. She stumbled out of the bedroom and to her room across the hall as Chloe watched her walk away. "- I'm just going to go and finish unpacking." Aubrey needed to be able to breathe. For once, she wasn't sure she'd be able to think clearly around Chloe. It confused her.
The final notes of David Ghetta's Titanium were ringing throughout their apartment. They'd be sharing this space together for the next four years.
Aubrey shut her door.
Her face felt hot.
There were a few strands of her blond hair falling about her face, escaping the neat bun she'd tied her hair in earlier that day. She couldn't get the image out of her mind of a blissfully unaware Chloe sprawled across her bed, moaning with a hand between her legs.
Something about their friendship had just changed for good. Aubrey tried to write the feeling off.
Half an hour after the incident, Chloe knocked on her bedroom door, "Aubrey?" She tried not to envision Chloe calling her name out quite differently. Aubrey didn't swing that way. "I'm going to go to the commons," Chloe said, her voice faint through the door. "They've got some kind of an activity fair going on!" Aubrey was already moving to the door to join her, but she couldn't get her mind out of the gutter. "Wanna come?"
Her mind immediately went to the place that she was trying to forget, and she blushed profusely.
It took her a moment to clear her voice enough for her to call back a squeaky, "No!" She took a breath, telling herself to Posen up. Just act normally. "No," she repeated steadier this time. "I'm just going to keep on unpacking everything. You go and have fun. Let me know when you're on the way back and I'll order some pizza, okay?"
"Okay," Chloe answered. "If you're sure..."
"I'm sure."
Aubrey was nothing but certain.
After Chloe left, Aubrey opened the door to her room to head to unpack stuff throughout the rest of the apartment. She avoided the bedrooms.
It took a few hours, but she finally got that image of Chloe out of her mind. She was humming the opening bars to Girls Just Wanna Have Fun when Chloe burst back into their apartment excitedly, waving around a flyer. She didn't call ahead of time.
"Aubrey! Aubrey! Guess what?" Chloe was just like an adorable little kid, bouncing around like someone gave her a piece of candy. "I signed us up for a cappella auditions! We're going to be Bellas!" Chloe cheered.
Aubrey couldn't say no, only smile fondly at Chloe at the news. She loved to sing with Chloe. Music was their thing. Chloe hugged her excitedly in one of the famous Beale hugs, and she rested her cheek against Chloe's head. Her nose caught an intoxicating scent and she breathed in deeply. Chloe.
By this point in time, Beca was a sophomore in high school. As it happened, her mother had turned her life around. The responsibility of being a single mother taking care of a teenage daughter and an elderly woman on her own must've gotten to her, as she'd gotten a job in order to care for them; both herself, her mother, and Beca. She'd gotten a job as a guidance councilor at the local high school. Beca's high school. As such, she was the first to get the call whenever Beca messed up.
Such as today. Ms. Taylor- as she'd reverted back to her maiden name- got a call from the principal about her daughter involving Beca's actions in the cafeteria the prior lunch period. She sighed, rubbing her forehead in exasperation. It's times like these that she really wishes she hadn't left her alcohol back in Atlanta. She'd been sober for six years now. She'd left the alcohol behind with Warren.
There was a knock on the door to her office. "Come in," she called out. She knew who was there. A disheveled looking Beca was escorted in by the vice principal, who took one last second to glare at the girl, and then promptly left. Beca smugly looked over her shoulder as the door slammed shut before looked back at her mother. Ms. Taylor took in her daughter's appearance. There was a bruise forming around her daughter's right eye, and a couple around her daughter's knuckles. Beca's shirt was torn at the neckline, but other than that she looked fine.
"Have a seat, Beca," and Beca knew that tone. She plopped down in a chair, avoiding her mother's eyes, and started picking at her nails absently. There was a brief moment where no one said anything. Her mother was trying to intimidate her. It wasn't going to work. Her mother was the one to break.
"Why'd you do it?" Ms. Taylor asked tiredly.
Beca found a hangnail on her middle finger. She wondered if she flipping her mother off would get rid of it. "Which part?" she smirked. "You're gonna have to be specific."
"Dammit Beca!" her mother slammed her hands on the desk, and Beca flinched at the sudden noise, meeting her mother's eyes for the first time since she stepped in the room. She doesn't like sudden, loud sounds unless they're coming from her headphones under the guise of music. She startles every time. "The part where you beat up three girls! Don't play coy with me, you know exactly what you did. Why'd you do it?"
"You're acting like I'm the one who threw the first punch," Beca sniped back, lip curling. She slouched lower in the chair and crossed her arms. It was anything but comfortable. The chair groaned under her weight, dipping down to the point where Beca thought that if she moved the wrong way, it might break. It was the chair that countless other students in her same position sat in before her. She wonders how the faculty can afford to buy new office chairs for themselves every year, but not new chairs for the office for their students.
"Maybe not," her mother said angrily. Her mother had a cup full of pens that Beca wanted to tip over to ruin the orderliness of her mother's desk. "But you'll be lucky if we don't get sued. You broke a girl's arm today, and another girl's nose."
As Beca thought back on the incident, she really wanted to tip over that cup, she growled bitterly, "It was self defense." By that point in time, it was, anyway. "They were bullying one of the freshmen for being gay. I stepped in, they didn't appreciate it, and they turned their attack on me. They got what they deserved." Her eyes were flashing as she remembered the look on Lisa's face: the freshmen looked horrified. Terrified. Embarrassed. It was pure fear, and something tugged at the three-sizes-too-small heart within Beca. She may be small, but she was a force to be reckoned with. "They outted her, mom," Beca said quietly. "Lisa didn't deserve that. I don't think she was ready." Another moment, Beca didn't feel like she should explain herself, "I just wanted to help her out."
Her mother sighed, face relaxing into something like sympathy. "Beca," she began. "It was very noble of you to try and stop it, but you shouldn't have stepped in. You should've gotten a teacher, or me-"
"And what would you have done?" Beca burst out hotly, gritting her teeth. "Send Lisa to the nurse with the promise that it'll get better? Give a detention to those girls and make them swear to never do it again? Because that'll work real well." She looked back down at her hands and stared at her purple knuckles. The ache in them wasn't so bad. Nothing she couldn't handle. If she was the type to wear rings, they probably would've done more damage when she punched that girl in the face. She starts to consider it. "At least now they'll know not to do it again..."
The 'or else' hung off the end of that sentence, dangling somewhere in the air between them.
"Lisa is well aware of the ramifications of her actions; she knew what could happen. You shouldn't have-"
"Do you think she chose to be this way? That she had a choice? She's gay, mom. It's not like she went to a Quick-Mart gas station, saw a rainbow colored carton behind the drug counter, and thought, 'Hmm, well I was looking for something new and addicting to try. Let's buy that carton and go gay-'" her nails dug into her palms. Her mother was staring down at her questioningly, and she felt the need to defend herself. "I'd do it again." She smirked wickedly, "Today was self-defense. It just so happened to be that it was also classical conditioning." Bullying gay girls would have consequences. Hell, bullying would have consequences. School rules allowing, or no.
They were silent for a moment, neither of them speaking. Ms. Taylor was contemplating something, trying to get up the courage to ask her daughter. "Beca," she hesitantly began, not sure if she was crossing a line. "Is there something you want to tell me?" i.e. Are you gay?
Beca carefully looked back over at her mother, beginning to pick at her cuticles again, "No. There's nothing." No, I'm not.
Her mother eyed her, looking for some hint as to what that undertone in Beca's voice meant. Her eyes trailed off her daughter's form and down to the folder on her desk. It was getting rather large, and numerous papers were poking out of it none too neatly (she'd been looking through it, and planned on organizing it later). She'd been getting a lot of complaints lately from her daughter's teachers about Beca's homework assignments. Apparently, she never turned them in.
She looked back at her daughter. Ms. Taylor didn't think of herself as one of those mother's- the type to over idolize their child's abilities, and often over compensate for them- but she knew her daughter and what Beca was capable of. She'd helped Warren tutor her for years, after all. She knew that children didn't just become lazy one day, despite what many of her colleagues thought. Her daughter had a brilliant mind. She could quite literally see the gears whirling around in her daughter's eyes as they looked boldly back at her, calculating.
Chances are that if her daughter wasn't snarking on her homework, that it wasn't handed in.
And it was strange. She knew her daughter did the work. It was something the three of them did at home; her, her mother, and her daughter. The three of them sat around the kitchen table late at night reading a book or working until someone went off to bed. Beca did all the work. She studied. And, as she was Beca's mother, she's seen the work her daughter does sitting in a pile in Beca's bedroom perfectly correct. Beca just doesn't hand it in.
And as a result, Beca's just barely passing. She's failing a couple of her classes. The only one she's getting any sort of remarkable grade in is band (Beca's a wonderful pianist), and she doesn't know why.
She knows that Beca never does anything without a reason. Beca's very deliberate about her actions, so she wonders why her daughter would want to barely pass her sophomore year. This is where the disagreement with her colleagues came in. Laziness, they said, but she wouldn't be a mother nor a guidance councilor if she thought of something like this so lightly. She was sure that if she were to ask, Beca give her some answer like, "I have better things to do."
Ms. Taylor had a theory though.
She and her daughter have never really spoken about personal things, but she thinks that Beca's grades have something to do with her trying to be as different from her father as capably possible. Frankly, she couldn't blame her daughter for that. And if her daughter wasn't interested in other girls... then maybe the fight earlier has something to do with her father too. She'd have to approach this slowly, though, carefully. This was a problem that she needed to fix. She pulled the papers out of Beca's file on her desk and shuffled them together, regaining her daughter's attention.
"Did you beat up those other girls because of Warren, Beca? How do you feel about your father?"
The door slammed shut as Beca stormed out, muttering an "Oh my God" on the way.
Maybe she didn't approach the topic slowly enough. She sighed again. She really wants a drink.
The freshmen Beca helped earlier was waiting in the hall outside for her, and when Beca walked out she stood up. There weren't any words said. No hugs or high fives. The two had never spoken before earlier today, and they weren't planning on speaking afterwards. The girl just nodded at Beca her thanks, the two locking eyes for a moment. Beca nodded back and walked off down the hall. Her eye was starting to get swollen. She wasn't going to see the nurse. It'd be fine.
A few months pass and it's December. It'd snowed outside the night before. Beca, her mother and her grandmother are sitting together in the living room. It's Christmas.
Beca never tells her mother what she wants anymore for the holidays. She hasn't made a list since she was five and told her parents that Santa can shove it if she had to bake one more cookie for a holiday in which the economy thrived on charging hundreds of taxpayers their well earned money in order to buy an ugly sweater that throughout that particular season costs a cheap fortune, under the guise of Christmas cheer and good intentions. Oh, and then she mentioned she hates Christmas. And that she knew Santa Claus was a fraud. She told them not to waste their time with cookies as Santa wouldn't be coming down the chimney that year.
She was being tutored by a student who was majoring in marketing at the time. He was a realist.
Her parents were both astounded by her revelation and appalled. At the time, her mother was just happy to drop the flour and crack open a bottle of champagne. Warren cracked open the spine of A Christmas Carol and read quietly to himself.
Running the risk of being too punny, Beca had always been a smart cookie.
Since then, when asked what she wanted for Christmas, she's said a gift card to Taco Bell, an iTunes gift card, or nail polish.
Once Ms. Taylor had left Warren, though, she's felt like she needed to make it up to her daughter. She has yet to find that one thing that'll make her daughter dip into the Christmas cheer. Her mother told her to just let Beca be, don't force her to love something she can't, but Ms. Taylor's determined to figure it out. She doesn't get Beca much, usually. Beca's a very simple girl. Skinny jeans, converse, and flannel. Always a gift card for iTunes (she draws the line at Taco Bell). Maybe a poster or two of her favorite band. Her mother's had to be a little more creative on her own in her attempts to get Beca a good gift. Her attempts don't usually work.
But then Beca let slip that she wanted to be a DJ. It wasn't on purpose. Beca had gotten up to help her grandmother with something in the other room. She'd left her laptop open on the table, along with her headphones. Ms. Taylor just happened to be passing by and noticed what was on the screen. A free, cheap and retro looking DJ program. She hadn't known her daughter to be into music that much. Then again, they never talk about anything. She realized how little she actually knew about her daughter's life. This course of thought took her back thinking about Warren. She felt guilty again; like she had more to make up to her daughter than she'd ever considered. She vowed to be a better mother.
There was some saying or other. How did it go? Something like "your measure of reliability comes not by your words but by your actions". If she wanted to change, she'd have to show it.
They have a running tradition of waking Beca up at three in the morning (if she isn't already up) and sitting in the living room and opening their presents beneath the tree on Christmas Day. They're not particularly religious, they don't go to church on Sundays or sing hymns or pray before eating dinner or anything, but Beca's grandmother grew up differently. Her grandmother wears a little cross on a chain around her neck, and always makes sure that one of them reads Luke 2: 1-20 before they open gifts; it's a passage in the Bible about Jesus' birth. Beca's not sure if she believes in a god. To her, the whole thing doesn't make much sense. She goes along with it anyway, though, because she likes the tradition and hearing the story.
It's just afterwards, when they're opening gifts and the lights from the Christmas tree are reflecting off of the wrapping paper and ribbons and bows, that Beca notices something quite large sitting behind the tree. One final present for her. Beca doesn't outwardly seem to care other than delicately removing the paper and setting it aside. When she opens it up, her face lights up in a smile and her mother knows that she's finally succeeded in getting her daughter into the Christmas spirit. She'd signed the gift "From Santa Claus", for the nostalgia, and it works.
Maybe Beca's father had never been one for the music industry; maybe he wouldn't support her in her current aim. At one point, Ms. Taylor might've been the same. Now, she had Beca's best interests at heart.
Beca's been using what she'd been given at Christmas nonstop since then, along with her beat up old laptop. She'd gotten a job three years ago working at a bakery with a balding old man and his niece. They gave her a handsome salary, which she wasn't ever going to argue with. She gets her paycheck every Tuesday; she cashes it at the bank as soon as she possibly can, and locks it away. She's been saving the money up in order to buy some proper mixing equipment, with a plan to use whatever was leftover to move to LA when she turns eighteen.
Her mother had given her a digital turntable controller, actual DJ software for her computer, and a mixer. Those were the necessities. She'd saved up enough money on her own from her job to buy some other, though maybe not so necessary, things: a new laptop, an electric keyboard, a microphone, and proper headphones to listen to the music when she works. As it turns out, her five year old self was wrong when she implied that Christmas cost a small fortune, because it cost an actual fortune. All of the cash she'd saved up to go to LA in a few years disappeared seemingly in an instant once she'd paid the cashier. It was just after the Christmas season, so the prices were still pretty high, but Beca couldn't wait to get started.
Maybe it was petty. A part of her felt like her mother was trying to buy her love, but another part of her wondered how her mother knew that she wanted to be a DJ. The latter told her that her mother was trying to reach out to her, that maybe her mother cared. She wasn't sure if that was something she was interested in reciprocating yet. However, it was definitely an effort that she appreciated. Maybe she could try and get along better with her mother.
Though DJ-ing is the goal, it's not something she's good at yet.
She recorded her own voice singing some song that was stuck in her head in order to play around with the programs and equipment. She wanted to figure out how everything worked. The sound of her voice playing back at her made her wince. She wasn't that great of a singer; not when compared to P!nk or Beyoncé, or any of the top players in the music industry really. It took some time and many mistakes before she finally got a hang of the systems. Beca doesn't let anyone listen to the mixes she makes.
Her grandmother dies the following year.
It wasn't as if she were particularly close to her, despite living together. Beca never really lets anyone get that close, but her grandmother had never seemed all that interested in getting close to her either. It was a mutual disinterest. Her mother's coworkers and her grandmother's bridge partner attend the funeral. They all stare at her like they're waiting for her to crack. She doesn't cry, though her mother does. Her principal, Mr. Ryan, moves to comfort her mother. He gives her a weird look, wondering why she isn't in the same state.
And it's not that she isn't saddened by her loss; it's more like, Beca knows that she needs to cry, that she needs to get her emotions and frustrations out- because she's sure she feels them and she knows that she'll miss her grandmother despite whatever nonexistent relationship they had throughout the past few years- but she's numb. All those emotions are dulled down. It's almost as if there are two people inhabiting her body. She's one of the people, she's Beca, and the person standing there watching as the dirt fills her grandmother's grave is another. A stranger in her body. If that makes any sense. She wonders who will ask her to read about Jesus' birth at Christmas, if anyone will ask her. So, she doesn't cry.
Not then, anyway.
Still, it was just her and her mother now. Even with one less person gone, their house was a lot emptier. After the funeral, things took a turn for the worse. The whole routine that they developed reminded her of when she was little and her parents fought or avoided each other whenever they were together. They started to argue. When they weren't arguing, Beca retreated into her music and work at the bakery like her mother retreated back into her alcohol.
She thinks it's funny in that way that's not funny at all how alcoholics think they're being so sneaky about drinking. It's really hard to hide that smell in their breath, their bloodshot, watery eyes, the way they stagger around when their drunk. Beca wakes up to the sound of her mother throwing up in the bathroom down the hall, or to the sound of glass bottles clinking against one another. Her mother hides them in the closet in her room. So much for her sobriety.
Her mother starts to not speak to her at all.
Ms. Taylor's colleagues don't assume that anything's wrong. They don't question her behavior. Ms. Taylor'd just lost her mother, after all, and Beca was a troublesome child. They presume her to be the cause of her mother's problems. As a result of Ms. Taylor's noticeable distress, her teachers are harder on her. She gets detentions weekly, is often called after class. She walked down the hall to find the vice principal and two policemen searching her locker. They took her backpack. They forced her to have a drug test, and gave her dirty looks when it came back clean. She'd gotten suspicious looks from her teachers when she aced her exams. People avoided her in the halls. Beca only ever got along with her band teacher, now.
Any hope she'd have of her mother actually caring completely disappeared. She wondered how she could've ever thought that it was possible. She got a tattoo on her wrist of a grasshopper; she thought it was very representational of her life, but that was only the first of many. She also started putting on her eyeliner a little heavier, and got her ears pierced again. It made her stand out. It made her look tough.
She decided that since people already seemed to think the worst of her, she was going to live up to that in appearance. Why should she argue with something she didn't really care to change? It kept people away.
Today she'd gotten accused of cheating by her English teacher. They'd finished "reading" The Great Gatsby in class the other day. It was the last book that they'd be reading in class together this year, and as a result there was one final project. When she'd handed her project in, her teacher couldn't understand how she could possibly know so much about the book when she'd barely been paying attention at all. She hadn't thought to mention that she used to attend her father's lectures.
The teacher gave her three detentions with a possible in-school suspension and sent her down to her mother's office.
She rolled her eyes, but complied.
Her mother's door wasn't locked, so she didn't knock on it; she walked right in and immediately regretted it. Her mother and Mr. Ryan were having sex on the desk. Beca didn't bother sticking around to hear their explanations, she left the school.
When her mother came home, they argued.
Her mother blamed her for her divorce with Warren, for having to pack up their lives and move to an entirely new state. She was blamed for her grandmother's death; called an emotionless monster who had wanted her grandmother to die. She was blamed for her mother's misery; she never did what she was told and always had some wise-ass comment to make. She was also yelled at for walking in on her mother and her principal at school, interrupting them when something good was finally happening in her mother's life. She deserved the detentions she got. She was a waste of whiskey money.
She was called a useless, no good, deadbeat parasite of a daughter. But, most of all, it was her fault that her mother was having money problems.
It was then that she learned that her grandmother must've at least loved her a little, because their money problems stemmed from a fact that she hadn't known about before her mother thought to let her know. Her grandmother didn't include her mother in her will. When she died, she gave all her worldly possessions- all her money, her car, the house they lived in, and everything in it- to Beca: who would officially own these items when she comes to the age of twenty-one. Her mother didn't get one lick.
Beca shut down at the information. On the inside, there was a part of her that was elated at the news. It would be quite a few years until it was actually hers, but she could sell it all and have money for LA. She locked herself in her room with her music. She couldn't stand to be around her mother. She couldn't wait until she was able to leave. She was so tired of this. She'd much rather just be alone. They steadily avoided each other for the next two years. It was easy. They came home, and they went to different rooms. On the weekends, her mother owned the house during the day, and Beca had the house during the night. That's when they'd be in their rooms.
She didn't bother to come home at all when her mother had Mr. Ryan over. She didn't want to know what those two would be doing. Instead, she would take her grandmother's white Lincoln continental out, park it in the lot at the bakery she worked at, and stay the night in the car with the doors locked and a bottle of pepper-spray sitting in the console next to her. It wasn't exactly comfortable, but it worked.
Beca was a senior now, would be turning seventeen in a week. Not that it really mattered. It was just another day, and it was another year closer to her moving to LA.
Everything was normal about it. She was in her room with the door cracked and the shades drawn, dim light leaking into the room through the window despite it, nestled in her bed and ready to finally go to sleep. It was around five in the morning on a Sunday. She wasn't planning on getting up any time soon. There were birds whistling outside.
The phone rang; a shrill, piercing sound that made her jump and caused a grumpy frown to appear on her face.
She didn't like sudden, loud sounds. She was trying to sleep.
She heard her mother muttering to herself as she got up to answer it, and then she heard her mother start to scream at the other person on the line. The call with whoever it was didn't last long. Beca fell asleep soon after. Just one more year to go.
A.N.
I started writing this chapter and got interrupted, so I lost my train of thought somewhere in the middle. I'm not sure how cohesive it all is- sorry if it's a little boring. O.o
Also, I'm beginning to think that this may end up being more than five chapters like I was originally planning to make it. My idea's been expanding and changing with every word that I write, and I got such a good reception with the first chapter that I'm a little excited about writing this. X) Can't wait to see how it all goes. Just a reminder, though, that I do need encouragement if I am to write: please leave a review and let me know what you think! Thank you, you lovely people ^^
Specific thanks to mo11, Bechloe always, KingVSQueen, smw48910, Al, Guest, and Meg Rules for all the lovely comments and encouragement! I honestly didn't think anyone would really leave a review, so thank you. X) I was kinda worried that I was all over the place... I'm glad you guys enjoyed it.
Kween Of Thorn: Totally going to be Beca with someone- I can't just leave her hanging! :) Let me know what you think the final pairing should be. No comment about Jules at this point; she may or may not make an appearance later. We'll see how it goes. And I completely agree with you about her father- I didn't want for him to actually go overboard and hit her, because it's not physical abuse that I'm writing about, but I still wanted him to seem overly upset and take it out on her. In the movie, Beca seems emotionally stunted. Here, I'm trying to cover a little bit of the "why". She never lets anyone get close to her because she always gets hurt. As for Aubrey and Chloe, well, you'll see where that's going. Thanks for the great review!
TRUTH: To be honest, I'm a total Bechloe diehard, so I'm seriously considering it. But I'm leaving my options open at this point. I want to see where this goes; how what I'm envisioning in my head's going to translate on the page. And, believe me, I could go on forever too- I really like what you said though. That's sort of the direction I'm heading in; Beca not being loved enough and Chloe loving more than anyone. I just had a much longer, all around way of saying it in my head, but that's much better. :) Thanks for the review!
