Chapter 30

Beca's POV

The past few months have been the best months of my life. Bree and I have never been closer. The Bella's are officially headed to nationals at the end of the month, and of course Chloe has been the best. We said I love you to each other about 2 weeks after making our relationship official.

Flashback

We're laying in Chloe's bed after our fourth official date. About 3 weeks after we started dating.

"Hey Chlo?" I whisper in case she's already asleep.

"Yeah?" I feel her shift so that she's leaning on her elbow, face now above me.

"I know it's technically like super early in our relationship, but like everything about our relationship has been kinda fast, but umm… I just wanted to say that… I never really felt the way I do with you with anyone else before and ummm… you're really special to me… and ummm… I… I love you Chloe." I barely manage to get the words out without feeling like I'm going to pass out. At some point during my rambling I closed my eyes, so I slowly open them to see Chloe looking down on me with her giant, signature Beale smile.

"Beca Mitchell, you seem really nervous right now" I nod my head against the pillow "Well you are being utterly ridiculous right now!" Wait, what? I feel my heart rate pick up more if that's even possible. I feel my mouth start to fall open. "Beca, don't panic! I'm sorry I was just trying to mess with you a little bit! Of course I love you, dummy!"

"Wait, really?"

"God Beca! Sometimes you are too adorable for your own good"

"I'm not adorable!" I groan

"Beca, babe, I have loved you since I met you when you helped move Bree in my Freshman year. When you nearly tripped because you insisted on carrying too many boxes and the stack was taller than you! Why do you think I kept asking Bree to invite you with to do things when I came over to your house? Why do you think I burst into your shower and forced you to audition for the Bella's? I am so in love with you it's scary Beca! I knew that I loved you before we started dating, I just needed to wait for you to catch up!"

Chloe has tears in her eyes and offers me a weak smile. I am left speechless. I need to show her how much she means to me. I pull her in for a kiss. After a few seconds I pull away again.

"I'm sorry it took me so long, but I think I'm finally caught up now." I say breathless "I am so deeply in love with you Chloe Beale."

All of the girls are cool with us dating. We go on double dates with Bree and Stacie about once a week. Everything has been perfect… that is until today. I woke up in Chloe's arms, as I usually do. I'm awake before the alarm went off, so I use the extra time I have to admire the girl sleeping in my arms. It's rare that I get the opportunity to do this, since I usually sleep as long as possible. I allow myself to stare for a few minutes. Chloe is being extra cuddly this morning and it's really cute so I grab my phone off the nightstand to take a picture. When I look at the screen I see a notification I never thought I'd see: 1 text from Dad.

"What the fuck?!" I say a lot louder than I meant to. I immediately forgot Chloe was sleeping on me (sorry Chlo!) and throw the covers off me and get up. I start pacing around staring at the notification.

"Bec?" Chloe mumbles, she is sitting up rubbing her eyes and looking really confused. "What's wrong?" I can barely hear her over the anger threatening to spill out of me. What does he want now? Should I even open the message? Did Bree get a text too? Oh shit Bree!

I quickly throw on a flannel from the day before and a pair of Chloe's sweatpants. "Becs whats going on?" I remember that last night we decided to sleep at Chloe's, I hope Bree had the same idea. I throw the door open and ignore Chloe calling after me. I need to find Bree. I stomp over to her door, it's closed. I can hear giggling from behind it, well now I know that she's home, unfortunately she's not alone. I knock on the door once.

"Go away, we're busy!" I hear Stacie shout followed by Bree laughing. Normally I wouldn't bother them, and if I did need something I would just wait until they left the room. I don't have time for that this morning. I knock again, no response. I start obsessively knocking.

"Calm down! I'll be out in a second!" I barely hear Aubrey over my knocking. I stop knocking and listen to the movement of Aubrey getting dressed behind the door. A couple minutes later the door flies open and a disheveled Aubrey stands in front of me "Beca? What's wrong?"

"Check your phone!" I say a lot louder than I mean to

"What? Beca What's-" Aubrey looks really confused.

"Just check your phone Aubrey!" I feel like I'm on the verge of a panic attack. I hate that I'm letting my father have this much of a hold over me.

"Why are you trying to break down my door at 7am to have me check my phone Beca?" I hear Aubrey's muffled voice from her room. She quickly comes out phone in hand. She looks down and turns her screen on. I watch her scroll through her notifications confused, until she stops and I see the realization on her face. "What the fuck does he want?!"

"I… I don't know. I've been too scared to read it. Probably an official 'come get your stuff and I'm officially cutting you off' text." I say, I hate how scared I feel right now, how small I feel. I can tell by the look on Bree's face that she is feeling the same way. I feel tears start to form in my eyes and quickly look away. I hate that I'm crying over this and I don't want Bree to see me.

"Hey, hey Beca." I feel her hand on my chin as she slowly starts to tilt my head up "Look at me for a sec. No matter what he says, you have me alright." She wipes the tears that have started to fall off my cheeks. "Why don't we both get dressed and we can go get breakfast, just the two of us alright?" I slowly nod my head. "Alright, go get ready. I'm going to cancel practice for today." I see her quickly typing away on her phone.

"Wow. Never thought Aubrey 'the dictator' Posen would cancel a Bella's practice 2 weeks before nationals" I say with a weak smile.

"Beca, as much as I hate to do it, you're more important to me. Also I don't think I would be a very nice captain today."

"Bree, I love you, but have you ever been a nice captain?" I say with a smirk.

"Rude!" Aubrey reaches over and slaps my arm "Just go get ready and please inform Chlo what is going on. I can see her stress pacing!"

Aubrey's POV

Beca has been silent the whole walk to the diner. I don't blame her. I'm not sure how I feel about the situation yet. We haven't even read the text yet. We were finally in a good place with what went down at that stupid dinner. And after finding out the baby, our "sister" was born. It's not fair that he gets to decide to disown us, then to text us out of the blue. I really am afraid of what he has to say. I'm afraid that this might actually break Beca, I've never seen her this upset. We sit in silence at the diner, order food when the waitress comes, then fall back into the silence.

"Beca?" She slowly turns her head away from the window and looks at me. "Are you ready to read the text?" I see her start to tense up "If you don't want to, I could read the text and just tell you what it says?" She nods her head. I pick up my phone and stare at the screen for a while. Looking at the ominous "1 text from Dad" Notification, building up the courage to read it. Finally I click the notification. When the message is opened I feel surprised at how short it is. I don't know what I was expecting, but a three line text was not it. I clear my throat to read the message to Beca.

"It was sent in a group chat with us, so we both got the same thing. He said 'Hey girls, its dad. I've been doing some thinking and we should talk. Let me know if/when you want to get together.' That's it."

I hear Beca scoff. "That's it. No 'hey I'm sorry I was an asshole' or 'sorry I disowned you and then didn't tell you about the birth of my new kid because me and my new wife want to live a new life without you'. Typical dad." Beca then pulls out her phone to read the text herself.

"The text is shitty. I get that, obviously, but I kinda want to hear what he wants to talk about. I mean if he actually wanted to disown us fully I don't think he'd want to meet."

"Bree he hurt you the worst, why would you want to meet up with him?"

"I know. I know. I just… I want this to be over. I want to not be stuck in this limbo with him. We can meet with him, hear what he wants to say, but then we're the ones that get to decide if we want him in our lives or not. We could meet him somewhere public. Then we can leave whenever we want. We can decide, not him, if he's going to be in our lives or not."

The waitress comes with our food. We fall into a comfortable silence and eat. We're both done eating when Beca decides to speak up again.

"Alright, let's do it." I must have looked confused. "Let's meet up with dad. After thinking about what you said I get it. I'm not really sure I want to talk to him, but you do and we're in this together. We'll meet up with him and listen to what he has to say, unless it's more hateful bull shit, if it is I'm leaving and I'm taking you with me. We don't need to listen to anymore of that. Also we need to make sure he comes alone. I don't want the stepmonster there. Let's meet him tomorrow. He can take it or leave it."

"Alright. I'll text him to meet us tomorrow after Bella's practice at the park across the street from campus."