TW: Internalized homophobia.

The days following Worlds pass in a haze of confusion, fear, and jet lag. Beca feels like she's stumbling from one moment to the next with no end destination in mind. The plane ride back to the United States passes in a hangover fog so dense that Beca almost forgets that she can't allow herself to touch Chloe anymore. More than once, she wakes up from a nap, her head on Chloe's shoulder, only to snap herself upright and lean in the other direction, trying to sleep on that side.

She knows Chloe's bothered by it, and it's killing Beca to do it, but it's for the best. Beca tries not to think about it too much.

She wonders if she should have told Chloe that she's going to break up with Jesse. She's not sure it's entirely fair that Chloe should know about her plans before Jesse does, especially considering the reason Beca decided to end their long-term relationship. If Chloe thinks any worse of her for it, though, she hasn't said. She hasn't said much about the breakup at all, in fact. Beca tries not to think about that too much, either.

It's not like she really had a choice in telling the others, though. Almost as soon as they'd boarded the flight from Copenhagen, Amy had pestered the details out of her. After spending the entire morning and wait in the airport enduring Amy's questions about her mood, Beca had snapped and the truth had come spilling out (loudly) on the flight for all of the Bellas to hear.

It hadn't been Beca's proudest moment, but at least it was over and done with.

Really, the only person who doesn't know that she's going to break up with Jesse is Jesse himself.

It's hard to force herself to go to the Treble house two days after returning to Barden. She gives herself a day to sleep off the hangover and jet lag. Then she gives herself a second day to watch Netflix and try to plan what to say to him, besides the truth. When she doesn't come up with any lie that sounds good, though, and he texts to remind her that they need to plan for their apartment in LA (Countdown to LA: 4 days! Come over!), she knows she can't put it off any longer.

She leaves the Bella house with a grimace and Chloe's parting, "Good luck," in her ears, hoping that by the time she gets to the Treble house she'll have come up with a decent way to do this.

She doesn't.

When Jesse opens the door and leads her up the stairs and to his room, she still doesn't know what she's going to say. Even when he closes his bedroom door behind them and sprawls on his bed over the covers, smiling at her happily, her mind whirs in search of the right words. Jesse lies there, legs hanging over the end of his bed as he outlines their future in LA, and she's still got no idea how she's going to do this.

"So, I know the apartment is a little small, but I really think if we push the futon against that far wall, we'll have room for a little table in front of it for snacks, and then the TV can go in the corner."

Beca, cross-legged on the floor, picks at the carpet.

"Uh huh."

"Right. And then, in the bedroom, we should push the bed in the corner. Which, I know, one of us will have to crawl over the other or scoot down the end to get off it, but it'll open more room."

"Yep. Sounds good."

"And, you know, I think our bathroom would really benefit from one of those giant T-Rex costumes hanging in the bathtub."

"For sure."

Jesse props himself up on his hands and frowns down at her. "Beca, are you even listening?"

Startled, she looks up and tries to shake off the fog in her brain. "I – yeah, I mean…"

Jesse raises an eyebrow.

Beca cringes. "Yeah… no."

"No?"

"No," sighs Beca. "Sorry. I just. Sorry."

She runs her hands through her hair, annoyed with herself. She's annoyed with Jesse, too, though it's really not his fault. He's excited to start their lives together; she's the one who messed things up by developing the right kind of feelings for the wrong person.

"Beca? What's wrong?"

Jesse looks so concerned for her, his eyes wide and lips parted; it makes Beca's stomach ache. She hates that she has to be the one to do this to him. It's not fair. None of this is fair.

She feels like she's a freshman again, with sky-high walls between her and him. Within her chest, the dam holding back the truth cracks, and it's on the tip of her tongue, threatening to burst free.

I can't be with you anymore.

I'm not who you think I am.

I'm sorry.

He's still staring at her, waiting for her to say something.

God, her stomach hurts. She doesn't want to do this.

"Bec?"

She takes a deep breath, steeling herself. Like ripping off a band-aid, right? She takes another breath.

"B –"

"Ican'tgowithyou," she spews in a rush.

The air between them stills. Jesse blinks at her. The corners of his mouth tighten.

"Can you please say that again?" he asks, his voice stilted and cold. She knows he heard her the first time.

"Jesse –"

"Please?"

She stares at him; he stares back. The clock on his wall ticks away their breaths, unbearably loud in the quiet.

She breaks first, her voice fragile even to her own ears.

"I can't go with you to LA. I can't – I can't do this anymore. Us. I can't."

A muscle jumps in Jesse's cheek as he clenches his jaw, his expression turning stony – not incredulous, not sad – just stony. After a moment he leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and hangs his head.

She wishes he'd yell. Or cry. Or be even the slightest bit surprised.

It's almost insulting, really, how utterly unsurprised he seems.

After a minute of this – or maybe an hour – Beca thinks that maybe she should leave since it doesn't seem like Jesse's going to do anything but sit there. She uncrosses her legs and pushes up from the floor, a little stiff from how tense she'd been. She crosses his bedroom and reaches for the door, telling herself not to look back.

"Any reason why?"

Jesse's question stops her in her tracks. Her hand twitches on the cool metal of the door handle.

"I just – I can't," she manages, teeth gritted. She hadn't expected him to ask questions, but maybe she should have; the hero in a movie never lets the girl go that easily.

"Bec."

She closes her eyes at the nickname. She hates it when he calls her that.

(It's not his nickname to use.)

"Jesse," she says, fighting to keep her tone flat. "We can't be together anymore."

With a creaking of bedsprings and two quick footfalls, he's beside her in an instant, standing next to the wall. He's not blocking her exit, but she still feels frozen. Now he looks upset; she has to fight the urge to reach up and press her finger between his eyebrows to soothe the heavy crease there.

"Is it something I did?" Jesse asks tightly. "If it is… Beca, I can fix this, I can –"

The dam in her chest creaks under pressure.

She inhales sharply, cutting him off. "No, it's not you –"

"Really?" his head draws back and his eyebrows lift. "That line? The 'it's not you, it's me?'"

Beca swallows hard. This wasn't supposed to happen. He was supposed to just let her go after she broke things off. He wasn't supposed to try.

"No, it's really not you, you – you're not listening," Beca insists, her voice rising in pitch.

"I'm listening!" Jesse argues, his own voice becoming louder. "You're just not saying anything!"

Her mouth opens and it's right there on the tip of her tongue (I'm gay I'm gay I'm gay) but she shoves it down, refusing to let it leave her body. She closes her mouth and looks to where her hand still rests on the door handle. She should leave. She needs to leave.

"Bec," Jesse says softly, his voice more pained than she's ever heard it, "if it's not something I did, then… are you… seeing someone? Someone else?"

Her heart clenches at the implication, at the idea that she would ever cheat on him. She is nothing like her father. If Jesse really knew her, he'd never have to ask that.

She glares at him, suddenly angry and taking petty satisfaction in how he steps away from her. "I didn't cheat on you," she spits. "I'd never do that."

Still, he pushes. "There's no one else? No one that you'd rather be with?"

"No!" she insists, praying the flash of red curls flying through her mind hadn't shown in her eyes and betrayed her.

Jesse's eyes jump between hers, as if searching for something; for an instant, they're locked in time, both daring the other to speak first, and Beca wonders with a thrill of dread if he knows. He opens his mouth, as if to say something, but then he sighs and glances away.

"So, what is it then?" he asks, and she can tell he's fighting for composure.

There's nothing she wants more than to reach out to him and explain that it is not his fault. But the walls around her and the dam within her hold her back; the warring forces – a secret dividing her from the rest of the world and a bursting torrent of truth threatening to escape should she release her grip on it for an instant – paralyze her with fear of the unknown.

Beca bites her lip and does the only thing she can think of; she turns the handle of Jesse's bedroom door, flinging it open before throwing herself out of the room.

"No, you don't get to do that!" Jesse calls after her, but she's already moving, her rapid footsteps muffled in the carpet of the landing. "You don't get to just shut down on me, Beca!" He sounds angry for the first time, and when she glances back, he's chasing after her with a desperate look on his face.

She reaches the stairs, almost stumbling as she half-runs down them to get away from the last three years of her life.

"You want this to end," Jesse continues, pounding down the stairs after her, "you want us to be over, that's – that's fine, but I deserve to know why!"

Beca jumps the last step and hits the ground floor, making for the door at top speed. She snatches up her bag from the little bench by the door and crams her feet into her sneakers as Jesse reaches her.

"After everything we've been through," he begs, keeping pace with her as she moves to the front door, "after all that time, I deserve to know why!"

She pauses, again with her hand on the door handle. Jesse's right; he deserves better than he ever got with her.

Beca kisses Jesse after winning Nationals because it feels like she's supposed to.

There could be worse options; he's her only male friend at Barden, and he's cute, nice, and is actually a decent person, even if he is annoyingly enthusiastic at times. Even from the beginning, he'd been enthusiastic in his very painfully, blatantly, glaringly obvious interest in her.

She's not the type of girl that takes satisfaction in knowing a boy likes her. It actually kind of scares her, how hard he's been trying with her all year, because she doesn't try with anyone anymore.

That is, until the Bellas. She tries harder with them than she has with anything in years.

Jesse tries with her, and that's different and kind of scary. She does grudgingly appreciate it, though, even if it feels like a little too much at times.

She supposes that means she's supposed to date him. A lot of other people seem to think so, anyway. Aubrey practically has an aneurysm when she claims that she isn't hooking up with him after the Semis. Maybe ironically, it's that damage inflicted on all of her relationships following Semis that drives Beca to choose Jesse.

She's lonely, even lonelier than she'd been after her mom had died. She doesn't know why exactly, or who she's missing the most. Thinking about the Bellas is confusing, and she especially doesn't let herself think about one specific Bella, so it's easier to tell herself she misses Jesse the most. It's easy to decide that he's the one she most needs to mend things with, easy to tell herself that she's fallen for him. It's what any other girl in her situation would do, she imagines. She must like him more than she knows, that's all.

So she runs off the Nationals stage, throws her arms around Jesse's neck, and kisses him because it feels like what she's supposed to do in that situation. Kissing Jesse is nice, if a little unremarkable, and his arms feel safe around her. It's so, so easy, and is totally expected of her.

She shoves aside the twinge of discomfort she feels, the little stirring in her chest whispering that she'd done the wrong thing and does her very best to ignore not only how little she'd actually felt in the kiss but also how grateful she is that Chloe had disappeared from her line of sight. For some reason, she doesn't want Chloe to see her just then.

Kissing Jesse and later deciding to date him, along with her reunion with the Bellas, eliminates that lonely feeling. Again, she isn't entirely sure which part of the whole thing – Jesse, the Bellas, or one specific Bella – makes her feel better, and she doesn't like thinking about it, so she plays it safe and assumes it's Jesse.

She kisses Jesse because she's supposed to, because it's easy, and because any alternative reason for her feelings scares her.

The dam in Beca's chest cracks, the pressure building and trickling through. If Jesse pushes against it any more, it's going to burst open and flood the rest of her life. She needs to escape but can't make herself move; she's frozen at the door, her brain screaming at her body to run, her body too focused on holding the dam intact to do anything else.

Jesse stands beside her, staring at her pleadingly, but he's not touching her or even blocking the door. She wishes he would. She wishes he could give her some excuse to be mad at him, to turn it so that it's his fault, instead of hers for being broken, for being some kind of freak who falls in love with the wrong person after three years –

"Beca, come on," Jesse pleads, "don't just leave. You – you can't just leave without telling me why two days before we're supposed to leave for LA. It's – that's not fair. Talk to me," he says, reaching out a tentative hand. She jerks away before he can touch her.

"Hey, woah," he says softly. "Just, Beca, just talk – what's happening? Where are you going? What do you think you're doing?"

The pressure builds and builds and builds until it's on the tip of her tongue again (I'm gay I'm gay I'm gay) and Beca wants to cover her ears so she doesn't have to listen to this, to his unending questions and stupid rationality because he doesn't understand that she needs to get away, she needs to run and hide and not be the horrible person she's become.

The dam strains, groaning under pressure.

"Beca, my name is on a lease in LA, and you –"

The dam breaks.

"I like girls!"

It bursts free from her mouth before she can stop it, erupting in a torrent and coming out so loud it startles them both.

Jesse cuts himself off abruptly. His jaw freezes open and his eyes fly wide, glazing over until she's not even sure he still sees her.

"I like… girls," Beca repeats, because it's the only thing she can think to say. She's breathing hard, her heart threatening to smash its way free of her ribcage.

Her body finally catches up with her brain, and she turns the door handle, ready to run. Any second, Jesse's going to register what she'd said and he's going to call her a bitch for hiding it from him, or he's going to recoil in disgust and call her horrible slurs, or he's going to accuse her of being a pervert for falling for her best friend, or –

"Wait, please," Jesse says, this time grabbing her arm gently and holding her in place. "Don't… can we talk about this?"

She could still run. She knows he'd let her go, if she really tried to run. Jesse isn't a monster. If anyone is a monster here, it's her.

Beca steps back into the house, stomach rolling. She closes the door carefully, watching as though separated from her body as her hand falls from the handle and back to her side. She's pretty sure her palms are sweating.

She can't look at him. Jesse's right; he deserves an explanation, and besides, the secret is already out there, hanging over them like a storm cloud. She moves robotically to the futon in the main room, sitting on the edge of a cushion. Her hands land on her knees and she digs her nails into the denim of her jeans to ground herself. A moment later, he sinks down next to her, exhaling loudly as he leans back into the couch.

"Bec… how –"

"Are we the only ones here?" she asks tersely.

He pauses, and she pictures him watching her. "Yeah," he says eventually. "Everyone else is getting ready for the party, I think."

"Okay," Beca breathes, fighting to bring the anxiety racing through her body to a manageable level.

"Are you okay?"

"I... Jesse, I'm…"

"It's okay," he whispers. It makes her lips twitch up into a grimace because no, it's really anything but okay. "You can tell me. It's okay."

"I – I like girls," she says, her eyes darting to his face.

He smiles at her, but not in a mocking way. "You said that," he says surprisingly gently. Beca doesn't understand why he's not yelling at her.

"Right," she huffs, trying to laugh at herself to ease the tension. The sound that comes out of her is strangled and dies in her throat.

"So are you…" Jesse asks after an awkward pause, his hand gesturing uselessly in midair between them. "Does that make you a, you know, a lesbian? Or, uh, bisexual… or whatever?"

Beca flinches at the use of those labels, discomfort rising in her stomach. She leans forward to cover her face with her hands, resting her elbows on her knees.

"Beca, are you –"

"I don't know!" she groans through her hands, then pulls back to look at him. "I mean, I guess? I… I don't know, nothing sounds right and I'm just not sure what to do and I don't –"

"Wait, did you even like being with me?"

His question hits her like a truck, snatching the wind from her lungs.

"I – Jess..."

He keeps pressing, his eyes earnest. "The whole time we were together, did you even like me?"

Beca's vision blurs; there's something pressing on her chest and she can't talk and she can't move and she can't think. The room tilts dangerously and her head swims.

"Breathe, Beca, woah –"

"I don't know what I am!" she gasps, looking to him with wild eyes. "I don't know what I felt! I just know I'm not straight!"

"It's okay –"

"No it's not!" Beca yells, her voice cracking. "How can you say that? It's not okay! I'm so sor – I – I don't want to be like this!"

The shock on his face as he stares at her, eyes wide, is what sends her over the edge; something crumbles within her and she buckles, feeling her face crumple as the first sob tears its way from her throat. Once she starts, she can't stop even though she feels so stupid for crying in front of Jesse because she's never done it before. The tears just keep coming, pulling with them her anger and disgust toward herself for being in this situation and putting Jesse through it.

But then, Jesse's arms wrap around her, so warm and familiar that it shocks her out of her panic; she sinks into him, the angle awkward because of how they're sitting, but she doesn't mind. His hands rub up and down her back, trying to calm her, and she presses her face into where his neck meets his shoulder, his familiar Jesse-smell working to send a wave of calm through her. He holds her for a long time, letting her sobs quiet to soft sniffles before he speaks.

"It's okay," he breathes, his chin brushing her ear as he speaks. "I'm so stupid. I shouldn't have asked that. Sorry, Beca."

Beca sniffles again. She can already feel the post-crying headache starting behind her forehead.

"Am I the first person you've told?" Jesse asks quietly.

She nods against his shoulder, drawing in a whimpering breath.

It makes Jesse pull her even tighter against his chest. Beca can't believe he's doing this, can't believe that after everything, he's the one comforting her. She can't believe he even wants to touch her after what she'd said.

"Beca," he says after a minute, his voice tight and rumbling through his chest. "Did I ever… make you do something you didn't want to do?"

She pulls back from the hug to look at him properly. He's apologetic, as if he already regrets asking, his face all scrunched up with worry.

Blinking in surprise, Beca replies, "No, Jess, I did…I liked being with you, and you didn't… you never did anything like that." She shrugs. "You're one of my best friends and I do love you, it's just…"

"Not in that way?" he asks, shrugging one shoulder and quirking a corner of his mouth up.

"Right," she nods, "I'm s–"

"It's okay," he says before she can apologize. "Really. I kind of… sort of, think this was going to happen either way, you know?"

Beca's winces as she thinks of the past year, during which they spoke maybe a total of three times while he was on campus. When he was in LA, their calls had been few and far in-between. She shrugs, reality settling in, and nods in reluctant agreement.

Jesse smiles at her crookedly, his eyes moving to the floor. "So, uh," he starts hesitantly, "why didn't you – how long have you known this about yourself?"

"I… not long," Beca says, shifting on the futon, hoping he won't ask her anything else about it; she doesn't want to risk Chloe's name leaving her lips. Thankfully, he just nods, looking thoughtful. After a moment, he sits back on the futon and turns his head to look at her sideways.

"It doesn't really change anything, you know," he says with a little grin.

Beca has to take a second to make sure she'd heard him right. "What do you mean?" she asks, confused. "It changes everything."

He shakes his head but doesn't offer any clarification.

"Jesse, weren't you listening?" she asks, leaning forward. "I'm not – I can't go to LA with you. We aren't dating anymore. Don't you –"

"I don't mean that," Jesse interrupts, waving her down dismissively. "I mean, like – you're still you. I still care about you."

Beca pauses, stunned that he could say such a thing. To her horror, her eyes prickle again and she looks away, trying to blink back the sensation before he notices.

"Where will you go, if not LA?"

His question distracts her and makes her look back at him.

"Oh, um. Well, Emily takes over the house on August… 15th?" Beca replies slowly, thinking it through even as she speaks. "So I guess I'll stay there, maybe look for jobs until then."

He nods, thinking over her answer. Beca runs her tongue over the front of her teeth; it hadn't occurred to her, but she would need to start applying for jobs in… somewhere. A different kind of worry rocks her stomach at how uncertain her future has become; it's the beginning of June, and as of August 15th, she'll be homeless and jobless. She has enough in her savings to not need a job until the end of summer, but after that, she's going to need an income and a place to live.

"You could still come to LA," Jesse says, interrupting Beca's thoughts.

"Oh, I… want to figure things out here," Beca replies, hoping she sounds more confident than she feels. Technically, Jesse's right. She could still go to LA with him, but as friends, and find a job there like she'd always intended to. But the thought of leaving Chloe behind right when she's figuring this out about herself rips through her painfully and she immediately discards any residual thought of LA.

Jesse shifts his weight on the futon, not quite meeting her eyes as he asks, "Is, uh, Chloe staying?"

Sometimes it kind of scares Beca how well he can read her. She can only nod, afraid to give herself away, and he just hums in response, the corners of his mouth twitching.

A natural pause falls over the room. Beca inhales deeply, reveling in the freedom of the moment; the pressure in her chest is almost nonexistent, at least for now.

"So, uh," Jesse starts, and Beca has to stop herself from groaning; he's using the same tone of voice he always uses before making a horrible joke. "I, uh, since we're not together anymore, I guess this means I'm off the hook for having a crush on Keira Knightley?"

Beca blows out a stream of air through her nose, a soft laugh escaping against her will even as she shakes her head. Beside her, Jesse laughs too, bumping his shoulder into hers. Then, he freezes abruptly and grabs her shoulder.

"Wait!" he exclaims, eyes wide. "Oh my god. Do you have a crush on Keira Knightley, too?"

Even though Beca knowshe's kidding, the joke hits a little too close to home and the smile slips off her face slowly.

"Would it be weird if I did?" she asks carefully, watching Jesse out of the corner of her eye. "Like, that makes me feel a little… pervy."

She tries to keep her tone light enough that Jesse could laugh or brush it off as a joke, but the way he looks at her, all soft eyes and a single line forming between his eyebrows, she can tell he recognizes her statement for what it really is.

"That's not perving, Bec," he shrugs. "That's just… having eyes and being human. Keira Knightley is like something out of this world. That's just fact."

A corner of his mouth lifts into a half smile, and Beca can tell he's kidding, but also not kidding at the same time. It makes something loosen within her and she relaxes, feeling better about something she hadn't even realized was bothering her until that moment.

"Thanks, Jess," she says gratefully.

He grins at her, and replies, "I got you. You know, you should talk to Cynthia Rose," he adds, almost an afterthought.

"Huh?" she asks, thrown by the shift.

Jesse frowns. "Isn't Cynthia Rose gay? Or whatever? She's got that girlfriend, I thought."

"Fiancée," Beca corrects automatically, then pauses. "I… yeah."

"Oh my god," Jesse gapes at her in disbelief. "Are you telling me you actually – you forgot you have someone who knows what you're going through? Like, in the Bellas with you?"

"I didn't forget," Beca replies defensively, crossing her arms. "I just… well, I thought, you know, with Worlds and everything, I didn't want to add…" Beca trails off when Jesse's expression becomes a little too knowing.

"Okay!" she admits, throwing her hands up. "Fine! I didn't want anyone to know, okay! Happy?" she huffs, re-crossing her arms.

"No, I'm not happy!" Jesse says, though he's still smiling a little. Beca's really starting to hate that stupid, sympathetic look on his face. "You were gonna keep this a secret for… forever?" he asks incredulously.

She can't quite meet his eyes.

"Christ," he mumbles, rubbing a hand over his face. "Look," he says carefully, "you don't have to go through this alone, Beca. You could tell her. You could tell all of them, actually," he adds gently.

Beca shrugs, refusing to look at him. The unwelcome pressure is back in her chest now, and building, fighting against a new dam.

"They won't think of you any differently," Jesse speaks so quietly, it's almost a whisper. "I promise."

Beca can only stare at her knees. She digs the nails of one hand into the opposite arms where she has them crossed. The wall between her and Jesse might be gone now, but the wall between her and the Bellas feels thicker and sturdier than ever.

"You should talk to Cynthia Rose. It might help," Jesse prompts once more, then adds, his tone brighter, "Besides, you'll need someone to hang out with once I blow this popsicle stand for the sunshine of LA!"

She snorts at that and punches his shoulder, grateful for the lighter mood. He yelps in mock pain and glares at her playfully, rubbing his shoulder dramatically.

Beneath the theatrics, though, Beca can still see her Jesse. Despite everything, he looks at her the same way he always does. She wonders if, just maybe, everything might be okay.