~ Back to the past ~

Pov Beca

¦Flashback, Astoria - Oregon 1999¦

Wake up rotten dwarf! You've got to clean up that dump of toilets!

I feel my shoulder shaking so violently that if it continues I'd risk falling out of bed. I just want to sleep, why don't they ever leave me alone?

Look at her, she still sleeps with her thumb in her mouth! Suck it, Mitchell! Get up now or we'll worry about making your day a living hell.

Every day is like that. Abigail, and the other ducks around her, reserve this special alarm clock for me. They are the oldest, they are already 14 years old. While I, well, I'm just a 10 year old gutter, forced to stay in the institute for as long as I know. Sometimes I try to assert myself, to have a bit of courage to face them, but every time it happens that, I find myself with shoes scattered throughout the garden, or socks full of toothpaste, or those few clothes that I have, covered with soil and mud. I have often tried to talk about it with those in charge, with Mr. Marshall and Miss Trainor, but they never believed me, or they always thought that were jokes made in good faith. But those harpies have nothing good about them, I've never been able to understand why they're bullying me, or whoever is my friend. No one talks to me anymore, Stella was my friend, but she hasn't spoken to me in a while. They started to spite her too, and from then on, we didn't do any more recreational activities together. For children of my age there are no jobs to do, we are "babies" for that. The institute provides for us moments of play, physical activity and of course, gives us compulsory schooling. For the older children instead, are established activities that have as their aim to contribute to the maintenance of the institute, so cleaning activities, order, some also help in the kitchen. These programs should increase the sense of responsibility in the older ones, which unfortunately does not happen to all. And a clear example is this sect of bitches who don't leave me alone. I know I shouldn't say bad things since I'm 10, but being in here is inevitable.

Today it seem I have to clean the bathrooms, which they should actually take care of, but they force me to do so. Once I tried to oppose it, and there's no point in explaining how it ended. They locked me in the crapper for hours until two older girls came to get me out because had heard my crying hiccups. I can't help but live by the day and expect everything from them now. I always hope that a lightning bolt can strike in full, or that a roof tile can fall on everyone's head. It would be a dream, and also a miracle, as far as I'm concerned.

I glower at them and get out of bed slipping my feet into the shoes. In all this, they keep looking at me and smiling wickedly, while I walk to the chest of drawers near the window and pull out my clothes. I just hope they leave, I don't want to get change in front of them.

I feel someone approaching my shoulders and bending down to reach my height.

We want you at the toilets in 5 minutes. If you don't show up, you know what happens.

Damn Abigail. I answer her with a faint voice nodding slightly, I also doubt that she heard me.

Okay...

Everyone leaves the room and I exhale a heavy sigh that I didn't think I'd held back. I can't wait to grow up and get out of here. I pull out of the drawer a piece of paper on which every morning, I put a sign indicating a new day spent in this hell. It is since I learned to write that I do, in the hope that one morning, waking up, I do not find myself in this shitty place, surrounded by white walls and bunk beds, but in a room of my own, with drawings hanging on the walls and colored curtains to cover the window. It may seem stupid, but I would love to savour the normality of the world out there, even for a single moment. Understand what it means to have parents who take care of you, go to school with the yellow bus and have friends to go home with, so you can spend the afternoon playing. It sounds very cliché but it's the truth. Those few films that we have seen during our recreational hours have only worsened our survival in this place. Happy children, perfect families, it almost seems like the ideal world out there. So much to underline how the world in here sucks. Unfair.

I take a pair of sweatpants and a tshirt much bigger than me, at least two more sizes. I look even smaller, but I don't have anything better to wear, so I have to make these fit.

You know, you look even tinier than a cork stopper dressed like that.

I turn annoyed towards the door to see who it is, hoping it's not some other pain in the ass who woke up this morning with the intention of bothering me. She is a girl, definitely older than me, definitely taller than me and with a smile printed on her lips. Why the hell is she smiling at me? Since when do people smile at me?

I frown my forehead and try to remember who is among all the guys that are here, but I can't think of anything. Maybe it's a new one.

Um... Thank you? Although I'm not sure it's a compliment.

I answer reluctantly, turning back to the chest of drawers to put the pajamas in place and be able to close it.

Maybe, but I'm pretty sure it's one of the nicest things they've ever said to you in here.

Let's say it's part of top 2. And at first place is the undefeated lack of talking to anyone in here, which from my point of view is paradise.

I turn my head to the side and throw a sarcastic smile to her that disappears immediately from my face, and then I head to the bed to be able to fix the blankets and put my bedside table in order. I notice how the weird girl places her things on an empty bed near the door, a few meters away from mine.

So you're new?

Yes, I arrived just now. They dropped me here, you know, foster families aren't exactly what they are said to be.

So she's an outcast too. Well, at least she's been entrusted to someone, I've never been farm out to anyone, let's say they get away with it. I don't know, maybe it's because I'm tiny and very thin and probably think I have some disease, (nobody wants to take children with problems, everyone who comes looking for perfect children, as if we were toys) and nobody ever asks to meet me. I've come to terms with that now.

When there are days to familiarize future adoptive parents with us kids, I do not participate anymore. It's one of my favorite moments actually, because everyone is very busy giving a good impression of the institute and what we do here, and I have the opportunity to sneak out into the garden and climb up my tree to be able to stay at peace without being disturbed. It's great to be up there, this place, seen from that perspective, is a little less disgusting than usual. And above all, I can see the ocean. It will be the first thing I'll want to see up close once I get out of here, maybe take a swim. I should first learn to swimming though. Damn it. Because of how short I am I could risk drowning even in a puddle.

I hear the new girl's voice lighten up, maybe to get my attention. I didn't realize that I stopped at the edge of the bed to stare at the void. I quickly shake my head and turn towards her who looks at me with an amused expression? What's so funny?

Is my face dirty?

Huh? No, why?

Because you've been smiling ever since you're here and usually when someone does that or is for that reason or is for craziness. From your answer, I'd say the second one.

I see how her smile widens even more as he approaches me, okay she's totally out of her mind. What does she want?

You know, for being so young you always have the answer ready. I'm Sabrina, by the way.

She holds out her hand to me in order to introduce herself, which I find quite strange because, really, no one has ever did that here. Not to me, at least.

I raise an eyebrow switching the look between her hand still there, stops to wait for a squeeze, and her face. She seems to be holding back a laugh, am I a clown by chance? Do I really make her laugh so much?

I'm Beca.

I answer her seriously, not by shaking her hand and staring at her in the eyes. She seems to have understood that I will not return her gesture now or ever, and she drops her hand along her side, releasing a slight laugh. After casting a last puzzling glance at her, I turn my eyes upwards in a annoying way and immediately after, I pass by to reach the door and walk towards the bathrooms, I have already wasted enough time.

You know, you don't have to go there.

My steps get stuck on the door and I slowly turn my head towards the direction the voice comes from.

You don't have to go if you don't want to.

What?

The last thing I wanted was to be pitied by the latest newbie. I don't need anyone's pity, I just want to be left alone. I glare at her and I think she noticed it because the expression that triumphed over her face up to 2 seconds ago has now disappeared.

The bathrooms. I heard those girls before, that they forced you to go there. You don't have to if you don't want to.

An incredulous smile shows on my face, but disappears immediately as she continues to blather about what you want to do and what you don't. She seems as stupid as she is tall, you can see she's new around here.

Here it is not a question of wanting to do something or not. It's about not having any trouble, or at least no more than you already have. That's how it works here. You better get used to it. Welcome to Wonderland.

I shake my head in a defeated way and turn again to be able to go to the toilets. There's nothing more obvious than saying to someone 'if you don't want to, you don't have to'. It's easy to talk when you're not living the situation. As if I'd like to be treated like this every day by Abigail, but I don't have much choice. Either hell, or much more than hell. I prefer the first one at this point.

I'm almost at the toilets and I can already hear the noise of the unpleasant duck that are waiting for me. I take a deep breath with my eyes closed and put my hand on the door to enter, when I feel a grip at the level of my left wrist. I look down and notice that it is someone who is stopping me, so I follow with my eyes the arm and I find the girl before, behind me, who looks much more serious than a few minutes ago. This chick is quite annoying. Doesn't she understand that she has to leave me alone?

Are you serious?!

I'm dead serious. If you really want to get in here, we'll do it together.

Wait, what? What is it, my babysitter? Why is she so interested in me? We've known each other for less than 10 minutes and she's behaving like that? I could be allergic to all these... strange things.

It's not necessary. Thank you.

I try to get rid of her grip but I can't. After all, she's much bigger and stronger than me, I'm sure she's not even using force to hold me back. Damn it.

I know it's not necessary, "badass-kid". But, you know, I really need to kick those little bitchy bullets asses that have already busted my balls, and I'm only here 15 minutes.

She frees my wrist and cleverly smiles at me with a wink. I lift my eyes up and let a hint of a smile slip by, it's a real tick this girl. She won't lay off for a moment, but I have the feeling that this time it's in the good sense.

You're clingy, you know that?

And you're stubborn, you know that?

We stare for endless moments squinting at each other to get a more threatening air, but surely I'm failing in my intent. I can swear that she might burst into laughing at me from one second to the next. How boring to be ridiculous like garden dwarves.

Come on kid, the geese are waiting for us.

She gives me light pats on the shoulder inviting me to walk, finally releasing the laughter she was holding back. Jerk.

Don't call me kid! I have a name and it's Beca.

Blah blah blah…

¦End of Flashback¦

Did you know that Tracy was the fake name for Sabrina Brown?

I look down and glued my eyes on my hands as Chloe slowly turns her head to be able to pay attention to the inspector again.

No detective, I didn't know.

So can you explain to me why this name reminds you of anything?

I hate interrogations. I hate this situation and I hate even more that Chloe is here, involved. It doesn't make sense, if they want to know something it's me they have to talk to, not her. What does all this mean?

Uh... Ah, it tells me something because... Well... At the time I remember that Beca had among the first chats a contact with this name... And, let's just say that I was impressed.

I raise my eyes for a moment to meet hers own, and I can not help but notice the pain that still hides behind those irises. It's a contact that only lasts a few seconds, but it's enough to be able to feel my heart crack a little more. I never wanted to hurt her, make her suffer and now have proof, that that wound is still there, and that probably now it is bleeding again with all this situation. Life never makes things go as we predict them, you make plans, you think that everything can be fine, that there is nothing that can not be overcome, and then everything goes to hell. When a person breaks down, it's hard to recompose. And Chloe and I broke each other. In these years I have done nothing but think about what she is going through, what she is doing, who she has become. I always hoped that she would be fine, and that one day we would find ourselves by chance and we could start again. But since we saw each other, things have only gotten worse and I surrendered to the idea of letting go of my vain hopes and focusing on what I have now. But how do I do that if I have next to me the girl who owns my heart?

All right Miss Beale, more or less from how long ago did you realize that Miss Mitchell had that contact saved on your phone?

I'm sorry, but I wasn't used to checking Beca's phone. It just happened a few times in passing.

She's responding in a cramped way. I do not know why, perhaps it bothers her to remember that period, that he asked such questions. It bothers me, I can't imagine her. What the hell kind of questions are they in the end? What does he care how long he knew I had Sabrina saved on my phone like Tracy? This detective is all too twisted.

Okay, Miss Beale. I don't have any other questions for you. Thank you.

You're welcome.

I hear Chloe whispering to herself as she turns a forced smile on Mr. Pitt. Now it's my turn, I think I'm going to puke soon. I'm going to look like Aubrey at the ICCA final the year before I got to Barden University. Breathe Beca, be sincere and forthright, and you don't have to fear anything. You didn't do anything in the end. A firm voice and a fixed gaze. Seh, easy to tell when you're about to be grilling and everything recorded could be used against me. Always with the intention of calming anxiety, good Beca. Keep it up.

Let's move on to her, Miss Mitchell. Beca, can I call you Beca?

Whatever.

Why is he calling me by my name when he didn't call Chloe by her name? Mitchell is a beautiful surname, which are these discriminations?

So Beca, how did you and Sabrina Brown meet?

More obvious question I could only expect. But I can't hide the inconvenience of the situation, I must necessarily tell everything in front of Chloe, and she doesn't know everything exactly. She knows that I don't have a family, that I've always grown up on my own but I've never really gone there. That's not something I like to talk about. I just wish I could downgrade those years. I take a deep breath and look straight ahead, staring at the inspector.

We grew up together in the orphaned and abandoned children's home in Astoria, Oregon.

I realize that Chloe has turned her head to focus her attention on me. I feel her look burning on me but I can't turn to look at her, I don't want to see the compassion in her eyes or the pity for me. I've never endured it from anyone.

Mmh well, did you feel comfortable there? Was it a nice place to grow up?

Are you kidding me? Do you think an orphanage is a nice place? Besides, I don't understand what this question has to do with the investigation.

Maybe I was rather rude in answering that question, but it is already difficult to be in this damn situation, plus these questions about my past, I just can not tolerate them. I try to sit better and cross my legs so that I can move my foot freely without hearing the sound of the shoe against the chair. In all this, Chloe hasn't taken her eyes off me for a moment and is starting to get on my nerves. I understand the surprise but I won't be the first and I won't be the last to have lived in an institute. It's not so sensational anymore.

Excuse me, I was just trying to lighten the air. I didn't want to be inappropriate.

Ask me what you want to know about Sabrina, so we can leave as soon as possible.

I want to get out of here. It's as if there's something slowly closing my throat and my hands are shaking. I just hope they don't notice, or at least the inspector doesn't notice. I don't want him to get suspicious of my behavior and think that I'm hiding something, when in fact I'm just feeling a lot of pressure, and he has yet to start with the real questions. That's great.

Beca, when you left the institute, did you continue to keep in touch or have you lost track of each other?

She is.. Uh, she was, uhm, older than me. So she left the institute earlier. Despite this, when I was still there and she was out, she came to visit me every day. It was the closest thing I had to a family at the time, and we were very bound. By the time I reached the age to get out of that hell, however, she had already left Astoria. She didn't tell me where, how, or why. Since then I didn't know anything about her, I didn't even know how to find her. She had literally disappeared.

That day was one of the worst. And in my more or less short life I had several. But that remained with me. I was alone again, I had no one left. I was 16, a pair of jeans ripped from my knees, a sweatshirt and $100. I didn't know where to start, I had to find a place to stay, I had to look for a job and above all I wanted to continue studying. I had always imagined that moment, the moment when I would leave the institute, as one of the happiest of my life. Instead, it turned out to be just one of the most disgusting. In my fantasy there was someone waiting for me outside the gate, and that someone I always believed would be Sabrina. She had become a sister to me, I could never have thought far in my years spent in that hell, to find someone who would stay close to me and worry about me. And she did it from the moment she first stepped foot in that place. I remember she left me a note on the tree I used to climb; usually when we were supposed to meet, she was there. One afternoon, a few days before I finally left the institute, I went to the garden and not seeing her waiting for me there, I decided to climb on the tree to be able to waste time until she arrived. But she never does, and on the trunk I found a piece of paper attached with a pin, to prevent it from falling. No one would have been able to see it from the ground, so probably if I hadn't climbed up the tree that day, I would never have been able to read it and I would never have known it existed.

It was the note on which I was marking my days there and she had added the last ones missing with a pen of a different color, writing to me "It's over, no more marks. I'm sure you'll do great things in your life, little sis. I wanted to say goodbye in person, but I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to leave afterwards. I love you, S." Yes, I still remember her words. I wept, and I cried a lot. I had been abandoned, again, and from that moment on I promised myself to count only on my strengths, not to allow anyone to enter my life, to get along alone. Well, that was until I got to Barden and my eyes met the ocean. The one I had been in love with since I was a child, enclosed in two shining wells, belonging to the girl sitting here next to me, now. However, it is quite evident how things have ended, and even today I wonder if I'm really the problem. If there was something wrong with me, if I was the reason why everyone was leaving me.

Beca, how did she find you again after years in New York? That's where you met again, right?

Yes Mr. Pitt. She found me, so far I still don't know how she actually does. I hadn't seen or heard from her in over 10 years.

I never explained how she tracked me down. When I asked her about it, she would always say, "The family always finds itself", and there was no more irritating phrase she could say to me. At first I couldn't believe that she was really in front of me, as far as I knew at the time, she could be dead. That day seemed like having seen a ghost, in the flesh, but still a ghost.

|Flashback, Brooklyn - NY 2017¦

Hey, be careful!

Oh man, excuse me!

Involuntarily, coming out of the subway, I bumped into a gentleman who was trying to get on the wagon. I was overthinking and I didn't really notice, plus Amy just sent me a message to warn me that I had to buy her stock of cheetos, and I was intent on reading the text. I don't understand why it's always up to me to go shopping, especially after a day's work. She might well take care of it, but it's useless to tell her, she's lazy, almost lazier than me.

Me 7.30 pm

Why me all the time?

Fat Amy 7.31 pm

Well, between contacts, Beca's B comes before Chloe's C. It's the alphabet, Shortie. You should know that.

It's always the same. How is it possible that I never know how to counter her answers? With my head down, I put the phone away by puffing and inserting it in the back pocket of my trousers, taking care not to pull the wire of the earphones too much. Meanwhile, trying to avoid people as much as possible, not paying attention to actually looking ahead, I almost reached the stairs to be able to get out of the subway station. I raise my eyes from the ground to avoid going to bang with my snout on the ground, but at the exact moment I lift my eyes, I lock myself. I petrify. It's as if my feet had cemented on the ground and my hand had stopped in mid-air still intent on adjusting a headset in my ear. It seems as if time has stopped, as in those films when everything around freezes, it immobilizes. That's how I feel now. And she's there in front of me, smiling at me. As always, like the first time. What the hell is going on?

Hey Kid!

I don't think I know how to talk right now. My throat is dry and my salivation is zero. Am I hallucinating? Is that her? It's like someone threw a bucket of ice water at my head. She left without leaving me the chance to look for her, to call her, just a fucking note. She's the person who hurt me the most, leaving me alone, and I've never been able to say it to her face. She never gave me the opportunity. And now I just want her to disappear from my sight, my eyes to be wrong and it wasn't her. I can't believe it.

It is as if all of a sudden all the anger, the disappointment, the sadness felt more than 10 years ago, has come back to the surface, and I'm feeling it again exactly as it was then, in this moment. She was the person I cared about most in my childhood, if not the only one, and she abandoned me. She was my fucking family and she left me alone when I needed her most. I don't realize that my eyes have become increasingly shiny and a tear has escaped me from my eyelids, against my will, but despite this I can not shift my gaze from the figure in front of me. Damn it. It's her.

She hasn't changed a bit, well, physically, she has changed, it is more "adult". If that's what you mean. But the expression is always the same, the look clever, the smile mocking and those wrinkles that form under her eyes when she laughs. Some things never change. But I can't help but notice how tired she look? -Maybe. As if she had been neglected herself, her black hair, once long and curly, is now short and wavy, her face dug out, her dark circles deep, looking at her better, she doesn't seem to be doing well.

I sweep away the lonely tear that fell on my cheek a few seconds ago, with the palm of my hand, and I lift my eyes for a moment to be able to bring back the tears. It's not exactly the reaction I would have imagined I would have had, but it's hard to control myself in such a sudden situation. In the meantime, Sabrina has come a few steps closer and is now practically less than a metre from me.

S..

My voice comes out almost like a whisper, serious and trembling. Only now can I see how she too has watery eyes and is keeping herself from crying. Only now do I realize how much I have actually missed her in all these years, how much I would have liked to have someone to talk to, in the evening and tell about my day, someone to call every time I was sick to have oranges brought to me for cold juices. I don't regret anything about how I managed on my own, how I grew up and how I got to this point in my life, relying exclusively on my strength. Fortunately over the years I have found a second family, I have found people who genuinely love me, who do not judge me and to whom I am deeply attached. But now, with her in front of my eyes, I can only think of all the emptiness I felt because of her absence, because there has never been greater fortune for me, than that of having someone to take care of me. And she did, from the first day she entered the institute. And only now can I feel the lack I have felt in all these years, because before I was too busy moving forward and building a life, not wanting to focus on what I had passed.

She represents now, everything I haven't had before. And it's terrible.

I feel my heart beating so fast that it could explode at any moment. I am agitated, nervous, angry, but no matter how hard I try, I can't hide the emotion of having seen her again, of having found her again. I thought I would never experience this moment, that I would never meet her again.

Without thinking about it yet, as if we had the same idea, we throw ourselves into each other's arms, holding each other so tightly that we will probably have some bruised rib. It's the kind of hug you give a few times in life, to a few people. To the really important ones. It's as if you want to leave a small part of yourself inside the other person, to fill a space that you know is reserved for you. Like the hugs mothers give their sons when they leave, or when they return. This are hugs that probably break bones, but that are good for the heart.

No need for words in these moments, the bodies already speak for themselves. We have always been both very strong, we have rarely cried in front of each other, and now for the first time I feel her hiccups silent, almost restrained, perhaps not to be too weak, shake her chest, banging against mine. I try to bring down as much as possible the knot that persists in closing my throat, while the tears fall now without control on my face. People start to look at us weirdly, and how not to understand them: we are practically two fountains crying in the middle of the metro station, we do not go unnoticed. For this reason, I don't think it's necessary to keep attracting the attention of passers-by, and I try to detach myself slightly from Sabrina, so as to resume the situation. I quickly dry my face with both hands and sniff with my nose to prevent more tears falling from there, while she keeps her head down and her eyes glued to the ground.

We'd better get out of here. They're starting to stare at us.

I notice how her eyes are swollen and reddened and after having lifted her head and brought a hand to her mouth in order to hold back another hiccup, she nods me quickly and together we go up the metro stairs to reach the road.

The strange thing is that as soon as we leave the station, she raises the collar of her jacket and wear a cap,useless since it is 8 pm, if not to avoid being recognized. Why should she have reasons to behave like this? In the meantime she has turned her eyes several times to be able to look around and certainly this is not normal behavior, unless she is a sociopath. I knit my eyebrows and keep staring at her until she notices my visible confusion and perplexity about this whole situation, turning completely towards me crossing my eyes with my own.

I know you want to ask me, go ahead.

What are you doing here? Why did you leave? Why are you looking around? What's going on?

She probably didn't expect all these questions within 2 seconds, in fact her eyes widen a bit to the surprise, but I can't restrain my curiosity and above all I want to know everything that happened in the past and what brought her here today. How did she find me? Here's another question.

I guess I owe you some answers then. Come on, let's walk a bit and I'll explain everything to you.

¦End of Flashback¦