Beca walked alongside Fat Amy, as they headed back towards their dorms. Even though the sun was starting to set, the heat was still stifling. The humidity felt like a sticky wall that Beca had no desire to walk through. She hated it. Beca shoved a chunk of hair out of her face and sighed.
She had made it to dinner on time, but that hadn't stopped Fat Amy from giving her shit – or from stealing her piece of apple cobbler. The blonde never got angry, but any chance she had she took advantage of to give Beca a hard time. It was just too easy to get the smaller girl worked up and frazzled.
When they had first met, Beca had this prickly air about her. Despite her attempt, intimidating was not a look she could pull off. It was less back the fuck off, and more I don't want to talk, please don't try. It was obvious that she wasn't looking for friends (and probably didn't have any). For the most part, she just existed on the fringes of the student body.
Fat Amy had a handful of general classes with Beca their freshman year. It wasn't until she overheard Beca making a sarcastic crack about how bragging about how many students couldn't pass the class was more a reflection of the teaching style than the level of studious dedication from students and that a monkey could do a better job, that Fat Amy even took any interest in her at all.
She'd introduced herself with a story about a runaway monkey that she had been on her flight from Tasmania that had a blue face and looked just like a hairy bat. She had managed to catch it just in time to save the whole plane from going down. After that day, she made it her job to befriend the independent girl.
"Tiny tot, what's up with you tonight? I haven't seen you this moody since the first semester of freshman math. You look like someone ran over your dog. Wait, did someone run over Jesse?! I wondered why he hasn't been following you around." Fat Amy's eyes widened in mock-horror.
Beca laughed, choosing to ignore the name- really it made her sound like a potato. She knew she had been distracted all through dinner, but hadn't realized how sad she was. "No, Jesse has just been busy. Sorry. I just… I had this dream earlier and it's been distracting me ever since."
"Oh yeah, I bet it has. I've had a few of those myself," she said with an obvious wink. "What was it about? Was it about that redhead in Comp, because you haven't stopped staring at her all semester?"
Beca shoot her a withering glare. "It wasn't that kind of dream. Even if it were, I would not be talking about it, especially with you. Actually, we're not even talking about it now. Discussion over."
"That is definitely not the right answer. How do you expect to keep a friend, as fabulous as I am around, if you don't share these things? You know what will happen if you don't tell me - out comes the kraken." Fat Amy waved her arms in Beca's direction like some version of giant squid.
"Oh my God, Fat Amy," Beca said, taking a step back out of her friend's reach. She knew it wouldn't help. Fat Amy was likely to follow her around all week doing that unless Beca told her. "Fine, just put your hands down, geeze." Beca cut her eyes at Fat Amy until she stopped. "You know I hate you right now, right?"
"Keep telling yourself that, shorty. We both know you'd be lost without me." Confidence was definitely not something the blonde was lacking.
Beca cringed remembering the time she had decided to share her confidence with Beca. "Whatever. It isn't that big of a deal. It started out and I was in this small room. It took me a while, but I found my way out. I was in a bedroom and there was a girl sleeping. I tripped over something and woke her up and then I woke up. It just felt incredibly real." Beca had decided not to mention how pretty the girl was or how she'd watched the girl sleep for a few minutes.
Fat Amy had put on a pair of Charlie Chaplin glasses that Beca didn't know she owned. She didn't want to know where they had come from or why Fat Amy was even carrying them around. She continued to walk next to Beca now rubbing her chin as though she were intensely analyzing Beca's words.
"Heavy stuff. I would say that you were repressing your gay, breaking out of a closet and finding yourself with a pretty girl, but we've already established that. Did she have clothes on? Are you sure you weren't sleepwalking? Maybe you're sleep stalking cute girls and watching them sleep like that creepy vampire kid. Never mind- doesn't matter. Wait- you're not that creepy vampire kid, are you?"
Exasperated, Beca snapped, "Fat Amy! Geeze it was just a dream. Also, she had clothes on - I think, but she was definitely covered with blankets."
"So you say. I've got nothing then," she said matter-of-factly. She took the glasses off and tossed them in her bag. "Let me know if you have anymore and I'll reassess."
Beca smirked. "Yeah, that's not happening, but thanks anyways." Beca nodded trying to drop the subject. "Right so... I still have that paper to write for Friday. I should go."
"Alright, text me later, but if I don't answer - well let's just say, it's smoothie night."
Beca grimaced, knowing exactly what smoothie night really meant.
"I'll text you details!" Fat Amy called after her.
Beca shook her head. "Please don't."
XOXOXO
Opening the door to her dorm, Beca found an irritated Kimmy-Jin. "Uh hey," she said, trying to diffuse the tension. It was pointless, but hey, A for effort or some shit like that. Kimmy-Jin was sitting on her bed with a book in her hands, glaring at Beca.
"I realize that you don't care about things like neatness," she said, looking around disdainfully at Beca's side of the room, "but I'd prefer it if you could manage to not leave your books lying around on the floor - especially on my side of the room. Keep your chaos over there Mitchell."
Beca started to protest that the book wasn't even hers, but realized there was no point. Kimmy-Jin never listened to anything she said anyways. She wondered if she sounded like one of those trumpets with the mutes like from Charlie Brown. She heard Kimmy-Jin clear her throat expectantly and snapped back to the present. "Uh yeah, sorry," she mumbled, accepting the book that was thrust against her chest.
Kimmy-Jin stormed out of the room and Beca was left alone with a book that definitely didn't belong to her. At least her roommate had left, hopefully for the rest of the night.
Tossing the book on her bed without looking at it, Beca dropped her bag next to it and headed towards her closet to find something comfortable to change into. She stripped down and put on a baggy batman t and matching boy shorts. They had been a Christmas gift from her friend Cynthia Rose. Knowing her friends, the gift was probably meant as a gag, but she actually liked them.
Moving around the room, she quietly sang Sweet Dreams. Maybe the Eurhythmics weren't exactly trendy, but it had a good rhythm to it. She just needed to find another song to meld in with it. Beca put her hair up in a messy bun, and used a face wipe to clean up a bit. Despite the nap, she was still tired- too tired to go all the way down to the showers just to wash her face.
Her face was mostly clean by the time she was done, except for the remaining eyeliner that never really washed off until it wore off on its own. Looking at herself in the mirror, she realized how black under her eyes was. Sleep, she mumbled to herself, gotta get more sleep.
Plugging her phone in, Beca plopped down on the bed and picked up the mystery book to look at it. Ophelia by Lisa M. Klein, the cover read.It looked like something Emily might read. It wasn't as if she had a string of friends who frequented her dorm anyways. Reaching a hand over her head towards her desk, she grabbed her phone and quickly dialed the freshman's number.
"Hey Beca! How are you? I was just about to call you. Can I come over for a minute? I think I left one of my books there." Emily said with an exuberance that was almost grating. It was the same level of excitement she showed anytime Beca paid her direct attention.
Beca rolled her eyes. "Hey Em. Sure, that's actually what I was calling you about? Kimmy-Jin found it on the floor and apparently that's a mortal sin around here, but I didn't know who it belonged to."
"Sorry about getting you into trouble again. Who else's would it have been? Have you been bringing anyone home with you lately?" The younger woman teased.
"Ugh, no. Stop. As if I could bring anyone home, even if there was someone. Kimmy-Jin would lose her mind. Hey, you like books. Who's Ophelia anyways? She's from Hamlet right?"
Emily chuckled. Sure, she liked books, but Beca always just assumed that she would have the answer to all things literature related. "Yes, she's from Hamlet. She's basically his love interest."
"Huh," Beca said, thoughtfully, "And he's the one that goes crazy?" She'd always been more into fantasy and horror than the things that took her ten times as long just to decipher the most basic of sentences.
"That's the one. Why?" Beca shrugged, even though Emily couldn't see her. "No reason really, just wondering."
"This coming from you? Wow I'm impressed." Emily was actually impressed. It was cool to see Beca even mildly curious about something she was so into. It made her feel kinda cool.
Beca let out a small growl. "Are you going to tell me about it or not?"
"Oh right. Okay, so Ophelia and Hamlet kind of have this flirty thing going on. Then her dad and brother are all 'he just wants to sleep with you and then he'll toss you aside because royalty don't get to choose who they marry, especially out of love'. So she starts to ignore him. Then he comes back, but he's mean to her because he's started to pretend to be crazy- really, he kind of already is crazy. He strings her along a little bit, starts acting like a giant asshole. She doesn't know how to deal with everything going on and starts going crazy herself. She slips into the river and just kind of gives up and drowns." Emily finished. She waited silently for Beca's outrage and wasn't disappointed.
"Well that's not morbid at all," Beca said flatly, before letting her annoyance take over. "Why the hell would she kill herself over some jackass? That's ridiculous! I can't believe people think women are so freaking weak that they need to be defined by men. Not to mention, was she so stressed out that she really didn't think she could do anything else with her life except die? And like... not even really kill herself, just stop fighting and give in to whatever is going on around her? I mean, geeze…how passive can you be?" Beca trailed off, catching her breath. It wasn't like her to care about something like Shakespeare, but the whole idea pissed her off.
There was a knock on the door and Beca rolled over onto her stomach, dropping the phone on her bed. "It's open," she yelled. Knowing it was Emily, she didn't bother to cover up. Despite what people would think, Beca really didn't care about people seeing her half-dressed. Naked she cared about, but she was covered and that was enough for her to not give a shit. Besides, it was just Emily.
Being in the Bellas had quickly erased any notions of being shy. There had been more than one time they'd had to change in the bus or all crammed into one public bathroom.
"Beca, seriously, maybe you should just go mix something. I have never heard you get so worked up about something academic, it's kind of freaking me out," Emily said, actually enjoying hearing her friend get so passionate about the topic.
Beca huffed. "Ugh it just gets under my skin. It's just such stereotypical misogyny and wrong. You know how I feel about that crap. It's frustrating and evil."
Rolling her eyes, Emily glanced around and spotted her book. She walked over to the desk and glanced over at Beca with a worried look. She was too close to Beca's mixing equipment to feel a hundred percent safe, but her book was laying on the ground underneath the desk. Something about Beca caught her eye and she started cracking up.
Beca jumped at the sound of the younger woman's laughter. "Jesus Em, what the hell?" She rolled over, saw Emily near her desk, and took what should have been a calming breath.
Emily pointed at her still laughing, before catching her breath. She saw the dark look in Beca's glare and quickly calmed down. Throwing her hands up in what she hoped looked like a plea of innocence, she spoke, "Keep calm and call Batman? Really Beca?" Emily held her humanities book and notebook against her chest and started to giggle again.
"I would throw something at you, but you're standing next to my equipment. Step away, Junk and stop reading my ass," Beca grumbled, gesturing for Emily to move away from her desk.
Emily laughed, but walked back towards Beca's bed. She nudged against the DJ's legs and sat down. "Maybe if your ass wasn't hanging out on display I wouldn't have noticed. Why don't you have clothes on?" Emily questioned.
Beca sat up and grabbed a pillow to cover her lap. She crossed her arms and scowled. "I have clothes on thank you very much. Besides, it gets hot in here. Every time I try to turn the fan on Kimmy-Jin gets all moody," she whined. "Two years in a fucking row. How the hell did I get so lucky? I even put in a request to room with Fat Amy. I swear my dad has it out for me. How else would this happen? "
"Well as an RA, Amy did get a single this year. Maybe Kimmy-Jin requested YOU again," Emily teased.
Beca gave her a horrified look and then shook her head, erasing the frightening thought from her mind. If Kimmy-Jin had wanted to room with her again, surely it had something to do with murdering her in her sleep. "Who the hell thought Fat Amy would be a good choice as an RA anyways? That's terrifying."
Emily just grinned in return. "Well I should get going. I have a paper due next week and I should really get working on it. Thanks for letting me swing by and grab my stuff."
"Yeah, yeah," Beca said, waving off the younger woman's thanks. It was kind of annoying the way Emily felt the need to thank her for every - single - thing, but she was slowly starting to become immune to it. "Here's your book," she said, grabbing Ophelia and holding it out for the younger girl.
Emily shook her head. "That's not my book Beca. I came by for these," she said, lifting the book and notebook in her lap." She grabbed the book from Beca and looked at the back before opening it up. "This is why you were asking about Hamlet. I was totally starting to worry about you."
Beca snatched the book back and fell back on her bed with a petulant groan. "Well who the hell's book is it?"
"No idea, but you shouldn't stress out about it. Geeze," the younger woman said. "Maybe you should try reading it. It might give you a clue. I gotta go. Try to find something to do that doesn't involve overthinking this."
Beca nodded. As an afterthought she announced, "I think I'm just gonna go to bed. I've had a really weird day and I have a feeling it has to do with a little too much caffeine and not enough sleep."
"I've been telling you that for days, but it's not like you ever listen," Emily chided. "I'll talk to you tomorrow Beca," she add brightly. Emily stood up and headed out of the dorm.
"G'nite," Beca said, before blindly waving goodbye over her shoulder at the girl. The door shut and Emily was gone. Beca got up to lock the door, and then made her way back to bed.
Beca picked up the book and opened it to read the flap. It didn't sound quite as bad as what Emily had told her. Still a little too sappy, but it did make it seem like Ophelia had brains and character in this version. As the main character how passive and one dimensional could she really be?
Beca, who hadn't willingly read a book all year, curled up on her side and opened the book. It was a position she had perfected by the age of eight. She began to read.
Books had always been a part of her life. Her mother and grandmother had read to her every night and she'd picked that habit up. As a child, she had been a complete bookworm, devouring them like she needed them to survive.
As she had gotten more into more, her love of books, while never diminished, was put on the back burner. Once her dad, who taught literature, started taking more of an interest in her life and schooling she'd pushed her bookworm nature fully aside in an act of sheer protest.
She missed it though. She had planned to read just a few pages, but an hour later, she was halfway through and fighting to keep her eyes open. She'd missed this. Feeling content with something so familiar in her hands and the smell of printed ink upon hand worn pages, Beca let herself drift off to sleep. She lost her grip on the book and it dropped onto the bed next to her.
XOXOXO
Beca woke up in complete darkness. Again. This time the oddity didn't take her by surprise. Even with the lights off in her dorm, there were always the lights of she and her roommates electronics speckled throughout the room. Now it was pitch black. She knew she wasn't in her bed, which led her to only one other conclusion. She was back in the closet.
Without hesitation or panic, Beca felt around the enclosed space for the doorknob that she now knew existed. It took a moment, but soon enough she found herself in the blonde's bedroom. Even after only one visit, it was already becoming a familiar sight.
The bedroom was empty this time, no mystery girl in sight. The light next to the bed was on and she got a good look at the bedroom. It was kind of dreary and cheerful all at the same time. The muted greys and yellows reminded her a bit of a rainstorm and yellow boots. It wasn't depressing, more like something nostalgic and innocent.
Beca could hear someone talking from somewhere outside the room and headed towards the noise. She could always wait it out in the bedroom until she woke up or whatever, but being caught in some strangers bedroom seemed like it might go down pretty badly if she were caught. At least if she attempted to explain, it might seem like she held no ill intentions.
Just the fact that she was rationalizing all this in her mind freaked her out. She knew that a dream was the most logical explanation, but it didn't feel like a dream. There were too many details. Her thoughts made sense. She had too much control over her own actions.
Beca could feel the anxiety in her stomach build at the thought of seeing the other woman, but tried not to think about what that could mean. Dream or not she didn't even know anything about the other woman. Scared is what she should have been feeling, not this fluttery anxiety that felt like she was headed into a blind date.
She caught her reflection in one of the mirrors and rolled her eyes. Of course she had decided to sleep in her underwear. Turning, she looked over her shoulder and checked herself out. Despite what Emily said, her ass wasn't completely hanging out. It still wasn't exactly a first meeting outfit.
Explaining how she ended up in this woman's home was bad enough, but now she had to explain why she was in her underwear. She could always borrow some of the blonde's clothes, but was that weirder? Beca had no idea. She tried to think of how she could explain it, but there was really no good way to get out of this mess.
Maybe the woman would have some insight into why Beca kept waking up in her apartment. She knew she wasn't that lucky though. This whole situation was bizarre.
Pushing the door gently open, Beca looked around cautiously. All that was outside was a small landing. There was a bookcase crammed with books, a floor lamp, an overstuffed loveseat, and a staircase leading down to the rest of the place.
Beca made her way down the stairs, letting her fingers slide against the smooth wood of the bannister. She stopped halfway down, trying to calm her breathing. There was no going back now. One more step and she thought she'd probably be able to see around the wall and meet her unofficial hostess. She took the next step and leaned forward to peek around the corner.
The blonde was sitting on a poppy-red couch, legs curled beneath her, talking on the phone. It was the first real look Beca had gotten and her eyes roamed over the girl studying her features. Her hair was short, about chin length and her eyes were the bluest Beca had ever seen. She was gorgeous. The kind of gorgeous that made Beca's breath catch and stomach feel like it was dropping out of her body.
The blonde was fingering a strand of her hair, staring at it disdainfully. "Ashley, I hear what you're saying, but I really want to let my hair grow back out," the young woman was saying. She looked up and her eyes locked with Beca's. "What the hell?!"
Beca gulped and felt her heartbeat quicken. She could feel the blood flowing faster throughout her body. A significant amount of that blood was rising to her cheeks. Beca cleared her throat and quickly tried to pull her shirt down, hoping at the very least she could cover her ass. "I'm not some crazy weirdo, let me explain. I don't know how it keeps happening, but I keep waking up in your closet and-"
"I know you keep telling me the blonde hair is working for me, but I just don't feel like myself. I'm getting tired of feeling like I need to change everything about myself. It never used to be this way." The young woman ran a hand over her face in frustration.
Not knowing what else to do, Beca called out to the other woman. She was met with nothing, not even a hint of reaction. "What the actual fuck?" Beca wondered, forehead furrowing in confusion.
Taking a chance, Beca walked over to the couch and poked the blonde. She waved a hand in front of her face. There was zero reaction to any of it. Whoever this girl was, she couldn't tell Beca was there - at all.
"Well this is an interesting turn of events," Beca said to herself. Suddenly realizing how close she was to the blonde, she stepped back. She could feel the blush return to her cheeks and shook her head in embarrassment. Just being that close to a complete stranger, albeit a beautiful one, should not have had that effect on her.
"I told you I'm not going tonight. I don't care if it's important. I feel like shit and I just need to rest. I look like hell anyways," the blonde said, pouting at the lecture she seemed to be getting.
Beca smirked at the girl. She definitely did not look like hell. Glancing around the room, she noticed that it was attached to the kitchen. A pile of papers was sitting on the bar. It looked like it might be a stack of mail - mail that surely would have the name of the mysterious woman.
The blue and white kitchen was clean, not spotless, but tidy. It was that I use it, but don't leave a mess kind of clean. Not the I never use this room and it's just for show kind of clean that Beca knew she would have once she got her own place. Cooking was so not her thing.
Smiling at the colors, Beca turned back to the living room and noticed the color scheme in the entire house just kind of blended nicely from one room to the next, each containing a part of the others, but focusing on a different shade altogether.
It was warm and friendly and made her feel at home. She grinned at the blonde and noticed the stairs from this angle. Each speck of wall between the stairs was painted a graduating shade of the blue creating on ombre effect all the way up. Every detail just fit. It was obvious that the girl had left no detail overlooked of unfinished.
"I will, I promise. I'm just going to take a bath and finish my book if I can find it. I swear I left it on my nightstand, but now I don't know where it is. Yeah, I'm sure it's around here somewhere. It sucks because it was starting to get really interesting." The blonde was rolling her eyes at something the other person was saying, but made no attempt to cut back in.
She couldn't help but admire the blonde's figure as she stood up. She was just a little taller than Beca, with a lean but toned frame. Her legs were visible between her shorts and the black legwarmers she had on and arms were well defined, but the loose shirt, reading Pluto never forget, gave no hints at what might lie underneath. She had a waistline most girls would kill for and those hips. They practically screamed at Beca to reach out and grab a hold of them. The word sinful came to mind. Shaking her head, she tried to distract herself from the thoughts that were forming. "Pluto? You're a nerd Blondeie," she said fondly, as the woman walked by her.
Beca followed her into the kitchen and leaned against the counter to watch her. She was mesmerizing and Beca didn't know why she couldn't pry her eyes away. She had always had an appreciation for pretty girls, but this was different. The other girl filled up the kettle and turned her back to put it on the stove.
Finally able to look away, Beca picked up a magazine she spotted on the counter. She started to turn it over when the blonde began to speak once more.
"Yes I know Ophelia is a depressing character, but this book totally isn't. Ashley, stop. I'm not going all angsty-depressed actor on you. I promise. Go get ready and let me enjoy my night off. I'll talk to you tomorrow." The blonde hung up the phone with a defeated sigh.
Beca's head shot up in surprise.
Her previous visit.
Falling over.
Reaching out.
Grasping something in her hands.
The book.
Ophelia.
The images flew through her mind in bursts, pieces falling into place. Definitely not a dream, she concluded. The book Chloe was looking for was definitely the same one lying on Beca's bed back in her dorm.
Needing to know more, Beca quickly flipped the magazine in her hands over. Chloe was all she could read, the last name blurred out by a stain from some spill. She reached for another piece of mail - and came to in her dorm.
Beca sat up and found the numbers on her alarm clock glowing. An hour had passed since she'd fallen asleep. Kimmy-Jin was in the room and, none too quietly, unpacking her backpack and setting up her study materials on her desk.
Beca dropped back onto her bed with a huff. She grabbed the book, holding it against her chest, and stared up at the ceiling as her mind raced to a million different places. Chloe, she thought, a small smile tugging at her lips. A small part of her was scared she'd never see her again, but then she hugged the book tighter. She had been there twice now, surely she could find her way back once more.
A/N: I'm sorry for the time it's taken me to update this. I did go back and fix a few things in chapter 1, but really, if you don't feel like going back you're not missing anything. A few notes:
My paragraphs are a mess – I'm sorry. I don't paragraph well; I never have. In junior high, my friends threatened to stop reading my notes because of this. Now I just make up shit when it feels right.
I also suck at punctuating dialog. I'm 99% positive I use dashes wrong. I write it like I want it to sound and I'm making no apologies.
My biggest pet peeve: I don't KNOW why there aren't clothes in the closet. I have zero good reason for this other than it seemed scarier for Beca to wake up on in an empty room rather than figure out instantly she was in a closet. Now it's just stuck.
I suck at the visual details. I don't know how to make you see what I see. I either leave it underdeveloped it or overkill it. If you're curious to see some of my ideas…. I made a board at Pinterest ashnscrbbllnd/intertwined
Feel free to come bug me on tumblr. Ashinscribbleland .
I think that's it. Let me know what you guys think! Any theories? Curiosities? Rants? Questions?