Pistanthrophobia and Piercings
Pistanthrophobia: Fear of trusting someone due to past events.
Beca Mitchell definitely suffered from that. Until the day her father left, she'd been a cheerful, happy little girl who had . And then he abandoned her for the stepmonster and Barden University and Beca Mitchell retreated all the way into her shell, hiding behind music.
She hid behind her piercings and her tattoos and her music because she was a badass and didn't need anyone else.
When she was five years old, she started her campaign to get her ears pierced. Her best friend Chelsea had her ears pierced and they were the same age, so why couldn't she? After a solid seven months of asking, her mother and father relented. On her sixth birthday, her mother took her to get her ears pierced.
She spent a long time deliberating over which ones she'd choose, before selecting a pair of silver studs with a pink stone in the middle. She climbed up into the chair and squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to see the gun.
In less than a second, both her ears were pierced and her eyes popped open to see.
That was the first one. Her father had told her how pretty they looked, and bought her a pair of teeny tiny little ladybugs.
When her father left, she had been eight years old. Her babysitter at the time, a fifteen year old called Caitlin who picked her up from school every afternoon, had three earrings in each ear and had told her about her plans for a fourth.
That started her campaign to get a second piercing.
"No, Beca", her mother had said in exasperation one afternoon after work, Caitlin blinking guiltily from the other side of the room.
"Puh-lease?"
She was twelve when her mother relented.
By that time in her life, she was too old for a babysitter (although her friendship with Caitlin remained) and her best friend Chelsea was her sworn enemy after an incident that she was denying when her mother asked her.
(Had she kissed Todd at Chelsea's birthday party because of a dare? Her mother would never know.)
The second piercing hurt more than the first.
But she liked it.
She wanted to get piercings all the wayup her ears.
Her mother denied that request.
By the time Beca Mitchell had turned sixteen, she three more piercings in her ears (each one hurting more than the last) and a selection of tattoos on her alabaster skin.
Her mother had been angry (downright furious, if Beca remembered correctly) the day Beca had come home with the amazingly scary earspike. But perhaps she disliked the big-ass rose on her shoulder more.
She got it for her.
(The one person that had never left her.)
By the time she was eighteen and reluctantly at Barden University, her skin was marked with piercings and tattoos (she was fairly sure her ears were more metal than cartilage at that point) and she was looking every bit the rebellious teenager.
(Her father hated it.)
But then Jesse Swanson serenaded his way into her life.
When she first met Jesse Swanson, she decided that it would be best for everyone involved if she steered clear of him. Because everyone she'd ever met in her life, with the exclusion of her mother, had ended up hurting her and she didn't like that. It hurt and she'd like not to go through it again if she could help it, thank you very much.
But that nerd was persistent. He appeared everywhere she was- the radio station, the aca pella auditions, the freaking lecture hall. And he made it his mission in life to torment her (or be her friend, whatever).
"That is an incredibly scary earspike", he said one day at the station. "I bet you could kill someone with that".
"I bet I could too", she said smoothly, glaring down at Justin Bieber's face and shoving him deep into the shelf.
Occasionally, she'd take her piercings out, just to remind herself of what she used to be. Before her father ripped out her heart and stomped on it.
But even then, she didn't see that girl.
Because those piercings were permanent, and left holes where they were supposed to be.
On the day of the finals, the day that they made it to Lincoln Centre in New York City, Aubrey Posen informed her to take out her piercings (just like she had all the other times they had performed).
The other times Beca had agreed.
But not that time.
"Nope", Beca said firmly. "I've got the pitch pipe".
And for the first time in forever, Aubrey had no words.
She looked so different without her piercings. Her face looked softer, she looked more like Beca Mitchell, person who could trust.
Jesse told her so himself.
On the day that she put on her white wedding gown to walk down the aisle- arm in arm with her father, no less- she took out all bar one of her piercings. The one she had gotten when she was six years old and had asked begged for seven months for.
But by the time they had arrived at the reception, her amazingly scary earspike was back in place.
"I like it", her husband whispered to her, sending a shiver down her spine.
That nerd had changed her. He'd believed in her and she'd learn to trust again, all because of that weirdo.