Two years, one month, three weeks and four days.
The number rattled around in Aubrey's brain as she walked into the engagement party for her best friend with her current girlfriend's hand in hers.
A girlfriend who came directly after the woman she broke up with two years, one month, three weeks and four days ago.
A woman who'd be here tonight. A woman who she thought might never leave her mind but feared one day would.
Everyone had been amazed when the pair pulled their heads out of their asses - asses still weren't hats - so Aubrey made sure to pull out all the stops tonight. The waitstaff had been dressed impeccably as they carried trays of upscale versions of Beca and Chloe's favorite foods. The bar was stocked with the best top shelf liquors - the bartenders were on strict orders not to let Fat Amy behind the bar. There was music and dancing, the Bellas taking to singing together whenever the mood struck.
Annamae - Aubrey's girlfriend of just under a year - tried to fit in with the Bellas she'd heard so much about. And the Bellas to their credit did try to allow her to try. Aubrey didn't think either side would be sending Christmas cards to the other any time soon though.
No, that wasn't right.
Annamae would because that was who she was as a person. Even as she stood looking perfect with her back at her girlfriend talking to Cynthia-Rose and Emily, a slightly confused look at her face as the two Bellas laughed about something Bella related no doubt.
Annamae Sutton was the perfect southern belle. Everything that Aubrey was raised to be and had either rejected whole cloth or failed at, Annamae mastered. She could cook anything she was asked to, she kept their apartment spotless, she was home every night to make sure when Aubrey came home she had dinner ready and a glass of white wine to sip on. She was a hit at the dinner parties and events that Aubrey was invited to from the partners at her law firm. They were the perfect pair of southern lesbians.
Aubrey made sure everything was going well at the moment before she slipped away to a balcony overlooking the city. She needed to stop herself from thinking. The thoughts she was trying to push out of her mind would lead her no where good right now. Thoughts she had learned to suppress about as well as her southern accent.
She wasn't alone for very long before the very last person she wanted to be alone with made their way to join her.
"How long have you been looking to escape?" Stacie asked as she slid the door back shut after stepping out on the balcony.
"Since about twenty minutes before I got here." Aubrey's voice was soft as her ex girlfriend stepped to the spot next to her.
"I saw you drinking white wine earlier." Stacie set down a glass of whiskey - Redbreast 21 - next to Aubrey's hand, holding one of the same for herself. "Felt like you might rather have this."
Aubrey's mind flashed back to buying a bottle of the same whiskey for Stacie the weekend after the brunette's college graduation. They finished it over a long weekend between making love and watching the ocean from the cabin they rented on the coast.
"Thanks." Aubrey lifted the glass to her lips. She sipped it, feeling the burn she hadn't felt for months on her tongue and down her throat.
Aubrey missed whiskey. Annamae hated the taste on her lips when she kissed her. Aubrey didn't think she'd be doing much of that tonight.
"White wine, the perfect girl on your arm, junior partner at your firm. Looks like the break up did what you hoped it would." Stacie tried to keep her tone teasing. She knew she failed but she did try.
"I don't know, Dr. Conrad, it seems like you have landed on your feet. Congratulations on the job with Bristol-Myers Squibb by the way. Impressive to land a job like that." Aubrey kept her eyes on the skyline and off of Stacie.
They both nursed their drinks for a moment, both trying to figure out how to talk to each other after going from being everything to each other to nothing more than barely friends.
"I really thought about telling you first when I landed the job. I half dialed your number when I remembered. Fucking pathetic, right?" Stacie laughed bitterly.
"About as bad as me heading towards our apartment last year after I found out about the partner thing. Got about five minutes away when I remembered and had to change directions." Aubrey let out a dry chuckle.
Stacie looked over at Aubrey the best she could without moving her head all that much. She could see the fine features that she spent lazy mornings tracing over standing out against the dark of the night.
"It was good a lot of the time." Stacie looked at her glass, wishing for a refill but knowing leaving this balcony meant ending the moment they were in.
"It was." Aubrey agreed.
"The study nights where I worked on a paper and you worked on a case."
"Going to the farmers market on Sundays."
"The way we didn't have to explain to each other what parts of our past hurt the most."
"The way you tucked yourself against me at night so I could wrap you up completely."
"How hard you could make me laugh."
"The sex."
"The sex."
Stacie set her glass down on the railing. Her eyes searched the city as if she was trying to find a way to go back in time. "Some of it wasn't so good though." She whispered.
"No, it wasn't." Aubrey agreed.
"The fights over who was right about the dumbest stuff."
"The way you and I could push each other's buttons better than anyone else could push them."
"Working too hard and forgetting to take care of ourselves or the other."
"Forgetting to be kind to each other."
"The anger we both had at the end."
"The feeling of failing each other."
They didn't speak for a moment. Neither knew what to say to the other as they both started to piece together that the other wasn't over them either.
"Annamae seems nice." Stacie said when the quiet was too much.
"She's trying to fit in but the Bellas don't take in many new people." Aubrey appreciated her trying. "I don't think she understands us joking with Jess and Ashley about who is who, or telling Emily she's a teenager when she's in her twenties now. Lilly just freaks her out, and Fat Amy scares her in a way she never scared the rest of us..." She could go on but the point was made.
"She didn't go to college with us, that isn't a sin. It's her first time meeting most of us anyway." Stacie wasn't sure why she was trying to defend Annamae. Maybe to make herself feel better in Aubrey's taste in girlfriends.
"It's not a sin." Aubrey agreed. "Me loving you while I'm with her might be though." She finished off her glass and set it next to Stacie's.
"Bree..." Stacie's voice faltered.
"I shouldn't have said that." Aubrey shook her head.
"No." Stacie agreed.
"Being with someone like her, it makes me remember how much I didn't want to become that when I grew up." Aubrey admitted to just about the only person she could who would understand.
"Then why are you with someone who makes you hate yourself?" Stacie asked, eyes snapping forward again.
"I never could be who my parents raised me to be. Maybe I can at least marry her and give them one southern daughter who acts right." Aubrey took a gulp of the whiskey to try and burn herself for thinking that of a woman who had been the perfect their whole relationship.
"Jesus, Aubrey..." Stacie hurt at the thought of it all.
Aubrey finally looked over at Stacie. "You are smarter than anyone else I know when it comes to science or tech or nerdy pop culture. You accept others for their faults as much as you accept yourself with them. You are exceptional, and I tried to make you into the girl my parents tried to turn me into." She hated herself for that most of all. And boy were there days she hated herself for a lot of things.
"I still sleep on the same side of the bed. I tried to sleep on your side after you moved out but it felt like if I did and you ever came back we wouldn't fit together anymore..."
"I still wake up on Sundays and do the crossword. It's a lot harder without you there to fill in the ones I don't know." Aubrey looked down at the people far below them. Her head turned as she tilted it up to look into Stacie's eyes.
"You know where home is, Aubrey. You've known for two years where home is. So if you want, come home." Stacie grabbed their glasses and was gone off of the balcony a moment later.
Aubrey crossed her arms over her chest and looked out over the city.
"Fuck."
It was nearly two in the morning when there was a knock on Stacie's apartment door. She knew it was either the most polite murder in the city or Aubrey. Dressed in an old hoodie of Aubrey's and a pair of yoga pants she got up to open the door.
She was glad to see it was Aubrey and not the most polite murderer in the city.
"Things fall apart, they fall apart so hard. You can't ever...put 'em back the way they were...I'm sorry, it's just...you know it takes time. You can't just...have whiskey and expect-." Aubrey quoted, nearly word for word, a moment they both knew well.
"I know." Stacie felt her heart rate pick up as the moment from one of their favorite shared shows was walking and talking right in front of her.
"There's just so much to work through. Trust has to be built again, on both sides...You have to learn if...if we're even the same people we were, if you can fit in each other's lives. It's a long...important process, and...can we just skip it? Can...can you just be kissing me now?" Aubrey had tears welling up in her eyes as she moved past Stacie to stand in the living room that saw the best and worst moments of their relationship.
Stacie moved toward her as if she was pushed by a force that made gravity useless in comparison. Her arms were around Aubrey's waist as Aubrey's moved around her neck.
"You broke up with her, right?" Stacie asked, her lips held just out of Aubrey's reach.
"I'm not quoting Buffy at you if I'm still dating another woman." Aubrey's eyes locked on Stacie's.
That was enough for Stacie to tilt her head down to press her lips to Aubrey's. It was deepened but both held up taking things further for the moment. Both mindful that as much as Aubrey was here - actively choosing and needing Stacie - she had broken up with her girlfriend of a year just an hour before.
"We fell in love with each other between episodes of that show, it was better than anything I could come up with to say to you." Aubrey licked her lips to taste the peppermint tea Stacie had a habit of drinking when she was up late at night.
"It was kind of perfect." Stacie bent her head to rest it against Aubrey's shoulder.
Aubrey leaned against her love, letting the events of the day wash over her. She turned her head to kiss against Stacie's neck, feeling a rush at how good it felt to have the same shiver go through Stacie now as she could pull from her at twenty.
"Let's go to bed." Stacie pulled back, her fingers lacing with Aubrey's. "We can cuddle up together and you can tell me what I've missed and I can tell you what you've missed and then we can fall asleep together."
Aubrey broke up with Stacie, two years, one month, three weeks and five days ago now. Or maybe she could start thinking about this as day one of them being back together.
Yeah.
Yeah.
She liked that a lot better.