TL:DR: Beca met Chloe on a plane. Chloe the Flight Attendant disassembles Beca's massive walls and they share a special night. Chloe overhears a phone convo and assumes Beca's got a significant other at home. Turns out it's Beca's son, Oliver. Beca tries to contact Chloe afterwards and Chloe has none of it until she encounters the Mitchell family on a flight, and realizes her mistake in refusing Beca's explanation. Beca doesn't quite know what to about it...
So, uh...it's been a while. The past year hasn't been particularly great for moi. But, I'm back! This chapter is quite short (I'm sorry), and possibly a bit lackluster, but it was honestly a bit of an exercise for getting back in the groove. The writing groove. *Beware the groooooooooove* I figured I might as well publish since it's been so longgggg.
Since encountering Chloe last month, Beca has attempted every item on her "Coping With Emotional Turmoil" checklist.
Marathon viewing of Disney movies. (Pleasant, especially with Olly on her lap, but not particularly helpful.)
Eat as much Taco Bell as possible, without shame or hesitation. (Delicious, but it turns out her stomach isn't quite as receptive to heinous amounts of fast food as it used to be. Also, not at all helpful.)
Clean everything in sight. (Helpful, but not in the way she was hoping.)
Re-arrange the furniture. (Helpful to the feng shui, only. Olly had wailed for a solid hour the following morning because he was convinced they'd moved overnight.)
Write lyrics. (Typically the only truly helpful thing on the list; however, this time, whatever she wrote ended up disjointed and jumbled.)
The list is admittedly questionable, but she'd made it at the tender age of 15, and for the most part, it had worked for her. It would seem, however, that her present crisis was too much for her tried and true methods.
And that's what lead her to her present conundrum. For what feels like the 87th time, Beca holds down the delete button on her phone and watches the lines of text she'd been composing disappear. No matter what she writes, none of it feels right. A phone call is definitely out of the question, since she can't even collect her thoughts well enough to write them down, despite hours of reflection.
Beca knows what the issue is; she just doesn't know what to do about it. The issue is that on one hand, all she wants is to be done with all this heartache and longing, and jump headfirst into all that is Chloe. She wants to put all of this bullshit behind them and move on with their lives. But on the other hand, she's still fucking pissed. And more so, she's still hurt. It's a strange thing, to feel such opposite emotions at once. To want to kiss someone, and want to tell them to fuck off in the same breath.
So after the 87th deletion, Beca employs what she refers to as "Old Faithful," and ignores the issue entirely, in hopes that it will simply fade from her mind.
Old Faithful, of course, is a misnomer; it never works. Ignoring the issue takes just as much active effort as trying to fix it.
During the day when she's not busy with work or looking after Olly, she's warring with herself as to whether she should even try to contact Chloe or not.
At night, her old stress dreams have started popping up. Either her teeth are falling out, or a plane she's on crash lands in shark-infested waters.
She's getting nowhere.
As it turns out, Chloe is the one to make an affirmative move.
It's a typical Saturday for Beca and Oliver. Chocolate chip pancakes and sliced bananas have been eaten, showers have been taken, and proper clothes have finally been donned as noon rolls around.
They're three races deep into a Mario Kart Grand Prix when the muffled clank of the mailbox lid sounds through the living room. Beca doesn't wait before pausing the game. As expected, Olly jumps from his spot on the floor and flings his arms out wide before bursting into song, Beca shamelessly joining in with her son.
"Mail time, mail time, mail time, mail time, mail tiiiiiime!
Here's the mail, it never fails,
It makes me want to wag my tail,
When it comes I wanna wail, mail!"
Since his birthday, Olly has declared himself official collector of mail on days he's home when it arrives, because "it's my responsibility, Mama." Beca had rolled with it simply because it's hilarious to sing that stupid song with him every Saturday.
She watches as he returns to the living room, arms clutching a small pile of mail to his chest. He plops down next to her and hands over all of the mail except one parcel that he holds onto.
"You got a present, Mama," he says excitedly, holding the last piece out towards her with both hands.
Beca chuckles as she takes the package, because Olly has somehow concluded that any piece of mail larger than a standard size envelope is a present.
It's one of those nondescript bubble wrap packages from USPS. There's no return address, and it's honestly light enough that she'd be surprised if there's even anything in it, so she sets it aside with the rest of the junk mail.
"Maaa, aren't you gonna open it?" Oliver whines.
"I will, but only after I kick your butt, little Yoshi," she replies, tickling his sides. Her kid is growing before her eyes every damn day, so she will take full advantage of any opportunity to spend time with him.
Beca is loath to admit it her six year old kicked her ass at Mario Kart, and she wasn't even holding back.
This kid is going places.
It's past 9 o clock when Beca finally gets Olly tucked into bed. After miscellaneous dishes are loaded into the dishwasher and toys are put away, Beca plops herself on the couch, setting her glass of Sutter Home White Zinfandel on the coffee table (she may be a mother, but that doesn't mean her palate has progressed to more than that of a college freshman, okay?).
She flips on an episode of Fixer Upper, because let's be real, Chip and Joanna Gaines are relationship goals, and in another life, Beca would have loved to be a contractor.
Halfway through the episode, and coincidentally, halfway through her glass of wine, Beca grabs the small pile of mail Oliver had collected earlier.
Junk, junk, bill, junk, bill, Billboard Magazine (ugh, thank god), bill, junk. And last but not least, the USPS package.
She had no clue as to what could be inside, but what she finds leaves no question as to who sent it.
Beca feels a little dumb, because even though she's never seen it before, how could that loopy, swirling scrawl with a heart over the 'i' belong to anyone but Chloe?
When she reaches inside the package, she pulls out a USB with a post-it stuck to it that simply reads, "To Beca, From Chloe."
Two glasses of wine and a clean living room later, Beca finally washes her face and brushes her teeth before heading to bed. Chloe's USB has burning a hole in her pocket the entire time.
She flops onto her bed, and after chewing her lip for a solid minute, decides to plug it into her laptop.
What Beca hears sort of blows her mind. It's a mash-up.
It's definitely not one of her own. She remembers each and every mash-up that she'd let Chloe listen to during those flights between LA and Atlanta.
She hears "Make You Feel My Love", by Adele flow into "I Won't Give Up" by Jason Mraz, which melds into "Payphone" by Maroon 5.
Two minutes later, the mash-up ends and Beca can feel tears flowing down both cheeks.
She knows that even without the wine she'd consumed, she'd be crying nonetheless.
As far as she knows, Chloe hadn't known how to mix; she'd always seemed to be in awe when Beca would play her own mash-ups.
Chloe has to have done this on her own.
It's 1 AM in Los Angeles, and she's a little tipsy, but she doesn't give a shit.
She scrambles to find her phone from where it had been squished between the couch cushions and finds Chloe's contact.
She taps the number and waits while the phone rings and then rings again...
If you wish, ya'll can find me on tumblr at commanderbeclexa