FromTumblr: Thank you.
Mwallace: I have no comments on how that scene is going to play out, although I've had it written in my head for awhile.
MaliXx: Thank you.
Velver93: You have no idea how many videos of people tossing bouncy balls from high places I had to watch before writing that to know if they would bounce high or not. For science!
SunDanceQT: I was never a big dinosaur person, but my brother and I once got a really nice, expensive dinosaur set from Animal Kingdom that I still think about from time to time. Also, glad you got that reference. I think Aubrey would also have a bag of plastic of plastic bags. But who doesn't have one of those - aside from my roommate who has yet to figure out that all of his scattered plastic bags can actually be held by another plastic bag.
Pixie1913: Beca being sweet - one more way to drive Aubrey up the wall.
96itadakimasu96: I had an insane amount of barbies that I would play with all day long, growing up. And none of them ever had names. They all were part of a very intense storyline that revolved around my two main characters - a gay couple who were simply called Ken and his wife Ken. I still have pictures I took of them on their honeymoon.
RJRMovieFan: I'm glad that Aubrey has started to grow on you.
OrthoGoddess07: Thank you so much for the essay of a review. It made me so happy, I read it several times. 1. I have a very long storyline that I'm following for this story, and while it will get less intense over time, I don't think you'll ever have to worry about it turning into just fluff. It will definitely change tones as time goes on, as it's already done from Part 1 to Part 2, but I think it will remain interesting and engaging and tie together nicely when it does eventually come to its end. Also, I suck at writing pure fluff. 2. That aspect of Chloe will definitely come into play more as time goes on. Especially with Chloe's mom around. 3. I actually keep a notebook of the timeline so I don't get lost, and when I do realize there have been minor inconsistencies, I make sure to go back and fix them as quickly as possible. 4. I don't follow a specific schedule. I think that would be way too hard with a story of this magnitude. Also, I don't like forcing myself to write if I'm not feeling it, because then it's not quality content, it's just me trying to get a chapter up. So I just update as I write.
Guest: Thank you!
Ash: Those dinosaurs have somehow worked their way into being secondary characters now, lol.
Dysrhythmia
I set out on a narrow way many years ago,
Hoping I would find true love along the broken road.
But I got lost a time or two,
Wiped my brow and kept pushing through.
I couldn't see how every sign pointed straight to you.
That every long lost dream led me to where you are.
Others who broke my heart, they were like Northern stars,
Pointing me on my way into your loving arms.
This much I know is true,
That God blessed the broken road,
That led me straight to you.
I think about the years I spent just passin' through;
I'd like to have the time I lost and give it back to you.
But you just smile and take my hand,
You've been there, you understand;
It's all part of a grander plan that is coming true.
- Rascal Flatts
"You can't do that," Beca complains.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Aubrey says as she places her crayon back in the box.
"You can't forfeit the game, because you know you're going to lose."
"That's not what I'm doing. I told you, I'm bored with this." Aubrey scans the paper one more time to make sure there is no way she can win their game of tic-tac-toe. There isn't, and Beca has two separate places where she can win, so Aubrey can't even block her.
"So, finish the game, and then you can quit."
"I don't want to. We've already finished five games, Beca."
"Yeah, because you won all of them."
"I'm sorry you suck at tic-tac-toe," Aubrey apologizes.
"You know what I find interesting, Beca?" Julia says, not looking up from the memory game that she's playing on her phone again.
Both Aubrey and Beca look at her.
"I find it interesting that it's like Aubrey refusing to lose seems to surprise you, like you haven't known her for several years now."
Beca just sits there with her mouth half open, apparently having nothing to say.
"Did you really expect to play some sort of game with Aubrey and win?"
"Is that a rhetorical question?" Beca asks.
Julia nods.
"Do you want to play something else?" Aubrey asks.
"Not with you." Beca stuffs her crayon back into the box as well.
"You might have a better chance if you played fairly, Bunny," Julia points out, and Aubrey frowns.
Beca snorts, earning herself a harsh glare.
Julia switches to playing her game with one hand in order to rub Aubrey's lower back, keeping her from shoving the crayon box down Beca's throat. "And you might have a better chance at winning if she knew you weren't going to mock her," she adds.
Aubrey is bored with all this 'having fun' anyway. She lines everything up neatly on the table, then curls up into Julia's side and watches her play her game. It's only just after lunch, but the day already feels like it's lasted too long, and she's tired. She's really tired.
"You two are adorable," Beca comments, and Aubrey can't tell if she's mocking her or not.
Chloe's mom just ignores her.
Aubrey tries to do the same. No, she doesn't. Beca moves to sit really close to where her feet are, so she tries to subtly push her off the bed, but it must not be as subtle as she thinks, because Julia puts her phone down and looks at her. She stops and gives her an innocent the look.
"Take a nap before you get yourself into trouble," Julia says, "Both of you."
"You can't tell me to take a nap," Beca replies, "I'm not even tired."
xxxxx
It's funny that Beca goes back to her cot (after Aubrey tries to get away with pushing her from the bed some more), and is the one to fall asleep – probably because the hospital isn't exactly providing a lot of stimulus worth staying awake for.
Aubrey more or less just lays quietly, unable to fall asleep – finding herself with too much time to think, but still not enough time for all the thoughts running through her head. None of them connect together. She goes from trying to process interacting with her brother to visualizing Cynthia-Rose dying right before her eyes then to realizing she's still in her pajamas and hasn't showered yet today. She tries to focus on watching Julia play her game, because too much thinking combined with going from eating nothing at all to suddenly eating like a normal person leaves her stomach not feeling so great again.
But, eventually, Julia puts her phone down – and Aubrey is left with herself.
Aubrey is the last person Aubrey wants to be trapped with.
She taps her chin.
Julia glances over at Beca then looks at her. "What do you need?" she asks, and brushes Aubrey's hair from her face.
Aubrey doesn't quite know.
"Do you want to get dressed and take a walk?" Julia suggests, "We can go get some sunlight, some fresh air."
That sounds better than this – anything sounds better than this.
xxxxx
The ground is wet, and the air smells like rain – in the good way, not the way that smells like earth worms or wet trash rotting along the New York City streets. Aubrey wonders if she's ever going to be able to appreciate rain again – or let Beca out of her sight again without waves of anxiety. She sits next to Julia on a bench that has mostly dried in the sun, and thinks about how she didn't know it was raining, how she doesn't even know what day of the week it is. Sure, she could ask, but what difference would it make?
"Are you chilly?" Julia asks, rubbing the goosebumps on Aubrey's arm.
Yes. Aubrey shakes her head. She's sure it's not cold outside. People are walking by without jackets, and they seem fine.
"Your blood pressure was still low when they checked your vitals earlier," Julia reminds her, "I was just thinking that could make you still be a little cold."
Aubrey isn't sure how anyone could have low blood pressure in a time like this, when everyone's blood pressure should be sky high. That probably means she still needs to be drinking more water. Low blood pressure is also most likely another reason behind how relentless this nausea has been.
"Have you ever been to Seattle before?" Julia asks.
"No." And Aubrey never plans on coming back.
"Me neither. It was always a city I wanted to visit, but not so much now. I thought it would be nice to see the space needle with Chloe."
Aubrey watches her pick up a stick and doodle the space needle in the wet dirt below the bench. The Space Needle is interesting. It had been built for the 1962 World's Fair in Seattle. It was one the three World's Fairs to take place in the United States in the 1960s - along side the 1968 World's Fair in San Antonio and, Aubrey's favorite, the 1964 World's Fair in Queens - home to Unisphere and the origin of It's A Small World.
"You seem like you're feeling very heavy right now," Julia points out, when Aubrey doesn't contribute to the conversation, "Do you want to talk about it? Other people can help you carry some of this weight." She offers Aubrey her stick. "Or you could just stab the dirt for awhile."
Aubrey does stab the dirt – several times. Then she realizes the stick is getting from her hand dirty, and she rubs her fingers together in complete internal panic until Chloe's mom hands her a wet wipe from her bag, taking it back once Aubrey's hand is clean.
"Is it always this bad?" Julia asks.
"I have no idea what you're talking about." Aubrey looks down at her hand, picking at the skin around her thumbnail with the nail on her middle finger.
"Yes, you do." Julia stops her before she can make her thumb bleed.
Aubrey shakes her head.
"No, it's not always this bad?" Julia asks, "Or, no, you're still going to pretend you don't know what I'm talking about?"
"I just…don't want to talk about it."
"Why?"
Aubrey wasn't prepared for that question.
"Is it a germ thing?" Julia asks, "Are you worried you'll get sick if you get dirt on your hands?"
Aubrey shakes her head. She does worry about that sometimes – but, that's normal, she thinks? Good hygiene is important, and everyone should be concerned about that from time to time. There are some things that she really thinks people are way too lax about – showering daily, which she still hasn't done today, brushing teeth, which she has done, hand washing… But this isn't that.
Julia is quiet for a second, turning to sit so she can face Aubrey with her elbow on the back of the bench, her head against her hand. "Do you need to feel clean, because you feel dirty?"
Aubrey wants to retort in some way that, yes, people usually feel the need to clean themselves when they're dirty – but she knows that's not the kind of dirty they're talking about right now. She swallows hard and hyper-focuses on the ground.
"Did someone touch you, Aubrey?"
Aubrey flushes and shakes her head. No. Never. At least, not like that. Never like that. Maybe 'dirty' isn't the right word.
"Then what makes you feel that way?"
"I don't feel that way. I feel…off-putting," Aubrey whispers. That's the nice way to put it anyway. There are plenty of other adjectives that she could use to describe herself. 'Disgusting' is a good one. 'Unacceptable', 'useless', 'inadequate'. And those are just the words she would use to describe herself. She doesn't even need to get into the things her family has said about her throughout the years. Just a few days ago, her 'friends' were telling Chloe how miserable it must be living with her – being around her. So, sue her for striving to be better than she is, for feeling like she needs to be perfect, for freaking out about some dirt on her hand.
"You're not off-putting, Aubrey."
She is though. She's the drill sergeant that pukes under pressure – that's her tagline. That's it. That's all anybody sees, because that's all there is.
And being off-putting is only a third of what drives her to do the things she does. There is how everything always feels so out of control, how nothing ever seems to work in her favor, and how she just needs to feel like there is some sort of order to the world. And then there's the dread; the overwhelming fear that 'something' is going to happen if even just one thing is out of place – and, right now, that 'something' is Chloe dying. She needs to have clean hands right now, because she needs to look acceptable, and she needs to feel everything is how it should be, and she needs Chloe to stay alive.
"Why do you feel that way?"
"I don't know."
Julia is quiet again, and Aubrey is starting to notice a trend now, how she pauses to think before she speaks. "I know that you just found out that I work for CPS, but I'm sure you can guess a little bit of what my job entails. I don't know what it is that weighs on you so much; I can make educated assumptions, but the truth is, I don't know. And I don't know what happened last week. But I have seen many, many people at their absolute worst, and I have seen many situations that shouldn't belong anywhere except inside of a horror movie – so, whatever it is that you don't want people to know about you or things that you've seen, I can promise you, I've seen worse. You might not believe it, but I have. And I'm not saying this to diminish your feelings, but because I want you to know that you can't phase me. You can't scare me away. You can't make me think badly of you. I am very difficult to get rid of. Why do you feel off-putting?"
Because she is. Because everybody, all Beales aside, treats her like she is.
Aubrey feels glued to the bench they're on, unable to look up – her stomach being the only part of her capable of moving, as it turns in circle after circle, reminding her of the world blurring as she spun in circles with Sophia. She doesn't want to be knocked on her ass again.
"Can I ask you about last week?" Julia asks.
Aubrey shakes her head.
"Can I ask you about some other things?"
Aubrey doesn't know.
"What are the things you like about yourself?" Julia asks, "Brag to me."
"I like that I can sing," Aubrey tells the ground.
"Tell me more about that. Tell me, with all honesty, how good you are."
Aubrey has nothing more to tell. Years of practice, and all she has to show for it is an ICCA win that belongs to Beca – who apparently didn't even sing at all until just months before.
"You're a beautiful singer, Aubrey."
It's not enough.
"Did your mom and dad tell you things they like about you when you were growing up?"
Aubrey's mom and dad didn't have things they liked about her; they still don't. She shakes her head.
"Did they tell you things they didn't like?"
Aubrey nods – and part of her mind goes numb.
"Did they yell at you?"
Aubrey nods again.
"Did they call you names?"
Another nod.
"And I know they hit you."
"Only when I was in trouble," Aubrey continues talking to the dirt.
"How often were you in trouble?"
Always.
Julia doesn't make her answer out loud. "Do you think maybe you feel off-putting, because they made you feel that way, because that's just one more way for them to hurt you?"
Aubrey shakes her head.
"Why not?"
"Because everybody makes me feel that way," Aubrey rushes out the words.
"Let's…forget the Beca thing exists for a second, because that is its own beast – does Chloe make you feel that way?"
That isn't fair. Chloe is…Chloe. Aubrey's head shake is so small, she's not sure if it can be seen.
"Does anybody in our family make you feel that way?"
"No."
"Do your friends, Brian and Conrad, or your boss make you feel that way?"
Aubrey shakes her head again.
"So, is it possible," Julia asks, "That you are actually a very loveable person, who has just had a lot of bad luck with hard circumstances and misunderstandings?"
"You're doing your job," Aubrey tells her, "You're very good at it."
"This is not my job," Julia replies, "My job is to figure out what's best for people, and then make sure all of the necessary resources are available to help everyone involved succeed, eventually without my presence – and, yes, I am kind and loving and compassionate, but that can only go so far. I have had hundreds of cases over the years, and I would say 50%, if not more, of those kids ask me, in some way, shape, or form to adopt them, and I don't even consider it. I have eighteen cases right now, and seven of those kids call me Mom. And I am delegating them to other people to take care of my own kids. I am giving up my job, possibly even permanently, for you and Chloe, because family is the number one priority for me – and you are my family, not a career choice. I'm telling you you're loveable, because I, personally, love you."
Aubrey still feels emotionally numb and physically sick. She pulls herself up onto her knees and turns to face the back of the bench, so in case she does throw up, it's over the back and in the grass, not on her shoes – and also because she can rest her arm on top the wood and hide her face in it. She doesn't know what to say, because she just feels like she owes her – like she should be providing her with some sort of payment just for sitting on this bench with her right now. She can't even put up an argument, because everything she says, Chloe's mom debunks it. She has a profound counter-argument to everything.
"So, knowing what I just told you," Julia says when the silence lasts, when Aubrey starts trying to shut her out and pretend she's alone, "Is the OCD always this bad?"
Is it? Is she always this unbearable? "I don't know." Her entire life is a complete blur right now. If this was a normal day, would Aubrey be unable to pick up a simple stick? Maybe, maybe not. It's not like every day is exactly the same. She takes a breath and lifts her head. Chloe's mom is forcing her to admit something is wrong. "It comes and goes."
"In trying to make yourself feel less off-putting, does that make you feel more off-putting?"
Aubrey doesn't want to answer that question. She doesn't want to think about how all the things she does to make herself feel right in the moment make her feel so wrong in the long run. She is the epitome of control and logic. She is smart and rational. She's going to be sick. She's finally coming up with things she likes about herself, only to be realizing that maybe those things aren't true. But they have to be, because that's who she is. She swallows the excess saliva pooling in her mouth, and puts her head back down. She is not going to be sick; she is not going to give this hospital a reason to keep her longer. She needs to go home.
"You have a penchant for holding onto things that aren't working for you anymore. Do you think that this is one of those things?"
Aubrey squeezes her hair and takes some breaths – trying to weigh silence against just getting it all off her chest. She slowly pushes herself upright so she's sitting sideways on her knees, and drops her hand to her lap. "This is who I am." This disorder, these personality traits, these metaphorical itches that she has to scratch are who she is as a person. Her personality isn't just something she can stop. She'd just be nothing.
Julia shakes her head. "Who you are is a beautifully sensitive, fiercely competitive person, who was told they weren't acceptable – and so you crafted a new person out of coping mechanisms to survive, and you've rationalized these compulsions that you have to be part of your personality, because any personality is better to you than the who you actually are. And you've done it so well that you've even fooled yourself. I think if you saw past this façade, you would like yourself a lot. Chloe and I sure do, and I think Beca is starting to see you and enjoy you too." She hands Aubrey a tissue to wipe her face with.
"I am who my mom was," Aubrey tells her, "I don't want to be her, but I am." And there is nothing either of them can do about it.
"Genetics are only pieces of us. It's not possible to be somebody else. The only person that you can be is you, and if you don't want to end up a certain way, then don't. You are an incredibly driven person; you can put in the work to end that cycle and succeed. And wouldn't that be the ultimate way to stand up to the people who hurt you? To take everything they told you was wrong and wear it boldly in front of the world?" Julia kisses her forehead then cups her face. "Come on, you know deep down you can beat them at their own game. Kick their asses. There's a five out of six chance you'll win fair and square, and a one out of six chance you'll manage to cheat."
Aubrey frowns and leans back away from her hands. "I did not cheat. I got bored. We played five games already, and I won all of them."
Julia pats her knee. "You cheated by forfeit, Baby."
Aubrey turns to sit on her bottom and tries to cross her arms with her cast. "I won all of them."
"Okay," Julia lets it go, and gets back to what they were actually talking about, "I'm telling you, you don't have to feel that way. You just have to be open to the idea that maybe you're struggling with some very hard things, but they're things that can be changed - and there are people, like myself, who know how to help you figure those things out and change them. Think about it."
xxxxx
They sit quietly for awhile after that. Aubrey expects there to be a thousand new thoughts plaguing her already overly-crowded mind. Instead, she finds her head rather empty for the time being, distracted by a Steller's Jay flapping around in a nearby tree. She's still tired, more exhausted even, and her stomach still won't settle again – so eventually she closes the distance between them to find a more comfortable position to rest in. And while Aubrey looks at her bird, Julia seems to be more of a people watcher who doesn't take a whole lot of notice to birds unique to the west coast. They're both content to be thoroughly engaged in their own thing while being together though, and Aubrey likes that. It's rare to just sit and be still with Chloe, and if Brian ever tried to wrap his arms around her like this, well, let's just say, they'd both have matching blue casts.
"Do you want to go back inside?" Julia asks once the bird flies away and Aubrey's head lolls to the side a little, "You can't sleep on the bench."
Of course Aubrey can't sleep on the bench. What does she look like, a homeless guy living in Penn Station? Actually, that's not a question that needs an answer right now; she's covered in questionable looking bruises and hasn't showered. She still shakes her head even as it becomes a fight to keep her eyelids from drooping. The fresh air is nice. Being cooped up in that hospital room is a constant reminder of, well, everything. She brushes her fingers against Julia's ring again, keeping herself awake.
"Has Chloe ever told you about my mom?" Julia asks.
Aubrey glances at her and shakes her head.
"That doesn't surprise me. I actually couldn't have asked for a better mom, or dad, can't leave him out," Julia says, "Growing up, she was so patient, and loving, and calm, and the best friend I ever had. I was always her favorite. My older sisters were a little more rambunctious like our dad, but I came along, and I was exactly like her. I wanted to be her. Every school paper that asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I wrote 'my mom' on it and a list of every reason I loved her. And she loved me back so much. We did everything together; we never even hit those rough teenage years like she and my sisters did. Even after I went to school, and moved out, and got married, and the kids came along, we were still so close."
Julia pauses, and Aubrey realizes this is probably not a happy-ending type story.
"But about six years ago, she got diagnosed with Alzheimer's. I think we all knew what was happening for a good year before that, but no one wanted to face it. Everything feels like it happened so fast after that, like one day she knew everything about me and she was that one person that really got me, and then the next she was calling me by my sisters' names and had no clue who I was. They tried to be supportive, but I didn't want to talk to them, because she still had some moments where she had vague idea of who they were – and then she didn't and they were in the same boat as me, but I am still so mad that they had her longer than I did. They were born first and she remembered them last. Two years ago, my dad couldn't take care of her anymore, so he put her in a home – and I haven't visited her once. He keeps telling me she's still very calm and loving toward everyone, and I shouldn't be scared of her. But I'm not scared of her; I'm scared of being my mother too. Terrified. I've written Chloe a letter every month since the day my mother was diagnosed, just in case, so she has new things to tell her I love her and she doesn't have to rely on memories. I'm so scared of becoming her and of how out of my control it is, Aubrey, even though I know that there are still ways I can be different. And I don't want to go visit her, and have her love me, because she loves everyone. I want to see her again, and I want her to love me, because I'm me. So, I can understand where you're coming from. Maybe not in every exact way, but I have enough of a gist to get you. I get the fear of becoming something you don't want to be and of wanting to be loved for who you are, and how painful it is to not be. We're finding our way out of the same boat, in a way. And, you want to know a really terrible secret?"
Aubrey can feel her breathing heavier; a vast difference from the calming, steady breaths that have been reminding Aubrey just how to breathe. She feels less like she's looking at someone who has somehow mastered the art of being flawless now and more like she's seeing someone who is, in fact, very human – and, for a second, something starts to make sense, something about how she isn't disgusted or 'put off' by being aware that Chloe's mom has her weak spots and vulnerabilities. She wants to know her secret, because she cares and she wants to be closer.
"Sometimes, I'm so angry, I find myself hoping my sisters both end up that way – even though I know I don't actually want them to. But it makes me feel better in the moment. We all have our things, you know."
Aubrey doesn't know what to say, so she says the stupidest thing of all, "I'm sorry."
"Me too." Julia sighs a quiet, drawn out breath. "And now I think we should go back inside before you fall asleep on this bench."
Aubrey isn't sure she's going to be falling asleep anytime soon now, but she stands up anyway, using the bench for assistance during the first few seconds of being upright. "Mom…"
Julia gets up too, then stops to look at her.
Just say it, Aubrey. Aubrey is starting to realize that, while she may have a lot of words and the ability to get things done, she's shit at expressing herself. Say it, you emotionally-crippled blockhead.
"Are you okay? Do we need to sit back down for a second?" Julia asks.
Aubrey is holding onto the back of the bench so tightly that her knuckles are turning white, and she quickly let's go with a lame shake of her head. Oh my god, Aubrey, just say it. "I love you."
Julia's eyes widen, only for a second, but it's long enough that Aubrey can see the shock and know that wasn't at all what she was expecting Aubrey to say.
And, despite that Aubrey has lost count of the amount of times Chloe's mom has proclaimed her love for Aubrey, maybe it was the wrong thing to say.
But then her expression turns into one Aubrey knows all too well from Chloe, a little too confident and a lot too mischievous – and Aubrey doesn't like that look at all. "You don't think I know that?" she asks with a nose wrinkle, then proceeds to throw her arms around Aubrey's body so there is no hope for escape. It's strange to Aubrey how Chloe and her mom aren't technically related, but can look so much alike in their expressions and mannerisms.
Aubrey cringes as her entire face is suddenly being smothered in kisses with mumbled 'I love you's in-between each one, while passersby no doubt watch this humiliating torture happen with complete apathy and no inclination to help – the typical bystander effect. She did this to herself. The only thing she can do is wait for her to stop, and keep pretending like she wants her to – because she's well aware at this point that putting up some half-assed fight will prolong the attack.
xxxxx
"What are you doing?" Aubrey asks when she gets back to the room.
Beca is standing on her cot, taping a sheet of paper to the wall right next to it. "Well, since you two abandoned me and I had literally nothing to do, I decided to do some interior decorating, because if you haven't noticed, Aubrey, your hospital room is really fucking drab."
Aubrey steps forward and looks at what Beca decided to hang on the wall to spruce up the room. "And you decided that this would be better than, I don't know, some flowers or a balloon?"
"Yeah," Beca answers, waving around a weighted tape holder, "I'm not decorating it for you. And you can't just ask people to buy you flowers; you have to actually be nice to them so they want to."
Aubrey ignores what she says – but only because she's more annoyed by what she's looking at. Not only did Beca decide to hang up their sixth tic-tac-toe board, she filled in every blank square with the letter 'O'. "You could have just filled in one of the two places you thought would help you win."
"Okay, first of all, they're not places where I thought I would win. The whole point of tic-tac-toe is to have three in a row, which I would have had in one of those rows had you taken your turn. And second of all, I like it better like this."
Aubrey reaches up to tear it down.
"Aubrey…" Julia warns her.
And Aubrey nearly falls over, trying to look like she was about to just casually lean on the wall and definitely not rip down Beca's participation trophy.
Beca nearly chokes on her own air as she laughs. "Go back to your half of the room."
Her half of the room? Aubrey is the patient in this room. Technically, this whole room is Aubrey's room.
"I taped a line," Beca says and motions toward the ground.
Aubrey looks at the floor and then at the tape holder. "It's scotch tape, Beca, it's clear."
"Well, there was no painters tape for me to steal from the nurses' desk," Beca defends herself.
"Can I return that for you, please?" Julia asks, and plucks the tape right out of Beca's hand before she can even think to answer, "Thank you."
Beca watches her go, hand still in the air where she was holding the tape holder, until she's completely out the door. "Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it's not there," she continues on, then motions randomly toward the floor, "It's like right there somewhere."
Aubrey stands up straight and tries to determine what she exactly can and can't get away with when it comes to Beca.
"And you can't cross it between the hours of 10 PM and 10 AM or if you're going to touch my paper."
Aubrey holds up one finger, then uses it to touch her paper.
"You're not going to like what's going to happen to you for doing that once I think of something," Beca informs her.
"Aubrey, give her her space," Julia says as she walks back into the room.
Aubrey takes one step back. "I can't see where her space is, because she marked it off with clear tape."
Julia walks over and squats down, feeling around on the floor. "It's right here."
Of course, she would go out of her way to find it. "Fine." Aubrey steps back so her toes are on the line. "Then you can't come on my half either – which means you can't leave the room."
"It's not a straight line," Beca replies, "I zigzagged it so we could both use the door and the bathroom. But I didn't say you couldn't come over here – just not if it's between those hours or if you're going to touch my paper."
She cannot be serious. Aubrey looks at her mom.
Julia shrugs. "I think that actually sounds very fair."
No, it doesn't. This is Aubrey's room.
"You were about to destroy something that belongs to her," Julia continues.
The piece of paper does not belong to Beca. It's from a hospital notepad, and Beca and Aubrey both used it. Aubrey stomps her whole foot over the line, then pulls it back and backs up toward the bed until she's sitting on the edge.
"I thought you were going to get some sleep."
Aubrey isn't tired anymore – only, she actually is. She shakes her head.
"Okay, well, I am," Julia says, and lays down on the bed. She rolls onto her side so she can reach over and rub her hand up and down Aubrey's back a few times. "Goodnight."
It isn't even close to nighttime. It's mid-afternoon. Aubrey realizes she can find a comfortable position by leaning back against her – partially lying down, but still sitting up enough to glare at Beca. She stretches one of her legs out over the edge of the bed, wondering if she can get her foot anywhere close to crossing the line. Not really. Her lower lip sticks out, and she curls up sideways, struggling once more to keep her eyes open when there is suddenly a hand rubbing her stomach. She begins to reason with herself she won't feel it hurt anymore if she does fall asleep. She won't feel anything hurt anymore.
xxxxx
Aubrey becomes vaguely aware that she's sprawled sideways across the bed and her mom at some point. She somehow managed to roll onto her stomach with her cast wedged beneath her, and she has her other arm stretched up over her head and her legs dangling off the side of the bed, in a position that has her dangerously close to sliding to the floor – which probably would happen if her mom wasn't holding onto her and trying to wake her up. She pulls herself onto the bed with help, and finds a new position laying the correct way.
"Were you having a bad dream?" Julia asks.
Aubrey doesn't remember dreaming about anything at all – but the position she woke up in speaks a different story. And the more she comes to, the more she realizes she's sweaty and disgusting and her face is wet, and she's still so tired. She mumbles some sort of groggy denial into her pillow, and then she goes back to sleep.
xxxxx
"Wake up so you can eat, please."
Aubrey shakes her head and arches her back against being touched.
"If you don't wake up now, you're not going to sleep tonight, and your friend brought an early dinner."
Aubrey isn't very hungry. She already ate two meals and some crackers, and her body is done for now. She picks herself up to avoid being jostled anymore, with the intent of sleeping on the table, but there is food in her way. She stares drearily at the grilled cheese sandwich and chicken broth, and tries to come to terms with being awake.
"Are you okay?"
Is she? Aubrey isn't sure yet.
Beca is looking at her, clearly entertained. "If you woke up at a normal human time, you wouldn't be tired right now."
That isn't the problem; Aubrey always wakes up early. The problem is, her physical energy gets sucked out of her right alongside her emotional energy. She pushes her food back a few inches so she can fold her arm on the table, and puts her head down. Her clothes are still damp from sweating in her sleep, and the amount of nausea the smell of food is making her feel causes more beads of moisture to start soaking into her dress. She's sure she's going to be sick again when the bed moves as Julia gets up.
"Okay. You've had a good amount to eat today," Julia concedes, and takes the food away from her, "Do you want to go sit with Chloe and Dad while Beca and I eat? I can walk you there, and then come back for you when we're done."
Aubrey nods and slowly convinces her body to move.
"Hold on." Julia places on hand on her to stop her, and presses the button for the nurse, "You don't have to just deal with it. There is medication meant to make you feel better, remember?"
Right. Aubrey curls her arm over her head, not fighting it when a nurse wearing cold latex gloves forces her to untangle her fingers out of her hair to inject two medications into the IV port in her hand. She likes the needle better in her hand, where she can just forget it's even there at all. She was feeling so much better earlier. Maybe she just pushed herself too hard. Or maybe the days are just lasting too long. The latter is definitely a truth. She gives it a minute, then gets up before she feels a difference, gathering up the blanket to take with her. She can wait for it to kick in in Chloe's room.
xxxxx
"It's probably going to be like this for awhile, Baby," Julia tells her when they're alone on the elevator, "Your mind and body are tired, and trying to heal. You'll probably cycle through a lot of good and bad moments, and days. There's a lot going on, a lot for you to deal with. You're not going to be able to just keep putting everything on the back burner like you usually do."
All of Aubrey's 'burners' are on fire right now, and she can't put anything anywhere, because she's trying to extinguish them. She wants to sit on the elevator floor until they reach Chloe – but that's socially unacceptable and it's dirty, and by the time her mom is done talking, they're already there.
xxxxx
Chloe's dad puts his dinner away for later, but the room still reeks of chicken broth. Aubrey's relieved to know that Conrad has thought to feed him too though.
Her mom pulls her up a chair, places one of those embarrassing pink puke buckets on the floor next to Aubrey's feet, and leaves Chloe's dad with specific instructions to 'just keep an eye on her, please' and 'text her phone if either of them need anything'.
Aubrey needs her to stay in this room – or just outside the door. She needs her and Beca to be in close proximity, but instead, they're both on a different floor. And being close to Chloe isn't relieving that internal panic attack.
xxxxx
Aubrey manages to curl her entire body into the chair once it hurts less, and rocks her head side to side against the back of it for stimulation as she watches Chloe not move at all. Not. Move. At. All.
A nurse comes in after awhile, the first one that Aubrey has seen in Chloe's room so far, and greets them both with a sympathetic smile. She moves Chloe around and adjusts her pillows and blankets, and Aubrey closes her eyes through all of it. She wants to get up and micromanage – to make sure Chloe isn't getting bed sores and that she looks like she would be comfortable. Instead, she tucks her face into the blanket and the back of the chair, and places that responsibility in Chloe's dad's hands, because if she takes it on herself, she has to accept this is real right now.
xxxxx
They don't talk – Aubrey and Chloe's dad.
They used to talk.
He used to ramble about fish, and alligators, and boats.
She can't remember if he talked to her when her mom was in the room with them before, or what they would have talked about.
But the entire time Aubrey is in the room alone with him, he doesn't say anything to her.
He doesn't even look at her.
And Aubrey wonders if he blames her.
If he's thinking about how good it would feel to hit her.
Maybe she spoke too soon when she told her mom that no one in the family makes her feel off-putting.
But Aubrey doesn't exactly make an effort say anything to him either.
They just sit there in silence, waiting for Julia to return or something to happen with Chloe.
xxxxx
"Aubrey, Bunny, doesn't it hurt to sit like that?" Julia asks when she comes back.
Aubrey doesn't know. Whatever the nurse put in her, it took awhile to fully kick in, but it did a decent job at making her entire body numb.
"Are you ready to say good night?"
No, but Aubrey doesn't seem to be given a lot of choices that are actually choices lately. She sits up, looking away as Julia walks over to the bed to kiss Chloe's head and say her own goodnight.
"Meet us outside the door," Julia says once she's done.
And Aubrey is finally alone with Chloe again.
She doesn't know how much time she has before Julia comes in the coax her into leaving, so she's quick to review her day. She tells Chloe about waking Beca up early for breakfast, about coloring and the dinosaurs, tic-tac-toe, and Beca's stupid room divider that no one can even see. And she tells Chloe how proud of her she'd be to see them getting along. She tells her about her brother and her doll. She skips the details of talking to her mom, but she lets her know how good she has been to Aubrey, and how grateful Aubrey is to have a real family here, and how she appreciates that Chloe has always been so willing to share that with her.
She tells her she misses her – but she leaves out the negatives. She doesn't tell her how much pain she's been in, or how sick her stomach still is, or that she feels like sinking into the floor and dissolving all the time, even when she's laughing. Instead, she ends the conversation by telling her about the most beautiful bird she's ever seen being in a tree while she was outside earlier, and how she wishes Chloe had been there to see it too, because she would have loved it even more than Aubrey.
And she sings to her.
I don't need a lot of things;
I can get by with nothing;
But all the blessings life can bring,
I've always needed something,
But I've got all I want,
When it comes to loving you.
You're my only reason,
You're my only truth.
I need you like water,
Like breath, like rain.
I need you like mercy,
From heaven's gate.
There's a freedom in your arms,
That carries me through.
I need you.
One of two things is going to happen when Chloe wakes up. Either she's going to love all of Aubrey's country music, or she's never going to let Aubrey play anything country again. Aubrey can live with either one, so long as she wakes up. But for right now, LeAnn Rimes is a staple, and Chloe's going to be stuck with country whether she likes it or not, because there is only so much other music that Aubrey knows the lyrics to well enough to sing. Maybe that will wake her up, the desire to hear some different music. Maybe she'll open her eyes and demand that Aubrey 'branch out a little more'.
Just open your eyes.
But she doesn't.
Please.
Aubrey doesn't beg her about it, because if she can understand what's going on, she must not be able to wake up – and Aubrey doesn't want her to feel guilty. Surely, she must know that Aubrey is completely miserable without her and needs her to wake up. There is no way she doesn't know that. And, she must miss Aubrey too, right? Maybe? Right now, in this state, she probably doesn't even know that Aubrey exists. And that gives Aubrey some idea about how Julia must feel regarding her mom.
xxxxx
Aubrey doesn't move from her chair. After she's done singing, she waits there in silence for her mom to come back in and persuade her to go back to her own room – which she does. And Chloe's dad says goodnight to both of them as they leave.
"Dad's mad at me," Aubrey informs her on the elevator.
"What?" Julia asks, sounding surprised, "I find that very hard to believe. What makes you think he's mad at you?"
"He doesn't want to talk to me."
"I don't think he knows what to say," Julia says, "He's not always very good with words, and he's having a hard time coping like the rest of us are. But he's not a man that angers very easily, Aubrey. If you did something to make him upset, he would have told me, and we would sit down and talk to you about it, because that's how we resolve things." Her phone goes off, and she breathes a quiet laugh then shows it to Aubrey.
Hubby (three hearteyes emojis): I think Aubrey's mad at me.
"Maybe you two just have some things in common." Julia texts him back as they step off the elevator. "We're all a little off right now."
Oh. The world feels so confusing now. Nothing is how Aubrey expects it to be, how it should be. She stops inside the room and zeros in on the tic-tac-toe paper on the wall again. She could rip it down right now. She could start a fight. She could bring some normalcy into her life.
"I put the dinosaurs on the floor so you know where the line is," Beca says, oblivious to Aubrey's current thoughts.
Aubrey looks down at the dinosaurs guarding Beca's side of the room like tiny soldiers protecting a border. She kicks them all across the room one by one inside her head. "Will you stand in the bathroom while I shower?"
"Right now?" Beca complains.
"I'm gross," Aubrey says thickly, "And I want to get ready for bed."
Beca groans and starts fishing out her pajamas.
"I'll find a way to wash all of our clothes tomorrow," Julia says.
Aubrey nods – though she would feel a lot better if her pajamas were newly cleaned right now. She gathers her pajamas and clean socks and underwear, then follows Beca into the bathroom – only to realize she has to walk all the way back out so her mom can help her wrap up her arm and shoulder.
"You're going to be okay," Julia assures her while making sure no water is going to sneak its way inside the plastic.
Aubrey numbly accepts a kiss on the cheek, the goes back into the bathroom and closes the door behind her. After talking to her mom earlier, Aubrey knows that, in some ways, she will be okay – but how much of that matters if Chloe isn't? She wants to know for a fact that Chloe is going to be okay. She wants to know that they're all going to be.