The news sent her to the ground, shattered into a crumpled heap of tears. Right there on the emergency room floor in front of dozens of sick people seeking medical help or waiting for news on loved ones, Beca Mitchell fell to pieces. And it had been all her fault.
"Come on, Bec! It'll be fun!" Chloe begged, grasping her girlfriend's hand and staring at her with puppy dog eyes.
"I'd rather get shot in the face with fire." Beca retorted. Chloe screwed up her face as if she were in pain.
"That's sick, Beca."
"So is the idea of me singing Karaoke!"
"You do realize you're in a highly competitive college acapella group, right? If you couldn't sing you wouldn't be in the Bellas." Chloe commented with deeper pleading eyes. Beca couldn't resist the look of her girlfriend in distress. She heaved a sigh, a signal that she'd go. "YES! I knew you'd come!"
"I have my conditions," Beca began with a devious smirk. "One, I get dessert after dinner," Beca winked at Chloe before finishing. "Two, I need a drink or two if you want this to be any fun, and three, you can not force me to sing anything that is now or ever was one of your lady jams." Chloe laughed.
"Whatever you want, Bec, let's go! We can stop by Ralph's to grab a drink before Karaoke. I'm gonna have to buy it, though."
"You're corrupting me." Beca snorted.
"That's the plan."
If she would've just went to the stupid karaoke without being so freaking stubborn none of this would've happened and that's the only thing Beca was absolutely sure of.
Chloe had only just gotten back into the car with the beers when a blazing pick up truck smashed into the drivers side of the tiny Chevy Malibu. Beca fractured her wrist and gained a deep cut just above her eye that required stitches, but that was knee scrapes compared.
Chloe punctured a lung, broke one leg, sprained an ankle, broke a wrist, had a concussion…oh, god, Beca couldn't even think about how fragile Chloe appeared, her broken body draped in a seat covered in blood.
And if Beca had only just driven it would've been her. If she'd only just agreed to go to Karaoke without alcohol or been even more stubborn and made Chloe stay in…
Beca shook as the tears poured down her face. She wrapped her arms around herself and suddenly felt a few more pairs. Around her stood Stacie, Aubrey, Cynthia Rose, Lily, Denise, Jessica, Ashley, and Fat Amy, half of them trying to pull her up and the other half attempting to comfort her.
"Get away!" Beca heard her voice crack in pain; pain of the heart.
"Beca, it's okay!" Stacie tried.
"Bec, get up, come on baby girl." Cynthia Rose encouraged. Beca pulled away from all of their words. Beca refused, holding herself, the tears now accompanied by screams of pain. She couldn't help it. A vociferous yelp tore from her throat with such fierceness it made her throat raw.
"Beca, listen to me, you need to get up." Aubrey's voice whispered, benign, breaking Beca's screams. Beca turned towards the blonde with perplexed eyes. Aubrey's eyes were red from crying, but no tears remained. Beca wondered if Aubrey had pulled herself together to help her. "Please, Beca. Just please come with us."
Aubrey crouched down to Beca's level, wrapping her arms around the brunette and pulling her to her feet with the gentleness of a mother. She guided Beca out of the hospital with little intervention and to a large van that all of the Bellas traveled in.
"Stacie get the door." Aubrey's calm voice instructed as she held Beca up. To be honest, it was the only thing keeping Beca up.
Stacie opened the door to the van as Aubrey led Beca towards it. She sat Beca down, taking both of her hands in her own.
"Beca, I know you're not okay. Do you want to stay in my dorm tonight? All of the girls are." Aubrey calmly explained. Beca stared at Aubrey. It was the first real moment they had together.
"Aubrey…I…I'm so sorry!" Beca burst into another round of tears. The Bellas exchanged worried glances.
"What're you sorry for, hun?" Aubrey asked, gingerly.
"That fight we had…W- When that truck hit me and Chloe…and Chloe got…" Beca stopped to collect herself. "All I kept thinking was that I wished it had been you…" More tears flew down Beca's face at different speeds and she pulled Aubrey into a hug. "I'm so sorry, I was pissed and I didn't mean it and-" Beca blubbered.
"Shh…" Aubrey cooed, stroking Beca's hair. "It's alright, Beca…"
"It hurts, Aubrey, I miss her so much…I love her so much…she was my everything.."
"I know, Beca. It's okay." Beca let out another scream of pain, pushing herself from Aubrey and standing up, out of the van. "Beca?"
Beca ignored Aubrey, everything was clouding around her. All of the Bellas were rushing towards her for some reason in violent rainbow blurs. Beca lost her breath, she couldn't breathe. And then she hit black, the last thing she heard was Chloe screaming her name, but she knew that could only be in her head.
"Beca. Wake up. Beca…" Chloe's voice hummed. Beca's brain became alert, shifting all attention to the sweet voice. "Come on, Bec." A smile began to mold on Beca's lips, ever so slightly as the voice continued calling her name. Then—
CRASH!
Smashing glass and screeching metal exiled Beca from hearing the only voice she cared for and other screams replaced Chloe's.
"Is she okay!?"
"Beca, oh my god, do something!"
A bucket of ice cold water splashed on to Beca's face like a million arctic needles poking into her. Her tired blue eyes snapped open immediately. She was in someone's dorm room.
Around her stood all of the Bellas. Beca scanned each individual face. Somebody was missing.
Chloe.
"What happened?" Beca croaked. Aubrey looked at the other Bellas. They all wore frightened or concerned expressions.
"You were screaming, Beca." Fat Amy quietly put it at that, folding her arms over her chest. Beca stared off into the distance in a daze. "You fainted." Whoa. Had she really fainted? She'd never blacked out in her life, but there she was.
"Why did I faint? What's going on?" Beca asked, cocking her head in confusion. She noticed the brace on her left hand and her head throbbed violently. But still the lastfew hours were pretty fuzzy, just blurred images against the abashed backdrop that was her mind.
"Beca, there was an accident. Don't you remember?" Stacie asked, the sympathy in her eyes was evident. Beca's face cringed in pain, becoming more serious as she paired Chloe's absence with the Bellas concern.
"Where's Chloe?"
And as soon as she said Chloe's name, the images flooded back into her mind. The ginger's broken body draped over a blood soaked seat and steering wheel, the soft moans escaping the injured girls lips, the pleas that she would live.
Nobody wanted to say anything. Nobody could say anything. All of the Bellas stared at Beca as she put this realization together, but no tears formed in Beca's eyes this time. Mostly from the shock of what had happened and the confusion. She couldn't properly piece it together, she couldn't believe it, and therefore she couldn't cry about it. It didn't feel real.
"Oh, Beca…" Aubrey placed her hand over one of Beca's, treating her like some fragile piece of china in the hands of an idiot.
"Where's Chloe!?" Beca's voice became forceful and instantly she felt stupid. She knew exactly where Chloe was and she had no idea why she repeated the question. It seemed like all of the Bellas around her were monsters and Beca felt herself filling with rage. She didn't know from where, but it was growing. "Get out!" She growled.
"Beca, you can let it-"
" ."
All of the Bellas were taken aback. They looked at each other as if Beca had gone insane. But in a way she had.
"Don't look at me like that." Beca whispered, her eyes falling closed as she tried so hard to halt the images flooding into her mind, blinding her thoughts. Beca's eyes darted past each girl. She didn't feel like talking and they sure as hell couldn't help the situation.
"Bec, it's normal to be angry. But you have to let us help you." Aubrey urged. Beca shook her head, staring knives into Aubrey's attempts to heal her.
"Aubrey, you need to get out NOW."
"Come on, let's just leave her be…" Denise prompted. The Bellas agreed, quietly, filing out of the room one by one with lingering looks of sympathy towards Beca. Beca glared them away until the last Bella was out the door, closing it behind her. Beca slumped down in her bed, her chest raging with fire, her head pounding against her skull. She balled her hands into fists, turning her body so that her face was in her pillow, and she began to scream Chloe's name and cry.
If Chloe were to hear Beca, she probably would've wept as well. Beca unraveled her hands and grabbed fistfuls of pillow. It still smelled like Chloe's hair from all the times she lay down there. It only pulled more tears from Beca's eyes, remembering the shirt she was wearing was Chloe's.
Chloe. Chloe. Chloe.
Everything was Chloe.
And everything hurt.