All that week Chloe had been acutely aware of the anguish she must have be causing Beca, and she hated that she was doing it. After she called on Sunday she had intended to call Beca again within two days like she promised. But it felt like she'd set a deadline for herself, one which Beca would be depending on, and that gave Chloe even more anxiety. It didn't help that the working week was always busy and she couldn't create enough time and space to fully deal with all the changing feelings she was going through after seeing those old messages.

At first she felt shame for having doubted Beca's intentions. Chloe admitted to herself that only a week or two after the reunion, she was already waiting for Beca to fail. She was expecting that Beca would let her down. And she'd done nothing to change the situation. But how could she have predicted that Beca would do something so monumental? It was so out of character.

Disappointment and regret came next. If they had just talked more back then. If she hadn't been so stubborn about who should call whom, she probably would have drawn Beca's plan out of her over the phone.

Finally anger took over. Why didn't Beca ever tell her? They could have avoided so much unnecessary pain.

By then it was Wednesday and she had missed the return deadline, and she wouldn't call Beca when she was feeling this angry towards her. That would not produce the outcome she wanted from her next conversation with Beca. So she needed more time, and only a few more days, hopefully.

When she'd seen Beca's name on an incoming call that morning, her first thought was that she'd left it too late – Beca had had enough and she was calling to put an end to the absurd games they were still playing. It scared Chloe. Then when she heard the pleading and desperation in the first words that Beca said, she was brought right back to the feelings of shame from a week earlier.

Two minutes later when Beca hung up, Chloe felt like she had completely melted. Of course she would go to Beca's that night. She wanted to go, to see her and to finally resolve this.

She really hadn't planned to end up in Beca's bed. But standing there in the hall, with that photo, and the way Beca was talking about it, her desire took control.

It was base and needy and neither of them had communicated what it meant. It was not creating a special or unforgettably memory.

oOo

As she sat in Beca's kitchen now, waiting for her, Chloe couldn't account for why she had done it. She had been unguarded, maybe even desperate and as she tried to replay what had just happened, in a futile effort to find some logical explanation for why she let it happen, she realised she couldn't even recall many details of Beca's bedroom now. What colour were the sheets? What other furniture did she have in the room? How many windows in the room? Did it smell the same as the rest of the apartment, did it have Beca's distinct scent?

What she was feeling however, wasn't regret.

Beca shuffled towards the kitchen and stood at the entrance until Chloe saw her.

"I wasn't expecting that," Beca said. Chloe could hear the apprehension in her voice.

"What just happened Chloe? Was that goodbye? Is that what it meant?"

"No!" Chloe replied. She was surprised and a little guilty that Beca would have considered it that way. "I wasn't expecting that either, not right away anyway." Chloe winked, disarming Beca, hoping to reassure her. "I came here to talk to you, but after what you said on the phone this morning, it was always a possibility that things would go in that direction."

They both laughed, but it was tentative and the air was still tense. Beca hadn't moved, she was still standing at a distance, only halfway into the kitchen area.

"It didn't mean goodbye," Chloe said. She extended a hand and invited Beca to join her at the table. "Sit down, Beca. I have to explain."

"I'm sorry about this week. I know it was rough for you and you wouldn't have known that I wasn't giving up on you. I just had to spend some time thinking about how we've always screwed this up before, and my part in that," Chloe kept her eyes low, focused on her clasped hands.

"What are you talking about?" Beca said. She finally came closer and took the seat across from Chloe.

"Remember that night when I tried to get in the shower with you? The reason I did that was because I thought you wanted it and I wasn't thinking about the consequences. I thought you were just being weird and nervous about saying what it was that you wanted.

'I didn't know that the reason you were acting like that was because I had asked you about why you went to New York."

"Right. Chloe there is something I never told you, about my work trips to New York." Beca's hand inched across the table towards Chloe's but without touching it.

"I know about your trips to New York for work, and why you started taking them. I saw the messages that you sent me when I had already left overseas.

"You wrote this to me - 'I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.' A year ago you wrote that to me." Chloe watched for Beca's reaction. Would it make her uncomfortable? To know that Chloe had read those texts. Beca was taken aback, sure, but not embarrassed. She hadn't pulled her hand back.

"You also said 'My heart was breaking, being away from you.'" When she'd read that, Chloe couldn't imagine those words ever falling from Beca's lips. Not now and certainly not at the time she'd written them. She looked at Beca again as she said it. Would it embarrass her to hear the words repeated back to her?

"I did write that, because my heart was breaking," Beca replied. She moved her hand the final few inches. She turned Chloe's hand over and traced patterns on Chloe's palm with her thumb.

When did you read those?' Beca said.

"Last Friday, when I had your phone while I was waiting for you to get ready." She didn't see any need to apologise now - the messages were intended for her and Beca should have told her. Chloe didn't have to ask the next question out loud either.

"That's what I did a year ago to be with you. But I got it wrong and it didn't work. How could I use that to show you what I'd do to be with you now? How could I tell you now without it sounding like I was accusing you of something, of being the one most to blame?"

Chloe understood what she was trying to say but it occurred to her that had Beca mentioned it recently, it would have helped. It would have helped both of them. If she'd included it in what she'd said that day when she'd asked for a second chance, Chloe possibly would have made her decisions a lot sooner on the two related dilemmas she was facing.

Beca maybe didn't need to hear that right now.

"If this is going to work, you have to tell me what's going on with you. You can't keep things from me," Chloe said.

"Like if I was planning to move to the other side of the country in the next few months? You'd expect that I would share something like that with you?"

"I'm not moving back to New York."

"So we are not friends anymore. Good."

Chloe knew, she'd known for that whole month, that they were past being friends. What they had been in that time, was that limbo state between more than friends and in a relationship. It was the fun and safe phase, the love-struck pursuit of someone, the early days before people start hurting each other. It also was always a temporary phase. She'd known and tried to ignore that too.

"Chloe, you can't keep things from me either. The last few days have been really shitty, not knowing what was going on with you."

"I know.

"The past month I was really enjoying the way you were pursuing me. I loved it – all the flirting and teasing. But it only made me avoid making any decision even more. When I told you that I wanted things to stay the same I guess it meant that I wanted to stay in that honeymoon bubble forever. I knew it couldn't last but I wanted to keep it going as long as you would bear it, because I was scared about when we crossed to the next step. That's when things usually start to go wrong.

"I couldn't talk to you about the job in New York. I couldn't even think rationally about it myself because it was impossible to separate that decision from the one about you.

"I have been keeping things from you too. I'm sorry. I was keeping things from you even back then after the reunion. My heart was breaking being away from you too, but I didn't tell you either. And I didn't tell you how much I was hurting, and I blamed you completely."

Chloe squeezed the hand that was still drawing feather-light circles on her palm. She leaned forward across the table, and Beca did the same.

"Do you know, that until today you had never said that you loved me?" Chloe said between the soft kisses.

"Chloe?" Beca said, drawing back and settling in her chair again. Chloe had only meant it to tease. They both knew the feelings they shared for each other now. "I wanted to say it back but I had this stupid idea that it wasn't enough unless I could prove it. I didn't want to say anything, not even 'I love you' until there was more. Not 'I love you but how can we ever be together when we live so far apart?' Not 'I love you but my career is too important right now'. I thought it wouldn't have been enough. It wouldn't have changed anything if we were still living thousands of miles from each other."

"It would have change things - we could have found a way together. Even if you had just said you loved me, it would have changed everything for me."

"I know that now," Beca said.

"We really need to to stop screwing this up, and maybe learn to communicate a bit better."

I agree. The screw it up, then fix it, then screw it up again routine is getting a bit tiresome."

"We are getting a lot better the fixing-things-after-we-screw-them-up part, don't you think? I mean you are really improving you skills in paring back how you express your feelings and not overwhelming me with the intensity of your passion."

"True, and I have noticed how you've been working really hard to let your walls down and finally let someone into your heart."

They sat in silence, smiling at each for what felt to Chloe like a full minute or more. It wasn't an uncomfortable silence.

Then Beca stood up and began to walk back to her bedroom. She was less than half way down the hall, when Chloe got up from her seat and followed her.

"You know, it's going to be very hard to forget my feelings for Chloe when I have her around all the time," Beca said to herself, deliberately loud enough for Chloe to hear. She glanced back when Chloe laughed, then Chloe noticed the sound of her own footsteps on the floorboards getting faster as she chased Beca into the room.

They shared a special and unforgettable time that evening.

Chloe was done blaming herself or blaming Beca for things that had happened in the past. She decided it was best to save that for the mistakes they make in the future.

Chloe didn't go back to her apartment that night and they spent every minute of the weekend together. At times, to Chloe, it felt similar to the reckless days of the reunion with the same blind passion. But how could it be reckless when she knows that Beca doesn't give her heart easily but she gave it to Chloe? Or when she knows Beca doesn't do grand gestures but she did, twice, for Chloe? Or when she gives her heart too easily but knows she can trust Beca with it?