Just because Chloe never forgets that kiss doesn't mean she doesn't get over it, or try to. She dates Natalie the summer after sophomore year, then sees Tom on and off throughout junior year. (That's not even counting the casual things she has with a few other people, which Aubrey just gives her this look about.)
She and Aubrey grow even more inseparable. By the time they're seniors, Chloe realizes that she would be mad to keep thinking that friendship is the next best thing she could have with her. In so many ways, it already is the best thing. Aubrey herself never stops telling her how she is the most important thing in her life. So what if Chloe once wanted more than that and the memory can still sting?
Life makes you bite a lot of bullets, and it just so happens that this one ricocheted right back at her after Aubrey serenaded her into shooting it. She'll live. She doesn't consider Titanium her latest jam just for that other reason.
Chloe also considers it a sign of how far she's come that she doesn't flinch when, weeks after the ICCA debacle, Aubrey proclaims her mission of redemption by quoting a familiar song.
"It's like what Pat Benatar says," she states, eyes agleam and clutching Chloe's hand. "Knock me down, it's all in vain. I'll get right back on my feet again."
Chloe holds back a ready quip about how that sounds so much like other lyrics she holds close to heart. She only squeezes her best friend's hand. "And I'll help you right up, Bree. Always."
She doesn't flinch, either, when Aubrey surprisingly answers "You and me forever, right?" while looking at her like she's saying I love you. Chloe would say it back if she said it aloud. Just because it means differently now doesn't mean it's no longer true.
When Chloe discovers, by what seems like utter serendipity (or impropriety), that Beca Mitchell can sing Titanium so gloriously in harmony with her and also give the Bellas a shot at new life, she begins to think that she is finally, finally moving on. Beca is intriguing and irresistible, and Chloe's never outright crushed on anyone so badly since a certain blonde strode into her life years ago.
Yes, she feels an extra rush of nervousness at the Riff-Off, when Justin's Wheel of Fortune serves up Ladies of the 80s and Aubrey squeals into action. (It's also because she knows Aubrey's stress levels will ratchet to thrice her height if the Bellas lose in a category their captain is dead-drunk Dixie Chicks serious about.) Yes, she looks warily at Aubrey when the blonde gives them a heads-up in their huddle, and she doesn't quite grin in excitement like the others when Aubrey perfectly cuts off Barb. She holds herself back from the dancing, as well. When the High Note interrupts Aubrey, she holds her breath watching her best friend's reaction.
Then, suddenly, she feels Beca's hand on her back, and feels the cool intensity coming off the younger girl as the gears in her mind turn searching for any song that works. Of course, Beca picks and sings one—epically—and in the unexpected high Chloe finds herself in on the way home, she can't help but smile wryly at what the High Note sang out to silence Aubrey.
The next morning at rehearsals, she also smiles wryly at what they're singing for I Saw the Sign, until her throat begins to ache and Beca and Aubrey snap at each other again.
By the time semifinals roll around, Chloe has to admit a measure of feeling she had for Aubrey on that night years ago is resurfacing. That feeling, however, is plain out pissed—and it's doubled by the fact that she can't seem to convince her co-captain to listen to her about relaxing herself and her expectations, much less about easing off Beca.
By the time semifinals are over—by the time everything she's wanted her entire college life seems over—her fury is white hot and deadly. Chloe loses it, Aubrey loses it, and Chloe really loses it because Aubrey still doesn't get it, doesn't get anything at all, doesn't understand that she's shooting down their last shot at everything the two of them have wanted.
(Well, maybe not everything, after all, because once she and Aubrey have wrestled each other to the ground, pulling each other's heads out of things that aren't hats, all the we-could-have-been-champions and that's-not-an-opinion-for-you-to-haves vanish. The moment they hug after the mash-up in the pool, they both know: compared to their friendship, an ICCA trophy is also just a next best thing.)
That also certainly seems the case when the ICCA trophy is already nestled in Chloe's right arm and Aubrey is hanging on her left, yet Beca is firmly wrapped in both of Jesse's, out in the seats. Watching the two freshmen grin at each other like idiots, with Beca not shrugging off an embrace for once, Chloe feels a twinge in her chest. It's not exactly heartbreak—what's there to be heartbroken about? It's not like she's loved Beca all these years to have her treat her like shit—but she supposes she could call it that. Now she just has to move on from the girl who she thought was going to help her move on. Between Aubrey and Beca and all the Bella-drama they stir, it's just another bullet Chloe has to bite.
Or, as it is often the case, drink down.
So, at the year-end aca-party at the amphitheater, Chloe finds herself downing several concoctions Lily offered in between sips of beer, all the while casting glances at the DJ booth where Beca and Donald are running the show. Fat Amy comes over and whispers that she could still make some special Australian brew, if Chloe promises not to get alcohol poisoning by the time she gets the shipment of secret ingredients. Chloe nods yes.
That's when Aubrey glides in from across the aisles, takes the cup right out of her hand, and orders Amy to take away the half-empty beer bottles within Chloe's reach.
"I think that's enough, Chlo," she says, wrapping an arm around the redhead and steering her off to a side exit. "We should go home."
"No fair!" Chloe whirls around to face her, but ends up reeling and crashing into the taller blonde's frame instead. "I'm trying to get smashed here, Bree!"
"Well, you already are."
"Don't you want to get smashed? It's f-u-u-un."
Aubrey laughs. "I did, once or twice. I had my reasons." Then, she pushes Chloe a bit off her, but holds the redhead's arms as she looks her seriously in the eye. "It was fun before your ninth cup and third bottle, Chlo. There's a difference between 'smashed' and 'dead.'"
Chloe catches a whiff of the novelty beer flavor on Aubrey' breath. The scent, mixed with her perfume, makes Chloe reel again. Aubrey clutches her, but at an angle that gives the redhead full view of the stage and DJ booth below—where Jesse has joined Beca.
"I think I really liked her," Chloe blurts out. "Like, liked her."
Aubrey doesn't even glance behind her shoulder. She smirks and sighs at the same time. "I know." Then, she adds quietly, with a strange look on her face: "I think I hated her for that too."
Chloe stares back at that, but her gaze and her thoughts are too unfocused for her to read anything else in Aubrey's words or expression.
"I'm getting smashed," she repeats. "I'm getting smashed, and I'm going up to her, and I'm going to tell her that I like her and if she ever feels like Jesse's not the one then maybe I could be it. Him. Her."
"Oh, Chlo, that's not a good idea," Aubrey counters softly with a smile, tucking wild strands of the ginger's hair behind her ear. "Liquid courage never did anyone good."
"Fast friends. That's what I told her. 'I think we're going to be really fast friends.' Aubrey, I'm sick of just being friends. I swear she was flirting with me all this time and God, I'm going to her right now and—" She shrugs out of Aubrey's grasp.
"Chloe, stop. You can't just do that."
"Yes. I can. We sang in the shower, Bree, I just did it, we were meant to be. Shoot me down, but I won't fall. I am Ti-ta-ni-ummm! Shoot me down, but I won't fall—"
"Chloe, please don't sing—"
"I will! I'm bulletproof, nothing to lose—"
"—Chloe—"
"—I'll get her to sing with me and like me like I got her to join the Bellas—"
"How? By kissing her before she can sing 'fire away' too?"
There is a sharp intake of breath; neither of them knows who gasps first. Aubrey recoils, realizing what she just said. Chloe takes an unsteady step back, mouth open in shock.
Aubrey reaches out towards her, face flushed and voice suddenly wavering. "Chloe. Chloe, I'm sorry, I meant—"
But even if her head is spinning like a million universes and she feels like she's drowning in each of them, Chloe knows exactly what Aubrey means. The weight of it hits her like a hailstorm.
"Of course I remember," Aubrey finally whispers, after few seconds, all these years. Direct, yet hesitant, her tone sounds like one of surrender. "I never forgot. I was just too terrified to ask you why you never asked me if I did. I didn't want—I didn't want to risk our friendship."
This time, Chloe can't say she's bulletproof.