"You know what, fuck you, Jesse!"
And with that all the noise in the BTMs living room simply vanished, like it had been sucked out and left a vacuum. Everybody was looking at the usually sweet redhead whom few people had ever heard curse. But right now the hightened color of anger accompanied her words and everybody knew better than to approach her - or her adversary Jesse who looked very uncomfortably around himself.
"I…," he stammered but flushed when he looked around himself and into faces that looked back at him intrusively, questioningly. "It's not like it's my fault, Chloe," he finally found words of explanation but they were weak and he knew it.
"Not your fault? No, of course not, nothing's ever your fault…," Chloe gave back in a voice dripping with sarcasm. "It's always Beca's fault. If you're going through a hard time and she's not there for you, it's her fault. If she's having a hard time and doesn't want you with her, it's her fault. Your break-up last year was her fault… everything's always her fault. And now you want to blame me for this, because as always, it's not your fault."
"That's hardly fair, Chloe. You only know her side of the story…"
"Yes, I know her part of the story and it still sounds like it's her fault. Does that tell you anything about her? She blames herself because you do. That's how it's always been. Well, newsflash, Jesse: you've been in this relationship together since the beginning and if things aren't great it's hardly ever the fault of only one of the people involved," she told him and he stared at her angrily. This public display of anger made him very uncomfortable, more so because he knew she had a point and now everybody was hearing it. And they were his friends as well as hers. But he wouldn't have her blame him for everything, he couldn't.
"I've made mistakes, okay? Yeah, we both have. You don't know all of it."
"I know enough, Jesse. I know that you're jealous and that Beca's trying… has been trying to keep her friendships with other guys very shallow just so you won't give her a hard time, okay? And it shouldn't even be her problem, it's yours. It's your issue, not hers!" Chloe told Jesse what she had been holding in for almost the whole time they had known each other, something that had set her against him the moment Beca had mentioned it - not that she needed anything else to set her against him other than Beca liking him. So yeah, she had been jealous, too, but she had never made it Beca's problem.
"If she's flirting with other guys.."
"She's never flirted with anyone!" Chloe interrupted Jesse sharply. "All she does is talk to other people, Luke, Benji, they're her friends."
"Luke wanted her, he once told me himself," Jesse defended himself.
"But she never wanted him," Chloe reasoned. "All you had to do was trust her… but you couldn't do that."
"Well, obviously I was right. I was just looking at the wrong people, the wrong gender," he gave back angrily. Chloe smiled cynically at him.
"And because she slipped once while drunk… because she… was angry and depressed and… hurt by your constant accusations and kissed me you think your jealousy was justified. You're an idiot. Beca didn't kiss me because of me…" but she didn't finish the sentence, it hurt her too much to do it. That Beca had kissed her to hurt Jesse… it made her sick. But she didn't blame Beca, she couldn't. Beca had reacted to months of pressure from her overly jealous boyfriend. She had snapped, Chloe had just been the one she had felt safe enough to do that with.
"Oh, then she kissed you because she loves me so much?" Jesse asked and now his sarcasm was showing.
"No, she kissed me because she… knew I wouldn't hate her for it. Or for going back to you when you both had cleared your heads again and your drama was over. That's what always happens Jesse, isn't it? You guys have some kind of drama and then you make up. You never really solve your problems, they blow up into everyone's faces and then you go back to how you were. We've all seen it happen, Jesse.. too often." Chloe looked around herself and saw some of the people in the room nod. There weren't many of them left now, most had left when the yelling began, tired of the drama that repeated itself every so often.
"Not this time, I'm through. She's gone too far," Jesse pouted yet there was rarely anybody who believed it, certainly not Chloe.
"I wish that were true, you know. I wish…" but she wouldn't tell him how much she wished for Beca to see that Jesse wasn't for her and vice versa, that she could be so much happier with Chloe.
"Well, I guess we've all seen what you wish from my girlfriend, Chloe," Jesse said bitterly. Chloe rolled her beautiful blue eyes at him.
"That's hardly news, Jesse," she said. "But Beca's not into me. If she were… well, there have been plenty of times she could have made a move. She never did - until tonight. And that wasn't even about me." There was heartache in this admission and everybody could hear it.
"Why are you saying that?" came the quiet voice from the doorway of someone who had just returned into the house after having run away earlier because she couldn't stand the accusations and the yelling and her own feelings.
Chloe turned, Jesse looked up, they both stared at Beca who had tears in her eyes.
"It wasn't about me, Beca, you know that," Chloe said sadly but Beca shook her head.
"Do you think I would hurt you like that, Chlo? Do you think I would use you like that?" She asked. "Then you don't know me at all."
They looked at each other, both hurt, both confused but for different reasons. And then Jesse remembered that he was a part of this.
"What are you saying, Beca? That you… you wanted to kiss her?"
"Of course I did," Beca said, she sounded tired. Her eyes found Jesse and looked at him for a long moment. "We're so over, Jess, and we both know it. Let's not go through all of it again, I'm so tired of it."
"Tired? Tired of me, you mean," he accused her. He was obviously not ready to give up so easily and Beca closed her eyes. She could only shake her head at this mess but she mostly shook it at herself, that she hadn't been able to recognize her feelings earlier, to give them room and credit and realize that Jesse was indeed not for her. That Chloe was.
"Jesse, I'm saying this… to you as my friend which you have once been," she said slowly and very deliberately. The alcohol she had consumed ealier tonight made it difficult but she wanted to be very clear about it, no more misunderstanding, no more running around in circles. "I'm not in love with you anymore. I haven't been for a while. You have smothered me, you have criticized me, and I have let you because I thought you were right. You weren't mostly. But I still let you do it because I thought you loved me and that was even more important to me than thinking I loved you. I don't anymore, and I don't think you love me. You don't even like me much or you would let me be myself which you could never do while we were together. We're only hurting each other and it has to stop."
"What's gotten into you, Beca? That's bullshit! Of course I love you!" Jesse yelled at her and she flinched. From the corner of her eyes she saw some of her friends moving closer to her, Chloe took a few steps back from Jesse and reached out her hand behind her back for Beca to take. And she took it, sliding her hand into Chloe's, holding on tight.
"Even if you still loved me," she said. "I don't love you. It's over." Again there was the all-encompassing silence and again it came from the disbelief of having heard something that was rare. Maybe all of their friends had just believed that Jesse and Beca would always be this couple who fought a lot and then make up, the couple that had all the drama all the time, whether they were happy or unhappy with each other. But if they had paid attention then they would have known that neither Beca or Jesse were those kind of people - drama wasn't their thing. Still, they had brought it out in each other. Chloe had known because she knew Beca and they had talked about it often - until Beca finally understood.
She now looked at Chloe who had turned, looked into her eyes. There were more truths to be discovered in those eyes, she knew. And some of that scared her, sure, but most of it made her curious. She wanted to explore these new feelings that the redhead had awakened within her with just one kiss.
Jesse saw the intense look exchanged by Chloe and Beca. It made him angry and he didn't understand it but Beca had told him that she didn't want to be with him anymore and he had to heed her wishes - at least until they could talk about it all rationally. Because whenever they talked rationally about things she was wont to see it his way in the end. They would be together, he was sure of it. They had had their happy ending, and that meant something. More than a drunken kiss with a friend.
Jesse left the room, stomping by his girlfriend who paid him no heed. She was still looking into the most beautiful eyes, at the most beautiful face, at the most amazing person. They smiled at each other.
"Walk me home?" she asked and Chloe nodded.
They left hand in hand, the way they usually walked together - would walk together for a long time to come.
