- Part 1 -
Arrhythmia
Maybe you want it.
Maybe you need it.
Maybe it's all you're running from.
Perfection will not come.
-The Fray
Aubrey sits on the steps of the pool and stretches out her legs, sinking down until the water is level with the bottom of her neck. She rests her elbows on the step behind her and watches The Bellas in their own attempts to regain some energy. Stacie is floating on her back (seemingly unaware that Cynthia-Rose is staring at her), Fat Amy and Lilly are struggling with an inner tube, and beside her, Chloe has taken to absently waving her hand back and forth in front of one of the pool jets. Then there is Beca, at the other end of the pool, trying to cool down a heated argument between Luke and Jesse over what looks to be a failed game involving a beach ball. She sits up straighter and watches, eagerly waiting to see if a fight breaks out.
Chloe glances at her, then resumes covering up the jet with the palm of her hand. "For someone who doesn't want us to think about Beca, you're sure staring enough at Beca," she points out with a bitter undertone. She presses the heel of her hand against the jet.
Aubrey looks back and forth between Chloe and Jesse and Luke then shakes her head, unable to care less about Beca at the moment. She slaps Chloe's thigh underwater. Beca is unfortunately just in her line of view as she refocuses on the boys for some entertainment. She pulls her legs in so she's sitting crisscross and folds her arms on her lap, scooting over as Chloe sits beside her.
"Are they fighting over a beach ball?" Chloe asks, finally seeing what Aubrey is looking at. "Maybe they should be the ones getting married."
Aubrey glances at her and nods.
"I'm serving," Jesse says, holding the ball over his head, away from Luke. "It was my point."
"I told you it was a foul." Luke tries to grab the ball from him, just barely missing. "It hit the edge." He goes for it again. "That's the foul line."
"It stayed in the pool." Jesse backs away from him.
"Dude, one of you just hit the ball," Beca says, backing up behind Jesse.
"I want him to acknowledge it was our point, Bec." Jesse tucks the ball under his arm. "This ties us."
"It's just a stupid game," Beca replies. "Hit the ball, Jesse."
Jesse stares at her, then turns and hits the ball several feet over Luke's head.
"Jesse!" Beca glares at him then swims over to the ball. She picks it up and roughly pegs it back at him.
Aubrey smirks as the ball hits Jesse in the chest.
Chloe cringes and leans in closer to her.
"I've had enough of this." Luke swims to the edge of the pool, then hoists himself up over the side. "I'm going trap shooting." He gets to his feet.
"Yeah, yeah, me too," Jesse says and tosses the ball into the water. "Me too. I'm going trap shooting." He pulls himself out of the pool, opposite of Luke, and stands up.
"Beca?" Luke looks down at her. "Keep score?"
"I'll get the scoreboard," Jesse says and walks over to a chair, grabbing a towel from the back of it.
Beca looks back and forth between them. "What the fuck's trap shooting?"
Chloe nudges Aubrey's arm. "Was Jesse always this competitive?"
Aubrey shrugs, uneasy to know that if they're going trap shooting, there must be shotguns at the inn. She briefly wonders if that was advertised in the brochure. The beach ball floats near to her and she gets to her feet and goes after it, looking around for any Bellas who may be interested in playing some sort of game. She picks up the ball and turns back toward Chloe, holding it in her hand and getting ready to hit it to her.
"So, you in?" Luke asks as he stops at the edge of the pool beside Aubrey. "Loser buys the winner free shots."
Aubrey serves the ball a little too hard in Chloe's direction.
One of Chloe's hands flies up to block her face and she smacks the ball with her other hand, sending it flying straight into the back of Lilly's head. "Oh my god." She gasps and covers her mouth with both hands.
Lilly turns around to look at the ball, letting go of the inner tube that Fat Amy is still trying to balance on. The inner tube rolls over, remaining attached to Fat Amy's rear end as she falls face first into the water.
"I am so sorry." Chloe leaps to her feet and wades across the water over to Lilly and Fat Amy.
Aubrey shakes her head at them, not paying any attention to Luke.
"What? Free shots?" Fat Amy tries to squirm out of the inner tube as Lilly and Chloe attempt to roll her back over. "Count me in."
"Amy!" Aubrey frowns at her, doubting that she even knows what she just signed up for.
Stacie approaches them, giving Chloe and Lilly an extra hand to flip Fat Amy over. "Me too." She winks at Luke.
Chloe lets go of the inner tube once Fat Amy is upright and steps back over toward Aubrey. "How about you just let Aubrey and I buy you shots?" she suggests.
"Are you going to have sex with me after I'm drunk?" Stacie asks her. This draws in Cynthia-Rose's attention and she wades over to join them.
Aubrey scrunches her face in disgust. After Beca, she draws a line at threesomes, especially with other Bellas. The horror of leaving Stacie and Amy alone with shotguns and men who probably can't even teach them how to shoot makes up her mind for her, and she turns to face Luke. "Fine." She links arms with Chloe to be sure he knows she won't be joining him alone.
Chloe hugs her arm and stands up taller, shooting Aubrey a perplexed look.
"Great." Luke walks over to a chair to retrieve his towel. He secures it around his waist. "You two can help Becky keep score."
"We're gonna kick your ass," Stacie calls after him as he walks away, then leans over closer to Aubrey. "What's trap shooting?" she whispers.
"Isn't that when they release dogs after a fox?" Lilly asks.
"I don't have to run, right?" Fat Amy asks.
"They're hunting foxes?" Chloe asks, the color draining from her face. "Aubrey!"
"That's not what trap shooting is," Aubrey hisses at them and pulls her arm away from Chloe's tightening grip. She rubs at where Chloe's nails had started digging into her skin. "You shoot at clay discs."
"Oh." Stacie leans back again and frowns at Lilly, who just shrugs. "Wait, you mean I have to shoot a gun? But like a water gun, right?"
"Don't you watch the Olympics?" Cynthia-Rose asks.
"Yeah." Stacie folds her arms. "For Beach Volleyball. Duh."
"Beach volleyball?" Cynthia-Rose mimics her position and leans back. "What?"
"Okay, enough." Aubrey steps between them. "We're not going trap shooting. We're going to stay in the pool, and we'll play volleyball." She looks at Stacie, hoping that's enough to convince her not to follow Luke.
"No, I watch volleyball for the guys," Stacie says and hoists herself out of the pool. "And the guys are going that way with free shots." She points at Luke's back.
"Free jello shots," Fat Amy hums and grabs the edge of the pool, trying to pull herself up over.
"Who said anything about jello shots?" Aubrey asks.
"What?" Fat Amy stops and turns to look at her again. "There are other kinds?"
"I'm gettin' whiskey," Cynthia-Rose announces as she and Lilly take the stairs.
"You have to actually win to get free shots," Aubrey reminds them.
Stacie stands up. "Yeah, so when you win, we can just convince the guys to buy for all of us." She shrugs.
It takes a moment for Stacie's words to sink in, and even longer for Aubrey to realize that in order to win, she would have to pick up a shotgun and shoot it. That hadn't been the plan. She wasn't shooting. She was just going to observe and keep The Bellas out of trouble, because that she could do. She's not going within ten feet of a gun.
'Shoot the god damn deer, Aubrey.' James Posen's voice is as clear as if he were standing right there in the pool. 'If you're not here to win, get the hell out of Kuwait.' The chlorine suddenly smells like pine and wildflowers, and Aubrey's hand flies up to cover her mouth as bile rises in her throat. She turns toward Chloe.
"Aca-woah." Stacie steps back, clearly unimpressed.
Chloe grabs Aubrey's elbow and lowers her voice. "We don't have to go, Bree." She turns to look at the other Bellas. "Look, why don't we just stay in the pool? None of us even know how to shoot a gun."
Fat Amy finally manages to pull herself out of the pool and turns to sit on the edge. "It's not that hard, right?" She scoots back, then gets to her feet. "I mean, you just pull the trigger?"
Aubrey swallows thickly and shakes her head, pulling her arm away from Chloe. "You have to take it off safety, Fat Amy." She's not even going to address that bullets don't just generate inside of the barrel. There is also the matter of aiming it at the target...
Chloe places her hands on her hips. "I think Aubrey and I are going to stay here." She glances at Aubrey and offers a slight smile.
"For serious?" Aubrey motions toward Lilly, who is shooting up the pool with an invisible machine gun. "You can't really trust them around guns, Chloe." And Lilly is the least of her worries.
"I think they'll be fine." Chloe picks up the beach ball. She throws it in the air and catches it again as she takes a few steps back.
"Who's going to win?" Stacie asks Chloe. She looks at Aubrey and points at herself. "I need free shots."
"But Aubrey doesn't even know how to shoot a gun." Chloe tucks the ball against her stomach and floats on it.
"Oh," Stacie mutters, seeming to just take that into account for the first time. She frowns and examines her fingernails.
Aubrey climbs the steps of the pool, wrapping her arms around herself as the air chills her bare skin. Chloe doesn't need to know that she does know how to shoot a gun. "The bar isn't even open," she tells Stacie. She walks over to her beach bag and pulls out her towel, shaking it out before wrapping it around herself.
"Then where are we getting free shots?" Stacie asks.
Aubrey stares at Stacie, unsure of what part of the fact she has to win for free shots that she doesn't understand. "Are you stupid?" She picks up her bathing suit cover and the beach bag.
Stacie looks up from her nails and lowers her hand. "Excuse me?" She starts walking around toward the other side of the pool where Aubrey is. "I had a 4.0 GPA, bitch."
Aubrey narrows her eyes, her forehead creasing. "In what? A one on one Sex Education class?"
"At least I wasn't hooking up with half of The Bellas," Stacie retorts. "Beca only rated you a five on the ten scale, by the way."
"Oh my god, okay, okay." Chloe drops the ball and scrambles toward the edge of the pool, pulling herself out of the water.
Aubrey doesn't know whether to be disgusted or humiliated, so she settles for a strong mixture of both, her entire face feeling impossibly hot. She swallows a few times and straightens her posture. "What'd she rate Chloe?"
Chloe's cheeks and ears flush even redder than her hair. "This is not a conversation that we need to be having." She looks at Stacie and shakes her head, then pulls the beach bag away from Aubrey's clutches and pries it open.
"A nine," Stacie answers and resumes examining her fingernails.
Chloe breath hitches and she looks up from pulling her towel out of the bag.
Aubrey grabs the rest of Chloe's towel from the bag and yanks it out, stuffing it into her hands. She pulls the bag back in close to her side and folds her arms.
Stacie just shrugs. She turns to glance at Sophia and Donald then grabs her towel from a chair and follows after Luke.
"You're like an eleven," Chloe whispers as the rest of the Bellas start walking away as well. "Maybe you were just taking a while to get there with Beca."
There is a buzzing in Aubrey's ears that she soon recognizes as Chloe's voice. She stares at Chloe in disbelief, not wanting to have this conversation with her now – or in a million years. "Aca-shut it," she snaps. She may not be better than Chloe at sex, but there is no way she's worse at it either. Either way, there is no way she wants to discuss her sexual prowess and Beca at the same time. She rolls her shoulders, her skin crawling, and curls her lip in disgust as she slips on her sandals then follows behind the rest of The Bellas.
Chloe stays put for a few moments after Aubrey walks away, staring at the ground, her chest heaving as she breathes. She wraps her towel around herself, then rubs her hands up and down her arms and follows everyone else.
xxxxx
Aubrey lugs three folding chairs out of a storage shed next to the inn and drags them across the grass toward where a few inn employees are setting up shotguns. Staying several feet away from Stacie and Lilly, who have also taken on chair-duty, she unfolds the three chairs and tosses her beach bag on the one in the middle. She scratches where blades of grass are tickling her ankle with the side of her sandal and pulls open the bag, digging through it for bug spray. If only OFF! repelled all things Beca as well.
Chloe picks up the bag as Aubrey is going through it and sits down on the chair, putting the bag back down on her lap. She sighs and crosses her ankles, staring at the men loading the guns.
Aubrey glances over her shoulder at the guns. "They're Over and Under Double Barreled Shotguns," she says, then looks down at the bottle of bug spray when she finally finds it. "Twelve gauge. Probably made by Browning." She pauses. "My dad has one." She sprays one of her arms then looks at Chloe, waiting for some sort of response. "But he favors his Winchester."
"What about the Winchesters?" Chloe asks after a moment. She looks at Aubrey and settles back against the chair.
Of course, Chloe would tune out all but the word 'Winchester'. Aubrey presses her lips tightly together and lowers her head, spraying down her other arm. "Nothing." She sprays her legs as well, then tosses the bottle back in the bag. Chloe doesn't need it. Bugs rarely, if ever, bother Chloe – unlike Aubrey, who every mosquito in a five mile radius seems to be able to sense. She takes a seat next to Chloe and crosses her legs, resting her hands on her lap as she waits to watch everyone's poor attempts at shooting a gun.
Chloe stares at her for a second longer, then hugs the bag and sinks deeper down in the chair.
Aubrey glances at her out of the corner of her eye, then looks at the scoreboard as Beca scribbles Jesse's name with chalk. Fat Amy stands on the other side, writing down Luke's name. They're both laughing and enjoying some sort of whispered conversation, and Aubrey wonders if Fat Amy is telling Beca what Stacie said at the pool. Aubrey looks down at her hands and then at the shotguns again.
"Jesse," Beca calls and turns away from the scoreboard to locate him. "You're up."
"Good luck." Luke slaps him on the back as he walks by. "You'll need it."
"Stinks like testosterone." Fat Amy waves her hand in front of her face as the guys walk by her.
Cynthia-Rose exhales a quiet laugh and drops down on the chair beside Chloe. "Someone's gotta put that guy in his place," she says, watching Luke.
"I'll do it," Stacie offers, folding her arms.
Chloe cringes and shakes her head as a warning at Stacie.
"What about Aubrey?" Lilly whispers.
Stacie and Cynthia-Rose both turns their heads to look at Aubrey.
Realizing that they're staring at her, Aubrey frowns at them.
"It'll be like real Bella bonding," Cynthia-Rose says and leans forward to see her better. "We'll help you."
Help with what is Aubrey's question. Her frown becomes more prominent and she tries to focus on Jesse as he puts on shooting glasses and earplugs. She doesn't know what kind of Bella-Bonding the Bellas did with Beca after she graduated, and she doesn't want to find out now.
Jesse grabs a shotgun and walks across the grass. He aims it at the sky and stands at an angle with one foot in front of the other - his posture akin to that of a cowboy in an old Western rather than a pro-trap shooter. "Pull!" He squeezes the trigger, nicking the edge of the clay disc that flies through the air with a bullet. There are no visible broken pieces from the target, but Beca adds a tally beside Jesse's name anyway.
Aubrey slouches in her chair, biting her tongue to resist the urge to call them all out on the rules they're breaking. She tells herself they'll learn that the rules were put in place for a reason – probably when one of them gets hit with shards of clay while shooting shirtless. They had better hope that Dr. Campbell is decent at sewing stitches. She glances up, distracted as Chloe, who is shifting uncomfortably in her chair, takes her hand. "Did you know that Trap Shooting originated in 18th Century England?" she asks, trying to make conversation.
"Pull!" Jesse yells and shoots at another disc, shattering it in mid-air, then reloads.
Chloe cringes at the shot then furrows her brows and shakes her head. "Aubrey, why do you know these things?"
"They used to use live pigeons," Aubrey continues, impressed by her own knowledge. "But that was outlawed in the 19th Century when they started using inanimate objects. That's why the discs are called clay pigeons. They're very brittle. It's surprising Jesse's first shot didn't shatter the disc."
"Pull!" Jesse shatters a third disc.
Chloe flinches again and scoots her chair closer to Aubrey's.
Aubrey glances at the table for another pair of earplugs, but sees only an extra stick of chalk and an eraser. She turns to face Chloe again and raises her eyebrows, waiting for a response to her trap shooting facts.
"What?" Chloe asks, staring back at her.
Aubrey accidentally bites down on her tongue in frustration. "It's interesting," she elaborates.
"Pigeon shooting?" Chloe hugs the beach bag with one arm and gives Aubrey a lopsided frown then turns to face forward again.
"Pull!" Jesse misses his fourth disc.
Aubrey starts to shake her head, but realizes Chloe isn't even looking at her anymore. She presses her lips firmly together and sighs, facing forward and sinking back down in her chair.
"Pull!" The fifth disc shatters.
"Four out of five," Luke says, looking at the scoreboard. "Not bad." He approaches Jesse and pats him on the shoulder as he lowers the shotgun. "But it's gonna be a real shame when I hit all five."
Jesse glances at him and frowns, then walks over to the gun rack and puts down his rifle, glasses, and earplugs. "We'll see." He shakes his head and drops down in a chair next to the scoreboard, resting his head against his hand.
Luke puts on the glasses and earplugs, then pulls a new gun off the rack. He looks it over, inspecting it, then walks over to where Jesse had previously been standing and aims it toward the sky. "Aubrey," he calls, looking up the barrel of the gun.
Aubrey looks over at the sound of her name.
"Pull!" Luke yells and shatters his first disc.
Aubrey wrinkles her nose and diverts her gaze to the chalkboard, where Beca is writing a tally beside Luke's name. She hopes he gets hit with a shard of clay. With any luck, one of The Bellas is secretly a trap shooting savant and will kick both Luke's and Jesse's asses. She looks away, just narrowly avoiding locking eyes with Beca, and pulls her hand away from Chloe's to fold her arms.
"Pull!" Luke shatters another one. And then a third.
Chloe draws in a deep breath, then exhales a sigh that alerts everyone of her boredom. She sinks down in her chair, stretching her legs out in front of her, and drops her arms dramatically over the sides of the chair. The beach bag falls from her lap and lands on the ground, half of its contents spilling out on the grass. She cringes and props herself back up with her elbows to look at the mess.
"Chloe!" Aubrey sits up straight and shoots her a disapproving glare.
"Pull!" Luke yells and misses.
Chloe mumbles something that sounds unsurprisingly like 'oops' and leans over and starts stuffing everything back in the bag.
"Neatly," Aubrey enforces and tilts the bag upright, moving things around inside.
Luke lowers his gun and turns his head toward Beca. "Interference," he says calmly, then repoints his gun at the sky.
Jesse lifts his head from his hand. "You had a clear shot."
Luke revises his stance. "Audrey interrupted."
Aubrey looks up from organizing her things and narrows her eyes. "My name is Aubrey." She shoves the bottle of sunscreen back into the bag. At least Howie always got her name right.
Beca snorts.
Almost like it's an instinct, Aubrey sits up straight and turns to look at Beca. "Did you have something to say, Becky?" She locks eyes with her and arches her brows.
Beca's grin fades and she narrows her eyes.
Aubrey suppresses a smug smirk.
"Aubrey," Chloe hisses and lightly smacks her knee. "Stop tormenting her."
Aubrey frowns. "She tormented me first." She looks down and rubs her knee.
"Right," Luke murmurs, "Aubrey." He looks up at the sky. "Pull!" he yells and shoots, missing again. He lowers his gun. "I can still make it a tie."
"You shot at five." Jesse gets to his feet. "It's over."
Luke points his gun at the grass and turns to look at Jesse. "I've shot at four. I've got one more."
"Fat Amy?" Beca talks over them, almost tentatively. "Do you want a turn?"
"Well, yeah." Fat Amy walks over to Luke and holds out her hand.
Luke all but yanks the earplugs out of his ears and drops them in Fat Amy's hand, followed by the glasses. He takes his gun back to the table and places it on the rack then walks off, not sticking around to see the other shooters.
Fat Amy puts on the glasses then adjusts the earplugs in her ears. "Someone say something." She looks around.
"I can't watch this." Chloe covers her eyes with her hand.
Aubrey rolls her eyes.
"What?" Fat Amy asks, staring at Chloe cluelessly.
"We could be at the pool right now," Chloe mumbles.
Aubrey grabs Chloe's wrist and pulls her hand away from her face. "Be an adult, Chloe," she scolds her. It's bad enough she can't fully manage to block out Beca's immaturity.
Fat Amy turns to the table and chooses one of the guns. She carries it back to where Jesse and Luke had shot at their targets and stands with her legs wide apart, holding the gun out in front of her and pointing it upward.
"Isn't there anyone here to give lessons?" Aubrey asks and looks around for The Candlewick employees, reevaluating the Yelp review she's been formulating in her head. The food is good, and the likelihood of being a victim of friendly fire is even better.
"Polt!" Fat Amy yells and stares at empty the sky.
"I think it's 'pull', Fat Amy!" Cynthia-Rose yells to her.
"Riiight." Fat Amy nods. She spreads her legs even further apart, almost in a half-split. "Pull!" She watches the disc fly halfway across the sky then squeezes the trigger of the gun, missing it by several feet. The rifle kicks and flies back, slamming into her ribs with enough force to cause her to stumble.
Aubrey cringes and draws in a breath. And that is why lessons are important.
"Ooow." Fat Amy takes a few steps back and lowers the rifle to the grass. She grabs her chest with both hands and looks around at all of the bystanders who are staring at her, not moving. "Ooow!"
"Fat Amy!" Cynthia-Rose is first to react, leaping to her feet.
It's not that Aubrey doesn't feel sympathy – empathy, even. There is a scar on her right shoulder from the first time she ever experienced a shotgun's recoil, though it's barely noticeable now. It's just that she's having a hard time coming to terms with anyone shooting a gun like that.
Cynthia-Rose rushes over to Fat Amy, followed by Stacie and Lilly. She and Stacie kneel down next to her as she slowly sits down and Lilly picks up the rifle.
"Pull," Lilly whispers and aims the rifle at the sky. She shoots at nothing. Then shoots again.
Someone is going to get shot here, and Aubrey is starting to hope that it's her. She gets to her feet, ready to initiate cleaning up the shotgun set up.
"Chloe, you're up," Beca calls and draws a 'C' on the chalkboard.
Chloe's head shoots up at the sound of her name. She glances at Beca then cringes and looks away. "No." She shakes her head and sinks back down in the chair. "I just...No."
Beca turns the 'C' into a large 'a'. "Yo, Aubrey. You're up."
It's hard for Aubrey not to notice how she simply replaces Chloe the moment that Chloe says 'no'. She glances at the scoreboard as Beca finishes spelling out the rest of her name, turning up her nose at the messy handwriting. She considers offering her penmanship lessons, but has a feeling that smack from Chloe would probably actually hurt. "I don't shoot," she replies simply.
Beca lowers the stick of chalk to a tray at the bottom of the chalkboard. "Dude, you told me you did," she says slowly, looking slightly flustered.
That doesn't mean anyone else has to know. Aubrey can feel Chloe's gaze shifting back and forth between her and Beca. That was a private fact. She straightens her posture, wondering what her father would say if he knew she turned down a challenge. Nothing, because she already packed her bags when it came to shooting years ago. The relevant question now is: what will Chloe, who has an aversion to shooting anything outside of the monsters on Supernatural, think of her? What if she can't even hit a target anymore?
"You're asking Aubrey to shoot?" Luke is back again, walking across the grass toward the chalkboard. "She can't even throw a dart. She almost hit you."
Jesse sits up straight and looks at Beca. "Aubrey almost hit you with a dart?"
"I didn't almost hit anyone with a dart." Aubrey frowns at the blatant lie. That dart hadn't even come close to Beca. She faces Luke. "I'll have you know, throwing and shooting are two very different sports." It may have been true that they took most of the same skills, but those skills had to be applied in different ways.
"You almost hit Beca with a dart?" Jesse asks.
"Really, Aubrey?" Chloe asks, sitting up straight.
"No, Chloe," Aubrey snaps, far more concerned about her thoughts than about Jesse's. God knows she doesn't need a lecture from Chloe when the two of them are suddenly doing so well.
"She really didn't," Beca says, and Aubrey silently commends her for saying something useful for once. But it doesn't make up for the fact that she blabbed about Aubrey being able to shoot. So much for telling Beca anything about herself in the future.
"Let's go, Aubrey." Chloe gets to her feet and picks up the beach bag. "You don't have to prove anything."
Aubrey's frown deepens. Says the person who just asked her if she was using Beca for dart practice. (Not that she was completely against the idea.) She looks at Luke, unable to suppress the feeling that she does need to prove herself – but to who, she's unsure. She draws in a breath and nods her head, looking toward the rack of guns, where Lilly is putting one away. "Fine. I'll shoot."
"Aubrey." Chloe shakes her head and steps forward, resting her fingertips on Aubrey's arm.
Aubrey pulls her arm away and glances at Chloe, then takes a few steps backward toward the table. "Pick up the chalk, Beca. You're going to need it." The least she can do is kick Luke's ass. Jesse, on the other hand, well, as far as she's concerned, he's not even worth being on her radar. He's Beca's problem.
Beca immediately picks up the stick of chalk and holds it against the board beside Aubrey's name.
The shotguns are all the same, except for that half of them are now unloaded, but Aubrey studies each of them carefully after she turns around anyway. They really are exactly the same - right down to the gold plate engraved with 'Candlewick Inn' on the handle. But being picky gives her some time to control the bile threatening to rise up in her throat. She hasn't touched a gun in years. For all she knows, the last gun she touched is still somewhere in the forest, covered with years' worth of moss and dirt – waiting for her to return and apologize for her failure. Her father had talked to his guns often – offering up the only apologies he had probably ever given, whenever he missed a shot (which he rarely did). Guns were like people, he always told her. They were temperamental. They were fragile. They required a close, stable connection with a level-headed owner. While his guns retired to a cabinet in his office, treated better than any of the people in his life, hers had been given nothing more than an unceremonious burial in the woods.
She chooses the gun second from the right. It's where her rifle had been positioned in the cabinet back home – nestled next to her father's first rifle and then later beside her brother's as well.
"You have to pick it up in order to shoot it," Luke points out.
Aubrey's face flushes and she begins to feel uncomfortably warm standing out in the sun. Not taking her eyes off the shotgun, she grabs the glasses from the table and adjust them on her face, then picks up extra bullets and the earplugs. There should be disinfectant on the table as well, but, of course, she's the only one who thinks of that. She wrinkles her nose at the thought of all of the germs crawling around, but presses them into her ears anyway. They're flimsy and she's not so sure they're capable of anything other than making her ears feel clogged.
Before she can think about it too hard, Aubrey grabs the gun of her choice and lifts it off the rack. It's heavier than she expected. She holds the butt of the gun against her shoulder and points the barrel at the grass, the trek out into the open feeling longer than it actually is. Everyone is watching her as she places the extra bullets on the ground, and she sneaks a glance at Chloe for some encouragement, but only finds a look of confusion written all over Chloe's face. Holding her breath, she glances around to see where her targets are being launched from then aims up at the sky, listening to the sound of her own heartbeat.
"Pull!" Aubrey presses the butt of the gun harder against her shoulder and squeezes the trigger until a shot rings through the air. The jolt she feels is like being snapped out of a lengthy dream and into reality, and she lifts her head to watch the disc explode in the air, shards of clay scattering every which way. She lets out the air in her lungs before she gets light-headed and presses her lips together, failing to suppress a grin. Good job, Aubrey. It was a perfect shot. Her father would have been proud, had he not been intent on her shooting deer. She wonders if he was against 19th century hunters deciding to no longer shoot pigeons.
"Pull!" The next shot resonates through her entire body and Aubrey swears she can hear the very moment it hits the disc. She revises her stance, pulling her feet closer together, her pulse points throbbing so hard that she can feel each one of them. She swallows hard then shakes her head, getting her hair away from her face, and reloads for the third shot – the one that will tie her with Luke. Despite the urge to look around, she avoids it, well-aware that there won't be any expressions that she wants to see.
Aubrey breathes slowly, feeling strangely grounded. She gains more strength as she yells again. "Pull!" The third disc breaks and she and Luke share the same number of tally marks on the board. Her heart flutters. One more to tie with Jesse. Two more to hold a perfect score. She pretends she's at the shooting range – her father standing behind her, giving her a firm stare. She doesn't dare miss. "Pull!"
The fourth disc breaks, but she's more focused on the distant sensation of her father slapping her on the shoulder than on her victory over Luke. One more to win. Aubrey reloads then stares down the barrel of the gun.
Just one more to win.
Luke smacks the table. "Pull!" he yells.
For a fraction of a second, the world becomes four walls caving in on each other with Aubrey in the middle. You don't shoot during a distraction, Aubrey. Those are the rules. But Aubrey is surrounded by a group of people who play by a very different set of rules. Her chest tightens with the pull of the trigger and twinges with a sharp pain as the gun recoils against the tension in her shoulder. She lowers the barrel and lifts her head, watching shards from the clay pigeon rain down over the grass. The 'Good job, Aubrey' that she longs for doesn't return and she counters the distress by spinning around to face Luke. "What the hell?!" In her peripheral vision, she can see Chloe staring at her with her mouth agape and Beca adding a fifth tally to the board with an impressed smirk, but Beca's approval doesn't ease the weight from her shoulders.
"Didn't think you could do it," Luke admits, looking at the sky for a few seconds longer before lowering his gaze to Aubrey.
Aubrey wants to wipe the satisfied look off his face. She approaches him and shoves her gun in his arms, against his chest.
"So, uh, where's the free shots?" Fat Amy asks.
Aubrey had forgotten that that was the reason most of them were even there. She breathes to regain her composure. "Give your free shots to Stacie," she tells Luke, still not forgiving that Fat Amy had told Chloe she was with Beca all night. She grits her teeth. "And clean up this mess before someone gets shot." She turns away and marches over to the chair she had previously been sitting on to gather up her beach bag.
Chloe turns to face Aubrey as she walks back over and stands with one leg bent on the seat of the chair. She grips the back of the seat, silently watching Aubrey for a few seconds before speaking up. "Aubrey..."
Aubrey looks up then stands up straight, not prepared for but fully expecting whatever lecture she's about to receive. She knows it could be anywhere from 'why didn't you tell me you knew how to shoot a gun' to 'can we not go near guns again'. She pulls the strap of her bag over her shoulders and folds her arms. She's not sure how long she can stand there looking at the shock and discomfort on Chloe's face.
Chloe sighs, her features softening with the long exhale. She licks her bottom lip then curves her mouth into a small smile and nods her head. "Good job."