Hey guys. I just wanted to say thank you for all of the support you've given me. I love that you all care so much about the story, and that's what inspired me to finish this chapter after a mild bout with writer's block. Now for review responses!
.HouseofG: I'm definitely trying to encompass how scared Beca feels of everything. I think I did a decent job of addressing it here. As for the self-harm, I don't want to focus too much on that for the rest of this story, just because it's not a topic I'm very comfortable writing about. Neither is abuse, if I'm honest, which is why it is more of its after-effects which will come into play for the rest of the story. I haven't decided what I'm going to do with Chloe yet. I couldn't make her a total bitch, so she's definitely remorseful here, but I'm not sure if she'll ever be able to repair the friendship with Beca.
FightSong: Thank you for the encouragement. This review is a large reason why this chapter came out now instead of another few days' wait 'till next weekend. I hope you enjoy this and the rest of the story to come.
EDIT: I changed up a few mistakes that I made, and tried to make parts of it flow better.
Beca and Aubrey sat together at the apartment that the latter shared with a suspiciously absent Chloe, both taking a seat across from the other at a table. They both stared carefully at the other, for fear that they would leave.
"Beca, I was so afraid…" Aubrey began, but she found herself unable to continue from the tears threatening to fall again.
"So was I. I just… I wanted it to be over. I wasn't really thinking clearly. It just hurt." Beca's own tears were falling again, and she felt that if she were to cry anymore she would have no more. But they kept coming, more than she thought possible, seemingly unable to stop.
"It's okay. I'm here now. I'll stay, as long as you need me, and even when you don't." Aubrey offered a sad smile as her own tears began to fall.
"Are you sure?" Beca's voice seemed pitifully small, as she carefully met the eyes of the woman across from her.
"Do you really think that I would lie to you about it?" Aubrey's voice was so full of care and concern that Beca just melted into it.
"I don't know. I'm so scared. The last people who told me they loved me… one of them killed themselves and the other…"
"I know." Aubrey said as Beca trailed off.
"I don't want to be this scared. I hate feeling like this… like there's no chance of it ever getting better. I don't want to doubt that this is real. But I am. I do."
"Beca, I'll spend the rest of my life telling you how much I love you if that's what it takes for you to realize that I mean it. Because I do love you. It took me longer than I'd like to admit to realize it, and when I did, you were already with Jesse, but I love you." Aubrey fixed the brunette in her gaze, as if trying to convey the depths of her feelings through only her eyes.
Beca was – logically – terrified. She had so many different things to be scared of, and so few reasons to believe that she shouldn't be. Two of the three people she cared about most had both told her that she wasn't good enough for them, within the span of half an hour. Her dad had spent four years abusing her, stopping only when she came to college and he was remarried. Her mom had killed herself, and without hearing anything to the contrary, Beca was forced to believe that it was at least partially her fault.
She worried that whatever this was, now, with Aubrey, wouldn't last. She wanted it to, because she had decided over a year ago that she loved Aubrey, and had only pushed her away because she was petrified of rejection. After everything that had already happened, she was so scared of rejection that she figured it would be better to try with someone who she knew wouldn't hurt her. Except he did, just because she was so slow to trust. She needed to make sure that the same didn't happen with Aubrey.
"Would you leave if I didn't tell you everything?" Beca's voice was barely louder than a whisper, but it was as if it held the weight of the world, and to her, it did.
"Never, Becs. I want you to get to the point where you feel you can, but I would never force you. I just want to know because I love you, and I want to help you. I can tell that this has been eating you for forever, and I want to help because I want to see you happy. You are such a beautiful person, and I hate the fact that you suffer through it. I think Chloe wants to help too, but she's not good at handling the fact that not everybody is just willing to tell her everything."
"But she didn't help! Not this time… She just... just... She just made everything worse!" Beca lapsed back into sobbing, and Aubrey quickly realized that not only had her impromptu plan to try to mend the rift between Beca and Chloe failed (disastrously), but also that Beca probably wouldn't even consider talking to Chloe for an indefinite length of time, and it was quite possible that she'd never want to mend things with Chloe.
"Shh. It's okay. It'll be okay. I'll help you through everything, okay? I'll make sure that you never have to feel like you're alone. Never, ever again."
After Beca's sobbing subsided, they sat in a comfortable silence for a few minutes before Aubrey heard a knock on the door. "I'll just be a minute, okay?"
She received a soft nod and a murmured agreement before she went to the door. When she opened it and saw her redheaded friend on the other side, she quickly stepped outside and closed the door.
"Shit, shit, shit… Chloe, you can't be here right now. You need to get the fuck away."
"What do you mean? What's going on?"
"What's going on?" Aubrey was astonished. "I just had to talk Beca down from the fucking roof, that's what's going on. And I swear to god, if she sees you…" Aubrey took a second to collect herself. "You need to go stay somewhere else tonight. I'm really worried about her, and I think that seeing you again would be too much after all the shit that's happened today."
"The roof?" Chloe was stunned, tears welling in her eyes.
"I'm going to make this very clear, Chloe. I'm not going to soften it because I think you need to hear it straight. Part of why Beca was on the roof was because of something you said to her today. I don't know what, and quite frankly I don't need to know right now, but what I do know is that I'm absolutely sure that she doesn't even want to think about you. I tried to defend whatever you did to her, and she burst into fucking tears. So you need to give me time to help clean up this fucking mess that you helped make, and that means that I need you to get the fuck away from here so that Beca doesn't see you and become hysterical again."
Chloe's tears started falling. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry."
"Save it. I'm not the one you need to apologize to. Because of you, we almost lost her. I almost lost her. So I don't want to hear it, and right now, she doesn't either." Aubrey softened slightly as she saw the effect she was having on the redhead. "Chlo, you're my best friend, but I love her, and you hurt her more than words can describe, and I can't let that slide. You can try to see her when all this shit has been at least partially cleaned up. But for right now, I just need you to crash somewhere else for a night or two."
Chloe nodded softly, before Aubrey turned around and headed back into the apartment. The distinct click of the lock was heard, and the weight of what she'd done suddenly sunk into Chloe. She sunk down against the wall, and just cried quietly.
Beca woke up to a soft shake from Aubrey. When she looked at the blonde, she momentarily forgot about everything that had transpired just a few minutes before and smiled. The smile was wiped from her face almost as quickly as it was placed there. She wanted to start crying, but then Aubrey smiled.
"Do you want to sleep in my bed tonight? It's a bit comfier than this chair."
Beca smiled softly. "I'd love that, but... can you stay, too? I don't want to be alone."
"Of course I will. I'd never dream of leaving you alone after a day like today. Come on. I know you're tired, and so am I."
Beca quickly surrendered to the idea of a nice comfortable rest to alleviate all of her concerns. And as she felt Aubrey's arms securely envelop her, she felt content. Almost happy. She may have even felt the same hope that she felt on the rooftop.
Beca awoke in the morning to an empty bed and immediately assumed the worst. In her fear and sadness instigated by the thought of Aubrey leaving, she didn't hear the bedroom door open, or the gasp coming from the person who opened it. "Oh my god, Beca! Are you okay?"
"Aubrey?" Beca sounded as if she doubted reality. As if she thought she was dreaming, and that Aubrey was just a figment of her imagination.
"I'm here, Becs. I'm here. I'm not leaving." Aubrey murmured softly into her ear, and traced soothing circles into her back as the brunette gradually calmed down.
"I thought… I thought you did leave. When I woke up alone." Beca sounded absolutely miserable, and her eyes welled up with the tears that she so recently stopped.
"Oh no. I just had to use the bathroom." Aubrey cracked a wry smile. "Trust me, I know it's hard to believe, but I'm not going to leave you. I just got you. And I'm definitely not willing to let you go. You're stuck with me."
Beca wrapped her arms around the blonde and pulled her in close. "Thank you, so, so much, Aubrey."
"It's nothing, Beca. I'd do everything for you. I love you." Aubrey returned the somewhat unexpected, but objectively unsurprising embrace.
"I… I love you too. And… I want to tell you. Everything. What happened yesterday and what happened to me years ago, and everything I'm scared of in the future. I want to tell you everything."
"You don't have to, Becs. I don't want you to feel like you have to do this. I could go the rest of my life without knowing as long as I spent that time with you." Aubrey looked concerned, but also reassuring. It made Beca's heart melt, but she decided that now was probably the best time. She trusted Aubrey, at least, more than anyone else in her life now.
"I want to. And I don't feel pressured, because you're the only one who hasn't pressured me. You've always been happy to just sit with me and hang out, and I really appreciate that. And because of that, I want you to know more than I want anybody else to." At this, Aubrey smiled happily, recognizing the utmost faith and trust that Beca was putting in her, and silently vowing never to betray it.
"It all started six years ago, when I was fourteen. I came home and I found my mom on the ground next to a bottle of pills. I think she suffered from chronic depression, but I never knew the full details. My dad wouldn't tell me a thing…" Beca trailed off, trying to choke back the tears that she had known from the beginning were inevitable.
Aubrey walked around the table, and engulfed Beca in her arms. It made Beca feel safe, which is something that no one else had managed to make her feel within the last six years. It made her cry, just how much that one embrace meant to her, and her future. She wanted to feel that embrace for the rest of her life.
"If you want to stop…" Aubrey began.
"No. I was just thinking of how protected you make me feel. I haven't felt anything like that for six years." Aubrey pulled Beca closer against her, and Beca returned the favor, until she somewhat (very) reluctantly withdrew.
"Like I said earlier, my dad beat me for four years. Between the time my mom died and when I came here, he beat me almost every night. I think he's stopped now because there's more people around so it's harder to find me alone, but also because he has a new family. My step-monster and her kids." Beca allowed a brief silence to overtake the conversation before she resumed. "But, you should know, I started this after the first two months."
Beca rolled her sleeves up, causing a gasp from Aubrey. Beca looked down in shame, and put her head in her hands. She was surprised to feel, again, the warm embrace that she was suddenly so accustomed to from the blonde. "It's okay. I told you I wouldn't leave. This doesn't matter. I still love you, and you're still the most beautiful person I've ever seen."
Aubrey had the most kind and caring look Beca had ever seen plastered firmly on her face, and it made her sob openly. She collapsed into Aubrey's embrace, continuing to let out all of the emotions she had pent up over six years, and all of the new ones she was feeling.
Aubrey took a closer inspection of Beca's arms once the crying died down, and asked, "When did you stop? None of these look fresh."
Beca smiled lightly. "A few months after joining the Bellas. Strangely enough, our arguments helped. Talking to you at all was great, but I realized that I really cared about the Bellas and the setlist, and I really felt something. I started to cut less and less, because I realized that I could feel something that wasn't pain just as intensely. And then there was the fact that I finally had friends. I had spent most of my teenage years without them, so having some made a big difference."
Aubrey smiled slightly before Beca continued. "Anyway, that's most of the past. But yesterday was the real problem. What I said earlier was a brief overview, but I caught Jesse cheating on me with some random girl. I confronted him about it, and he told me…he told me that…I-I would n-never be enough… f-for anyone because I-I couldn't let my walls down." Beca's voice began breaking towards the end of her sentence, and this time she found herself initiating the embrace with Aubrey to calm herself.
The blonde rubbed soothing circles on the brunette's back, waiting patiently until she calmed down enough to finish.
"So, I went to Chloe, because she's Chloe." Beca let out a wry smile at that. "And she helped for a little while, but then she started to reiterate what J-Jesse said…she told me that…that she couldn't help me…b-because I wasn't opening up after two years. She…she said that I hadn't done a-anything to r-repay you guys for your kindness. A-and that's when I ran to the roof."
"I really don't know what came over her. She's not usually like that, and I was totally convinced that she wanted to help you with whatever you were going through almost as much as I did, but I just want you to know that she is totally wrong. You being you is enough for me, and it should be enough for everyone." Aubrey smiled sadly and sympathetically.
"Thank you." Beca had begun to stop crying, but tears were still welling in her eyes. "You don't know how much that means to me."
"I do know, Beca, but I wish I didn't." At Beca's look of confusion, she elaborated. "I waited my entire life for my dad's approval, but thanks to his success in the army, he's expected nothing but the best from me, and it's much, much, much more often that he tells me what I did wrong, instead of what I did right." She scoffed quickly, "He'll probably be disappointed in me for this, too. He doesn't really know I'm gay."
"Oh, god, Bree. I don't want to ruin your relationship with your dad. I should-"
Aubrey suddenly turned stern. "Don't say another word, Beca. I love you, far more than I ever have or will love him. I would never want you to leave, and I wouldn't let you, and I know that's what you were getting at. Just like I said earlier, you're stuck with me."
Beca smiled softly. "Thanks, Bree. This whole thing really shows how insecure I am, doesn't it?" she gave a small, mirthless chuckle. "I'm just really scared of being left again. It's hard for me to open up and now you know everything, and I have this totally irrational fear that you'd make me regret it, even if I don't really believe it."
"Oh, Beca. I love you. I would never use this against you, especially because I'm so glad that you chose to tell me in the first place. I love you so much that the thought of you being in any sort of pain kills me. And I want you to know that it's okay that you feel insecure, because I will tell you every day for the rest of our lives how beautiful you are and how much I love you."
And with that, Aubrey leaned in and kissed Beca, solidly. When she pulled away, she smiled at Beca, who leaned back in to return the kiss with all of the affection that she had forgotten she possessed. And Aubrey was making her feel the same exact love and care that she herself was trying to convey, and as Beca pulled away, she came to a realization.
She had finally found someone who loved her with all of their being, and whom Beca loved with all of hers. It was an all-consuming adoration that Beca felt with everything she was, and tried to show with everything she did. And she felt the same devotion reflected back at her from the blonde-haired angel in front of her. And in that moment, Beca knew that, despite the long road ahead of her, she was going to be okay.
"I love you too."
I hope you all enjoyed the chapter. I'm not sure when the next update comes out, or quite what I should do with it, but I'll start brainstorming. Maybe something to do with Chloe, or Aubrey's dad? Let me know what you think. Thanks for reading.
