They woke in each other's arms. That morning everything just seemed brighter, happier, and they felt particularly closer than before. Beca had her arms wrapped around Chloe from behind; they both knew that the other was awake but they just lay there content. After a while, Chloe rolled over to face Beca. "Hi," she said. Beca smiled back at her, but before she could respond Chloe leant in and kissed her. The smaller girl sprung out of bed, but Chloe caught her hand just in time.
"Whoa… did I do something wrong?" Beca shook her head, and then headed into the bathroom. From there she called out, "I have to brush my teeth." Chloe laughed and replied, "You really don't have to do that just for one kiss, you smell fine."
"I know, but I feel less self-conscious if I do. At least let me just use mouthwash?"
Chloe let out an exaggerated sigh and called out, "Fine."
A brief moment later, Beca came back into the room and crawled beneath the bedcover again. She gave Chloe a kiss and just as she was about to pull away again the redhead pulled her closer, and soon she was on top of her, kissing along her neck and collarbone. She couldn't help but smile against Beca's skin as she placed tender kisses whilst being careful not to leave a mark, when all of a sudden they heard footsteps from outside the door. A voice rang through the air – "Girls, you need to get up!"
They flew apart from each other and Beca fell out of the bed just as Sarah walked in. "Are you okay?"
"Yep. Fine thanks. You startled me…" Beca said, blushing profusely. Sarah apologised before offering to give the girls a lift to school, on the proviso that they could get dressed in five minutes. They hurriedly got dressed, occasionally sneaking a kiss, and then ran downstairs to grab a slice of toast each that was left out on the counter for them before running out to the car.
It was the third lesson of the day and Beca was sitting in her English class, listening to the teacher drone on and on. "In the book 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin', one soldier expresses homosexual love for another man. In your opinion, what does this do to the quality of the book? Does it make it more modern – ahead of its time maybe? Or something else. What do you all think?" That particular question caught Beca's attention. One girl on the opposite side of the room put her hand up and said, "Personally I think that it degrades the book. It would be a perfectly good enough plot if it just showed the two men as good friends, but by including the sin of him being gay it ruins it."
Beca couldn't help but sit there with her mouth wide open. Most of her classmates were nodding in agreement with this statement. "So do I take it that the whole class take this view?" the teacher asked, and apart from one other girl sitting at the back of the class, Beca was the only person who didn't nod her head. "Bullshit," she said bluntly.
"I take it you disagree, Miss Mitchell?"
"Oh I disagree. I think it's sick to say that it degrades the book. If it was a man and woman in love, you would have no problem with it. In fact – you may even enjoy it as a good romantic subplot. But how can you point out their genders as a disgrace? It's exactly the same as racial discrimination and it sounds so old fashioned. If humanity isn't separated by different races, why the hell should love be separated by different genders?"
The whole class was silent, when all of a sudden the girl who spoke first called out, "Oh my god… Beca's a dyke!" Everyone burst into fits of laughter despite the teacher's attempts to quieten them down. "No, I…I… That's not what I…" She tried to protest, but it felt like everyone's eyes were staring right through her and could see the truth shining out from her. Eventually she gave up and stopped fighting back, and the teacher shouted, "Alright! Quieten down!"
For the rest of the lesson Beca sat with her head in her hands, wondering what the hell she was going to do. By the end of lunch, everyone had heard about it. As usual, Aubrey and Fat Amy spent lunch with Beca and Chloe and thankfully didn't bring it up. The bell rang at the end of lunch and Aubrey said quite simply, "You're still Beca." What was shocking though, was when the two girls arrived home even Sarah had heard about it. The woman's straight brown hair fell onto her shoulders; she looked young for her age and her kind features complimented this. She saw the embarrassed look on Beca's face – even her own daughter was holding her breath, anxious to see how she would respond to the news.
"Don't look so uncomfortable Beca, like I said I want you to feel at home here. More importantly I want you to feel that you can be yourself. And don't ever feel embarrassed to bring girls back here – but the same rule applies to you as it does to Chloe; no boyfriends in the bedroom. Well… no girlfriends. Just girl-friends. I mean, girls who you're friends with but not girls-"
"It's okay, I get it," Beca replied with a smile and slight sigh of relief. "Thank you, Sarah." Mrs Beale smiled back and nodded, and then gave both the girls a peck on the cheek before heading off to work.
They went into the dining room and put their books out on their table and began their homework. After a couple of minutes Chloe said, "Well that was good."
"I like your mom, she's so kind."
"I know."
"She seemed so… accepting. Do you think you could come out to her at some point?" Beca asked cautiously. "Maybe… It still scared me though."
"What about your dad? I know he's still in the army but what do you think he'll be like?"
"I don't even want to go there."
For the next couple of hours they sat in silence finishing their work, and then both shut their books at the exact same time. From the hallway came the message ringtone from Beca's phone, and then it went off again, and again. They walked out to get it before heading upstairs, but as she stared at her phone Chloe noticed Beca's shocked expression as she read the screen. "What?" she peered over Beca's shoulder to see the screen and gasped at what she saw: '52 new messages'. She laughed and then said, "Wow, you're popular."
As they entered Chloe's bedroom, Beca's expression dropped drastically when she started to read the messages. 52 texts from the same number, all saying pretty much the same thing over and over again. "Dyke", "freak", "go kill yourself". Chloe grabbed the phone and read the messages for herself. "Beca…" she began, but the smaller girl just brushed her off and got ready for bed. It had been a long day and she just wanted to go to bed and ignore the shit, which she explained to Chloe. They stretched out on the mattress and Chloe wrapped her arm protectively around Beca, desperate to somehow keep her safe from the abusive words.
The clock read two in the morning when Chloe was woken abruptly by Beca shaking her back and forth. "Piss off…" she mombled out as she rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. Annoyingly, Beca persisted in shaking her. Chloe began to wake up, sensing that there must be something urgent for her friend to want to disturb her so badly. She turned to face Beca and turned the bedside lamp on. All she saw was blood. Blood on her own clothes, from where Beca had been touching her; blood dripped on the floor leading from the en suite bathroom; but most of all, blood all over a pale faced Beca. In an instant she was fully alert, awake, and scared for her girlfriend's life.
"I didn't mean to. I don't think I meant to…" Beca managed to say before collapsing onto the floor. Looking desperately around for a cloth or anything to put on the cut and stop the bleeding, Chloe found nothing. As a last resort she tore off her pyjama top and sat there in her shorts and bra, which she had forgotten to take off last night. She pressed the fabric onto Beca's arm and applied as much pressure as she could gather the strength for, and prayed for the blood to stop. There was a hospital at the top of her road and she didn't hesitate in picking Beca up and heading there with the tiny girl in her arms. Thankfully, she had joined enough sports teams and wrestled with her older brother – who was now in college - long enough to be able to carry Beca without too much difficulty.
Tears were streaming down her cheeks as she opened the front door, and was both shocked and grateful that her mom was pulling into the driveway. It must have been fate that she was working the early finishing shift that night. Through her tears, Chloe managed to say, "Help." Sarah took Beca from Chloe's arms and hastily put her on the backseat. They both clambered into the car and Sarah sped to the hospital. For the short journey, Chloe kept putting pressure on the cut. They were there in less than a minute and before Sarah had even turned off the engine, Chloe jumped out still wearing her bra and shorts and picked up Beca from the seat.
Blood was now smearing across her stomach and chest as she held Beca impossibly close and ran into through the doors to A&E. She was completely drained of energy but didn't stop for breath before screaming for help. Within seconds a doctor ran over with a gurney and she was whisked away, whilst a nurse held Chloe back from running after her. "Please help her!" she screamed hysterically, and her stomach tightened with grief. She clung onto the nurse as her legs began to give way and her vision was entirely blurred with tears. Other people in the waiting room found it hard to watch this blood-stained girl collapse to the floor in grief, sobbing out the words, "You have to save her!"
Sarah hurried in through the door and her heart broke at the sight before her. "You have to help my girlfriend! Please!" Chloe sobbed from the floor, the words flying out between gasps for air. It took a while for it to sink in to Sarah what her daughter had just said, but then it hit her. Her girlfriend. The doctors crashed Beca through the doors to save her, and Sarah came back down to reality and put that issue aside for the moment as she ran over to her daughter. Her gay daughter.