Beca emerged from her bedroom mid-morning to the sound of her parents arguing. This was nothing new, at this point. Six months had gone by since the shooting, and everything had changed. Initially, the country was outraged at the act of violence. People demanded that something change. Government officials made speeches and visited the school. Promises were made. And, as always, nothing happened. The community itself had been shaken to its core. All told, eleven students and four teachers had died. The surviving students were left to try to figure out how to move on. The state and district had passed multiple measures to allow the students at the school great leeway in finishing classes. Beca was assigned to homebound for the remainder of the year, but she hardly had anything to do academically. She had finished most of her required courses already, and, with the emergency provisions, she had to pass just two tests to graduate. She wasn't free to just lounge around, though. She had therapy - lots of therapy. She had individual therapy with a counselor. She had group therapy with other teens in crisis. She had physical therapy for her shoulder. She had family therapy with her parents.

Yes, family therapy with her parents. The same parents that had divorced. The dad who had left and moved cross country, the mom who always had walls up. Beca got to sit in therapy with her parents as they rehashed marital issues from years in the past. Her dad still lived in Atlanta with his new wife. But he flew back to Portland on a regular basis now to help with Beca. The fact was, Beca's mom still didn't "get" her daughter. She had no ability to provide the emotional support Beca needed to get through this. So Dr. Mitchell came back and forth to help with that. And to argue with his ex-wife.

Beca herself had transformed. Gone was the smiling, cheerful, upbeat girl who had the world wrapped around her finger. In her place, there stood a young woman beaten down by life. All of those feelings that she had worked so hard to compartmentalize had spewed out, darkly tinting everything. The betrayal and abandonment of her father. The emotional distance of her mother. The horror of the shooting. Survivor's guilt. Fear. All of it swirled together to create a Beca that many people didn't recognize. She wasn't emo or goth. But she was guarded, sarcastic, hardened. The Beca that people had known and loved had been buried, cocooned behind a prickly exterior that basically carried a "BACK OFF" sign everywhere. Her fashion had even changed. Gone were dresses and skirts, sleeveless blouses and high waisted jeans. Now she mostly hid behind long sleeved flannels and jeans. They were easy and they covered her scars - both emotional and physical.

She was a survivor, though. She had looked death in the eye and lived to tell the tale. That gave a person a different view on life. She didn't just take crap from people any more. If she disagreed, she spoke up - sometimes loudly. She had spent her life trying to be positive for everyone around her, and it had gotten her nowhere. She had grown weary of her parents' bickering. She still couldn't forgive her dad for abandoning them. Her mother still refused to take on any of the emotional weight of being a parent. And Beca refused to be happy and smiley for her mom, trying to live in the upswings of a teenager's life. All of that let to perpetual conflict.

Once again, the only solace that she found was in her music. She spent most of her time with headphones on, working on mixes and listening to all that Spotify could offer. One of the few benefits of being shot at school is that people feel bad about it and want to try to make you feel better. So they sent you shit. And buy you things. She had gained fully updated equipment and software. When the news had come out of how the headphones had saved her, no fewer than eight companies had sent her their top of the line models. Music was her unofficial therapy. She did have actual music therapy as well - led by someone who Beca felt had no real understanding of music. But the real therapy took place in her room with her equipment and songs. She was able to conjure up dark stormy seas and crash them into bold rocks. She could pursue elusive light and hope. Music never judged her or thought she should be further along by now. It never tried to make her do things she wasn't ready for. It just welcomed her with open arms and let her be whatever she wanted to be that day.

But there was no singing. When the inevitable memorial services came along, everyone wanted Beca to participate and offer up her angelic voice. They wanted to experience rapture and healing through her tones. But she steadfastly refused. While her love of music didn't shrink, her willingness to perform had died. She didn't fully understand why. Sometimes, she was angry that people expected her to help them heal, when she was broken too. Who was fixing her? Other times, she hated performing itself, since that was why she was even in that room in the first place. If she wasn't a performer, she would have been safely ensconced in the library or a part-time job. Whatever the reason, she just would not give that to anyone again. She may hum in her room, or in the car. She wouldn't sing in the shower. Sometimes she would emerge from self-imposed cave and see one of her parents slinking away, knowing that they had been listening at the door - trying to grasp a small taste of the vocal honey. But Beca kept it bottled up. .

This led to the current parental argument, Beca noted. While USC was still more than happy for her to come there, her refusal to perform put a kink in that offer. Her scholarship was partly due to her expected participation in all of the School of Music's requirements. Not singing in public would not mesh well with a scholarship based on singing in public. So USC was not really an option any more. Beca had received other scholarship offers and had been accepted at several schools, but she just didn't know what to do.

The experience of the shooting had given Beca a severe case of PTSD - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. She could not bring herself to go anywhere near her high school. Even driving on the normal route would cause her to feel a panic attack coming on. (Not that she was allowed to drive. They took her license as a safety precaution, and she sold her beloved Mini Cooper because it brought bad memories.) She wasn't even planning on going to graduation, since it was supposed to be held on the football field. In addition, she started to experience intense anxiety when she was around a lot of people. Her counselor had theorized that Beca was irrationally concerned that there would be a shooter in the crowd. Whatever the reason, she was increasingly reluctant to go to malls, sporting events, concerts. Her dad had tried to take her to a Twenty-One Pilots show a few months after The Incident, but Beca had a full-blown panic attack at the arena. Also, if Beca was startled by a loud noise or a unexpected jolt, she would often find herself in tears with her head in her hands. All of this was "normal" for someone who had gone through what she had. But it certainly caused issues, and it was affecting the college decision.

"I. CANNOT. KEEP. HER. HERE."

"Keep her? You act like she's a dog or something!" Dr. Mitchell's retort echoed around the house. "She is your daughter. She is trying to recover from something that no eighteen year old should ever have to experience."

"I understand that, Herman. I'm not an idiot." Mom was pulling the idiot card. "But I just don't think it is good for her to stay here. It is too hard for her to function in Portland."

Beca sat at the dining room table and ate a bowl of cereal as she listened to her parents fighting about her. "I'm right here." She mumbled to herself. "I can hear you." Beca agreed with her mom - shockingly. Portland had become too hard to manage. Everything reminded her of what happened. There were memorials strewn all over town. Whenever she went into a store, she would see everyone with the pity looks for her - another reason she started to avoid them. Staying here wouldn't work. Going to L.A. seemed an equally poor decision. USC was massive. There were so many people all over the place. Plus, being so far away from any support system (if you could call her mom a support system) in a place like that? Panic attack central.

"Linda…" Beca recognized her dad trying to bring himself under control. "You are probably right. Her being here is not helping." His voice took on a particularly bitter tone. "Especially since you won't offer her any support." Beca could picture how that played out. Mom turned purple and began to launch into a counterattack. Dad put his finger up and made her stop. "But I don't know if moving her all the way across the country is the best option."

"You are there close by. The school is small and peaceful. It will be free for her. It is nowhere near here. I think it is the best option." And that was Door Number Three. Just like that, Beca's future had been decided for her. When Dr. Mitchell chose to start his new family, he took a position teaching English at Barden University outside of Atlanta, Georgia. It was a small school in a small town. Beca had visited it a few times when she went to see her dad. It was nice. Not exciting. Not fun. Nice. But that is how Beca found herself riding cross country with her father in August, heading to BU for her first year of college. No airplanes for Beca; she was already hesitant to fly before. Now? Seemed like a disaster waiting to happen. She leaned her head up against the window of her dad's SUV, listening to the satellite radio Broadway Hits station. She observed the Rocky Mountains. She spotted a ridiculous number of cows. She groaned at the loooooooong stretches of flat flat flat land. She watched barges cruise the Mississippi. She felt the much smaller rolling hills of the Southeast. Beca still was angry at her dad. She was irritated that decisions were made without her input. And she wasn't looking forward to this. It wasn't supposed to go this way.

"Honey, it won't be that bad. And if you don't like it after the first year, we can come up with something else."