AN: Music: Yet - Switchfoot
"All attempts have failed. All my heads are tails."
"Jesse..." she tries to keep away the dangerously close breaking of her voice.
"I'm done," he finishes.
And finish, he does, closing the door at her. She can feel her walls crash, then and there, and this is all the proof she needs to realize that it's not just him. It's her, too. A part of her is with him. Or at least, had been with him. Now, it's just gone.
...
"She's got teary eyes."
She walks away from his room, biting back bitter tears.
...
"I've got reasons why."
He closes the door after her. He had decided that he was done, because he is. He cannot pretend anymore, he will not. He's beyond the place where he needs to feel it to know that the effect this woman has on him is not, in any way, shape, or form, good for either of them.
Because she doesn't know what she wants, he knows it's not this. He's not going to make that mistake again.
...
"I'm losing ground and gaining speed, I've lost myself, or most of me..."
She can feel the weight of a final, resolute feeling in her chest, as she walks away with a pain worse than rejection. So this is what it feels like to lose someone.
But Jesse isn't just someone. He was the nerd who took her in, earspike and all. He was the weirdo who wouldn't stop pestering her and trying to make her smile, singing to her and at her and talking to her and at her and he didn't stop caring, even when he had every reason to, despite her pushing away. Until she pushed too much, and finally, he stopped.
This is what it feels like to lose Jesse.
...
"I'm heading for the final precipice..."
He is surprised that it hadn't taken him much to close the door on her. He had been so afraid he wouldn't be able to do it, but now that it's done, he wonders if he's happy.
...
"But you haven't lost me yet..."
All throughout the day, he had been wondering if he's happy. He tries to gauge his emotions, even tonight, as he finds himself aimlessly wondering around the hush of campus, the question playing over and over again in his mind, like a broken record that is almost as damaged as he is.
He finds his feet still carry him towards her.
...
"No, you haven't lost me yet."
Beca doesn't cry.
The Breakfast Club had been an exception. But in the general scheme of her life, her heart is usually, stubbornly cold, like her personality. It's just the way she is, and it's a fine part of her.
But tonight, lying down on her bed, her body drained from the emotional toll of everything that had happened today, she finds that she cannot sleep.
...
"These days pass me by, dream with open eyes."
His spring break had been a blur. He took up too many things and told himself too many lies to be able to support the claim that he's fine. All that it has done is made him into a better liar.
...
"Nightmares haunt my days, visions blur my nights."
One would think that the break would have given her rest, but the silence had only served to amplify the ache she felt. She hadn't been able to sleep much. Even if today had been wrought with new beginnings, tonight is no exception.
...
"I'm so confused what's true or false, what's fact or fiction after all..."
Walking towards Baker Hall, he recalls the events of earlier...
"Well, you better figure it out, because I'm done with..."
There's a thin pause, a tiny sliver of hesitation before he was able to finish that sentence.
This. The final, unidentified term of their relationship finally catches up with them, and he is unable to confront the implications of it.
He doesn't know what this is, but he knows how it feels. It feels like the air in his lungs, or the lack thereof. It feels like the ground under his feet, or the lack thereof. It's feels like his voice, his being... or the lack thereof. It feels like Beca when she's with him. Or the lack, thereof.
"...whatever this is."
...
"I feel like I'm an apparition's pet..."
Never had the station felt more empty than when she had once called out his name, completely forgetting that he wasn't around. He won't be, and maybe, he never will. The thought had taken hold of her, causing her to lose focus and wander around the station, finding bits of him everywhere, scattered here and there. A sticky note, an empty juice pouch, The Breakfast Club. It was inescapable.
...
"But you haven't lost me yet..."
He doesn't know what he's going to say to her, once he arrives at her dorm. It's late, Kimmy Jin will be pissed, and he doesn't know what he's going to say.
But he walks on, anyway.
...
"No, you haven't lost me yet..."
She doesn't know how long it has been since she's talked to him. She had stopped keeping track sometime during the break. She had texted him meaningless little things, little nudges and pokes after watching, literally several hours of the movies that had only been meaningless titles to her during the last year. Jaws was amazing, E.T. was incredible, and Slumdog Millionaire is now, automatically, one of her favorites (courtesy of Donald that morning). So she had texted him little things, little inside jokes that she hopes would tell him, would miraculously communicate, just how much she misses him.
Things like, how they totally get the shark, and if Donald can watch Slumdog without subtitles, always trivial things, because she is hoping he will read between the lines.
But he doesn't. He doesn't ever reply.
...
"I'll run until my heart caves in..."
She tried to call him, but either he left his phone somewhere, five times, or he wasn't picking up. Because he didn't want to talk to her.
The last day of break, she holds her phone in her hands, sitting at the floor of her dorm. She doesn't know why she does it, but she tries to leave him a voice message.
...
"No, you haven't lost me yet."
"Jesse... It's me. Beca. Hey... um... I've been texting you and I'm just worried that, I don't know, you don't reply so I guess I'm just wondering where you are... I... do that a lot, lately. Wonder where you are. I just... don't know where you are, Jesse... Wow, that sounded so weird, but...
"Listen, I'm sorry, I got mad. I never meant to hurt you... I hope you know that."
She ends there, because she doesn't know how else to end it. It had taken her the rest of the night, trying to decide if she would send it, or delete it. In the end, she still wasn't sure.
.:.
She replays that moment, earlier that day, over and over in her mind...
"Hey... tried to call you. I left you a bunch of messages."
"Yeah, I got them."
The way he had looked at her at that moment had been enough to tell her that something has changed between them. There is a disconnect. He is far away, distanced, and so, very different. It kills her.
And he knows. Even if she won't tell him, he knows.
He knows that some part of her, to some degree, returns his affection. It's the elephant in the room, the one thing that they both feel, but never talk about.
But now that she's face to face with him, trying to make amends after realizing that she made a mistake, the question is if she understands this. Enough to tell him, explicitly, what this is. But because she has a hardwired tendency to refuse emotional situations, her words do not quite fall into place.
"I'm sorry we fought, I was mad, and I over-reacted, and just, Aubrey makes me crazy..."
...
The way she says it, there's something not quite in place. He can read her by now like a book, and the casualness of her words pierce through his numbness.
"Seriously? You think I'm mad because you yelled at me?"
He's not even mad. After all this time, after getting to know her so well, he realizes that she doesn't seem to understand what's happening here. What this is.
"No, you don't. You think you know, but you don't."
She doesn't know how he had gotten himself drunk in an effort to forget. Doesn't know how he had gotten into a fist fight and bust his lip. She doesn't know how he had practically begged Luke to play her music all throughout the year. She doesn't know how much she means to him. How it had hurt when she had barely glanced up at him or when she had refused his help so carelessly. She doesn't know how he feels, how effortlessly she had thrown him aside.
But what hurts the most is that, even now, she doesn't know that he's not mad. He is simply broken to the point of numbness.
...
"You push away everyone who could possibly care about you. Why is that?"
"I don't know."
Maybe she doesn't know. Or maybe, she simply doesn't want to admit that shutting everybody out was just easier, less messy, and a whole lot less confusing. Except for right now, with him. With him, it's the complete opposite.
.:.
"If it doesn't break..."
It doesn't come as a surprise to her when she feels a part of her heart collapse on itself as she relives the memory of losing him.
...
"If it doesn't break..."
It comes as a surprise to him why he is now in front of her dorm in the dead of night, trying to think of something to say to her.
...
"If it doesn't break..."
The heavy weight in her chest finally gives, her breathing suffering from the growing realization, right in the middle, where her heart is supposed to be.
...
"If... it..."
He is about to knock, just to see her again, talk to her again, be with her, once more, or something. He wants to see her. But he can't.
...
"...doesn't break your heart, it isn't love."
She tries to understand why she's suddenly, so suddenly, plunged into this strange feeling, completely alien to her nature. It happened gradually, then all at once, and there's this pain, this strange, heavy emptiness. The one person who would understand is the one person that she lost today. She doesn't know why it's suddenly hard to breath, where this weight came from, right in the middle of her chest. But then, she realizes that she's crying.
...
"If it doesn't break you heart, it's not enough."
He tries to ask himself what he's doing, but he doesn't have an answer. He doesn't know why, after shutting her out, he is contemplating knocking her door tonight. There is no logic behind his actions.
His head is leaning dejectedly on the panel of her door, and he has half a mind to throw logic away, when, in a brief moment of severe contemplation, he realizes that he won't be able to take it one more time. He's barely held together as it is.
So he walks away.
...
"It's when you're breaking down, with your insides coming out..."
This late into the night, Jesse walks away from Beca's dorm. Whatever emotion had gravitated him to see her at this hour, he wills himself to forget. Because the thought of losing her over and over again, one try after another, always, the repeated reminder that he cares for her more than he should, is too much. He had meant it when he had said he is done.
He loves her too much to make her push him away again. He lets it go.
...
"That's when you find out what your heart is made of."
This late into the night, Beca is crying. She can't pinpoint the source, and she doesn't want to. She is fucking terrified to find out. So she just lets herself cry, hoping that her sobs would ease the weight, the hole, right where she can feel her heart beating into the silence that covers her.
How had she been able to go on for so long, without realizing how much of her was with him?
It's stupid, it really is. So she gets up, and opens her laptop to start mixing. She puts on Simple Minds, because he may be done with her, but he will find out that she still has a couple of tricks up her sleeve.
She's not about to let him go that easily.
...
"And you haven't lost me yet..."
He tries to sleep. He cannot.
Her messages, all of them, are unopened in his phone. But with every waking moment tonight, and with the implications of everything he had decided upon, it would do him good to achieve closure. He tells himself that closure, a final word, is what he needs from her. So he opens her latest message and listens to the sound of her voice.
"...I hope you know that."
He does know. This is what hurts him the most.
...
"No, you haven't lost me yet..."
All her life, her music had revolved around her, and only her. It was her soul.
But music had never gone out of it's way to sing for her and to her. It had never tried to make her smile in sincere effort. It had never engaged her in witty banter, or asked her how her day was doing. It has certainly never given her juice pouches. She loved it, but it had never really loved her back.
It had taken a great loss for her to finally see that now.
...
"I'll sing until my heart caves in, but you haven't lost me yet."
So she puts all her creative effort into her mix, fueled by her desire to do something right, for once. She has almost calmed the chaos that had been today's emotional roller coaster, and she's ready to call it a night, at four in the morning, when her phone beeps.
April 8; 4:02 AM
From: Jesse Swanson
I know.
...
"Cause you haven't lost me yet."
For the first time, Beca is not afraid to try. Because maybe, just maybe, she hasn't lost him yet.