(Unknown Number): Hey
Chloe frowned, propping herself up on her elbow as she checked her phone. It was interrupting her marathon of How To Get Away With Murder, so she felt inclined to check it. Seeing an unknown number, she was about to put it down before contemplating; she scrolled up and saw the number had sent her something before, ad she realised who it was. Quickly changing the contact to Beca, she smiled softly. She had been waiting for Beca to text her, not wanting to pressurise the girl any further, but it had been a day since their lesson and Beca seemed to be feeling up to a conversation.
Chloe : Hey Beca 🙋 ️
Beca : is that an emoji of someone waving?
Chloe: yes 😃
Beca : hahaha
Beca: do you use emojis at the end of everything you send?
Chloe: yes😁
Beca: of course you do, I don't know why I would expect any less.
Beca: Wait that sounded rude I swear it wasn't meant to be
Chloe: no it didn't dw
Chloe: don't worry*
Chloe: I wouldn't expect anything less either 😜👻 ️
Beca: are you bummed because they don't have a red headed emoji?
Chloe: YES! But theyre gonna release one soon so it's okay! Finally! 🎉🎊
Beca: hahaha it's about time.
Beca: um you're probably wondering why I texted
Beca: do you still wanna trust me with teaching you?
Chloe: omg yes yes yes yes 😁🚲
Chloe had to stop herself from squealing, even though she was alone in her apartment. She knew Beca would be a good teacher and she was excited to finally learn how to ride.
Beca: oh she said yes
Beca: oh crap that wasn't meant to send
Beca: sometimes voice assist is a pain
Beca: sorry
Chloe: 😂😂 I know you're flustered just by reading your messages and you've gone red
Beca: what does that mean?
Chloe's heart exploded. She was happy that Beca asked her, she felt that if this was two weeks ago Beca would have just agreed, too anxious to ask.
Chloe: it's like you've just lost your cool.😳
Beca: oh
Beca: Okay
Beca: so do you maybe wanna have your first riding lesson on Sunday morning?
Beca: or do you have like church or something
Beca: you seem like you would.
Chloe: why do I seem like that?
Beca: you're just...very very nice. Like a church goer.
Chloe: hahaha well I don't have church. I stopped going when I was sixteen. I confessed what I thought was a sin at the time to the priest and instead of just praying for me or whatever he told me I was going to hell
Beca: and that is the exact reason why I don't go. They're so fake. They say they accept everyone but they didn't accept me when I couldn't read from the bible in a holy communion class.
Chloe: that's horrible ️😔 😡
Beca: that's a lot of emojis, easy there Chloe
Chloe: hahaha 😂
Beca: so if you don't have church, do you want to come then?
Chloe: I'll be there, where and what time ️🕑
Beca: the park near the bread shop that sells like cookies and sausage rolls. I don't know what it's called. Either of them.
Chloe: the park is called Georgie park and the shop is the bakery.🌲
Beca: oh okay
Beca: what time...
Beca: I don't know
Beca: im sorry
Chloe sighed and cursed herself for being so thoughtless; she definitely shouldn't have asked. Beca knew she knew Beca couldn't know, so now she was afraid the janitor would think Chloe was mocking her.
Chloe: Don't be sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't think before I asked. 💕
Beca: it's okay my dad asks me on purpose all the time. You didn't mean to so it's okay
Her dad asks her all the time? Maybe her dad was part of the problem. As much as Chloe wanted to find out more, she decided it would be better to drop the subject before she insulted or made Beca upset.
Beca: when my room gets light, Cause it means it's daytime
Chloe: and you go to sleep when it gets dark🌙
Beca: sort of. Maybe a bit afterwards.
Chloe: Okay, so how about I meet you at the park at ten. It's a few hours after the sun comes up, so I think you'll be able to get there in time. If you're not I'd be happy to wait. ️
Beca: yeah okay
Beca: is ten near noon?
Chloe: not really, noon is a couple hours later. Noon is lunch time. Ten is still around breakfast time. 🍳
Beca: oh.
Beca: Okay. I'll see you at ten.
Chloe: Okay then! See you on Sunday🙋 ️
Sunday rolled around faster than Chloe expected, and she soon found herself digging out her helmet, knee and elbow pads from her closet. She was excited – more than excited. She had dusted off her bike the day before. Her parents had given it to her for Christmas a few years ago, obviously in the hopes that their daughter would buck up and learn to ride a bike. Chloe found it amusing (and rather sad) that it was only now she was learning…two decades after she should have.
Even so, she was excited. And ready.
If Beca could learn how to play piano past her illiteracy, then she could learn to ride a bike.
Chloe bit her cheek to try and hid her wide grin, not wanting to look like the Cheshire Cat on drugs to anyone walking past her. Here the redhead was, struggling to keep her bike from falling on her as she walked, with her helmet, elbow and knee pads already on, and a bright smile on her face.
She looked like Kimmy Schmidt.
After fighting with her bike for fifteen minutes, the music teacher eventually reached the park, and immediately spotted Beca. The brunette looked a lot different from when she was in her janitor uniform – her hair was down, and Chloe saw now it went down to her mid-chest in soft waves. She wore black skinny jeans, a black tank top and a black leather jacket.
Clearly, she was a fan of dark clothing.
In the redhead's opinion, she was gorgeous.
She rolled her bike over to where the girl was standing with her own bike, and dropped it loudly onto the pavement with a crash. Probably not the best idea, considering Beca had been looking the complete opposite way.
The brunette let out a small squeak and jumped about two feet into the air. She whipped around, eyes as wide as ever, but relaxed once she saw Chloe.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." Chloe giggled.
Beca gulped and let out a shaky breath. "R-Right. Hi, Miss."
"Beca," Chloe groaned. "I'm not your teacher right now, and even when I am your teacher, you still call me Chloe. Chloe."
"Sorry. Hi, Chloe," Beca tried again.
"Hi," Chlo said brightly.
"Hi," Beca breathed out, seemingly still trying to recover from her near heart attack. "What do you want me to teach?"
"Well, you're the teacher today, Beca. I'm in your classroom now, so you get to decide." Chloe grinned, winking at the smaller girl.
Beca bit her lip to hide her growing smile. She couldn't help but feel somewhat proud of herself – she had always wanted to be a teacher (maybe this was why she admired the redhead so much). The janitor blushed lightly.
"Okay," She said, taking a deep breath. "Uh, I wanna see like…you ride first? If that's okay. J-Just to see what you need to um, do."
Chloe smiled warmly when she saw Beca slipping back into her shell, the same one Chloe often found her in, and managed to indicate through a warm smile that Beca needn't slip back, that Chloe accepted and encouraged the fact that Beca was everything but experienced at teaching, and that that was perfectly okay.
"Sure," Chloe replied easily. "But I really, really can't do much more than sit on the seat."
"That's fine," Beca shrugged, and then mumbled something about not really minding as Chloe was more accomplished in all other aspects of life than she was.
The teacher resisted the urge to reply to Beca's quiet comment; she just hoped one day that Beca would stop putting herself down, Instead, Chloe smiled, picked her bike up from where she had unceremoniously dropped it on the ground, and mounted her seat.
"Beca, I'm gonna fall-"
"Just try," Beca smiled, now her turn to be the encouraging one.
"But I-"
"Chloe." Beca stopped her, surprising the redhead with the interruption. "Nobody has ever learnt anything without having to fail first. Trust me on that, and I've never even learnt anything."
Chloe sighed. Of course, now she felt foolish, ungrateful, in a way. She was a lot better off than Beca was with a lot of different things. She needed to do this.
"You're right,"
"Really?" Beca brightened up with excitement, and Chloe realised that the girl had probably barely ever been told she was right throughout her life.
"Yes, really," Chloe giggled. She sobered up almost immediately and took a deep shaky breath. She brought her right foot to the pedal, and began to push down.
"Wait!" Beca said suddenly.
"Jesus Christ!" Chloe jumped with a shriek, pressing hard against the breaks of her bike, even though she hadn't moved an inch. "Oh my god, Beca! Wait for what?"
"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," Beca chuckled as she realised that's exactly what Chloe had told her no more than five minutes ago. "I just thought you should probably do this on the grass. It'll be a bit harder to bike on, but it's softer to fall onto."
"Yeah…yeah, okay." Chloe said, getting off the bike and pushing it towards the grass, before getting back onto it.
"Okay…now go." Beca told her. "I won't stop you,"
Beca watched carefully, head cocked, as Chloe pressed down once more on the pedal. She actually rode for about five seconds, before toppling over onto her left side with a small oof. However, in that five seconds, there was a lot wrong. Her physique, the way she pushed down on the pedals was a little too forceful, and her arms and hands had been too shaky, making the handles go all over the place. She really did try hard, though. Beca helped Chloe out from underneath her bike and squatted down to where the redhead was sitting on the grass with a pout.
"I told you I couldn't do much." Chloe muttered.
"It was great," The janitor assured her. "There was some things wrong…your body, pedalling, the handles."
"That's literally everything." Chloe huffed with a roll of her eyes.
"But," Beca continued. "I'm not working on any of that stuff yet. So you don't end up like…thinking too much. I think…just getting you to be steady and ride a straight line is what to do now. Uh…watch me,"
Chloe stayed seated as Beca mounted her own bike and rode slowly and carefully for about ten metres before stopping. The brunette dismounted her bike and turned around, her face donning a small half-smile; it looked almost as if she was looking for approval from Chloe – not that Chloe knew what approval she wanted.
"That's how it's gonna look in the end," Beca said.
"It looked really good, Beca," The redhead praised her, feeling her stomach do an uneasy – and somewhat disappointed – turn. She wanted to be able to do what Beca could do.
Beca sent her a genuine smile, before motioning for the redhead to get on her bike again. She watched as the musician pedalled hesitantly and slowly whilst Beca held on tightly to the back of her seat, stabilising the bike. Despite the added security, Chloe was still incredibly shaky as she rode.
"You need to relax!" Beca said clearly after the fifth time Chloe had gotten too shaky and fallen, even with Beca holding her seat. "You're too scared of falling over. You've already fallen, you're not gonna get hurt too bad, and you've got all the pads and stuff. Just ride and stop thinking about breaking something,"
Chloe sighed in defeat. "Beca, it's just really-"
"Hard, I know. You have to try," Beca said, more softly than before. "Do you want stabilisers?"
"No." Chloe pouted, crossing her arms over her chest. "I don't. I'm not a little kid."
"You sure about that?" Beca smirked jokingly, looking at Chloe's stance.
Rolling her eyes good-naturedly, Chloe let out a small giggle, uncrossing her arms. "Whatever. Let's go again,"
Chloe growled in frustration around an hour later. She still hadn't gotten anywhere with her riding, and she could feel multiple bruises forming around her body from where she'd fallen. She clenched her jaw as she rode off again, but she only fell once more.
"Argh!" exclaimed the girl, literally throwing the bike off her body.
"Okay, okay, just stop for a bit," Beca said, sitting down in front of Chloe. "You weren't gonna get it straight away. It takes loads of practice."
"It's so annoying!" Chloe crossed her arms. "You do it so easily and it makes me feel incompetent."
"What does that mean?"
"It's when you don't have or can't show the skills to do something. You're incompetent of doing it."
"Welcome to my world," Beca shrugged. "And you do music so easily and it makes me feel incomtepent. You can read, and write, and spell more things than just your own name, and I'm just incomtepent of doing all that stuff. But…but I'm gonna learn. I'm gonna learn to ride a music and you're gonna learn to do a bike. Wait…I think I said that wrong…"
Chloe bit her lip to hide the soft smile that was sneaking up onto her face. That gave her an idea. Maybe she could help Beca without Beca realising she was helping her…maybe she could somehow test her without actually testing her. With the right research, Chloe might just be able to figure out what went on in Beca's mind. She knew already that the janitor jumbled her words, and found it difficult to read when there were lines on the page. She could definitely find out a bit more.
"You mean, you're gonna learn to do music and I'm gonna learn to ride a bike," Chloe supplied.
"Yeah. And we can't learn it all in one lesson. So we shouldn't…beat ourselves up, just cause we can't do it." Beca finished with a proud smile on her face, seemingly for being able to give such wise words of wisdom.
Chloe met her eyes with a small smile. "Thank you,"
Beca's smile dropped and she looked clueless. "For what?"
"That made me feel better."
Beca's smile was the biggest Chloe had ever seen.
They spent another half hour at the park, and Chloe wasn't getting very far, or learning very much. Beca, on the other hand, was learning a lot. For example, who knew that when Chloe got increasingly frustrated, she became a sailor. The sailor's mouth the girl had was crazy – she was spouting swear words Beca had never even heard of before. To be honest, it was pretty entertaining to watch. Chloe often seemed like she couldn't hurt a fly and had a permanent smile etched onto her face, but put the music teacher on a bicycle and it's a whole other story. Eventually, though, Beca decided Chloe was probably going to end up throwing her bike into a dumpster if they didn't call it a day.
"You got better," Beca said promisingly.
"I didn't, but thanks." Chloe shrugged half-heartedly, staring at the ground as she rolled her bike off the grass and onto the path that would lead them back onto the main road.
They walked alongside each other in silence for a few moments. Now that Beca was done teaching – she still couldn't believe she was teaching something to somebody else – she didn't have much else to say, and she didn't know how to begin a conversation.
"Hey, would you wanna get something to eat?" Chloe was the first to speak, which Beca was more than happy about.
However, the brunette took it as Chloe sending Beca away to eat. The janitor fumbled, felt her chest tightening a little, and nodded jerkily. "Oh…yeah, yeah, um, do you want me to come back or not?"
Chloe frowned in confusion, before her face morphed into a sweet smile. "No, I mean with me. Would you like to get something to eat with me?"
Beca visibly relaxed. "Oh. Oh, sure,"
"There's a café down the street?" Chloe nodded her head towards the left.
Beca blushed a light pink. "I…I don't know what the serve there,"
Chloe was about to suggest that she could tell Beca once they get there, but then she thought about it; maybe the smaller girl wouldn't like it if she had to be read the menu in front of other people, or maybe she didn't like change very much.
"How about McDonald's? They have pictures of their food. Do you go there much?"
"Sometimes," Beca said softly. She looked around the street, and noticed the logo of her favourite place to eat at. She couldn't exactly read it, but she'd memorised the colours and shapes. "Taco Bell! Can we go to Taco Bell?"
Chloe giggled as she watched the way Beca perked up with excitement. She looked like a child. "Sure,"
In the five minutes it had taken them to get there, order their food and sit, Beca had erupted into a story about how she felt like the first time she ever had Taco Bell, which was honestly just adorable. She only leased on the description once she got her taco, and sat happily eating it. Sitting there, eating tacos with the janitor, Chloe felt like this was the first time they had ever truly bonded. It wasn't about teaching each other anything, it was about talking and being comfortable with each other (the redhead was ecstatic that Beca seemed to be comfortable around her), and Chloe found that, when Beca wasn't focused on trying to do something for herself or for someone else, she was actually pretty funny. Witty, and sarcastic, and never missing a beat with her comments. The redhead couldn't help but wonder where Beca would have ended up had she been more literate than she was – she could be anything ranging from a doctor to a comedian, because she seemed smart whenever she talked, it was just writing the smart down in black and white that was the problem.
"Are you even listening to me?" Beca raised an eyebrow at the girl sitting across from her – Chloe had been staring at her for the past two minutes.
"Huh? Yeah, yeah, of course," Chloe nodded immediately.
"Yeah? What did I just say, then?"
"You said…Chloe, I think we're gonna be really fast friends. Oh, wait, no, that's what I was thinking," Chloe grinned and sent the brunette a wink.
Beca chuckled. "Smooth, Beale. Very smooth."
Chloe looked down at her taco, her grin triumphant. It looked like her and Beca were going to be more than co-workers after all.
Thanks for reading!
Replies to reviews...
AcaTitanium94: thank you so much!
Kasia143: haha, I'm sorry about that, I struggle to write quickly, I have to make sure everything's perfect! And even then it's not perfect...and haha, so am I to be honest, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
Lasleonas007: yeah, I'm sorry about that, I hope this made up for the shortness of last chapter! And I agree, I think I'll let them bond a lot more before another character is introduced! Thanks for the review!
until it's gone: thank you thank you thank you! And so do I ;) I've actually never seen good will hunting, I had no idea about it until somebody (was it you?) mentioned it to me, and my English teacher did as well haha, so I really wanna watch it now!
destinedtobefree: aww, thank you so much! Honestly, I'm sure all be bawling by the time I eventually finish this fic, it's something really special to me and really close to my heart and it means the world that you love it so much too!
UnfamiliarSky: you are my G! And yeahhh, chloe def does have some sort of an idea and honestly I'm just as intrigued as you are to see what she does about it hahaha. You helped me so much earlier today with your comment on my tumblr (I still need to reply) thank you so much! aww, at least you have more of a reason not to be updating 24/7 than I do! I'm glad you're recovering! Awwwwww cheerleaders and fans oh my god!
Guest: AWWW BLESS YOUR SOUL, I made you cry! I'm sorry, but also not! I'm sure this relationship will go just the way you want it to!
guest: you're welcome, thanks for the review!
justbechloe: aww thank you so much! I'm happy you found it! And your English isn't bad at all!
Guest: you got more! Thanks for the review!
Hetwaszoietsals: I am continuing, all the way to the end (however long that will take)! Thanks heaps for the review!
squiddy11111: OH THANK YOU SO MUCH BLESS! you truly give me a whole lot of confidence, thank you!
jlk215: oh my goodness thank you, you don't know how much that means! And I can picture that too, I can't wait for it to become a reality!
Bechloe Targaryen: Thank you for your input, I think I'm gonna add more too! Haha I'll try my best to stop my worrying, thank you!
bagelfish88: thank you so much! I hope you enjoyed this chapter too!
PitchFreakTrash: aww thank you! Haha, I love/live to make people laugh, honestly! HAHAHA YOU SOUND LIKE ME HAHA LEGIT ME BECHLOE IS COOOL YKNOW IM TOTALLY NOT FREAKING OUT AT EVERY SINGLE INTERACTION THEY HAVE! Have you seen the movie yet? I saw it, oh god I sobbed, it was everything. I did continue on, and you shall continue reading this...is it beautiful? Really? Aww...fanfic...
guest: haha, an iPhone 7 alright! I wanted to give her a popular expensive phone, I'm not sure why hahaha. I can't wait for you to find out! Thanks for the review!
Tomboyishfangirl: awww thank you very very much! I hope you like this chapter just as much as the rest!
OnceYouGoBecYouCantGoBack: Oh my god, thank you! You're beautiful for this review! Maybeeeee...
justbechloe: dude! You got your wish! And aghhhh thank you!
WOW you guys, all those reviews for lil ol' me! Thank you so much, my heart has just swollen three times'
