FromTumblr: It was mentioned in very very early chapters that she hadn't had sex with anyone, man or woman, in ages.
Pitchisbliss: Their relationship is finally going to start working itself out.
Pixie1913: I love thinking about all the music that Beca and Aubrey probably have in common without even realizing it.
SunDanceQT: I am doing well. Just super busy. I hope you're doing well too.
96itadakimasu96: Non-fiction just makes me so bored for some reason. I still haven't even finished Anna Kendrick's book, and I got it the week it came out, that's how much much I struggle with non-fiction.


Dysrhythmia


Is it dark where you are?
Can you count the stars where you are?
Do you feel like you are a thousand miles from home?
Are you lost where you are?
Can you find your way when you're so far?
Do you fear where you are?
A thousand nights alone...
- Howie Day


Aubrey doesn't understand how Chloe's dad can manage to stay in her room without losing his mind – just sitting there, looking at her, waiting for her to wake up. It isn't fair that he barely gets the chance to leave, because Chloe's mom has taken it upon herself to make sure that Aubrey is alright. Aubrey would lose her mind. She feels her sanity slip a bit more every time she steps through the doorway, and Chloe isn't sitting up to greet her. She misses her smile, and the way her eyes light up more than any other person Aubrey has ever known when she's happy. She misses the way Chloe says 'hey' when she sees her, like she hasn't seen her for a full day, when, in reality, Aubrey probably just stepped out of the room for five seconds then came back. She misses her voice, and how her name sounds when it leaves Chloe's lips.

Julia nudges her husband's ankle with her foot as she walks in, causing him to bolt upright in his chair. The Western book covering his face falls to the ground, and she reaches down to pick it up for him.

"I was on page seventy…seventy-eighty-three," Noah says, flustered, "Seventy-eighty-three."

"That's not a number." Julia drops the book on his lap.

"I was reading that," Noah says, and goes hunting for his page.

"Oh? Tell me," Julia replies, sounding thoroughly intrigued, "What's it about?"

"It's about two cowboys, who fall in love."

Julia raises her eyebrows.

"But they have to keep it a secret, because they're married, and-"

"That's the plot of Brokeback Mountain. Good try though. You're getting better at this." Julia turns back to Aubrey. "Do you want us to leave?"

"Can you wait outside the door?" Aubrey asks, even though after their earlier conversation, she already knows they're not going to go far, "I just want to say goodnight."

Julia nods. "I am going to say goodnight now then."

Aubrey looks down as Chloe's mom walks across the room and kisses her forehead.

"Night, Pumpkin. I love you."

Aubrey still feels like she's trespassing somewhere she shouldn't be – even as Chloe's mom gives her good shoulder a light squeeze on her way out the door with her husband. She waits until she hears the door close to look up. Nothing has changed – and it kills her. It still looks like Chloe is asleep, resting peacefully, blissfully unaware of what is happening. Aubrey hopes she's unaware – not of Aubrey's presence, but of how they got here. She pulls up a chair to sit down next to her.

"Beca wants to come see you," Aubrey whispers, playing with the blanket, in case she is aware and she's thinking about that, "But she's scared. She's okay though." She doesn't have anything else to say. She could tell Chloe about her brother, but that would just worry her. Chloe doesn't need to be worried over her. "I gave Beca a radio. You'd be really proud of me. We got along, and we listened to all kinds of music…" Maybe if that had happened from the very beginning, they wouldn't be in this mess…

Aubrey gets to her feet. "I'll come back and see you tomorrow. Maybe I can convince Beca to come and bring the radio." She knows Chloe is probably going crazy inside her own mind without music. The thought makes her slowly sit back down. She can still sing. "But I can sing to you until then." Her stomach fills with butterflies. Chloe has heard her sing a thousand times, more than that, but whenever she tries to sing to Chloe, her nerves grow wings and flutter around uncomfortably inside of her. It's been like that since Chloe barged in on her trying to figure out how to respond to Chloe asking her out.

It seems so long ago and still like it was just yesterday at the same time.

"I said, I wanna touch the earth; I wanna break it in my hands. I wanna grow something wild and unruly." Aubrey has never heard her own voice tremble so hard – not from nerves, not from crying, not from anything. "I wanna sleep on the hard ground, in the comfort of your arms, on a pillow of Bluebonnets, in a blanket made of stars. Oh, it sounds good to me."

The trembling doesn't stop; Aubrey just has to live with sounding below par. "Chloe, take me away; fly this girl as high as you can into the wild blue." She expects to see something when she says Chloe's name. Movement. A blip in the heart monitor. Anything. But it doesn't happen. "Set me free, oh, I pray, closer to Heaven above and closer to you. Closer to you…" The desperation is unreal. "I wanna walk and not run. I wanna skip and not fall. I wanna look at the horizon and not see a building standing tall. I wanna be the only one for miles and miles, except for maybe you and your simple smile…" Nothing. Her eyes burn, and she scrubs hard at them with the palm of her hand, and takes a breath so she can finish the song.

Once the song reaches its end, one breath is followed by several more, calm and composed, so she can manage to leave.

Because as difficult as it is to walk in Chloe's room, walking out is even worse.

xxxxx

"Are you nervous to see your brother tomorrow?"

Yes. "No." So nervous.

"When is the last time you saw him?" Julia asks, helping her wrestle her clothes off and her pajamas on.

"Freshman at Barden, I think," Aubrey answers.

"Before you started coming home with Chloe for breaks?"

Aubrey nods.

"That's a long time." Julia makes sure her shirt is adjusted correctly, then goes to retrieve her hairbrush from her bag.

"You haven't been home since your Freshman year of college?" Beca asks.

"I went home Sophomore year a few times," Aubrey says, "But he was in Boot Camp. And, then, when he got out, he left for basic training, and I didn't go home anymore."

"Did you ever want to be in the armed forces?" Julia asks, sitting down behind her to brush her hair.

"For awhile, I wanted to study Geospacial Engineering," Aubrey answers, "But my father said the armed forces is no place for women."

"Well, I, for one," Julia says, gently gliding the brush through her hair, "am glad you ended up at Barden. And, Chloe, God knows where that child would be without you."

Not here. Chloe would be conscious. Aubrey folds her arm on the table, then rests her head against it.

"Do you feel okay?" Julia asks, stilling the brush.

No. Aubrey nods into her arm. She starts to feel drowsy as Chloe's mom resumes brushing.

"You were her first best friend, her only best friend," Julia says, "Did you know that? She wanted a best friend her entire life, and then you came along and she was ecstatic. She stopped calling every night, telling me she wanted to come home, and started calling every night to tell me all the things you two did that day. I never heard her say 'I' after that; it's always 'we did this' and 'we did that'."

Aubrey turns her head slightly, finding it hard to believe that Chloe, Chloe, who has never found a person she couldn't be friends with (except maybe Alice) never had a best friend before Aubrey. "You're lying."

"I don't think that Chloe has told you as much about herself as you think she has," Julia says, "She's very good at sparing the more desolate details of herself. I think if something doesn't feel good to remember, it ends up in some part of her mind that pretends it doesn't exist. So everything is all sunshine and rainbows, and everything that isn't is irrelevant."

"She's friends with everybody," Aubrey comments.

Julia puts the brush down on the table and runs her fingers through Aubrey's hair a few times. "Name me some of her friends, and Beca doesn't count. Who are the people she talks to?"

Aubrey honestly didn't expect to be such a loss. "She talks to a lot of people."

"You have two friends here," Julia points out, "I'm sure the three of you do things together. Who does Chloe do things with?"

"She goes to a lot of different functions," Aubrey answers. Chloe goes to a lot of different things with a lot of different people.

"So, if the two of you were in each other's place right now, who would be here? Give me some names."

"I don't know." Aubrey stares at the table. She doesn't even know the names of Chloe's friends… Then again, Chloe doesn't know much about Aubrey's friends either.

"Do you think anyone would be here?" Julia asks.

"I'm sure they would be…" Chloe knows too many people to be alone.

"You would think so, but from experience, I don't think anyone would be. Because all of Chloe's life, everyone has assumed that because Chloe knows so many people, she can't be lonely, right? She talks to so many people, I think people just deem themselves irrelevant right off the bat and don't bother. They find someone who isn't the life of the party to spend their time with, because that person is probably the one that needs a friend, right? Not Chloe, who knows everyone."

Neither Aubrey nor Beca have a response to that.

"I'll never forget, when she was ten, her class raised money to go on an weekend trip to St. Augustine, and I volunteered to chaperone, because I knew she wouldn't go anywhere overnight without someone in the family. We stayed at this beautiful hotel with a pool, and the first night, all the kids went swimming, and all of us moms and dads sat around chatting. She seemed so excited. She was bouncing all over the place like she does, talking to everyone, laughing. And, after an hour or two, things kind of died down, like they do, and everyone kind of went off into their little friend groups to play. And Chloe came to sit on my lap, and said she wanted to go back to the room. I figured she was tired, because it had been a long day."

"But, I took her back to the room, and she didn't want to shower by herself. I had to sit on the bathroom floor. And then she wouldn't sleep in her own bed; she just wanted to be held, and so I tried to just put her to sleep, and she just started bawling. And I was worried we had gone all that way, only for her to start feeling sick. I kept trying to ask her what was feeling bad or if someone had hurt her feelings, but she didn't want to tell me. And I finally told her if she was that miserable, I was going to take her home. That just made it worse, because then she was having a full blown tantrum about not wanting to go home. Finally, she started to tire herself out, and she just broke down, and she said, 'Mama, no one wants to be my friend.' And, I thought my kid had lost her mind."

That sounds absolutely insane to Aubrey too.

"But she was, clearly, very serious about this. I thought about how she was invited to a party every weekend, and how, if her brother was, on the off chance, invited somewhere with a lot of kids, it wasn't worth the fight of trying to convince him to go. And, I always thought, you know, Chloe was just more social, and he was happy to just terrorize the neighborhood with his three trouble making friends. But those four was so close. If we ever asked him and Chloe if they wanted to take a friend on an outing or have a sleepover with just one person, he always had a name and she always said, 'no, thanks, can we take the dog?' Chloe is the life of the party, but, eventually, the party's gotta end. It never occurred to me how painfully lonely that must be, to just be waiting for the next big thing while everyone goes off with the people they're close to. I don't think she could ever fully comprehend why she was so lonely when she had all these people she knew, and so she just kept it to herself until she couldn't."

"And then, you came along. You had her so distraught." Julia laughs. "You just brushed her right off, and she couldn't wrap her mind around the concept that someone might not want to talk to her. But I think it was good that you made her work so hard for you, because once she had you, you were her friend. You're everything she ever dreamed of. You aren't just here for a fun time, going to leave her on her own in times where the excitement wears off. You made her put in effort, and in return she got this bond that was real. She got someone that wants to spend time with her, and loves her, and, even better, you aren't just some random person – you're someone that she wanted to know, and actively pursued."

Aubrey digs her fingers into her hair, messing it up again after it had just been brushed out. There are so many things she would have gone about differently, had she known more about the things that make up Chloe. Chloe always has so many good things to talk about when it comes to her life, it never occurred to Aubrey that she has feelings hidden away.

"Well, I feel like shit for existing right now," Beca deadpans.

"I think things spiraled for Chloe," Julia says, "I think you came along during a rough spot. She thought Aubrey had decided she was through with her, and that was very painful."

Aubrey can feel hot tears burning her eyes again. She had never been through with Chloe. She wanted what was best for her.

"And, you know, everyone 'gets' us in different ways, and you understand her in a way that no one else has, and she has very strong feelings for you. And she didn't want Aubrey to leave, but at the same time she wanted you, and everyone was stressed, and she was trying to balance The Bellas and her personal life all on her own – and then, the end of the year came, and things were okay with Aubrey again, but she had gotten so close to you, and she didn't know what to do. I think that in trying to make everything work out in a way that didn't hurt one way or another, she kept making things worse and worse, and it all snowballed out of her control – and, in the end, she screwed herself over and ended up with neither of you."

"So, why not just choose Aubrey?" Beca asks, "Why keep pursuing it, years later? She has stronger feelings for Aubrey."

"She does," Julia agrees, "But that doesn't take away the hurt of losing you. Chloe is scared of saying goodbye. It's a feeling she doesn't want to feel, and she'll do whatever it takes to avoid it. So, imagine being so scared of saying goodbye and it has to be your choice to say it."

"We could have still been friends," Beca says.

"You know, Chloe had a very permanent goodbye much earlier in her life than most, and her age made her very ill-equipped to process that. At four, Mom is still pretty eternal. She may go and come back, and maybe she makes you feel worse than she ever makes you feel better, but she still always comes back. And then, one day, a stranger shows up out of nowhere, and you say goodbye to Mommy, and that's it. No warning. No choice in the matter. You think you're going to get to visit her, and you wait and wait, but she never shows up. So, while I'm sure that sounds logical enough, even to Chloe, I have no doubt that there is something in the back of her mind telling her that what you're trying to say is, 'I don't want you. I'm not coming back.'"

"She always seems so sincerely happy all of the time," Beca comments, "Like, literally, all the time."

"Oh, I'm sure she is most of the time," Julia says, "She is a very happy, optimistic person. But I'm sure there have been times where you've been metaphorically standing in the middle of the pouring down rain, and Chloe is still saying, 'No, look, Guys, the sun is shining.' That's not optimism; that's concerning. Because whatever she is trying so hard not to feel, she's going to put it on the back burner, until it explodes."

Aubrey is stupid. She is so stupid. She lifts her head a few centimeters then smacks her forehead against the table, because she is so stupid. A hand slides beneath her head, preventing it from doing it a second time. She grabs Chloe's mom's shirt sleeve and tries to pull her arm away, so she can knock some more sense into her self, but Julia is not budging.

"Aubrey, stop, stop, Honey. I have been married to my husband basically as long as you've been alive, and there are times one of us says something and the other has to stop and wonder how we didn't know that. I'm telling you you make her happy, and I'm trying to help you understand her a little better."

"I shouldn't have broken it off with her," Aubrey mumbles, tucking her face into her arm again, "I just wanted her to be happy." Instead, she made her the complete fucking opposite.

"Everybody makes mistakes," Julia tells her, "Chloe has made plenty of her own. Why does she get a pass, and you don't? It makes sense why you thought that was a good decision. The things that led up to that sucked. You're at an age where you're just figuring yourself out as an adult and trying to make an impression on the world, and you have one embarrassing moment, and everyone puts you on public display. Chloe kept calling me, telling me all the terrible ways people were mocking you, asking me what she could do to convince everyone to leave you alone, and asking me how to help you, because some of your coping strategies were a cause for concern. I can agree that that isn't something to put on Chloe, even if she wants you to. Your partner should be a good listener and good support, but it's not Chloe's job to fix your problems. So, I think you get a pass. You had something hard to deal with, you didn't know what to do, but you also knew it wasn't right to put it on Chloe, so you made a decision that made sense. You're a very logical person, very judicious. Sometimes, we just don't have all we need to make a well-informed decision, so we have to do the best we can with what we know."

"I still think you're a psychic," Beca says.

"You are too hard on yourself, Aubrey. You are too too hard on yourself. You have expectations for yourself that are too high, and other people get caught in the crossfire, because you can't meet your own expectations. Perfection is not realistic. You have to give yourself a pass. You cannot give Chloe a pass for this mess, and not give yourself, and Beca, one too. It's not fair that Chloe gets a sympathetic approach, and you don't. It's not fair."

Somewhere in this conversation, Aubrey lost sensation in her body. Aside from the acidic taste clinging to the back of her throat, creating an even more unbearable burning, she cannot feel a single physical or emotional connection to herself. She can still hear what's being said, fully comprehend it even, but she might as well be asleep on the table top.

"I didn't know any of this stuff," Beca says, "I just wanted to pack my shit back up and move to LA. That was literally my only motivation. I didn't know anything about either of you until, like, right now. All I knew was that Chloe had no shame in being nude or concept of personal space, and suddenly my life was really fucking complicated. Really fucking complicated…"

"I'm sorry," Aubrey whispers.

"You're trying to apologize for something that you didn't even do," Julia points out, "I'm trying to tell you this isn't your fault, there was a lot at play. You all made mistakes, but it's okay. You are one of the best things that has ever happened to Chloe. You filled a gap that I was worried she might have to live with her entire life. I was starting to be afraid the problem might be her, that she was incapable of getting attached to anyone but us. You proved that she was just unlucky in finding good friends. She was just still developing that part of herself and she was interacting with all the wrong people. I am a believer that things play out how they're supposed to; even in the worst of times, the world finds a way to correct itself."

The world could never correct itself if Chloe never wakes up. It couldn't.

"I think it's time to sleep," Julia says, and gets up to turn out the light, "And, hopefully tomorrow you wake up with a new perspective. Beca, do you want me to cover you up?"

"No," Beca answers quietly, and lays down with the radio playing next to her head, "I'm good."

The lights dim, and Aubrey feels comfortable to lift her head in the dark. The table, her face, her arm – they're all wet. She tries to dry her face off at least, but she's more or less just smearing tears around on her skin, and trying to rub her nose on her arm just makes it all more disgusting. Sniffling does little more than add a gross noise to the mess, but it alerts Chloe's mom that she's in dire need of tissues. She can hear them being pulled from the box, then they're being placed in her hand for her to clean herself up with.

"Here, just throw them in the bucket," Julia says, sliding it across the table, closer to Aubrey, once she's done, "Do you need anything?"

Chloe. Aubrey shakes her head, regardless of whether or not she can see her. She lowers herself onto her side, and tucks her face deep into the pillow, feeling numb to her surroundings – and to the past several minutes. She just wants Chloe to wake up. That's all that she can feel. That's all that matters.

"Do you want me to lay down with you?"

Aubrey feels like she should hesitate to accept the offer; instead, she's quick to nod, sniffling into the pillow. If Chloe's mom lays down with her, she'll play with her hair, and if she plays with Aubrey's hair, maybe she'll fall asleep easier. Then she can wake up in the morning with whatever new perspective she's supposed to have, and maybe tomorrow will be the day Chloe wakes up. The blanket is adjusted over top of her, and the best is raised just a little to make it more comfortable.

"You are a really, really good kid, okay?" Julia brushes her hair out of the way, trying to see her face, "Chloe loves you. And Dad loves you. And I love you. You're so smart, Aubrey. You give your best at everything you do, even when it's a losing game. And I know you're well-intentioned. I am so proud of you, all the time, even when things don't work out like you thought. You're still a good kid."

Aubrey doesn't know how words can feel so comforting and so threatening at the same time; how she can want to hear them said over and over, but never again. She's wanted to hear them from people her whole life, but they feel like such a lie. The pillow poorly muffles a sob, and she draws up her legs, creating a barrier, locking her out, out, out. She feels like she's going to hyperventilate, and she has to untuck her face from the pillow to get air.

"Do you wanna talk?"

Aubrey shakes her head. Not here. Not now. Not with Beca in the room. Not ever. She's just tired; she just needs to energy to calm down.

Julia is quiet for a moment, focused on smoothing out the tangles Aubrey manages to put back in her hair. "Aubrey." She talks quietly enough that only they can hear. "Is something besides Chloe bothering you right now?"

Aubrey shakes her head.

"Are you sure? Because you're very upset right now. You're not even trying to push me away; you're just crying."

Aubrey gives a half-assed attempt to physically push her away using her knees. Of course, she's upset. She's trapped in this room with Beca and Chloe's mom hearing her cry – and she can't even pinpoint exactly what brought it on. She can't even think.

Julia breathes a slow, contemplative sigh, followed by a lasting silence that makes Aubrey think she's done saying anything. "I know, Sweetheart," she finally whispers, "It's okay." She draws in a deep breath, the releases it, followed by another, and another, providing a reference on calming down.

Never could Aubrey imagine anyone in her own family laying in bed with her at night, cuddling up with her, telling her she's okay – except maybe Liam, but she didn't want him to. Misery created strength. Now just the thought of her parents showing affection makes her skin crawl. It wouldn't feel right; it wouldn't feel good at all. It would feel awful. This should feel awful; it should feel uncomfortable, humiliating, downright degrading. She's too old for parents. That ship sailed years ago. She's too damn old to be crawling into bed with Chloe's mom at night, wanting her hair stroked, and the blankets pulled up around her. Not even her own mom. Chloe's mom.

She shouldn't even need the words of affirmation. She doesn't need anyone to tell her she's a good kid. She's not even a fucking kid. She's a grown woman. She doesn't need anything – from anyone. She tries to turn and bury herself back in her pillow, but her arm restricts most of her movement. The bitter taste of bile in her mouth tells her that she needs to sit up, but she can't let herself throw up again. Her body can't handle it. She swallows against the burning, and fights harder to catch her breath, trying to focus on the low hum of the radio rather than her stomach.

Julia remains quiet, just taking long, slow breaths, while twirling Aubrey's hair around her fingers – and Aubrey doesn't really find control as much as she finds exhaustion.

"Aubrey, are you okay?" Beca asks eventually, her nerves apparent in her voice.

Aubrey nods into the pillow and makes some sort of noise to signal that she's still alive, at least.

"Dude, what just happened?"

There is no one that Aubrey wants to talk to right now besides Chloe, and, honestly, she's one-hundred percent sure that if she opens her mouth, the only thing that's going to come out is her dinner. She is, however, beginning to appreciate that Beca is capable of caring – and about her feelings, nonetheless. Maybe none of them are what they appear to be. It's kind of frightening to think maybe there are parts of Chloe that she doesn't quite know.

"I think she's just a little wore out," Julia answers for her, "Everything is okay. Things are going to be okay. The world always sorts itself out."