"Truth or dare?"
Beca grinned as Chloe leaned into the middle of the circle to grill a slightly nervous looking Tom and then let out a small groan of pleasure as as Jesse's fingers dug deliciously into her tense shoulders. Of course she'd used Jesse's turn of truth or dare to coerce him into giving her a back massage. Poor guy.
She couldn't believe they were playing this right now. Truth or Dare. A bunch of grown adults. Olympians. Sitting around in Jeremy Abbott's room in a circle like middle schoolers giggling and quizzing each other. Well, she guessed they had to blow off steam somehow. Who could be more stressed out than a bunch of elite athletes about to compete for a gold medal in front of the entire world?
Not that she'd been able to totally free her mind of its steel cage of worry.
She couldn't believe they were in first place. Well she could, they'd worked their assess off... but what do you do when your dream is about to come true? How are you supposed to feel? Only, her mind wouldn't let her thoughts get that far. Too much optimism for her brain to handle, she rationalized. Because the second that train of thought would take over, almost leading to happiness, it would bubble over and splash into a messy puddle of Chloe and Tom and the free dance they had yet to compete and everything that could go wrong, and mysterious pictures... She was almost certain she had seen a camera flash today. As more time went on she was sure of it. There was so much at stake. And so much hanging in the balance.
She was dying to compete the free dance. It was going to be the biggest moment of her life, now and maybe ever. But the pressure... there was another part of her, the part of her that was managing to be present in this tiny rowdy, equally nervous group of her friends, that wished that the free dance had already happened. That they'd competed and won and they could just sit here and drink alcohol and get loose and celebratory... and that she could take Chloe and she could kiss the breath right out of her body and they could stop semi-avoiding each other in public.
But here they were. Stressed out, barely speaking to each other.
Beca felt a vibration against her hip and raised her eyebrows, twisting her body to look at Jesse.
"Trying to get fresh with me, Swanson?"
Jesse gave her a look that said 'please, you think I'd still be breathing if you thought I was trying to get "fresh" with you?'
Beca arched her eyebrow and twisted back around as Jesse fished his phone out of his pocket. A few seconds later she felt his breath hitch. Then, her own cell phone buzzed. It was a text from Jesse. For some reason, her pulse spiked as she slowly unlocked the screen to look at the text. It was a link to a website. The text said,
'random number just sent this to me. go outside and look at this.'
Heart racing, Beca slowly rose from the circle, using those endless hours of acting lessons with Jesse to keep her face neutral.
"Be right back you guys, I just wanna go buy a gatorade."
Thankfully, they barely acknowledged her exit as they were all too distracted with Tom's dare, which involved him trying to demonstrate some kind of vaguely sexual yoga pose in the middle of the carpet.
Beca practically ran back to her room. Praying that her roommate, another American ice dancer, would be elsewhere. By the time she got there, she was so worked up she could hardly breathe. Thankfully the room was empty. She clicked on the link Jesse had sent her and was brought to some kind of skating gossip site. And on the homepage was a picture of a forlorn looking Beca backstage earlier that day, staring at Chloe's blurred out form as she held Tom's hand in the background. The caption read,
'Very, very friendly competitors? Sources say there might be more to Beca Mitchell and Chloe Beale's relationship than just training mates.'
Beca blinked, hands shaking.
'Come to my room. Emergency' she texted Chloe and paced the length of the carpet, her breath growing more and more shallow as the seconds ticked by. Finally, the door flew open and Beca whirled around to see a frazzled Chloe standing her doorway.
"You're okay? What's wrong?" She slammed the door behind her and tried to wrap her arms around Beca, but Beca stopped her with an outstretched arm, forcing the phone in her hand under Chloe's chin. Chloe grabbed the phone in alarm, her eyes darting across the screen. When it registered what she was looking at, the expression on her face looked like she'd been doused with a bucket of cold water, followed directly by a gust of assuaging heat. She blinked, her eyes going soft. Not at all the picture of panic that Beca was.
"Somebody knows." Beca threw her hands up.
Chloe almost smirked. "Obviously."
"Now is not the time to start getting sassy with me."
Chloe brushed her hand against Beca's elbow.
"Becs, calm down."
Beca thrashed away from Chloe's gentle touch.
"Calm down? Have you thought this through? I can't believe you're not freaking out right now. Why aren't you freaking out right now?"
Even in Beca's hysterical state she couldn't help but notice how beautiful Chloe looked. She wanted to tangle her fingers in every inch of that swirling copper hair, absorb the color of her eyes.
"Because somebody already knows. What can we do? Really, Becs. Stuff like this doesn't just go away. It's going to get out."
"And you're just accepting it? I thought you felt the same way I did about this. It's- It's horrible, intrusive, nobody should have be outed like this-"
"What are you so afraid of by coming out?" Chloe asked. Her face was gentle, but her voice was firm. Almost challenging. And hurt.
Beca sputtered. "That's-what? No-that's not-" She tugged her hands frustratedly through her hair, her fingernails digging into her scalp. "I'm not afraid of coming out! I mean, nervous yes but I'll be proud when that happens! I will be so proud. And I will be proud to have you by my side!"
Chloe took a step towards her, but Beca took a deliberate step back.
"But right now is not the time to make an announcement like this. If this gets out right now, do you know what this will do? This will ruin everything we've worked so hard to build. My image, your image. Me and Jesse, you and Tom, we present ourselves as a team. Straight, gay, that's besides the point when it comes to this. We purposely do not talk about our dating lives to the press so that people can go on believing Jesse and I are maybe secretly together, or could be. And it works! We present ourselves as a team, and on the ice they see us as a team. And we're number one in the world. We're sponsored, we're making money, we are the faces of sports apparel, skating gear... potential gold medalists."
Beca sat on her bed, her chest heaving.
"And do you realize how this is going to make you look? I mean forget about me, you're going to be trashed! Jesse and I aren't in a relationship. You are in one. And not just in one with anyone, with your partner! You are the most beloved ice dance team out there today. There's no denying that. Jesse and I, we're getting there maybe... but you can Tom? You're iconic. The people who worship you as a team? Gone. The people who commentate and judge, honestly do you think they're ever going to be able to watch you and Tom again with an unbiased eye? Watch you without mentioning the scandal that you and I being outed as a couple right now would create? Do you think Nancy Kerrigan or Tonya Harding ever skated again without someone mentioning what happened?"
Chloe let out a burst of hair, shaking her head in disbelief.
"You're comparing us to Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding? Tonya had Nancy's legs smashed! That was a crime. What we are... Beca, I know what my future holds, realistically... this is probably our last olympics. Most likely we're done after this. Still, I'd be willing to risk everything you just said could happen to me... to be with you."
She walked over to Beca, cupping her face in her hands. For the first time since Chloe had come into the room, Beca let herself be touched.
"After this is all over I want to be with you. I'd risk it all for you. You're going to let a scandal in the skating world stop you from living your life?"
Beca shakily reached up and removed Chloe's hands from her face.
"Skating is my life. I'm not done after this."
"But by that point, Tom and I might not be in the picture anymore. We wont be together as a couple anymore. We're barely one now for anything but show. It wont matter what happens to me after we retire. What the skating world thinks of me after that? It doesn't matter."
Beca stood up, throwing her hands into the air.
"But Jesse and I aren't done. And as long as we're not... I cant risk what we have going."
"The lies you're telling."
"The image we're projecting. As a team." Beca stood her ground.
Chloe took a deep breath. Beca watched her, the silence between them sucking the air from the room.
"I think... I think we're in two very different places then." She reached out and grabbed Beca's hand. "I need you more than I care about our relationship getting out. I hope when all is said and done, you mean what you just said. That skating comes before all else. Because if you throw us away and find that there's more to life than just skating... well I just hope it was worth it."
Beca didn't realize what had happened until she heard the door to her room click shut. She blinked and looked up, her body frozen in place. Beca had never been one for tears. But as she took a gasping, shaky breath, her vision suddenly blurred over until the sight of that closed door in front of her dissolved into a watercolor painting, and everything came crashing back to earth.