Chloe can feel the heat from Aubrey's gaze burning against the side of her face but steadfastly refuses to look over at her friend. They don't speak as they walk and they walk until Chloe finds a door marked 'Staff Only'. She opens it quietly and peeks inside to find it empty, then grabs Aubrey by the hand and leads her in.
Maybe it's the silence of the room, but once they're inside the reality of the situation threatens to come crashing down around Chloe and she bites the inside of her cheek before taking a deep breath.
"So," she starts, her voice an airy wisp. She sits down on one of the two couches in the room and looks up at where Aubrey remains standing in front of the door. "Thank you for not totally freaking out back there." She doesn't say that she can explain, because she isn't certain that she can. Plus, it would be terribly cliche.
"I kind of wanted to, just to see you both panic a little," Aubrey confesses, crossing her arms over her chest and narrowing her eyes. "The only reason I didn't was because of the look on your face. Like you were begging me not to say anything with every muscle in there. I figured there was probably a longer story attached to what I was seeing, so I held off."
Aubrey didn't know the half of it.
"Thanks." Chloe's tone is sardonic and as she lifts a hand to brush her hair back from her face, she notices that it's trembling a little.
She knows she needs to get a grip on things right now. She needs Aubrey to know that everything is fine, that Chloe knows what she's doing and that it was her idea to begin with. Something she wanted, that Beca had been kind enough to offer her help with when Chloe had asked. That it's all just some fun, collegiate experimentation and a complete no harm, no foul situation.
She just needs to convince herself of all of that first, something that is going to be much easier said than done now.
If only Aubrey had caught them before last night. Before Beca and Titanium, before frantic undressing and tender touches. Before Chloe had had a mind-melting orgasm while Beca got off right next to her. Before she'd woken up to find Beca still there, warm, beside her.
"Chloe?" Aubrey's voice makes her jump and from the tone of it it's clear that she's been trying to get Chloe's attention.
"Sorry, what?"
"I asked how long it's been going on." Finally, Aubrey walks further into the room and takes a seat on the couch beside Chloe. She leaves enough space between them that she can bring a knee up onto the cushion and turn to face her friend, but for now, Chloe declines mirroring the pose. She sits with her knees together, only glancing at Aubrey every so often.
"Oh. Um." Chloe frowns, thinking. It feels like they've been doing this forever. "A few weeks. Not long." She watches Aubrey's eyebrows raise in silent disagreement; apparently a few weeks is a long time for Aubrey.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Her voice is soft and gentle, careful in its cadance, but there's something else to it that Chloe can't identify until after Aubrey's next words. "I even asked if you were seeing anyone and you said no."
She's hurt, Chloe realises, and it's only then that Chloe mimics Aubrey's position on the couch, facing her and reaching out to grab one of her friends hands in both of her own.
"No, Aubrey, it's not-" she cuts herself off as she feels an unexpected wave of emotion rush forward and threaten to spill over. Finds herself having to take a second to soak it back up before she can continue. "Beca and I aren't, we're not dating or anything."
Aubrey tilts her head to the side and frowns.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, which I rarely am," Aubrey starts, lifting Chloe's lips into a small smile, "but weren't you two just making out like teenagers back there?"
"Aubrey!" Chloe groans, covering her face in a rare moment of embarrassment.
It's strange to be talking about this. With someone other than Beca or herself. Out loud. It's almost surreal; Chloe had never planned on getting caught and she'd honestly thought Beca would have thrown in the towel long before now.
It says something that she hasn't, Chloe knows it does. She just doesn't know what it is.
"Well, you were. I thought Jesse's eyeballs were going to pop out of his skull." Aubrey sighs and Chloe lets out a small chuckle.
"I don't know why, it's not like he didn't know what was going…" she trails off as she watches Aubrey's expression fall and feels guilt hit the pit of her stomach like an anvil. "... on."
"Jesse knew?" Aubrey sounds so dejected. It makes Chloe wonder where the betrayal is stemming from; Jesse being confided in before her or Jesse not saying anything about it to Aubrey. It also makes Chloe wonder exactly how close she and Jesse have become. Obviously pretty close if he was willing to fly to Copenhagen on the off chance that he might see her.
Yes, he'd been there to cheer on the Bellas, but Chloe isn't blind. She'd seen the way his eyes had lit up when he finally saw Aubrey in person. It's cute, how into her he seems. It's even cuter how into him Aubrey seems to be. Chloe can't recall ever seeing her get flustered over a boy before.
"Beca made him promise not to say anything," Chloe says after a moment, resting a hand on Aubrey's knee and squeezing. "To anyone. We didn't even know that you guys were… what are you guys anyway?" Chloe arches an eyebrow and Aubrey lifts a hand to wag a finger at her.
"No, no. We're not talking about what I'm doing right now." Aubrey puts her foot down firmly and Chloe deflates a little. It had been worth a shot. "Okay, so putting aside the fact that Jesse is the only other person who knows…" Aubrey pauses until Chloe realises why and then Chloe nods her head to confirm that that's right, "maybe you should start at the beginning."
The beginning. Chloe doesn't even really know where in the timeline that falls anymore. Naturally, it should be at the start, but there are little voices inside of her that tell her this all started before then. Some that whisper about how whatever is going on inside of her right now didn't really start until a while after she'd gathered up the courage to walk into Beca's room and tell her that she was serious at the retreat.
The timeline is fractured and broken and all over the place. It's a mess of feelings and denial, of acceptance and sadness, and Chloe doesn't want Aubrey to see all that. So she'll sprinkle a thin layer of half-truths over a timeline that's as linear as she can make it, and try and get some of the important details in there while leaving others out.
She doesn't want to lie to her best friend, but Chloe isn't ready to explain everything just yet. She wouldn't even know how to.
It can't be as easy as saying, "I think I'm in over my head." It can't be as simple as explaining that, "This was supposed to just be fun and now I'm in trouble."
She knows Aubrey would never judge her, but Aubrey knows Chloe better than anyone and if Chloe gives too much away, says the wrong thing in the wrong tone of voice, then Aubrey will know everything.
After all, she knows that Chloe loves too easily. Too freely. Too completely. Chloe knows that Aubrey is aware of how little it takes to tip the scales. She's heard the stories. Hell, she's more than likely seen it with her own eyes.
After all, Chloe was a little bit in love with Aubrey once upon a time.
"At the retreat," Chloe starts at the one place that seems the most logical, "I'd been thinking about some stuff for a while and um, I told Beca that I regretted not experimenting more in college."
"The retreat?" Aubrey makes a face and it's that of a parent who has just found out something kind of sleezy has been going on under their roof. "My retreat?"
"We haven't been on any others," Chloe says, pointedly, and Aubrey's face relaxes as she falls silent again and allows Chloe to rush through the next part. "Anyway, she thought I was joking but I wasn't, and I mentioned it again a few days later and asked if she'd be willing to help me."
Chloe continues from there, talking briefly about their first kiss and how it had definitely stirred something in Chloe that she'd only suspected might be there. She quickly glosses over a lot of the other stuff and to Aubrey's credit, she manages to remain mostly quiet as Chloe tells the story, only speaking up in order to clear something up or ask a legitimate question.
Chloe makes it sound like an adventure, makes it sound fun, which is easy because that's what it was back then.
"You guys parked? Like at make-out point or something?" Aubrey's smile is teasing and Chloe rolls her eyes.
"No one calls it anything like that because we aren't twelve, but yes. Beca had been talking about her one and only parking experience and it had been disastrous, so I wanted to…" Chloe trails off, not knowing how to finish the sentence in a way that won't raise Aubrey's eyebrows to her hairline. "Give her a more positive experience. Kind of a thank you for everything she'd done for me up until then." She still manages to fail and Aubrey's eyebrows shoot skyward, but Chloe continues on, pretending not to notice. "And I'd never parked with a girl before, so it was a win-win situation."
"So, Beca's getting something out of this, too?" Aubrey tries to clarify.
"I don't think making out with me is that awful," Chloe replies, drolly, only to receive a pair of rolled eyes in return.
"I just mean-"
"I know what you mean." Chloe cuts Aubrey off because she does know and also because she doesn't really want to have to answer that question in any great detail. Chloe knows that Beca's getting something out of their arrangement too, but she doesn't necessarily want Aubrey to know that.
That particular proverbial can of worms is still mostly closed and Chloe would like to keep it that way.
"We're closer now," Chloe continues after a moment. "When this started, I wasn't sure how things would change, but it's been good. Beca's been… helpful." The word choice lands oddly and Chloe frowns for a second, rethinking it. "No, she's been amazing. She's been so kind and careful throughout this entire thing. Always making sure that we're still okay, as friends, you know? Any time things escalated, she'd always want to make sure it was okay. She's just… she's been really great. I don't think I could have done this with anyone else." Chloe pauses and then adds, "No offence."
"None taken," Aubrey chuckles. "So, how far have you guys taken this exactly?"
Chloe's no prude, but she feels her cheeks colour slightly as she thinks about how to answer the question. She doesn't want to go into detail, she knows that much, because that opens up the Door of Feelings and she knows Aubrey will see right through it.
So, she goes on to tell Aubrey a lot, but not everything. She leaves feelings out of it completely and doesn't talk about some of their more intimate moments. She doesn't talk about last night, or the pool party, or when they'd kissed out in the open beside Barden's empty pool. It's all just surface stuff and sitting up there alongside it, Chloe thinks that it really does just sound like some friendly experimenting.
Like it isn't the big deal that she's so desperately trying to hide that it is.
She tells Aubrey that they've done more than she expected they would, more than she'd expected Beca would allow, and if Aubrey is surprised by that she doesn't show it. She just keeps on listening while Chloe talks about how fun and exciting it's been. How it's done exactly what she'd been wondering whether it would at the beginning and revealed a new side of her sexuality that she'd only hesitantly suspected might be there.
Beca has helped her grow so much in just a few short weeks and she tells Aubrey as much. She just leaves out the part where Beca herself has been growing alongside her. Maybe not quite in the same way, Chloe thinks, but then again… well. She and Beca have shared a lot.
"It's been nice," Chloe says, looking down to where you fingers are picking at the fabric of her jeans. "Having someone I trust so completely to go through this with."
"And you're okay?" Aubrey asks without preamble and both of them know what she's really getting at. It's the thing Chloe is trying to hide; the way she falls too easily and too quickly. Aubrey knows and wants to make sure that isn't happening here. Wants to make sure Chloe feels safe and happy, and isn't in danger of getting her heart broken again.
The thing is, Chloe has felt all of those things, especially over the last twenty-four hours. Being so intimate with Beca has opened up another part of herself to vulnerability and while she knows Beca would never hurt her intentionally, the chance is still there. Looming like an ugly rain cloud.
Because what she feels for Beca scares her more the longer she feels it. The more it wraps itself around her like a safety blanket, the more tightly bound to Beca she feels and that's dangerous, and she knows it.
"I'm okay," Chloe lies, but she does it with a smile to make it seem more convincing. She's not sure if Aubrey buys it; her friend's expression isn't giving anything away. "It's been… enlightening." Maybe it's the wrong word to use considering she wants to keep Aubrey away from the truth but it's out there now and Chloe can't take it back.
"Okay, so, let me see if I have this right." And then there's a shimmer in Aubrey's eyes that does give away a measure of warning. That tells Chloe Aubrey isn't completely buying what she's trying to sell. "You and Beca have secretly been fooling around for weeks?" At Aubrey's questioning, Chloe nods with another smile even as her stomach turns itself into knots. "Progressively getting more and more intimate with one another." It's not a question this time, but Chloe nods again anyway. "And you didn't once feel the need to talk about this with anyone? Other than Beca, I mean."
"I thought about telling you," Chloe confesses and that much is true. She had thought about talking to Aubrey about it. "But it… it didn't seem like that big a deal."
Something about that cuts through Chloe and it isn't just that she's lying to her friend. Because it is a big deal now for her and she knows she's in over her head with Beca. Knows this has gone so far beyond what it was to begin with.
Maybe she was foolish for ever thinking things wouldn't end up this way, especially with her track record. Maybe she should have known she'd get too close, that she'd want more than Beca would be willing to give.
And really, that's the root of it. Because while all of this is a big deal to Chloe, she doesn't know where Beca stands. She's pretty sure it isn't in the same spot where she is, though.
Chloe doesn't like lying but when the truth is simply that she didn't tell Aubrey because she didn't want Aubrey to figure out what was really going on inside Chloe's head before Chloe herself could, then she'll entertain a small little lie that seems to carry the weight of several larger ones despite its size to avoid telling her friend the actual truth.
The truth being that she's in love with Beca.
And the thought strikes her like a viper, so fast and unexpected that it sends her reeling mentally. And it shouldn't, she thinks. It should sit there as the simple fact that it is, that it has been for a while now, but it shakes her in that moment. Thinking it while in the presence of someone else. Not just anyone else either, but Aubrey.
Aubrey, who she's lying to.
"And now it does?" Aubrey hedges. "Seem like a big deal?"
Aubrey who is being so careful and quiet, talking to Chloe in the exact right way because she knows how. Because they've been friends for what feels like their entire lives.
And Chloe is lying to her.
"It's not…." she trails off before another lie can finish itself and a hiccup of a sob escapes her parted lips, surprising them both. Because this isn't supposed to happen, Chloe isn't supposed to fall apart right now. No today, not after winning and while they should be celebrating. She's supposed to do this later, in private, where no one else is around to discover her dirty little secret.
That she's in love with Beca.
The thought hits her again like a sledgehammer and the first of her tears fall at the impact. Looking alarmed, Aubrey moves to wrap her arms around her friend, like she's trying to hold her together.
A dam breaks somewhere inside Chloe, her reservoir of truths bursting free in a red hot tidal wave that rushes upward from the pit of her stomach like bile and, for a second, she's sure she's going to throw up. She feels so overwhelmed all of a sudden, like every singular feeling she's garnered for Beca Mitchell has merged into a fifty-foot high monster and stepped on her.
She isn't strong enough to take that kind of strain and so, Chloe starts to crumble.
Briefly, she wonders what Aubrey had expected might happen once they left Beca and Jesse behind. Wonders what explanations she'd assumed Chloe would lead with or if she'd try and talk herself out of the hot and heavy corner they'd been caught in. Clearly, Aubrey had thought they were dating and Chloe wishes it could be that simple.
"Chloe? Talk to me. I'm right here." The care in Aubrey's voice is painfully evident and it's there in the way she holds Chloe, too. Steady and sure, two things Chloe can't be by herself right now. And patient, like she would wait forever for Chloe to explain.
But how can she?
There are far too many webs to untangle here and even though Chloe hasn't been lying to herself, she's purposefully avoided considering the sheer breadth of her true feelings.
Because it's easier that way. To not look at things too closely - especially when she and Beca aren't even going to be able to be together for much longer - even though she knows what's going on. Now, Aubrey is forcing a microscope into her hand and suddenly everything is being thrown into crystal clear certainty.
And it hurts.
"I lied." Chloe's voice breaks over the words. "I lied when I said it isn't a big deal. That's not why I didn't tell you. Aubrey… I'm so sorry."
"Hey, it's okay." Aubrey's voice is soothing, as is the hand she has rubbing circles across Chloe's back. "You know you don't have to talk about anything you don't want-"
"I think I'm in love with her," Chloe sputters, broken and wet. "I'm in love with Beca and I don't… I don't know what to do." She buries her face in her friend's shoulder and cries. "Aubrey, I'm in so much trouble."