x
Dysrhythmia
This is the sound of voices two,
The sound of me singing with you,
Helping each other to make it through;
This is the sound of voices two.
- The Wailin' Jennys
"You first." Beca spreads out slips of paper with names on them across the table.
Of course. Aubrey drops back against the chair and draws one leg up to rest against the arm. "What?" she asks when she notices Beca staring at her, "I'm thinking." For spending almost every waking moment together the entirety of her senior year, there is sure a lack of stand out memories. Of course she has things she likes about all of them, but those seem like a disservice compared to whatever Beca is planning on saying.
"Nothing." Beca mirrors her position. "Take your time."
Aubrey reaches forward and slides Cynthia-Rose's name closer to her. Flashes of attempted CPR and scrubbing her hands desperately in the lake come rushing back. She can feel Chloe's hand on her, trying to help.
"Aubs." Beca snaps her fingers.
Aubrey blinks a few times as the present catches back up to her. "Do you remember that one time at practice when it was pouring outside?"
"The one where you made us practice til the very last minute during a severe storm warning because you thought from the radar that we'd have enough time to make it to our cars, but failed to realize that some of us didn't have a car on campus? I nearly drowned."
It wasn't so much that Aubrey failed to realize this but knew that a few of them kept cars parked in someone's lot outside of campus and that almost all of them carpooled – all except Beca whose dorm was closest to the studio. They can unpack that never. "We've forgiven each other, remember?"
"Yeah, about Chloe. You were trying to get me struck by lightning."
That's difficult to deny. "This isn't about you."
xxxxx
Screw Howie. Screw Sigma Beta Theta. Screw the judges, who thought they were barely better sock puppets, and John and Gail. Screw everyone. Aubrey would prove them wrong – all of them. The Bellas had finally gone from sucky to mediocre. There was just one more step – mediocre to winners. How hard could it be? "Practice dismissed." The tight smile fell from her face as everyone darted from the building. Maybe mediocre was giving them too much credit.
"Hey." Chloe grabbed her by the arms. "I'm going to be late for class. I'll see you at home."
The squeeze she gave Aubrey's arms left her longing for what once would have been a kiss on the cheek. She nodded and pulled away. "Drive safe."
"You too. Also, I borrowed your umbrella in case it's raining when I leave!" Chloe sped out the door, flinging it open and allowing it to slam shut with a burst of wind.
"Chloe!" Aubrey reprimanded the place where she had just been standing then looked at the stack of papers that had scattered across the floor in her exit. Jaw clenched in annoying that was about to explode into rage, she knelt down to gather them all up. Stupid Drama Club always leaving their shit all over the place whenever they used the studio. Maybe she should purchase them a binder as a hint to clean up after themselves. It'd probably go unused and end up being just another thing for her to pick up.
She lined up the edges of the stack carefully and placed it on top the piano with a sticky note that said 'This is a SHARED space'. Yet another one of her black pens was suddenly writing with blue ink. What the hell? The period she jabbed onto the end of the sentence had enough force to break the pen and she tossed it in the trash on her way to the door.
Thunder cracked and the sound of rain began patterning on the roof just as she reached for the handle. She opened her bag to search for her umbrella then closed it seconds later. Chloe. She was going to kill her. She was going to stab her with the ladybug umbrella that she just 'had' to have that was no doubt hanging on a hook beside the door next to where Aubrey's 'boring' umbrella resided on sunny days.
Aubrey opened the door and stared at her car that was at the end of a now mostly empty lot. It was pouring and there was nothing in the building that was going to keep her dry. She was just going to have to make a run for it. There wasn't even a plastic bag lying around to put her things in. The least the Drama Club could do was leave behind useful garbage; was that too much to ask?
One of the few cars left turned on its engine and flashed its lights a few times, grabbing her attention. For a second she almost feared (hoped?) it was Howie showing up to apologize and she was going to have to tell him to go fuck himself and make a show of marching through the puddles. But no. The truck that pulled up next to her was worth far more than his hunk of junk. The amount he put into fixing it every few months probably cost more than the vehicle itself. He claimed 'she' (it) was worth the devotion.
Cynthia-Rose rolled down the passenger side window as she pulled up next to the building. "You want a ride, Girl?"
Denise gave her a half wave from the passenger seat.
There was proud and then there was downright stupid. "Thank you." Aubrey pulled open the back door and climbed inside with minimal water damage. She placed her bag on the seat then buckled her seatbelt before looking at them. "Why are you still here?"
"Who, us?" Cynthia-Rose asked while Denise fixed her hair in the mirror.
Aubrey looked around. There was no one else in the car.
"Which car's yours?"
"Oh, um, the one at the end." Aubrey leaned back against the seat and sat quietly while they drove in that direction. There wasn't a whole lot of reason to stick around – especially not with the storm rolling in. She unbuckled once the car stopped and gathered up her things.
Cynthia-Rose turned to look over the center console. "Drive safe."
"You too. Thank you – again."
The driver's side window opened as Aubrey exited the car and climbed into her own.
"See you tomorrow!" Denise called, leaning forward to be seen around Cynthia-Rose.
"See you tomorrow." Aubrey closed the door and tossed her bag on the passenger seat. They waited until she started her engine to pull away and she watched them go with half a smile. Chloe aside (or maybe not considering she stole Aubrey's umbrella), the older Bellas probably would have sat in their cars and watched her drown.
xxxxx
"So what you're saying is, karma came to kick your ass and Cynthia-Rose stopped it," Beca says, unimpressed.
"And Denise," Aubrey adds, "That's probably my only memory of her." Outside of that, she can't remember speaking to Denise at all really. "You know, it's not my fault you didn't ask anyone for a ride."
"That's more than I have of Denise," Beca admits, "One time she told me she liked my shoes? And I admire her desire to stick around even though no one talked to her outside of Cynthia-Rose." She pulls both Denise's and Cynthia-Rose's names in her direction. "I don't think you were the only one who could have made more of an effort with some people."
"So what about you?" Aubrey asks, "What's your favorite memory with Cynthia-Rose?"
"She took me to a Dykes on Bikes parade," Beca says.
"What?" Aubrey asks with a laugh.
"Dude, yeah. Like a year ago, she called to say she was visiting LA and asked if I wanted to hang out, so I told her she could just stay with me for the weekend. She came driving a motorcycle and told me to 'get dressed and hop on, bitch'. There were a lot of very handsome women there that probably could have snapped me in half with one hand. I would have gone gay for at least 75% of them."
"Mhm." Aubrey holds her tongue at Beca's choice of words on that one.
"We hit a few bars after that. Got IHOP at like two in the morning. And then I woke up very hungover the next day. And that's my favorite memory with Cynthia-Rose. Now what?"
"Now we light them and put them in the jar." Aubrey picks up the lighter. "Hold them out."
"How about you hold them and I light them?" Beca suggests.
Aubrey rolls her eyes and swaps her the lighter for the sheets of paper. "To Cynthia-Rose and Denise." She drops the burning paper into the jar.
"To Cynthia-Rose and Denise," Beca echoes.
Aubrey slides Stacie's name toward herself next.
xxxxx
"So you're like really good at History and Geography and stuff, right?"
It took a second for Aubrey to realize the question was directed at her; there was nobody else in that section of the library. She looked up from where she was kneeling on the floor, looking for a particular book on the bottom shelf. Even after hearing her voice, she was a little shocked to see Stacie hovering over her. "Mhm." She placed her fingers on the book's spine and tilted it her direction until it slid off the shelf, then stood up.
"Great." Stacie trailed behind her to the check-out machine. "I have to photograph some historical landmark for a coffee table book we're making in class and all the good ones are taken. What do I do?"
"Look for one that isn't?" Aubrey suggested.
"I just spent an hour looking for you. I texted you like a thousand times."
Aubrey felt around her back pocket for her phone. It wasn't quite a thousand times that Stacie had texted her, but it was definitely close. "Sorry, I was…doing something." Specifically, she was avoiding Chloe. "Did you try The Mighty Mo?" She slid the book and its receipt into her bag as she walked toward the door.
"The Mighty what?"
"The Mighty Mo," Aubrey repeated.
"And that is…?"
Aubrey stopped and turned around once they were outside. "It's a pipe organ."
"Can you take me to it?"
It had been awhile since Aubrey had been to Fox Theatre. She mulled the idea over in her mind for a few moments before nodding. "I'm parked in the south lot. Do you have a camera?"
"About that..."
Aubrey rolled her eyes. "I have one."
Stacie grinned and pranced after her toward the lot. "Can you tell me about it?"
"I don't think I count as a credible source." Also, she knew when she was being manipulated into doing someone's work for them. Chloe pulled all the tricks in the book with that; and whoever wrote the book probably did it on her behalf. She unlocked her car with her keyring. "It's only a few miles away."
"Okay, great, but coffee first." Stacie let herself in the passenger's side and began rooting around.
"Can you not go through my things?"
"You have a CD player; I know you have CDs." Stacie opened the glove compartment and her grin widened as she pulled out a box of condoms. She wiggled her eyebrows in Aubrey's direction.
"I'm not a nun." Aubrey snatched the box from her hand and stuffed it back in the glove compartment where it belonged. She reached under the passenger seat and grabbed the CD case, dropping it unceremoniously on Stacie's lap. Safe sex was nothing to be embarrassed about. Still, her cheeks turned a rosy shade of pink.
"Do you have anything besides Dixie Chicks and Dolly Parton?"
Aubrey reached over and flipped it to Chloe's section.
"None of these are labeled. How do you know which is which?"
"Chloe says the whole point is to not know." Once, Aubrey tried to label them on a sheet of paper while Chloe was driving - and Chloe had responded by putting them all in different pockets later that evening.
Stacie plucked one from the case and slid it into the CD player. "Wait, what's that?"
Aubrey glanced at the little slot beside the CD player. "It's a cassette player." She realized the confusion after she said it. She had a newer car with touch screen navigation and a cassette player. "I had it built in." There was no point in letting perfectly good, working tapes collected during her childhood go to waste. She worked hard to buy those tapes. "Those are in the back." A box of cassettes didn't exactly fit under the seat as well as a CD case did. "And there's more than Dixie Chicks and Dolly Parton." There was also Ace of Base and ABBA.
"Don't forget we're stopping for coffee."
Aubrey didn't forget. She turned on her turn signal for the exit.
"So, what do you do?" Stacie asked, flipping through the song.
"I'm sorry?"
"For fun. You have to be interested in something besides The Bellas and school."
Aubrey had plenty of interests. They all just decided to vacate her mind at that exact moment. She drew her lower lip in between her teeth while trying to think. Even outside The Bellas, most of her hobbies were still music related and she was sure that wasn't what Stacie wanted to hear.
Stacie switched to another CD.
"Chloe and I go hiking." Or, well, they used to. Not so much anymore with Bellas practice and school.
"There's a bet on whether or not you have some sort of secret interest you hide from the group," Stacie said.
"Like what?"
"I bet you're into BDSM," Stacie said, "Like that hardcore stuff."
Of course she did. "What did Beca bet?" she asked, trying to sound casual.
"Beca said you probably collect stamps."
It was probably meant as an insult to insinuate that Aubrey was boring, but that was the most relieving thing she'd heard in awhile.
"I actually bet you were into witchcraft. Everyone else said like geocaching or coin collecting. Chloe said hiking."
Geocaching was kind of fun… "Wait, why are you taking bets about this?"
Stacie just grinned. "So, have you tried witchcraft?"
No, but it was beginning to seem like her only option if she wanted the Bellas to win. "Why do you think no one goes into the basement?"
"Chloe said ghosts."
"Those have to come from somewhere." Aubrey chewed down on her lip to make her smile more subtle. She pulled into the Starbucks drive-thru and leaned uncomfortably back as Stacie draped herself directly across her lap to say her order. She followed up with her own order then gave Stacie a bemused frown when she stopped her from pulling out her wallet.
"I invited you, remember?"
Right. Aubrey slowly slid her wallet back into her bag.
"So what's a pipe organ?"
Aubrey nearly dropped her coffee as it was handed to her. "You've never heard of a pipe organ?"
"Everybody has heard of a pipe organ." Stacie paused to take a sip of her drink. "But does anyone know what one is?"
"Everybody knows what a pipe organ is. You'll recognize it when you see it."
"It sounds like another word for lung cancer."
Aubrey laughed then quickly lifted her cup to her mouth. That was a terrible thing to laugh about. But pipe organ failure sounded like a far more intriguing way to die than lung cancer.
Stacie leaned back, looking proud of herself. "This is my song!" She leaned forward again to crank it up. "There's only two types of people in the world - the ones that entertain and the ones that observe. Well, Baby, I'm a put on a show kind of girl. Don't like the backseat, gotta be first."
"I'm like the ring leader; I call the shots," Aubrey joined her, "I make it hot when I put on a show."
Stacie grinned at her.
"What? I'm the captain of an A Capella group. You think I don't sing in the car?"
xxxxx
"What happened next?" Beca asks, pulling Aubrey out of a daze she hadn't realized she was falling into.
"We took pictures of the pipe organ and then we left." The rest was a missed opportunity. "I thought about asking if she wanted to come over and I could make lunch, but I didn't. But, uh, my favorite memory is what happened after all that."
xxxxx
"I still can't believe we actually won," Chloe said, trailing after Aubrey up the driveway, "I mean, I can believe we won; I just can't believe we won. You know?"
"Every word you just said contradicted every other word," Aubrey answered, "But I know." She skipped up the stairs then spun around and walks backward toward the door. "I - Ow," she mumbled when her heel hit something hard. "I hate when they deliver packages right in front of the door." She pushed it out of the way with her foot. "I told you to put in a delivery note to put them off to the side."
"How are you going to blame me for something has your name on it?" Chloe slid past her to get inside.
"I didn't order anything." Using her foot to keep the door open, Aubrey leaned forward and picked up the box. It didn't have an address or a shipping label. It was just a square brown box that said 'Aubrey' in remarkably good handwriting. And it was heavy. She had to use both hands to pick it up.
"Who's it from?" Chloe asked.
"I don't know."
"Well, if it's something good, I'll take credit."
Aubrey scoffed and placed it in the coffee table then used her house key to slice open the tape. "It's a book."
"Of course it is." Chloe threw herself down onto the couch and nudged the back of Aubrey's leg with her foot.
"Shut up." Chloe's tap on the leg wasn't actually enough to knock her over, but Aubrey got the picture. She sat down on the edge of the couch and pulled it from the box. There was no title – only a picture of a pipe organ on the cover.
"Is that Mighty Mo?" Chloe asked, leaning forward to get a better look.
Yeah. Yeah, it was. Aubrey flipped open the cover to a sticky note on the first page that said 'pg. 38 the bottom' with a smiley face drawn next to it. She flipped through the pages carefully until she found Stacie's.
"This remind me of the time I had to bind a book about Georgia wildlife. Do you remember how long it took me to find a river otter?"
"That's on you for choosing the cute over the practical."
"They were really cute."
"Yeah, so cute that you went swimming with them."
Chloe frowned. "I could have drowned falling in that river."
The laugh Aubrey let out couldn't have been muffled if she tried. "It was two feet deep at most."
"Neither of us knew that when you were too busy laughing on dry land to save me. I could have died."
Stacie did a good job. Aubrey skimmed the article she wrote until she got to the bottom of the page. Listed last as a source was 'Aubrey Posen (non-credible)'. She shook her head with a smile and closed the book. "I helped Stacie find a historical landmark that no one else claimed. It was probably for the same class."
"Did you let her almost die too?"
"Yeah, Chloe, after we took the pictures, I had her stand outside then dropped the pipe organ on her head from a window thirty feet up."
Chloe was silent for a moment, folding her arms across her chest as she reclined back on the couch. "Good. I think I'm going to order Chinese for dinner. Figure out what you want."
xxxxx
"Wait, back up, Georgia has river otters?" Beca asks.
"Mhm," Aubrey hums. She places the sheet of paper directly in front of Beca. "Your turn."
"Stacie found out I had a fake ID even though my birthday was like a month away," Beca says.
"When is your birthday?" Aubrey asks. There was a point she knew when she had memorized each Bellas' information sheet – but once that knowledge no longer served a purpose…
Beca holds her breath like Aubrey asked her a million dollar question and she wasn't quite sure of the answer. "September 22nd."
"For serious? That was just a few-" Oh. Aubrey shuts her mouth.
"It was a double celebration. Who even has a wedding on their birthday? Sometimes I just said yes to his stupid ideas so I wouldn't have to hear about them anymore. How ironic would it have been if I died in the day I was born?"
If the thought of that is supposed to be amusing, it's a good thing Beca didn't pick stand up comedy for a profession. "I'm sorry."
"Aubrey, it's fine. I don't even care about my birthday. I survived long enough to be another year older and that's enough for me. But if you want to give me a belated gift to make up for it, you can give me my dinosaurs back."
…Aubrey isn't that sorry. "Continue."
Beca exhales loudly through her nose. "Anyway. Somehow a bouncer at one of the bars figured it out – and he literally had someone walk around to all the other nearby bars to warn them about me. I'm surprised they didn't take a picture and hang it up everywhere. So we ended up in this parking lot of food trucks and hung out eating tacos and pizza all night. And the food trucks didn't give a shit about my age – they were handing out beer to us like it was Halloween candy."
"What did you guys talk about all night?"
Beca lifts her shoulder. "Anything. Everything. I don't know why, but it was just one of those nights that stands out, you know?" She holds up the sheet of paper. "Do not light me on fire."
"Don't put your fingers in the flame. Only you can prevent yourself from catching on fire."
Beca drops it into the ball within a second of Aubrey lighting it. "That is definitely not what Smokey the Bear said." She reaches for Lilly's name. "I don't know if I have a favorite memory with Lilly, but I can definitely say they're all memorable." She turns the paper over between her fingers.
"Oh, Lilly," Aubrey agrees, "She was the most terrifying person I ever met and I barely even heard her speak."
"So we can both agree that were secretly scared that we were going to wake up in the middle of night and see Lilly crawling down the hallway like some sort of poltergeist thing."
"That's a really specific fear, and yes."
"Dude, one time she actually told me she was possessed and her real name was Esther."
"That explains a lot, actually," Aubrey says.
xxxxx
"Lilly, for the last time, I can't hear you from ten feet away." Aubrey could barely hear her from ten inches away. "If you need something, you have to come closer."
Lilly shakes her head and mumbles something.
"She says she can't," Fat Amy speaks up for her, "She says it's because she heard you know Latin."
xxxxx
"There was never a dull moment with Lilly." Beca lights the paper this time. "A lot of quiet ones, but never any dull."
"Oh, I have one for Fat Amy."
"I swear to god, Aubrey, if you say-"
"Super Bowl party."
"That doesn't count! And I know you have plenty of other memories with Amy to choose from!"
xxxxx
"I'm coming, I'm coming," Aubrey muttered at the doorbell being rung repeatedly.
xxxxx
"I already know this story," Beca claims, "I'm in it."
"Unfortunately."
"If it wasn't for me, you wouldn't even have this memory to reminisce about."
"And then you'd be happy because I'd have a different one. See, it's unfortunate for both of us. As I was saying-"
xxxxx
"I'm coming, I'm coming," Aubrey muttered at the doorbell being rung repeatedly, "What is so urgent?" She flung the door open, ready to berate whoever couldn't just ring the bell once and then wait a minute – but her confusion silenced her as The Bellas began to squeeze past her to get inside. "What's going on?"
"The party?" Stacie answered, "Duh?"
Party? What party? More important matters first – Aubrey took one look at Beca walking up the driveway behind everybody and shut the door. Lesser but still pressing matters second – for serious, what party?
"Hey!" Chloe greeted everyone enthusiastically as she rushed down the stairs, "You guys are all here on time! Look, Aubrey, everyone's on time?"
"On time for what?"
"The Super Bowl party," Chloe answered, "Remember?"
"I didn't plan a Super Bowl party. The Super Bowl is over."
"I planned it. I thought it'd be a nice bonding activity for after break. I sent you a text about it."
"No, you didn't."
"Yes, I did. I'll show you." Chloe pulled her phone out of her back pocket and scrolled through it. "…oh."
"You forgot to hit send, didn't you?"
"It's fine. We're having a Super Bowl party. You're invited."
"Invited? I live here…"
"Wait." Chloe looked around. "Where's Beca?"
Cynthia-Rose turned in a full circle. "She was right behind-"
"I guess she couldn't make it." Aubrey leaned back against the door with her arms folded. "Is that really a surprise? I'm so disappointed."
The doorbell rang.
Chloe gave Aubrey a look and gently pulled her away from the door. "Beca! You came!" She threw her arms around her in a tight hug.
Beca. You came. Aubrey rolled her eyes up toward the ceiling. Just showing up somewhere wasn't worth a gold star.
"Aubrey," Beca greeted her.
Aubrey watched her walk by.
"Hey!" Stacie shouted from the kitchen, "Where should we put the food?"
xxxxx
Back in the old days, like, a year prior, The Bellas used to have movie nights where they would purposely make sure Aubrey and Chloe did not get the memo. 'Oh, I forgot to send the text. Sorry.' Alice would shrug and walk away like it was an RSVP event rather than a movie in their own living room. So Chloe and Aubrey would climb into bed and have their own movie night.
Aubrey didn't think Chloe purposely 'forgot' to tell her. She was notorious for not actually sending texts – which Aubrey would never understand. Every text was the same process. You typed it and then you hit send. Every time. It should have been ingrained.
Sitting on the chair, bowl of popcorn on her lap, was how she imagined it would have felt if she had been invited to movie night. It was nice. Just – not nearly as nice as falling asleep two-thirds of the way through a movie with her head on Chloe's shoulder. But it was still nice.
Her phone buzzed.
Chloe: r u mad? we talked about how it would be good 2 do more bonding n I swear i thought i hit send
Aubrey glanced in her direction where she was sandwiched between Beca and Stacie on the couch.
Aubrey: No.
Chloe: …?
Aubrey wasn't mad. Aca-stremely annoyed that she didn't exactly know beforehand, but she wasn't mad. What more did she need to say?
"Yes!" Someone must have scored a touchdown while she wasn't looking, because suddenly everyone was leaping off their seats and cheering.
Fat Amy put down her beer and hiked up her pants.
"Amy!" Beca shrieked as her entire body was lifted into the air.
Aubrey's eyes grew wide – as did everyone else's.
"Touchdown!" Fat Amy threw her down on the couch.
"Dude!" Beca bolted upright, hair now a mess, looking completely frazzled. "What the hell? I'm not a ball!"
"Are you okay?" Aubrey asked.
xxxxx
"You're such a liar!" Beca exclaims, "You so did not ask me if I was okay!"
xxxxx
"Dude!" Beca bolted upright, hair now a mess, looking completely frazzled (but also unharmed). "What the hell? I'm not a ball!"
Aubrey slowly turned back to the game with a silent laugh.
xxxxx
"That was a shit memory," Beca states, "It wasn't even about Amy; it was about watching me be slammed onto the couch."
"It was an impressive display of upper body strength," Aubrey stands by her choice, "Just because you're the size a football doesn't mean you're the weight of one."
Beca snatches the paper out of her hand. "Fat Amy," she sighs, studying her name then laughs, "My favorite memory is that time she ripped her shirt off singing Turn The Beat Around."
"You're just saying to rival my memory."
"Yeah, I am. It was funny though. The look on your face was priceless – and way different than when I fucked up the set."
"Yeah, well…" They had still beat the Sockapellas and moved onto the next round. "I liked her more than I liked you."
"Liked. Like-ed. So you like me now."
"That's not a word."
"I don't know," Beca gets back to the matter at hand, "I have so many memories of her. I mean, it's Fat Amy."
"I remember when she first introduced herself at the activities fair," Aubrey says, "I couldn't believe someone would call themselves Fat Amy. She said it was so Twig Bitches like me wouldn't do it behind her back."
"She probably had a point considering Bologna Barb."
"Maybe Bologna Barb should have had her mentality." The activity fair feels so long ago right now – like centuries have past. She would go back and change it if she could. All of it. The whole year.
"Aubrey." Beca is suddenly snapping at her. "Come back to Earth."
"Sorry." Aubrey refocuses her attention. "I don't know why I keep doing that." She takes a breath. "Fat Amy. Memory. Go."
"Um, I think it was probably when we went to this lame ass carnival junior year. We had agreed it was going to be some bonding activity, but everyone bailed last minute so it was just me and Amy who showed up. We ate roughly a thousand corn dogs then ended up getting stuck at the top of the ferris wheel for twenty minutes. The guy working tried to calm everyone down by assuring us it was 'normal'. Amy kept offering to climb down and 'spin the wheel herself' and I kept having these thoughts that she was going to spin it and it was going to unattached and hamster wheel itself across the carnival with me still on it, crushing everything in its path. It also turned out Amy was really good at carnival games, and she ended up with a bag full of smaller bags of goldfish. Whenever she wasn't looking, I'd give one away so we only went home with one. I didn't have high hopes for a goldfish won at a carnival, but she got him this huge tank and he's still living in the Bellas' house. I wonder who's going to take Goldy the fish home now."
"I'm sure someone else will take good care of him." Aubrey lights the paper. "I thought you had some top secret memories."
"I do. So you need to go first on this one." Beca slides her Jessica and Ashley's paper.
"You have a classified memory with Jessica and Ashley."
"Dude, just go."
Aubrey turns the paper between her fingers over and over again. She can't think of a single thing. Nothing. "I admire their dedication. They could have quit at any point and we would have only noticed when we needed someone to sing their parts, but they kept showing up. They were always on time. They never complained. They sang backup every song with the same passion as a solo. We couldn't have done it without them." She looks at Beca.
"You remember when Chloe started propositioning me?" Beca asks, "I mean, she was always doing that, but when she really started to seem serious about it with the three of us?" She bites her lower lip.
"I remember," Aubrey answers tersely.
"I started thinking it was actually going to happen, so I went to Cynthia-Rose for advice because I'd never, you know, done it with a girl before. And she kind of explained it, but when I asked how that worked with three people, she had no idea, so she called in Stacie. But Stacie had never done it with even one girl. So I was kind of freaking out…" Beca visibly swallows and rubs the back of her neck. "I had no idea they were going to do this, but after I we take back to my room, they went and talked to Jessica and Ashley. And they were just so fucking casual about it!" she bursts out then starts speaking so fast that Aubrey can barely keep up, "They walked in and said Cynthia-Rose and Stacie said I wanted to practice my threesome lesbian game, which is not what I said at all – I just wanted to know how to do it – and that they would help me practice. I was already kind of drunk, because I sure as hell wasn't going to ask those questions sober, and practice seemed like the best way to go about it if I wanted to actually be decent enough that you wouldn't mock me for life. I had sex with Jessica and Ashley."
Aubrey's jaw drops.
"More than once. I wanted to get it right! And, also, it was kind of good…"
…and Beca had the audacity to mock her about Sigma Beta Theta. "I have to tell Chloe."
"Dude, no. You agreed not to!"
"No, I didn't. Not telling her would break the Best Friend code. We have to tell each other about these kinds of things." Also, if Aubrey tries to keep this to herself, she might burst. "Oh my god."
Beca's face is bright red. "That's also my only memory with them." She reaches for the lighter, but Aubrey grabs it before she can reach it.
"I want details."
"No! I'm not going to describe it for you! Why do you want details?"
"I can't gossip to Chloe without details. She's going to want to know more. Just describe the first time."
"No! Light the paper, Aubrey."
Aubrey lights the paper and drops it in the ball, not taking her eyes off of Beca even for a second. "Did you practice oral too?"
"I'm going to crawl into that ball and bury myself in the ash," Beca says.
"You can't just say something like that and then not elaborate!"
"I can and I did. And now we're done talking about it forever, and if you tell Chloe…something bad will happen to you."
"I've already had bad things happen to me. Do your worst." No amount of switching the colors in Aubrey's pens can hurt her now.
Beca frowns at that. "Something annoying will happen to you," she rewords her statement, "And before you say anything, yes, even more annoying than being forced to see me every day."
It was supposed to be a joke but Beca's response makes it clear that it wasn't exactly funny. They can unpack the whole Jessica and Ashley thing later – because there is no way Aubrey is letting that go. She's not even sure if she believes it. She passes blank paper and a pen in Beca's direction. "Did you want to say something good about your dad?"
"Um…" Even though the paper is right in front of her, Beca looks around like she can't seem to locate it.
"You don't have to."
"I can't think of anything. All I can think of is all the shit stuff I said to him. We tried to patch things up – but he probably still thought I hated him."
"I don't think so. I think he knew you loved him. Parents are supposed to know that kind of thing, right?" It's just whether or not they care…
Beca scribbles his name then lights it and drops it into the ball without a word.
Aubrey writes Sophia's name next.
"She might still be alive, Aubrey…"
"You really think so?" Aubrey has low hopes after every gruesome thing she's seen.
"Why kill a baby?"
Why kill any of them? "I hope she didn't feel it." Whatever it was.
Beca's arms fall to her sides as Sophia's name burns.
"Chloe and I used to write what we hoped for each other." Aubrey writes her name slowly, carefully, feeling the lines and curves of every letter. "I could never figure out the right thing to write. I wanted her to have everything." She clutches the tiny sheet of paper until the flames lick her fingers and she's forced to let it go.
"I think she already has it," Beca says without looking up from scrawling out another name. "I hope Aubrey lives the boring, uneventful life I always imagined she would from here on out."
"You don't tell the other person."
"Sorry. Does that mean I don't get to know what you hope for me?"
Aubrey doesn't look up from writing her name just as painstakingly neat as she wrote Chloe's. She hopes that this doesn't ruin Beca's life. That it doesn't follow her around and keep her from the things she's always wanted. That she can find something, or someone - if that's what she wants, better than Jesse. That she doesn't feel the need to check out because of what happened. Peace. Maybe they can find peace together. …as in look together, not actually find it living in the same house – even though they're definitely going to need it. She smiles a little as she lights the paper.
"You just hoped something awful for me, didn't you?"
"No."
"Then why does your face look like that?"
"Is there something wrong with how I look?"
"Yes."
Aubrey narrows her eyes.
"No! I just mean your expression resembles that of witch casting a spell on me. You know what, I'm going to just shut up before you add a strand of my hair in there. But I think your face looks very nice in an aesthetically pleasing sort of way. Not that I'm attracted to it the way Chloe is. I just-"
"Quit while you're ahead."
"That's really nice of you, because I thought you were going to let me keep digging myself a hole."
"It was tempting." Aubrey places the lid on the ball.
"You know, I actually feel kind of at peace after all that," Beca comments.
Aubrey looks up.
"I mean – as much as I can right now. Maybe that was the wrong word…"
"No," Aubrey says a little too quickly, cutting her off, "That's the perfect word. It a good word."
"Anyway, uh, thanks. Chloe was right about you being thoughtful. I always just assumed she meant you overthink too much."
"…while you're ahead."
Beca makes eye contact with her and smirks. "Or that you were thought-full. You just didn't have the capacity for more thoughts and that's why you always shot my ideas down. Dude, come back!"
Aubrey gathers her things and carries them toward the fire escape. "I have a name. Also, now you're just being a dick on purpose."
"Aubs!"
Aubrey stops with her foot on the first stair. She hated it when Brian and Conrad first started calling her Aubs – possibly for the same reason she hated it when Chloe called her Bree at first. It felt too close – too good to be true to have a friend wanted to call her something endearing. She looks back without looking up. If she does, she might burst out laughing. "Night, Becky."
"I hate you," Beca states, "With every ounce of my being, I despise everything about you. I don't believe a single good thing Chloe has ever said you are."
"Whatever. Hurry up before I close the window and leave you stuck out here. You know, I think I'm going to call the hospital and have them put me on speaker so I can tell Chloe about what you did with Jessica and Ashley."
"You know that didn't actually happen, right? I couldn't think of anything else to say! I barely said two words to them the entire time we were Bellas! I just told you that for the shock value!"
"I don't believe you."
"You can't prove anything."
That sounds like a challenge. "Weren't there other Bellas after Chloe and I left that weren't at the wedding? They might know something." Okay, so maybe Aubrey isn't actually going to go that far, but Beca doesn't need to know that.
"Aubrey…" Beca picks up the pace, following her up the stairs. "Aubrey! Dude!"
Aubrey leaps inside and slams the window shut behind her then looks at Beca through the glass.
"I'm taking the high road!" Beca calls without bothering to try to pry the window open. "Also, I'm telling your mom once she lets me in! Do not call or message anybody! I'm serious!" Her voice fades as she jogs back down the stairs, and Aubrey presses her face against the glass so she doesn't miss hearing a word. "You're such an asshole, Aubrey!"
There is a knock at the front door followed by Beca, out of breath, exclaiming, "Aubrey locked me out there!"
"Aubrey!"
That's a lie. Aubrey never locked the window. "I did not," she argues indignantly. Maybe they should give Julia a sheet of paper to burn so she can hope for some peace for herself.