[Chloe]
I offered to drive us to a little coffee place in town that I liked to go to with Aubrey sometimes, but more often alone to study. It was quiet and tucked away, and the coffee was fantastic. Not many students frequented it, due to its low-key appearance and location, and so the owner knew me well, and even made my favourite coffee on sight now. We sat in silence in the car on the way there, and I hummed along with the radio to break the monotony of trees and buildings flashing past whilst we said nothing. After a little while, I heard her quietly joining in, also tapping her fingers absentmindedly on the arm-rest. She was still gazing blankly ahead, and I realised that she wasn't aware that she had joined in with the humming. I felt the corners of my mouth twitch, almost smiling as I thought, 'she's so adorable.' But then I remembered that she wasn't my girlfriend anymore, instead a distant being that I was still figuring out how to read at all, and quickly resumed my neutral expression. I did, however, begin to hum the harmony line, our voices blending instantly. I started to sing properly, the words leaving my lips like a release of pent-up sorrow, and I smiled properly as I heard her join in. She was looking at me now, trying to gauge my reaction as she too sung along, adding a lower harmony. Between us and the original artist, we created an intricate 3 part harmony. And then, when it broke into the chorus, she merged effortlessly into a completely new song, fitting it exactly. I stopped singing, awestruck as she blended the two songs together, trailing off when she noticed me staring at her.
"What?" I giggled, excited.
"Beca! That was incredible!" She shrugged, trying to hide a bashful grin.
"It's what I do, make mixes like that." I turned off into the parking lot just behind the row of shops in which the coffee house resided, and pulled into a space.
"We should try to incorporate that into the Bellas! Aubrey has this idea that we need to stick to tradition, which means singing the same songs that we've been doing for years, but we could really change the face of acapella with an arrangement like that!" I looked at her eagerly, and she seemed to stare back with fresh eyes, almost as if she was seeing me for the first time.
"We could try." I beamed at her, and gestured that we should exit the car.
"I doubt Aubrey would take kindly to me trying to modify her precious schedule though Chloe." She mused as we made our way through a back alley and into the small shop.
"Well you'll have me there to help sway her, I'm sure we can get her to consider it if we play her something, show her just how amazing it is." I strode up to the counter, nodding to the elderly woman behind it, Maggie, who owned the place.
"Nice to see you dear. Who's your friend?" She enquired, craning her neck to smile kindly at Beca, who timidly returned it.
"This is my g- my friend. Beca." I blushed, almost referring to her as my girlfriend. I felt so relaxed that I was nearly going back to my old ways. I noticed Beca flinch slightly, but Maggie seemed to take no notice as she reached to shake Beca's small hand.
"Pleasure to meet you dear. Now then, I know what you'll be having Chloe, what about you Beca? What can I get for you today?" I watched as Beca's eyes searched frantically over the list of beverages, then squealed, thinking of something that I knew she'd love.
"She'll have a caramel surprise please." Maggie winked at me conspiratorially, and shuffled off into the kitchen. I dug a note out of my purse, much to Beca's dismay.
"No, no way are you buying my drink for me, not as well as ordering it!" I laughed, stowing the note in the jar behind the counter and leading her off to my favourite table.
"Allow me the honour, just this once." I punctuated my reply with a wink, slinging my bag onto the worn sofa before flopping down beside it. The table was tucked in the corner, behind a protruding wall, and consisted of two well-used but perpetually comfortable sofas facing each other, and a small wooden table in the middle. Beca took the sofa opposite, sitting more carefully and folding herself into the chair with the ever-awkward grace that defined her so perfectly. She glanced at me, and then cleared her throat.
"What exactly did you order for me by the way?" I giggled.
"Trust me, you'll love it." She rolled her eyes, and leant further back into the deep cushions.
"You were right though, this place is pretty cool." I nodded enthusiastically, my hair bouncing around my shoulders, an action that appeared to transfix her.
"Yeah, I knew you'd like it here too." Her eyes rose to meet mine, and she adopted a more serious expression.
"So, about the other night..." I shook my head.
"Don't worry about it Beca. You don't have to apologise. I think we need to talk about it though." She smiled, a small timid smile that set my heart fluttering.
"You can start, I guess. I already said too much." she mumbled, twisting her fingers together anxiously.
"Okay, well I'm going to start by apologising for... well, everything really. You know, back in high school, I heard a lot of rumours... I mean, I just... Is it true?" I stumbled over my words, unsure of how to approach the topic. I was on unfamiliar ground here, and she seemed to realise my discomfort, leaning forward to calm my efforts.
"It's true. I'm really sorry, Chloe." she rested her elbows on her knees and brought her hands up to her face. "I wrote you a letter that night, you know. They never gave it to you because, well, I survived, but I wrote it." She blinked at me through her fingers, nervously awaiting my reaction. My mouth set into a grim line, I was about to reply when Maggie slowly rounded the corner, carrying two steaming mugs. She placed them down in front of us, before turning and hobbling back the way she had come. Beca stared at the contents of her mug, her mouth open.
"Is that..." I nodded smugly.
"Caramel hot-chocolate with whipped cream and cinnamon sprinkles. I knew you'd still have the same mega sweet-tooth as always!" I grinned as she blew on it and eagerly took a sip, humming in delight as she tasted what was one of my own favourite guilty pleasures.
"THIS is liquid heaven. You can't let me come here alone Chlo, I'll get fat and die if I'm allowed to drink this all the time." I noticed her shorten my name, like she had always used to when she was really happy, but didn't mention it for fear of ruining the moment. Instead, I watched her ecstatic face over the top of my own mug, feeling my own happiness double as I matched the girly joy that I knew from the Beca I used to know to this one. I finally had a link between the two, and now I felt that I could see her as not just some radically different version of the same person, but like and upgrade, almost. People change. I had finally gotten my head around that now. Admittedly, when she first turned to face me that day at the activities fair, I was terrified. I was terrified because change and instability had been forced upon me, and yet I think there was an element of excitement hidden, buried in that fear. I was afraid to approach something that wore the remnants of someone that I used to know so well, and that now was a field of land-mine mistakes just waiting for me to stumble and set one off, but a part of me was persistent, perhaps knowing somehow that I'd find my way. Her eyes were the same, and I still got as lost in them as I always had done. They reminded me of stormy weather, the kind that makes you feel all the warmer for hearing it raging outside; safer, tucked up indoors with all the people that you realise you love too much. Behind the safer walls of smirking lips and hidden meanings, her smile, when earned, was still captivating. Beautiful, even. Just as she was. I could have sworn blind that she hadn't grown an inch. Not one. Tiny and slim as ever, her small frame made her all the more endearing, and I ached to pull her into my side again, to run my hands over her cheeks and crack them once again with another deadweight smile. I watched her take joy from something so small as the living embodiment of someone caring for her, and felt the warmth again inside of me, the one that I couldn't help but feel with every nervous glance of her stormy eyes.
"It's rude to stare." She broke the silence, the corners of her mouth curling around the cup as she took another sip. I jolted out of my reverie, feeling my cheeks flush with the embarrassment of being caught watching her.
"Sorry." I mumbled, taking a sip of my own coffee blend. She shook her head, eyes still on her drink, refusing to meet mine.
"It's okay." Finally, she lifted them to catch my gaze, and suddenly the world was spinning back into place. Some days, I feel as though everything around me has shifted completely out of the frame, and everything has changed. It's only ever happened a couple of times; once upon meeting Beca, and once upon leaving her, and know I felt it happen again. It felt as though I was suddenly picked up on a tidal wave, and carried swiftly into another, new version of myself living another, fresh version of my life. It sounds ridiculous, but these shifts leave nothing to hold onto, and nothing is the same. But even as I felt myself changing, I realised that I could still choose to hold onto the very thing causing me to change. I lunged across the table just as she placed her drink down, and grabbed her free hand. This was the new reality. Beca was here, and I had a second chance.
"Beca," I choked out, my heart racing as everything that had happened to me in the past 5 years flashed before my eyes and I re-evaluated my whole current standing. She stared at me, frozen in place as I gripped her hand as tightly as I could.
"I still love you Beca." An all too familiar breathlessness was taking over, and I felt my eyes go wide with terror as my chest tightened unexpectedly, cutting off what remaining oxygen I had been dragging desperately into my lungs. I dropped her hand to clap my hands over my mouth, and I watched as Beca leapt to her feet, quickly running around the table and to my side.
"Chloe? Chloe what's wrong? What's happening?!" I shook my head, my eyelids already drooping and threatening to close as black spots swum across my vision. I felt myself falling, and sweet air flowing back into my lungs as I finally collapsed into her arms. I don't know how long I was unconscious for, but I awoke in her arms, and felt like everything had somehow shifted back into place, back to the original picture frame.
[Beca]
"I still love you Beca." She was holding my hand so tightly I thought it would snap, but as those words left her lips I knew that I wouldn't have minded even if it had. And then, her expression changed. Panic. Pure, terrified panic streamed into her eyes as I saw her try to take a breath in. Why couldn't she breathe? She dropped my hand, and leant back into the sofa, one hand over her mouth as her eyes darted frantically, trying to latch onto something solid. I wasted no time in jumping to my feet, lunging past the table and too her side, just in time for her to collapse into my arms, inhaling deeply as she did so. I sighed with relief, my heart beating twice as fast as I could ever remember it doing. A minute passed before her eyes fluttered open once again, meeting mine with unabashed beauty. I gasped at the pure blue that reminded me of every day I'd ever been happy. She was smiling now, and I stopped thinking.
I leant my head down, until our noses were brushing. Her eyes closed again, and I felt her anxious breath skimming across my ear. I leant closer still, and now our lips grazed delicately, enough to send my stomach plummeting in the way that signals the best part of a rollercoaster, the momentary confusion of a surprise party. As our lips collided, I realised that this was the thing that I had felt missing ever since it had left me. Love. When Chloe ran from it, she somehow managed to take it with her, and I had none left to give until she returned, now, and gave it back to me. And now it was the connection of our mouths, the hunger stored in our tentative touch, hands rusty from years left to their own devices now back on painfully familiar territory. The kiss deepened, and now it was also in the tears that fell from both of our eyes and mixed like watercolours on the dips of our chins and our cheeks, and the lines made when we smiled. We couldn't stop smiling. I felt the lines on my arms burning, but in the way that burning things releases energy. The fire was cleansing, and suddenly I realised that perhaps I'd been running from the one thing that could repair the cracks in concrete, the flaws in the stone that encased my heart, and maybe even remove the iron cast altogether. She was my prison and she was my freedom, and I felt myself escape from my own fortress and run back into the capture of her kiss.
I never stopped loving her.
AN: This seems relatively conclusive, I know, but rest assured: THERE IS MORE TO COME! Things don't just vanish with a kiss, and the story shall continue, so read on :) until next time ~