- Part 1 -

Arrhythmia

With the weight of the world resting on my back,
And the road on which I've traveled is as long as it is cracked.
But I keep pressing forward with my feet to the ground,
For a heart that is broken makes a beautiful sound.
But when you're wearing on your sleeve all the things you regret,
You can only remember what you want to forget.
-Brandi Carlile

She looked forward to annual Posen camping trips until she turned ten. Before she turned ten, she was 'Mommy's Helper' for the duration of the entire week. And being Mommy's Helper meant that Daddy was away for hours at a time and she wouldn't be under such strict watch. She was just a little girl for once – playing in the creek with her sundress on while she pretended she was going to help Daddy bring home fish for dinner. She caught minnows with her bare hands and then she let them swim away because, at the time, it never really sunk in that Daddy kept and killed the fish he placed on the table. She was what her father referred to as 'ignorant', a term she never really understood until she looked it up in the dictionary one night when she was twelve. It meant 'uneducated' and gave an example of 'ignorant of Quantum Physics'. By the next morning, she was as educated as a twelve year old could be on Quantum Theory, because if there was anything her father hated, it was her incompetency.

The day Aubrey turned ten years old was the day that James Posen decided she needed to 'man up' like her eight year old brother. At the time, she was confused about his view on the role that women should have. He made her help her mother in the kitchen, grounded her whenever he deemed her behavior unladylike, and never let her play outside with the boys, but he hauled her to the shooting range in his truck a few times every month until she could shoot a target like a pro. He told her once at the age of six that even though she was a young woman, she needed to learn to be independent and to take care of herself. She didn't understand how shooting a gun would teach her anything, but every time she put a hole in that little red target and her father responded with 'good job', her confidence built. His approval was like salve on all the wounds his other words caused, and she began to make hearing those two simple words priority above all else.

But shooting at targets was easy.

His firm hands weighed down on her shoulders and kept her grounded as she stared down the barrel of the rifle. She gripped the gun extra tightly so he wouldn't notice her hands shaking. She could taste the bile in the back of her throat. Shooting at a target was easy, but as she pointed a rifle at the living creature in front of her, it was the hardest thing she had done to date. She drew in a deep breath and swallowed thickly as she stared at the deer through blurry vision. She didn't know why that, up until that moment, it never occurred to her what her father did on annual Posen camping trips. She pursed her lips together and focused on the thin strands of tan hair that were going to soon be stained with red as she hovered a delicate finger over the trigger. It felt wrong. She knew that hunting was legal. She knew that it was even sometimes necessary so that the deer didn't become overpopulated and starve in the winter. But the life in front of her was not hers to take.

"You have this, Aubrey," his gruff voice whispered in her ear. "It's a straight shot." But by then, Aubrey could even hit moving targets with ease.

She didn't think as she lowered the gun to her side and spun to face her father with a look of pure defiance. Her jaw jutted out and she took a few slow, deep breaths through her nose. She couldn't say the words 'Daddy, I can't', not even to herself. She thought maybe she would have a better chance at a positive outcome if she stood up to him. Maybe he would respect her courage. Maybe he wouldn't be disappointed. She raised her brows at him and almost dared him to force her to shoot the gun.

James Posen looked taken aback for probably the first time in his entire life. He had never so much as batted a shocked eyelash whenever Aubrey disappointed him, but the moment she stood up to him, he stared at her as though she wasn't his daughter. He overcame his surprise within a fraction of a second and knelt down to her level, looking her square in the eye. Her gaze didn't falter. His hand snapped up to grip her face, his thumb and fingers pressing into her cheeks so her mouth made an 'o' shape. She knew immediately that she had made a mistake as soon as pain shot through her jaw at his firm hold. "Aubrey Posen, if you ever disobey me again, you will not sit for a year," he threatened her in the most disappointed tone she had ever heard him use. Her heart felt like it was falling out of her chest. "Do I make myself clear?"

She felt like she was in a panic. Tears clouded her eyes and she immediately looked away from him, using every ounce of self-control that a ten year old could muster up to prevent them from falling. Posens weren't supposed to cry. Crying was weak. She sniffled as she tried to draw in a breath through her mouth and nodded her head.

He didn't let go of her face and she realized that she had answered the question incorrectly.

"Yes, Sir," she strained to get out. Her words became slurred syllables as they left her pursed together lips.

James dropped his hand to his side. "Shoot the god damn deer, Aubrey." He lifted her gun back up and roughly adjusted it in her arms for her, pointing it at the deer. "If you're not here to win, get the hell out of Kuwait."

Aubrey didn't know what that meant, but she had a feeling that maybe it involved getting sent back to being her mother's helper. That would have been enough to make her drop the gun and retreat, but she needed her father's 'good job' to ease the ache in her chest that was threatening to engulf her entire being. She drew in a deep breath to steel her emotions and glared at the deer as her finger found the trigger.

A shot echoed through the air. Aubrey hadn't pulled the trigger. The deer dropped to the ground in front of her as she stood there poised and ready to shoot. Her eyes widened in shock and confusion and she slowly lowered the end of her gun as she turned her head to look at her little brother.

"Yes!" his shrill voice echoed through the woods and caused a flock of birds to scatter.

James's hands left Aubrey's gun. He grabbed his son's weapon and placed it carefully on the ground then ruffled the boy's hair. "Good job, Son!" he enthused with more excitement than Aubrey had ever heard when she hit a target. Her head shot up and she looked up at her father with her eyes begging for a chance at redemption. There had to be more deer. James didn't look at her.

"Thank you, Sir!" her brother replied with a wide grin.

Aubrey's stomach rolled and she realized she was going to be sick. She placed her weapon on the ground and didn't even so much as receive a glance from James as she took off running into the forest then held her own hair back and vomited once she was out of their hearing range. Her father couldn't know she still hadn't kicked her humiliating habit. It would break him after how she had just failed. She wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand and trudged back to her mother with tears overflowing down her face.

The 'Posen Law' prevented James from even ever taking her to target practice again.

Because, 'If at first you don't succeed, pack your bags'.

xxxxx

No one in college ever believed Aubrey when she claimed to like the outdoors. When she and Chloe joined the Outdoors Club during their sophomore year, they thought she had been joking at sign ups. It was probably her designer clothes and the fact that she absently started to brush the dust off of their table. But she and Chloe were devoted members for two years – dedicated to camping, hiking, and the rock climbing wall.

She likes the exercise, the fresh air, and the solitude that come with hiking. Of course she could do without the dirt and the bugs, but the pros outweigh the cons. She just wishes Chloe was awake to enjoy the trail with her like old times.

The entire path is uphill and Aubrey stops a few feet away from the tree line to take a drink from her water bottle. It's almost empty. She sniffs and wipes the sweat from her forehead with her jacket sleeve then leans her arm against a tree. The last time she went hiking was two years ago when she and Chloe visited Ricketts Glen in Pennsylvania while spending a week with Chloe's brother. She had never seen a real waterfall before that trip, and she and Chloe spent hours swimming and climbing on the rocks. She kind of wishes they were there now, as opposed to this crummy island. She considers suggesting they return there for their next vacation. Or not, because she's going to be intent on going to Hawaii until Chloe finally caves and agrees. She downs the last of her water.

A branch cracks in the distance and Aubrey lifts her head and turns toward the noise. She slowly lowers the empty bottle away from her mouth and takes a quiet step backward as a white-tailed deer pokes its head out from behind a patch of foliage. It's a six-point buck, strong and majestic, like something she'd imagine to see in a photograph. She presses her lips together and drops her arm away from the tree. The deer twitches its ear and glances in her direction. She freezes and stares at it. She hasn't seen a deer since she was ten years old. Living in the city, she's been hopeful of never seeing one again. The water she just swallowed rises back up in her throat and her heart pounds loudly in her ears.

The deer steps out into the clearing with its head held high, and everything Aubrey is trying to escape comes rushing back to her. It's like a karmatic reminder that Posens don't run from their problems, followed by a painful revelation that she never did match up to their standards. If she did, she would be bucking it up back with the wedding party rather than quite literally running away. She swallows the sour taste in her mouth and wipes away the beads of moisture that are forming on her upper lip with her sleeve. Her eyes divert to the ground. She's not running, she reminds herself. Aubrey Posen doesn't run away from her problems. She's just trying to get a clearer view. There is nothing wrong with that. Or so she tries to believe, but she knows she's spinning a web of lies to herself. The thought of her father's disappointment cuts like a knife. But she jogs every morning. She forces herself to look back up at the deer, torn in a mixture of shame and the desire to prove something to someone who hasn't spoken to her in years.

Leaves and branches crackle under the deer's hooves as it takes a step forward, unperturbed by Aubrey's presence. It turns away from her then lowers its head and nibbles on something on the ground.

Aubrey realizes that she can't just stand there staring at her past all day. That's exactly her problem – just standing around, dillydallying and not taking charge of her issues. Or maybe the problem is that she's making mountains out of molehills. She sets her jaw and spins around on her heels, ready to march back to town. She's spending one week with Beca and a few Trebles; it's not exactly some devastating blow to life as she knows it. She's a grown woman acting like she's ten years old again. She rolls her eyes at how pathetic she's being and takes several steps back down the path, swinging her water bottle next to her with an air of disappointment in herself.

She inhales deeply then exhales a heavy sigh, but her breath is cut off by a bass sound that seems to shake the entire forest. Her heart gives one pound then pauses – the sensation so strong that she nearly yelps. Her water bottle flies from her hand and the deer takes off in a frantic run, in the opposite direction of the sound. She bristles and turns on instinct in the direction of the noise, staring forward even as it's turned down to a (just barely) tolerable level. It suddenly doesn't take rocket science to figure out which of her so-called 'friends' Mills sent this way earlier. She barely needs to give it a second thought as she storms forward, snatching her water bottle up on the way, and stomps through the trees out into the open area of the cliffs. Just several feet in front of her is a deadly drop off the rocks, and, sure enough, Beca and her laptop are perched on the edge.

"What the hell are you doing, Beca?" Pent-up irritation leaks from her voice. She can't even take a walk to clear her head of Beca without the woman invading her space. She sets her jaw and stares at her through narrowed eyes.

Beca jumps and her hand knocks a CD case over the edge of the steep drop. "Fuck," she hisses through clenched teeth and leans over the edge to watch it fall then turns to face Aubrey. "You're paying for that." Her tone is even sharper than Aubrey's. It sounds almost lethal.

If Aubrey's face wasn't so set in a scowl, she might laugh. Over her dead body is she going to pay for a disc full of Beca's mad lib beats. "What do you think you're doing?" she repeats. It's less about whatever Beca is doing on the cliffs and more about the photograph that apparently never existed. It had to. She held it in her hands, for crying out loud! And the longer she stares at Beca, the more convinced she is that it was real. And the angrier she becomes over it. So much for letting it go. The plastic bottle makes a crackling noise as her grip on it tightens. She didn't travel all the way to Seattle for Beca to make a paranoid fool out of her.

"Are you serious?" Beca asks incredulously and lifts her brows.

"Dixie Chicks serious," Aubrey bites out. Why do all of their arguments feel the same? She draws in a deep breath through her nose then lets it out again.

Beca places a hand on top of her laptop screen and moves it further away from the edge of the cliff like she's afraid Aubrey is going to be the cause of that being thrown off the edge as well. It's tempting.

"Why were you in my room, Beca?" Aubrey doesn't beat around the bush. They had enough time for pointless banter and inane arguments back at Barden.

"I was in your room?" Beca doesn't sound nearly as amused by the accusation as she looks. "Jesus. What are you trying to do, Aubrey? What do you think putting a photograph of me and Chloe on Jesse's pillow then trying to twist it on me is even going to accomplish?"

There is no way that Beca is going to pin this on her. Aubrey glares at her, absolutely livid. "You had your chance with her, Beca." Her voice tremors with rage as she speaks. "You blew it. You don't get to make us miserable over your mistake." She doesn't know if Beca considers letting Chloe go a mistake, but if she doesn't, she sure as hell should.

"Of course you're still going to blame that on me!" Beca's nostrils flare and she presses her lips together to form a tight, straight line. The corners of her mouth twitch with anger and suppressed words that Aubrey really wishes she'd have the nerve to say out loud. "Just stay away from me, Aubrey." She says it as though it's supposed to be a simple task, and Aubrey has to resist the urge to knock her off the cliff to accomplish it.

"How am I supposed to stay away from you if you won't stay away from me?" Aubrey snaps thickly.

"You're the one who approached me just now," Beca reminds her. She grabs her headphones and plugs them into her laptop then shoots one last irritated look at Aubrey before placing them on her head. She jams her finger against the volume button on her keyboard, probably to rub it in to Aubrey that she can no longer hear what she has to say, then turns and lays down on her back about two feet away from the edge of the cliff.

Aubrey doesn't even bother trying to yell over her music. She scowls and tosses her water bottle in Beca's direction out of frustration. It hits the ground then rolls into Beca's side. It sinks in how immature the move was a fraction of a second later, and she waits for Beca to throw it back at her and lessen her embarrassment.

Beca doesn't look at it. She picks it up and chucks it off the edge of the cliff then closes her eyes.

Aubrey folds her arms. She's not going to tolerate Beca just not acknowledging her. What is she, like five years old or something, giving Aubrey the silent treatment? The lack of attention being paid to Aubrey's obvious desire to take care of the problem (which is Beca herself) leads to her clenching her teeth so tightly that her jaw begins to ache.

Beca opens one eye slightly and glances at Aubrey. "Oh my god," she says slightly louder than a murmur. She breathes a laugh through her nose as she closes her eyes again. The annoyance clearly written across her face doesn't fade, but it's joined by a smirk and a few silent chuckles. She's amused by Aubrey's reaction. She folds her arms across her stomach and bends her legs at the knees then sighs quietly. She appears relaxed for a few seconds before she laughs again.

Bitch. Aubrey groans loudly and turns around, stalking back the way she came. She curses being a Posen, because she'd give anything to give up on this whole wedding (and Beca in general) and go home.