Aubrey
As soon as you start thinking about the beginning, it's the end.
Aubrey couldn't remember where she read that, but the realization ultimately brought her back to her senses. Unfortunately it also came with crippling self-contempt. The more she turned it over in her mind the more it became clear this devastation was her own undoing; that catching her fiancé in bed with another woman was a fucked-up cliché she already saw coming a mile away, but chose to ignore.
How could I have been so stupid?
"Emotions," she murmured vacantly to Chloe, as they watched her phone vibrating on top of Aubrey's sheets for the umpteenth time. "They are not your guide. The guide is your mind."
Chloe, who had navigated said emotions over the past week with admirable sympathy, only jerked her head towards her phone. "You'll have to answer that someday."
"If you are guided by your emotions and use your mind only to rationalize or justify them somehow, then you are acting immorally – you condemn yourself to failure, to misery…"
"You are quoting Ayn Rand and it scares me."
"She was right. Acting on your emotions will achieve nothing but your own destruction."
"She was also a nasty old chauvinist who publicly admired a serial killer…but sure, she sounds like a real example of rationality."
"All rationality flies out the window when your fiancé cheats on you with his cousin."
Chloe shook her head and looped an arm around her. "I liked it better when you were just crying," she sighed gloomily.
And just like that, Aubrey's chest was tightening again.
"You can't just replace grief with anger, Bree. I know what you're doing. It's unhealthy."
Aubrey only shrugged.
"Does he still come by your office building?" Chloe asked.
"I don't know."
"Maybe you should consider talking to him. Get it over with."
"No. There is no explanation for what he did. Nothing."
"I agree. But I know you'll keep wondering where it all went wrong, and you'll keep thinking you had something to do with it. You didn't," Chloe stressed firmly. "But maybe you have to hear him actually say it. It might give you some sort of peace. Or at least, a chance to punch him in the penis."
"I don't want anything to do with him." Aubrey looked down her hands; they had balled into fists. "And it's incredibly stupid of him not to get the hint."
Chloe stuffed the phone under the couch cushions and started kneading Aubrey's shoulders.
"What would he even say? 'Sorry I fucked my cousin, please don't tell anybody'?"
"Well, are you going to tell anybody?"
She had thought about it. All week she was preoccupied by the twisted clusterfuck that was Laurence and Arabella. One night she even had the strongest desire to go out and see Laurence. She wanted to fight, to point out all his lies, to make him break down the way he was doing to her now. She knew just the right words to say, too. I knew it was happening. I told you never to lie. You're a fucking coward. Did you get a kick out of imagining her every time you were balls-deep inside me? Which of us was the better lay? Here's a fun mind exercise: what would happen if I tell everyone?
She was so drunk that night that she was halfway out the door when she realized what she was doing. She had to lock herself in the bathroom after that. When she came to the next morning she was shivering in the tub, disgusted and a little afraid of herself.
"Don't do that," Chloe cautioned, the silence having gone on too long.
"I wasn't going to."
"But you've thought about it."
"Of course I've thought about it, Chloe, I've cried about it all week." Aubrey reached for the remote instead, turning on the TV. "But I'm not going to do that. That's just fucked up."
"Good." Chloe gave her shoulder one last squeeze. "So, what now?"
"I don't know. Can we please just start drinking?"
Her chest hurt so much these days. The truth was her entire world was shaken. She'd look at people at work or in the street, going about their daily business like sheep, and she'd give anything to feel that normal again.
She didn't want closure. She didn't want pleasant things to remember. If anything, she wanted to remember how much this hurt, so she'd never make the same mistake again.
When it was Portia who started appearing outside the law offices of Bristol and Cahill, Aubrey couldn't ignore her.
"I miss you," Portia said, as they huddled in the Starbucks across the street. "I know things are bad, but I hope you'd still hang out with me and Will sometime."
"I don't know." And then, before she could stop herself, "How's Laurence?"
Portia shook her head. "I haven't talked to him since…since that day. But Will visited him last week. He said he has never seen Laurence that decrepit…he seems to be doing terribly."
Aubrey looked out the window, not really seeing anything. How cute. Laurence's fashion choices were suffering. How tame compared to her past two weeks, those days when she could barely get out of bed, those hours she cried herself to sleep.
By the time Portia broke the silence, her coffee had gone cold.
"Talk to me, Bree."
"We are talking."
"I mean tell me how you're holding up. How I can help."
"I don't know." It had recently become Aubrey's go-to answer for everything. "Did you know about Laurence and Arabella?"
"No. Not recently. Believe me, I was just as surprised that day."
"But you knew this happened before."
Portia nodded, not looking at Aubrey.
"It did, when we were at Dalton." She began stirring her tea. "I should've said something, that day you asked. I should've just told you. Laurence and Arry were always too close…bordering on inappropriate. But accusing your childhood best friend of having an incestuous affair was not a conversation any of us wanted to have…"
"So what, you and Will just ignored it?"
Portia flinched. "If you must know, we brought it up every time Arry was in town. Laurence always brushed us off. Said he knew what he was doing. Arry has this strange influence on him, and eventually there was nothing more we could do.
"We hoped he'd tire of the whole thing when he left for Harvard…and he did, for a while. You two got engaged, he was happy, he was really making an effort. So I thought that was the end of it. He was going to introduce you to Aunt Helena, for God's sake. But then you started asking about Arry…"
"Why did you lie?"
"Because I really believed Laurence and Arabella wouldn't happen again." Portia threw up her hands. "You've become one of my best friends, Bree. I didn't want to say anything that would lead to you and Laurence fighting or something, okay? So I chose to believe Laurence loved you, that the past didn't matter –"
"You could have saved me a lot of trouble that day."
"I'm sorry." Portia looked up, eyes glazed with tears. "I still think Laurence is serious about you, Bree. He just lost his way. It was hardly his fault. Blame it on Arry. She just wouldn't leave him alone."
"Don't be stupid, Portia." Aubrey's voice was hard. "It was both of them."
When they stepped out into the freezing January afternoon, Portia embraced her.
"Bree, please," she said into Aubrey's shoulder. "Don't shut me out."
Aubrey broke free from her grasp. "I couldn't be more grateful you called Chloe that day," she said, maintaining her businesslike tone. "But I can't be around you right now."
On the fourth week Laurence started hounding her Brooklyn apartment. Aubrey arrived home one day to find him sitting on the stoop. He was decrepit, as Portia had described: his eyes were sunken, his skin was pallid, and the stubble on his chin had developed to a full beard.
The last time he waited like that was at their old apartment in Boston. He had his own key but on Fridays he never let himself in. He sat on the stoop until she came home from her six pm class, and the moment she saw him was always the moment her weekend officially started.
One time he turned up dressed in Richard Gere's iconic Armani coat from American Gigolo. Aren't you getting enough attention just being yourself? she joked. It was true: Harvard preppies passing the street waved and lusted after her handsome all-American boyfriend all the time. But she never felt jealous. Laurence used to only have eyes for her. You're the only girl for me, he used to say. I can't wait to marry you, he used to say.
She promptly hailed a cab and asked for the nearest hotel, thankfully before he spotted her. She should change her number. She should move to a new apartment. She should return the engagement ring sitting on her finger. She dug her nails into palms, forcing back tears.
She was going insane.
She pocketed the ring and hit up the hotel bar, next day's work be damned. A man offered to buy her a drink. He was fairly attractive, had nice blue eyes, and wore a sharp suit her sartorial ex-fiancé would wear.
It might explain why she stood in a different hotel room four gin and tonics later, while another man unzipped her dress. His cologne wasn't Dior and he tasted of cigarettes. When he indelicately palmed her left breast Aubrey could no longer pretend he was someone else. Her control shattered. She began to cry.
The man was confused, and then, alarmed.
"What did I do?"
She shook her head, unable to speak. He watched her for a while and warily handed back her clothes.
"I'm sorry," he offered nervously a half-hour later as he escorted her to the elevators. "You seemed really into it when we were at the bar…just…sorry."
"It wasn't your fault." Aubrey fought to maintain her composure; she had already imposed too much on this stranger's patience. "I changed my mind. I've just ended things with someone..."
He nodded, more out of relief than actual sympathy. Aubrey did not mind. His reaction was already kinder than what she deserved.
For some reason, right before the elevator doors closed, he pressed a half-empty pack of Dunhills in her hand.
Something happened to Aubrey that night. She started smoking again.
She had picked up the vice post-Barden graduation, and it continued way into her second year in law school. It was nothing serious or consuming. She used to keep the same pack of American Spirit for months, only reaching for it during her most stressful moments.
Laurence, however, hated it. Smoking was the one thing he begged her to stop doing when she first agreed to move in with him. After she packed her possessions in a borrowed car, she smoked her last cigarette by the curb and thought she was finally doing okay for the first time in a long while.
Something went very wrong along the way. In the present she was in a hotel balcony, chain-smoking some guy's pity cigarettes while fiddling with an engagement ring that no longer held promise. She put it on and was struck at how perfectly it fit in her hand. Laurence had never bought her jewelry before, knowing she wasn't fond of them. She didn't own any rings and the only jewelry she ever kept was a pair of diamond earrings from her late mother. How he guessed the exact ring size, she would never know.
As if she wasn't furious enough, Laurence stopped coming.
She had gotten so used to his distant presence that he had become part of her routine. Or maybe she had never really removed him. She still saw him as often as she did when they were together, only these days she always made sure she saw him first, and she could no longer strut towards him in that certain way she knew drives him mad, because she had to walk away. And every time she did it gutted her more than the last.
"I can forgive him."
They were at Chloe's house, now in more inebriated circumstances than the last time Aubrey visited. Chloe looked like she wanted to smash the bottle of tequila onto Aubrey's head.
"You're kidding."
"I can live with what he did."
"No. You're stupid drunk and looking for a booty call."
"I'm not. I…may have been wrong."
Chloe slumped back on the couch. "Oh, Bree."
"You always tell me I'm too proud. I should change that."
"Yes, but not with Laurence! You of all people saw what he did! Do not go back to that guy. Nothing good will come out of it."
"You don't think I know that?" Aubrey heard her own voice break, and that feeling she had coldly refused to recognize for so long burst forth as an exasperated sob. She was so angry with him. At the ease with which he tore everything down. And still she missed him.
She yanked away before Chloe could touch her arm. She was having none of her sympathy. The last month had drained her, and she was tired of this, the tears, the days of inaction, the fear that she might never be the same.
Chloe looked hurt, but her tone was firm when she spoke again. "Laurence is far from perfect, Bree. He's replaceable."
Her response only enraged Aubrey. "This is exactly what I'm trying to tell you – he's not! And you won't understand. Because you've never lost the best you've ever had."
Chloe glared at her. "Then I completely understand," she retorted.
"Oh, please. You're the dumper in every relationship you've –"
Chloe reached for the stack of magazines under the coffee table. She fished one out and tossed it in Aubrey's lap. It was an issue of Vanity Fair.
She was confused until she recognized the strong features of the woman in the cover.
"Take it from me, Bree," Chloe said harshly. "If I was able to replace two-time Grammy award winner Beca Mitchell, you can damn well replace anybody."
Six years ago, Aubrey was a wreck. So was Chloe. The summer they graduated college was the worst one they'd ever weathered together. Aubrey finally told her father to fuck off. Not long after that, Chloe came home devastated from Beca's send-off at the airport.
It was an event Aubrey skipped, because it couldn't be better than the one she privately had with Beca the previous night. I thought if I told her she'd be willing to at least try, Chloe sobbed in her arms. Aubrey could only sigh. Chloe was constantly in Beca's orbit during the one year she spent at Barden, but sometimes it was like the redhead never really knew her at all.
Chloe bought the tickets to Bangkok months ago. The original plan was to spend two luxurious weeks in Phi Phi, hit up a full moon party, unplug and relax. Aubrey initially agreed to it because of Chloe's pitch: just two American girls on a luxurious beach holiday. But come summer Aubrey had become a completely different person. She was finally free to make her own decisions. It felt like she ought to do something grand with that.
She pooled together their money and decided they could stay a month if they backpacked across the country instead. Chloe, who had been to Thailand twice before and enjoyed it, eagerly agreed.
Six years ago, Aubrey first bought cigarettes in Khao San Road. She figured they were the closest thing she could have to a well-rolled joint, and they were at least a less-cancerous way of coping than Chloe's knockoff bottle of whiskey.
Chloe eyed the pack of Marlboro, baffled. "Since when do you smoke?"
"Give me a break, Chloe. I have an estranged dad pass."
"I'm not telling you to stop. I'm just surprised you're not worried it has germs, or it would ruin your temple body or something..."
Two months ago Aubrey would have been revolted at the slightest whiff of cigarette smoke. Now it was all she could think about. "Let it. 'I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul'."
"Where did you even learn how to smoke?"
"It's not rocket science. Besides, it couldn't be more deadly than," Aubrey frowned as she read the bottle on Chloe's hand, "'Johnnie Wookie'."
From then on their days in Thailand all just ran together. Chloe got a stomach bug in Chiang Mai. Aubrey ran out of barf bags midway south. They shared tiny beds in hostels, hung laundry outside their windows, rode so many buses and trains. But all the unpleasant experiences were eclipsed by the great ones. They also drove scooters through lush green valleys in Mai Hong Son, swam in pristine beaches, and ate delicious street food for a mere trifle. At Pai – a surprisingly-hippy mountain town – she shared a German boy's joint and realized it wasn't the kind of high she was after.
"She kissed me, you know."
They were drunk at a hut in Koh Tao. By then Chloe had switched to Saeng Som; the local rum tasted like nail polish and gave her vicious hangovers. Aubrey wasn't faring any better. Her voice had developed a gravelly edge from smoking.
They were punishing themselves with excess. If this was what freedom was supposed to be, it was exhausting. Overrated, even.
"She kissed me," Chloe repeated.
"I heard," she replied curtly. "When?"
"On her going-away party. She later said it meant nothing…we were on ecstasy, after all."
Aubrey could only nod, her throat thick. She really should have known better than to be alone with Beca that night. She particularly despised herself whenever Chloe brought her up like this, always with self-lacerating regret.
It was all Beca's fault. She and her phony sympathy. Sitting too close. Inviting her to smoke. Her skin felt hot every time Beca's fingers brushed hers. I would have taken the time to make you happy. The way Beca said it, the way she looked at Aubrey, eyes dark and soft in the dim light.
Beca had a habit of pushing back her hair and all night Aubrey's eyes couldn't help but be drawn to the tipped chin, the decadent bronze hair. She wondered how they would feel in her hand.
She acted on it as soon as she thought it. Then there was a split second when she didn't know what to do next, and Beca's lips were half-parted in surprise, and that was all it took for Aubrey to kiss her. But the tiniest gap between them still felt too much. She wanted Beca's weight on her. She spurred Beca on with a frantic nip of her teeth; Beca responded by snagging possessive fingers into her hair. This time biting Beca's swollen lip was a complete accident, but the sudden taste of metal passed and dissolved between them as soon it appeared.
And then the moment of complete submission was ending. Beca's sigh against her cheek when she let go had trapped Aubrey in an aching mid-exhale since.
"I put myself out there and all she said was she wanted to spare me from all that mess," Chloe slurred, her telltale eyes brimming. "She called it a 'mess', Bree. That connection we had…she reduced it to a 'mess'. Like it was just a childish crush. Like I wasn't in love with her for a whole fucking year."
"Can you blame her?"
Chloe blinked at her.
"What?"
"Chloe, you were dating another guy the whole time you say you loved her. You constantly led her on when it was clear you were unavailable. Can you imagine how terrible Beca must have felt every time you were all over her? Even worse, how she felt every time you went back to Tom anyway?"
"You of all people are supposed to be on my side," Chloe snapped, sobered by anger.
"I am on your side. But I'm not going to delude you by saying you did everything right, either. Beca wanted you. But you couldn't make up your mind between her and whatever you were doing with Tom. So you don't get to blame her for not reciprocating, Chloe. This is on you."
Chloe turned away, too furious to say anything else. She knew Aubrey was right. But things had always been too easy for the redhead: parents loved her, people adored her, plans fell off her but she would always get what she wanted. Life always somehow worked out.
Beca was the first serious thing she had lost. And for some reason, Aubrey felt it was up to her to impress how – and just how much – Chloe fucked it up. Too bad Aubrey had to do it while they were sharing a narrow straw mat. She crawled under the mosquito net, ignoring her best friend's glare, and fell asleep.
Sometime later, a drunker Chloe was shaking her awake.
"She was wonderful."
"What?" Aubrey mumbled, disoriented.
"Beca," Chloe whispered. "Kissing. It was rough…then it was precious."
I know, she almost responded.
"It's a real shame, you know?"
Aubrey sat up. Chloe curled against her chest, a smooth movement practiced out of so many years of friendship. "You're spiraling, Chloe," she said as gently as she could.
"I just…never thought of it that way until now. That we could have had a chance if I wasn't so immature. What is wrong with me?"
Despite being half-asleep Aubrey managed to roll her eyes. "Don't be dramatic. You're talking about Beca Mitchell."
"I'm serious. What if I never come across anything like her again?"
"You will." Aubrey absentmindedly scratched Chloe's scalp, watching the redhead's eyes close. "You just have to wait long enough."
Present
Chloe's copy of Vanity Fair was well-worn. While the redhead slept beside her Aubrey flicked through the contents. She ran her eyes over the sphinx-like face, that familiar hint of a smirk.
Beca taught her how to smoke.
Looking back, she shouldn't have been surprised. Beca's recklessness used to daunt and charm her in equal measure. What rebelliousness. What arrogance. How dare this insolent usurper just prance in her auditorium and defy decades of Bella tradition? Aubrey already had the machinery to victory well-planned in minute detail. Beca was ruining it. She had to be put in her place.
But Beca got to her. Beca found the exact words that got under her skin. And even when Aubrey came around and accepted that the Bellas had to change, she was still getting to her. Aubrey never noticed when it started, but she leaped from pretending Beca doesn't exist to noticing every little detail about her, and she found it more cumbersome than if they just continued fighting. Beca read Henry Miller and listened to Jimi Hendrix. She had a re-interpretation of Nobody Does It Better that Aubrey found intriguing. And she always projected casual disinterest, no matter how many times she drove Fat Amy home or scared off fratboys who groped Stacie. More than once Aubrey found herself listening to Beca's sarcastic one-liners and thinking, with a little wistfulness: I'd never be bored.
She flung the magazine to the nearest drawer and pushed it shut, not even bothering to read the accompanying article. She had no interest in knowing Beca Mitchell. She had never even told Laurence about that part of her life. What was there to tell? He cared very little about her Bella days. He would never understand why it felt so significant. She wasn't even sure she could explain why.
"Chloe?"
Chloe was usually a sound sleeper, but this time she got a response. "Mm?"
"When exactly did you move on from Beca?"
"UPenn," she mumbled. "More fish in the sea."
And she was asleep again.
February was an endless cycle of slush-filled sidewalks. It had been a long day at work; Aubrey had to stay two hours past her usual. By the time she got out of the building the sidewalk was buzzing with commuters flagging down cabs. Good luck getting one on a Friday night, she thought.
She watched the heavy sky and started power-walking to the subway station, dreading the 5 train home. The first drops of rain fell on her coat. Shit. She left her umbrella at the office.
She'd definitely head straight for the merlot when she got home. She longed to strip off her miserable shoes and lie back on the couch. Dinner would have to be more wine. She'd fall asleep reading in bed.
Someone then placed a hand on her shoulder and she jumped, spinning around abruptly. The man pulled back and she recognized the camel Armani coat.
She had avoided Laurence for forty-two days. Yet she was powerless to stop him as he gently steered her under the nearest awning. He even had the audacity to pull this American Gigolo stunt again. The last time he wore that coat, they missed a dinner reservation doing something else.
She was deeply aware of the scent of his aftershave; she longed to press herself into him. He knew her. He knew what this would do to her.
"Hey," he murmured, smiling down at her with relief. He looked just as tired as Aubrey felt. He pulled her into his arms, and she let herself fall. She couldn't erase what she wanted.
They didn't fit together the way she expected they would. Aubrey drew back, confused. He was holding something inside his coat.
He presented it to her with a little flourish: a bouquet of tulips. And just like that, all her bittersweet longing disappeared.
Three years. Three years together, and he never remembered she was allergic to flowers.
Something snapped inside her. Before she knew it she was slapping the bouquet into the ground, the whole bunch crash-landing in a puddle. The splatter made Laurence jump back. But he wasn't getting away with this. She descended upon him. A loud crack made passerby stop and glance at them. The next moment her palm was smarting, and he was cradling his cheek.
"This is the last time I am going to hear from you. Or see you," she hissed. "Pull this shit again, and I will tell everyone about you and Arabella."
She had always known Laurence was afraid of her. Yet she felt little satisfaction from his dumbfounded reaction as she walked away.
She walked further than she should have, until she ended up in the Lower East Side. She was freezing. She picked the first bar that wasn't teeming with drunken students, took comfort in the elegant sign out front reading Clandestino, and entered.
The bar was surprisingly acceptable. It was more like a cozy cocktail lounge than the underground thumping club she thought it would be. Even better, it was comfortably crowded with people her age.
She sat at the furthermost side of the bar and asked for a Tanqueray and tonic. And then another.
"All right, love?"
Aubrey jerked up. A blonde guy in a gray shirt just shook her awake. Her sudden movements made her head spin; she clapped a hand over her mouth, forcing herself to take deep breaths through her nose.
"She lives," the guy said to the burly bartender, who was also watching her. "Think she'll barf, though. Get the bucket…"
The other guy sighed, but Aubrey quickly shook her head no. She had embarrassed herself enough. She slid off her seat, intent on standing – and the next moment, she was falling forward. Blonde Guy caught her elbow at the last minute.
"Miss," the bartender addressed Aubrey, in a soft, firm voice. "You're going home. Luke's getting you an Uber."
"I can manage," she slurred, sounding barely more coherent than she felt.
"Yeah, yeah, but we're still calling you a cab. That's how we do things at the bar. Best way we can ensure your safety."
Her stomach lurched so violently it almost propelled her forward. Saliva was pooling in her mouth. It always did whenever she was about to – goddammit, she wasn't going to puke here. She had already lost enough control for one day.
"…don't worry 'bout Luke, he's a regular. I gotta warn you though, he's a Brit –"
"Piss off, Eddie," Blonde Guy told the bartender good-naturedly. "Get the bucket now, there's a good chap."
And then he was ushering her into a booth, which was strange, because she hardly recalled walking. She hardly recalled anything. Some stranger was trying to take care of her. This was unacceptable.
She tried rising, clamping her mouth shut at the wave of nausea that followed. She had almost succeeded until her knee banged painfully against the table. "Fuck!"
Blonde Guy face-palmed and went to help her up. "Sod it. Your ride's ten minutes away, but we have to wait on the curb. Come on. Mind the table…"
"Don't touch me!"
"Alright." Gray Shirt stepped back, raising his hands. "Look, I'm just trying to take you home."
"I don't trust you," she slurred, attempting to push past him.
He stood his ground, huffing exasperatedly. "Fair enough. You need proof I'm not some slimy tosser." He pressed something in her palm. A calling card. "I'm Luke. I'm usually here Thursdays. What's your name?"
"Aubrey."
"Okay, Annie. You got my workplace and contact number and everything else you need if you ever want to sue me. Not that you'd have to," he added quickly. "Now can we go?"
Aubrey woke up at lunchtime with a massive headache. She buried her head under the sheets for another good hour, too dizzy to move, willing herself to die rather than suffer through the entire fucking nightmare that was her hangover.
When she finally forced herself off her bed, it was late afternoon. Chloe left her eight missed calls and two messages. The first one read guess who came to see me! The second was this morning, almost fourteen hours later: Call me when you can. The redhead's terseness was unusual, so Aubrey immediately dialed her, succeeding on her third try despite the letters jumbling together.
"Is everything okay?" she croaked out.
"I think so." Chloe sounded breathless. "You weren't picking up since last night, where were you?"
"Drinking," Aubrey said shortly; thinking about Laurence was already giving her a gag reflex. "You sound off. What's going on?"
"Nothing. I'm just – I'm just freaking out, I guess."
"Chloe. What is it?"
Chloe's next sound was a long, loud exhale.
"I kissed someone else."
Notes.
I'm really missing Beca's perspective, so we're going back to that.
Next chapter: How about we finally let them meet?
