What she had done took several days to take in. It hit her on the Tuesday after the dorm prom. Beca was long gone, hundreds of miles away in the physical sense and exponentially farther away in terms of acquaintance. Unlike the weekend before, campus was quiet. The sky was heavy under the weight of its greyness, hanging threateningly close to the horizon. The world was recognizing its loneliness, without even an attempt to cover the drab tones and silence with color or activity.
It was the end of something, a death of sorts. Something within Chloe had broken, and she had the feeling it was something that could never be fixed. It wasn't a broken heart. No, that would be simple. That type of problem had easy solutions. Getting over someone by getting under someone else. Chocolate. Rom coms. No, this was a problem that those solutions could never even attempt to repair.
She felt like the last string holding her down had snapped. Usually strings were viewed negatively, tying people down, strings attached, marionettes or whatever. But Chloe needed strings to keep her tethered to the earth. She already felt like it was hard to hold on in her stressful life of work, school, social activities, and relationships. The strings that were keeping her grounded were taut under pressure. But they were necessary. They kept her from floating off into oblivion. She hadn't even known that Beca had become a string for her until it broke and no longer was. And now here she was, somewhere up in the air like a balloon that had strayed from it's toddler, a layer of innocence evaporated.
On a basic level, she wished that the confession would have elicited a greater reaction. Suppose Beca had treated her with disgust, or outrage. She would have yelled at Chloe and told her to go away. Then Chloe could hate her or at least see her as the bad guy. Then she'd be over it easily. Or suppose Beca had jumped at her, confessing the same feelings, pouring forth some hidden emotions and begging for a shared future. Then she have the one she wanted. And there would have been a happily ever after.
But as it was, the anti-climatic reaction that Beca had given her hurt worse. It was careless. It was a lukewarm response that held no definition. It was tinted with rejection that wasn't bold enough to shock Chloe back to sanity. Beca had brushed off the biggest confession that Chloe had ever made (and she had made a ton in her life, so that was really saying something) and treated it like a small talk discussion of the weather.
So now she was floating in the gray purgatory of irrational feelings without a way to regain the traction of gravity.
It's not as if Chloe could tell anyone what was wrong. Her friends of course, noticed how hard she drank the night of the dorm prom. They had no idea why Chloe was slamming back Smirnoff like it was water, or why she was behaving erratically that night.
That night had clearly not ended well. The typical group of Stacie, Chloe, Fat Amy, Emily, Ashley, and Jessica decided to cut the prom and go to the after party early. They stopped by Cynthia Rose's apartment to fill flasks to share, and Beca pretended that nothing monumental had happened within the hour. But the older woman was the champion of the "none the wiser" game and decided to use her competitive spirit to ice Beca out. Her normally warm personality was replaced with a razor edge and stonecut eyes daring the younger woman to cross the line.
Beca, being a dunce, didn't notice the change in demeanor. She kept trying to start conversations with the redhead that were of cut short with dismissive replies or ignored completely. She didn't know why Chloe couldn't just act like they were all good. They were still friends, right? It's all they had ever been, and all they would ever be. She didn't get why Chloe had ever hoped for anything more. They had only shared a kiss, not a bed, after all. She found Chloe in Cynthia Rose's room, the mini fridge door propped open as she fumbled to open a beer bottle.
"Here. I got it." She tried to brush the older woman's long fingers off, but was surprised when they strangled the sweaty neck of the bottle.
"No."
"Yes. I told you I'd get it."
"No. I can do it."
"Dude. I can do it for you."
"I don't care. I'll figure it out myself."
"What is there to figure out? It's just a damn beer."
"It's not just a damn beer, it's mine. So stop trying to get involved in it."
By this point, the girls were both tugging the bottle back and forth between them, like children wresting for a toy. Their arms were tangled, all angles, all of them pushing for a better hold. They bumped into the wall, and then Chloe's back was against the desk. She surged forward with aggression, pushing the bottle forward before jerking it back as fast as she could in an attempt to throw Beca off. The smaller girl anticipated the move and tightened her hold, remaining where she was.
And in a split second the impact of Chloe's statement about the bottle dawned on her. Chloe could see it in her eyes. She hadn't meant to let Beca see her chink in the armor but for once the other girl read between the lines. Beca stopped moving, still gripping the bottle but the fight had left her. Her mouth dropped open slightly and Chloe glanced down to her lips before shooting back to her eyes. She had to maintain the icy facade. It was hard with such a tantalizing mouth before her. And then Beca's midnight blue eyes flooded her vision. They were easy to fall into, the second you looked at them you just wanted to memorize every nanometer of them. They were the closest they had ever been to Chloe in that instant, the tips of their noses brushing against one another. It all happened so fast. Her eyes darted back and forth between Beca's and it only took a split second before she saw Beca's next action, Beca's unforgettable action. Her eyes still open, she saw Beca's slip shut as she closed the remaining distance between their faces, angling for her mouth before she indeed felt the contact of lips connecting on her own.
It would have been easy to take the forbidden fruit. But Chloe did something she thought she would never do. She let it last only half a second- if it would have been any longer, she would have succumbed and her resolve melted. As searingly painful as it was, she let her face fall as she broke the kiss and opened her eyes to see Beca's Toms shoes between her own flats. She took a step back. Meeting Beca's confused blue eyes was hard. Perplexion was written all over her complexion. Chloe said nothing. She knew the pain on her own face was apparent and obvious for even the most dense person to see, even Beca. The moment lasted what seemed like an eternity, Beca searching for a reason why Chloe would want to break the kiss when she had just admitted in the previous hour of her crush. Who in their right mind would do that?
Chloe stepped wordlessly away, finally cracking open the bottle on her own using just her bare hands, tipping it toward the ceiling to pour the contents down her throat as she tried to soothe the lump that was forming there. Her feet carried her out of the room and out of sight, Beca left behind. This time she was the one who got to drift away.
And now, as Chloe walked down the deserted main stretch of campus this Tuesday afternoon, she still couldn't regret breaking off the kiss that Beca had tried to initiate. She didn't know if Beca was acting out of pity, or with the sinking ship notion, or an "oh shit here's my last-ditch attempt at saving whatever we had," but it wasn't enough for Chloe.
Just like it wasn't enough when they had all gotten back to the dorm at two am, and Chloe decided to finally smoke the cigar that Anton had given her months before. She invited Fat Amy to smoke it ahead of time, who passed her off to Beca. Chloe vehemently opposed Fat Amy's suggestion to take Beca out with her, even though she was the only true smoker of the group. But Chloe was no match for Fat Amy's stature as she pushed past her to pound on Stacie's door, who opened it looking annoyed until Beca's head perked up in the background.
"Amy, what? It's two in the fucking morning, and we just saw you ten minutes ago. What could you possibly want right now?"
"Red here is going for a smoke. A real smoke. She's got a cigar and she's looking for a partner."
Chloe looked at her feet, choosing not to deny the entendre but not willing to confirm it.
"I don't even have pants on," Beca said from behind the door.
"Then put some damn pants on," Chloe said, before softening. "I'll never see you again anyway. so…" she mumbled. If this really was the last time that she ever saw Beca, she couldn't end on a bad note like this, she had to be civil. Just in case.
"I will see you again, actually," Beca said, suddenly at the door.
"No, you probably won't. This is the last time. It's goodbye."
For the third unforgettable time that night, Beca initiated a shocking display of physical contact. She launched herself at Chloe in only her camisole pajama top and thong, her arms tight around the other girl's neck as she squeezed into a tight embrace.
"I promise, this isn't goodbye."
Chloe hugged herself as the stone bench sapped her warmth. She couldn't even force herself to wish that she had never met Beca. She leaned back, her face parallel to the sky but finding no answers up there. She knew that Beca changed her life forever. Chloe didn't love the girl, it wasn't a matter of life and death or love and hate. It was a grey area, a frustrating fucking grey area that made her entire life feel complicated. For the last three days, it was all she could think about. It was more than distracting, detracting from productivity in every single aspect of her life. She believed that productivity produced not just good work, but your best self as well. Thus she hated wasting time, and she hated herself if she wasn't productive. But the last few days, nothing seemed to matter. She woke up and felt no motivation, the stresses of life seemed pointless. The girl found herself scraping by with minimum functions until she could put her headphones in to listen to the same comforting songs. She needed to get lost in something. It was a dangerous feeling to be untethered.
It was painful. It was raw. It was confusing. But it was something that Chloe had to bounce back from before she started to see real consequences. And she knew that if she had any hope of bouncing back, it'd mean confiding in someone about it. She knew just who to go to.
So this one's a little shorter. Expect five or so more chapters, I'm trying to get this done before I go back to college. Reviews are welcome thanks guys! :)
