Beca hadn't a clue as how she would ever support this child, let alone afford the prenatal care without a job, but Chloe had volunteered to step in, and little by little, she had hoped to help this clueless brunette back onto her feet, at least temporarily.
Beca knew without a job and with only a few months left until his or her arrival, she figured she'd have to scurry to find a home, adoptive parents, and a job all before the school year ended and Chloe and Aubrey would be thrown out on their own two feet, and Beca would be left homeless, that was if her dad wouldn't come around before then. However, there was still the option to join the Bellas, scoring a place to stay but also having to work yet another thing into her chaotic life.
"What about that cafe at the corner of the quad? Have you considered applying there?" Chloe looks up from her laptop, sliding it across the counter for Beca to have a look.
"A job is a job at this point, and my bills are going to be a mile high before this baby comes." Beca groans, realizing how she sounded just like an adult, complaining much as her father had when he received his.
Beca anxiously tapped the counter with her nails, noting how the prenatal vitamins had turned her brittle and yellowish nails into hard and shiny, firm nail beds. She still gnawed at them despite Chloe' pleas to clip them, worried of infection. Beca would constantly and mindlessly scratching at her itchy stomach, just another side effect of pregnancy. Beca found it nearly impossible to stop, her itching becoming a nervous tick at triggers such as stress, like when she was searching for hours on end in the corner of the cafe while Chloe was at school, looking for the right agencies, before one day coming home, collapsing helplessly on the couch.
"Beca, you can't give up this easily, especially when you know it's the best thing given your situation." Chloe reminds her, gently rubbing her hand in gentle circles around Beca's back as she lay sideways on Chloe's lap.
"Doing the right thing hurts, especially when I have all the reason in the world to be hesitant. Don't you see this baby as a second chance?" She sighs, turning slightly to stare up at Chloe behind her.
"Beca your parents not working out was no fault of your own. But this baby is coming into a single mother home, so really despite all the love you give him or her, they'd be better off in a home where the parents don't have to work two or three jobs just to support them. Don't you think that will make him or her feel unwanted?" Chloe infers.
Beca fixes her glare back to the ceiling, refusing to make eye contact as she bitterly turned from Chloe and crosses her arms over her chest, her lips unintentionally forming into a pout. She doesn't speak nor make eye contact, secretly hoping that Chloe would know just what to say.
"There's someone out there that can't have a child who wants a child, who has every right to care for and love a child, even if it isn't through flesh and blood. I promise, even though it hurts, you're doing the right thing by giving them and this baby a chance." Chloe adds after a few minutes of dead silence, Beca's glare fixed to the ceiling as tears stung the back of her eyes, widened with hurt and angst.
"Chloe, I don't want to put this baby up for adoption because that's what everyone thinks I should do, but because it's what i'm thinking is best, and right now, I'm not so sure."
She shakes, her lips quivering as she bit back the tears, her walls being torn down by the most life changing events in her life, but she still had refused to show Chloe that at that moment, she was completely vulnerable and soft hearted, aching for someone to step in and take control.
"Beca?" Chloe checks to see if she had fallen asleep, but instead she's distant, her shallow breathing the only sign that she was still listening.
"If only everyone could have their life together, this world would be an easy place, but it's not and now i'm pregnant and alone, clueless how to raise a baby, but torn between adoption and wanting a second chance to have my own family."
"Do what you think is best, the decision you won't regret, and don't hold yourself up to everyone else's standards or beliefs. Most people jump to the conclusion that adoption is necessary the minute they find themselves unexpectedly pregnant because they think it's the reasonable thing to do and they're afraid of what their family or society might think of them. They don't consider what they want, just what everyone else says is right." Chloe consoles her, running her fingers through the brunette's frizzy, two day old, curly hair.
"But I don't want abortion to ever be an option." Beca whimpers, shuddering at the thought.
"It's not at all what i'm suggesting, i'm just telling you to base your decisions for this baby for what you want for them to make you and more importantly them happy." Chloe informs her reassuringly.
Beca sighs, daydreaming what her life would have been like had she not found herself in this type of scenario. Would she have met Chloe? What if Jesse had stayed and helped her raise this child? The strangest thought of all that Beca couldn't answer with any certainty, is 'Would I have ever become a mother?'. Because up until then, she didn't think she could ever ponder the idea of motherhood until she was certain she was with the man she loved, and even then she wasn't sure of how it was possible that a child that hadn't been born yet had already torn down so much of her walls, making her into a possibly softer person, juggling emotions between her hands as she struggled with the inevitable.
Was it feasible that she would make motherhood a possibility and support this child without falling on her face?
"As much as I'm open to the idea of raising this baby, this is not how i'd expected to do it. And after graduation, where will we go?"
"Here, of course." Chloe chimes in before Beca can finish her thought. "Joining the Bella's and using music as your escape. It's changed my life, I swear." Chloe winks.
Beca knew that joining the Bellas or even just making sets for them to perform could be an easy escape from ending up who-knows-where. But she wasn't quite set on the idea and was secretly hoping to move in with Chloe and Aubrey after they moved, an even a tiny piece of her was hoping that she could muster the courage to go crawling back to her father, who would demand that the baby be adopted, and she knew at this point though she could not bear the thought, she needed to at least consider and look into it.
"Chloe, i'm scared, and clueless; I'm a mess." She begins to sob, shamefully burying her head into the pillow beside her, hating to admit when she truly needed help, but Chloe had already known, and accepted her despite the fact that Beca herself felt like dead weight around the house.
"You know, there's a church down the road that helps supply homeless and teen mothers supplies they need for when the baby comes. It's a charitable service." Chloe remembers suddenly, unaware that Beca felt unsure, as if Chloe didn't know what to do either secretly.
The following Tuesday, Chloe and Beca had decided to take advantage of the weather and walk along the outside of the campus, searching for the church on 4th street that housed all of the "free" supplies, knowing that Beca could endlessly search through piles of donated and used baby cribs, onesies, blankets and more.
As Beca walked throughout the room, picking up with disgust a pink blanket with a yellow stain the size of a toddler's fist, and briskly flinging the blanket to the table, shuddering.
Beca hated to accept handouts, worrying that she appeared weak and would be frowned upon but she knew the only possible way she could afford this baby would be through this charity, though she was beginning to feel that price shouldn't be playing a factor, nor whether Beca was ready to be a mom or not, because this baby was coming whether she chose to accept it or not, and adoption would only put another emotion toll on this already overly hormotional girl she wasn't ready to accept. She hadn't wanted this child to feel the same sense of abandonment that she had as a small girl, being left with a nanny most of her waking hours when she was in grade school until eighth grade.
"I know it's not ideal, but it's practical. You need some of these thing more importantly than others, and this is the only way I figure that you can get somethings for the baby without having to work three jobs, which you have none of by the way."
Chloe turns over her shoulder, sorting through piles of old baby onesies and looking for the most gender neutral, knowing that whatever the baby happened to be, that they would fit and have at least basic, warm clothing, and some lightweight stuff since he or she was due in late April or early May.
"You plan to breastfeed, right?" Chloe asks, turning around with five onesies hanging over her left arm.
"If you're suggesting we buy a used pump Chlo…" Beca begins, slightly smirking.
"No, but if you don't we need to work out how you're gonna feed the baby and costs of formula and all that." Chloe lectures her and Beca groans.
"You know, I'm really not sure this is what I want, but despite our struggles, I think that we can make it work. Me and little Juliet as a little family." Beca smiles, loving the idea of having a little girl, though she wasn't particularly girly herself.
They left with three paper grocery bags full of clothing, blankets, burp cloths, receiving blankets, and four pairs of petite pink and blue socks with lace around the tops. She had even picked up a few headbands in case the child was a girl and had no hair, the idea growing on her more and more though she had told herself she would be content with either, as long as she could show this child that he or she wasn't going to be pawned off like she had been.
The crib was no more than a worn away teal trimmed, pink and purple polka dotted, pack-n'-play, the mat on the floor of it tearing in some places, looking as if a mouse had gnawed right through the fabricated foam mat and the cardboard floor beneath, Beca grimacing at the thought of a mouse or family of mice being nuzzled warmly in a bunch beneath, and the mesh netting around the crib was no better, but it was still usable, a nice thick blanket for the floor and with a few handy stitching tricks from Chloe, and they'd have a cheap and portable crib they could disassemble and reassemble to their convenience.
"What if it's a boy?" Beca deadpanned, standing back in dismay and shaking her head at the overly bubbly baby crib, cringing at the thought of sleeping in something so bright, especially her own son.
"I'm living in the moment." Chloe teases, shrugging off the small details and replacing it with thankfulness for the crib.
As Beca with the help of Chloe carried the collapsed crib up the stairs and opened it in the corner of Beca's room beside her bed, Beca leaned against the wall, sighing with relief and releasing a breath she hadn't even realized she was holding in. Her fourth month belly was taking up a lot more room on her small frame, and her baby was still lingering in the smallest percentile for his or her weight and height despite Beca's size.
She didn't know if it was hormones taking over, or even if she was exhausted from her recent lack of sleep, but her eye filled with tears, enlarging to three times their size, and her vibrant blues turned glassy as she held back the tears, remembering her own pack-n-play she had used as a child, and though the memory of it was distant, she could vividly draw in her mind how she herself looked in it when she had long outgrown it yet still insisted her nanny Molly to put her in it. And her favorite, least favorite memory was when she came down with what they thought was a stomach bug at the time.
"Beca Renee!" Molly had scolded, catching sight of Beca using her pointer finger to scoop cookie dough from the large glass mixing bowl.
Three year old Beca had jumped, rolling the dough between her finger and thumb before popping her finger in her mouth and quickly sucking it off her finger, her eyes darting from the horrified look plastered on her sitter's face, and her eyes welled up, her brilliant blues swollen with worry.
"You're gonna get sick, Sweetheart!" She had consoled her, wrapping her long arms around Beca and lifting her from the counter.
And though Beca had felt resentment towards Molly for catching her, she soon regretted and learned a valuable lesson from her disobedience, waking in the middle of the night with an achy tummy, and hugging her small arms around her tiny waist and stomach as she shuffled through the hall, her blanket over her shoulder, into the spare bedroom in which Molly resided when both her parents were gone overnight.
And though Molly was not Beca's mother, and she longed for the days when her mother would do their 'I love you likes', she snuggled into Molly beside her in bed, and buried her head into her chest, feeling the warmth as Molly happily and willingly took Beca beneath her arms and the two had fell asleep, Beca stirring in her sleep and winding up with her feet where her head should be, restlessly changing her positions during the night to find comfort in a new way, but could not relax, her stomach churning as she felt a sick and full feeling in the pit of it.
Her stomach churned, turning in a full front flip before she leaned over the side of the bed, wiggling herself out from Molly's arms and projectile vomiting all over the plush rug and wooden floor. Molly woke to find Beca under the covers, shamefully crying as she buried her head into Molly's side.
"It's okay, Sweetheart; We'll clean it up, it happens to everyone." She comforts her, lifting Beca from the high bed and leading her back into her own room, grabbing a change of pajamas from her dresser and using a warm, wet washcloth to wipe the dripping vomit and tears from Beca's chin.
It was barely three in the morning and Molly couldn't foresee giving her a bath at the earliest hours of the morning, and tucked her in bed with her again, grabbing her blankets and allowing her to snuggle with them, nuzzling beneath the warm blankets, and scooting closer to the edge of the bed, reaching close enough so that if she threw up again, she'd puke in the blue plastic bowl, and it was the same bowl her mother had set out always, comforting a sickly and achy Beca, feeling as if her mother was right there with her.
Beca rested her hand against her now bulky and firm stomach, rounded such as a basketball or balloon, and she sighed, feeling butterflies as the baby squirmed or kicked or flipped, whatever he or she liked to do in their, comforting Beca by acknowledging their presence in there, their livelihood.
"Beca?" Chloe called Beca from her thoughts, concerned with the blank expression on Beca's face.
"She's kicking. Here, feel!" Beca says in awe, her hands scanning over her belly invitingly, grabbing for Chloe's hand.
"It's not long now, only four more months." Chloe assures her, her face lighting up with excitement and enthusiasm.
Beca groaned jokingly at the thought of being pregnant that much longer but knew with everyday longer the baby was inside of her, growing and striving, that he or she would be stronger as well as Beca, and she hoped and prayed that the baby would make it to term, knowing that with Placenta Previa, she may develop preeclampsia, or bleed profusely during delivery, a c-section being on careful demand and was on close watch.
By her twenty-eighth week of pregnancy, Beca had thought she was feeling fine up until she had woken up in the middle of the night, feeling slight nausea waving over her body, barely able to stand to go to the bathroom, her headrush so intense she only sat up and leaned over, her head in her hands.
"Chloe?" Beca's small voice echoed down the empty hall, panic heavy and apparent.
She heard Chloe's light footsteps sweeping against the carpet, and saw the shadow of her enlarged pajama top swishing as she entered the room, her ginger hair a big and black outline in the dark room, as she flipped on the flashlight of her phone.
"Beca, what's the matter?" Chloe prys with Aubrey close behind, feeling the instant heat being emitted from her forehead upon walking over and feeling her face for warmth.
Beca's body shook despite being warm, and her head spun, struggling to fix her gaze on Chloe's shadowy figure, and she leaned into her, silently begging her to help her up. Chloe grabbed Beca's hands, pulling her up and off the bed before wrapping her arm around her shoulder and carrying Beca to the bathroom beside her, despite the brunette weighing more than she initially appeared to or that Chloe thought.
Beca leaned over as she hovered the porcelain throne, her grimy palms gripping the sides of the seat as she hurled into the bowl, the splash of the water only sickening her stomach further, her face feeling flushed, and her head continued to spin beyond her control.
Chloe laid out a towel beside the toilet and Beca scooted toward it, resting her head on it as she rode out a wave of nausea she was certain was just that, and nothing more as she already felt like she had nothing else to lose. Beca curled into a ball and Chloe grabbed her a blanket from the hall closet, shaking it out of its neatly folded creases and covering Beca's shivering body with it before leaving the room, vowing to check on her the next morning, but it had been Aubrey who did it, despite Chloe disposition of always being the first to check on someone.
"Beca?" Aubrey softly cooed, careful not to scare her from her deep sleep.
When Beca hadn't moved despite always turning when the sun had shone on her face in the morning, she laid with the sun gleaming on it, her shallow breaths barely noticeable under her blanket, but Aubrey had knelt down and felt for a pulse anyways, panicking when found one, but Beca didn't stir.
"Beca?!" Aubrey called louder, panic heavy in her voice as she was careful not to shake her.
She had been in and out in the car, laying across the backseat with her head on Chloe's lap while Aubrey sped drove down the freeway, feeling conflicting emotions, her slight dismay towards Beca being lifted in the moment of panic, realizing that she never actually really hated Beca, just her general attitude towards everything itself, and was slightly bitter towards the fact that she hadn't wanted to join the Bella's especially considering a few weeks back when she had heard just a brief snip of a song being belted out, ringing off the shower walls.
Sure enough the Doctor Matz who had been on call, was able to examine her and diagnosis her with preeclampsia, her blood pressure soaring sky high to the point of passing out, and wasn't sure if it was stress related, or even it was yet another side effect of her placenta previa, which still hadn't descended any lower.
"Bedrest until her due date is the only surefire way of assuring you that baby and mom will be okay." Doctor Matz informs them, shaking her head as she fills out the release forms.
Beca's heart sank knowing that her plans to join the Bellas (which she had been leaning towards) were destroyed and torn down in one instant, and pushed away the bright side, realizing the time she had off of the internship could be used to continue to make mixes that she would secretly pawn off to Chloe to use as her own, knowing that if Aubrey knew they were hers, she might never be open minded to change and consider changing the set.
"Beca, it's gonna be okay." Chloe consoles her, noticing the distraught and lost look on the brunette's burdened face.
"Chloe and I promise that we'll help you with whatever it is that you need." Aubrey vows, Beca taken aback by her selfless commitment to her health.
As she was released under the close watch of her friends, Beca prepares to spend the next several weeks in bed, longing for her due date as the days would as expected inch by, becoming endless and irritable, itching to crawl out and do more than just stare at her screen and secretly, would watch the breakfast club, a distant memory of hers and Jesse's favorite movie, the couple spending hours during finals week watching the movies rather than studying for their high school exams, and not worry of nearly failing, both passing their senior years' with flying colors.
One morning, it had rained the entire night and the sun had just began to peek out from behind the thick, gray clouds, the sky turning a bright blue and the lake near their home glimmering in the light, not a sign of a gloomy day to be traced. Chloe had decided that after almost five weeks in bed, and six more before Beca was due, that Beca could at least get some small bit of exercise, as advised by her doctor to do under careful examination.
"Have you thought of some names?" Chloe attempts to break up the silence with a bit of small talk.
"I'm still feeling strongly about Juliet." She murmurs, avoiding eye contact as she buries her bare toes into the warm, grainy sand near the lake outside campus.
"Does it have significance? I mean, it's the name you've mentioned since you decided to keep the baby."
Beca bites her lips, curling them in towards her as she kicks her feet back and forth, shuffling through the sand and wringing her hands as if preparing herself for what she was about to reveal. Beca hurt deep inside, having a small, aching pain in her heart, feeling as if it would fall to her stomach and do a triple flip if this baby wasn't a girl. Why, she wasn't sure, just a part of her had hoped for one and she felt guilty for feeling so.
"My mother, she didn't come back after the divorce." Beca mutters uncomfortably, shifting her weight off her feet and resting her hands backwards on her hips to support her throbbing back.
"I'm sorry." Chloe could only offer, truly hurting for her but unsure what else to say other than small words of comfort upon seeing the unsure and hurt look on her face.
Beca was secretly dying to tell someone what really had happened, but she knew it was beyond her comprehension why her mother would take off after the divorce without a trace, not turning back once to see the lasting effect it had on her daughter.
"She claimed she only did it because she didn't want to hurt me; At least that's what my dad had tried to explain. But there's much sure i'm sure I don't know, and for some reason all these years, I've felt like it was entirely his fault, like pawning the failure of their marriage on him solely."
"This is no one's fault Beca, and I hope you don't think it was yours either. Somethings just don't work out even if they can be fixed, but this was beyond your control."
If only years earlier she had heard those words, or any comforting words from her parents, but the divorce is the reason she had become so adapted to shutting out her surroundings and other people because it's what her father had unintentionally done, spending his heart broken hours pouring his anger and bitterness into his grading, his assignments, his own daughter. And the worst part was that he hadn't realized that his relationship with his daughter that he had thought to be just fine had been impacted deeply, but she had learned to cope in unhealthy ways and thus her walls were constructed through years of hurt and pain and abandonment and still her relationship felt as if it couldn't or would never be repaired.
"It doesn't ever go away, the hurt; It just gets easier." Beca remarks of her childhood and not just the divorce, but the entirety of it.
"What was your mom's name…?" Chloe hinted with an indication to what the answer already was.
"Beyonce; What do you think Chlo?" Beca playfully responds in amusement, Chloe taken back by her lighthearted sarcasm in the serious moment.
As they continue their path back to the sidewalk and through the back of the quad, Beca eases into a slower walk until she completely stops, wincing in pain as she bites the corners of her cheeks, exhaling deeply as she attempts to withstand the pain without terrifying Chloe.
"You okay?" Chloe takes a step towards her, hesitant to help the girl if she didn't want it.
"Braxton hicks, or false labor. He or she likes to play games with me, like internal peek-a-boo or chicken or something like that." Beca laughs lightly, trying to take her mind off the pain as she breathes deeply in and out.
"Can I help in any way?" Chloe asks with sincerity, fully expecting Beca to shake her head 'no'.
"Can you make my life any easier? Starting with a pain-free labor?" Beca lightheartedly laughs, brushing off the pain.
Suddenly Beca's phone vibrates in the back pocket of her jeans and her hand instinctively reaches back, pulling it out and checking the caller I.D first before becoming hesitant to answer. As Chloe out of curiousity leans over to check on her as she watches Beca hold the phone firmly in her hand, she nods to Beca encouraging her with all the certainty in the world that it was time to make up, even if she heard some things she hadn't or wouldn't want to, but it would make things at least a little more smooth, less tense.
"Hey Dad," She mutters reluctantly.
"Beca, there's some things we need to talk about before you decide to keep the baby." He hurriedly pleas.
"Dad, my mind's made up." She insists close-mindlessly.
"Beca you can't keep the baby because of the second family thing you texted me earlier."
"You can't tell me why I'm wrong, i'm eighteen dad," She begins.
"Beca, i've been meaning to tell you; You're mother didn't run away because she didn't love you or that she was ashamed, and I certainly didn't drive her away."
"What are you talking about? Mom's been gone for awhile dad, how could this be something we just bring up again?" She snaps, anger rising in her aggravated voice of bundled emotions.
"Because your mother passed away of cancer last night Beca. She left because she didn't want you to see her in pain; She left us Beca because she couldn't bear the thought of her only daughter watching her wither away."