The next morning…

Beca woke up to the brilliant late-morning sun, feeling light for some reason. At first, it confused her because she rarely woke up feeling so great, but then she registered the fact that she was not in her own room and instead in her best friend's room and she remembered every single thing that had happened the night before.

She re-closed her eyes and felt a slight blush creep up into her cheeks at the memories, but there was also a small smile slowly spreading across her face. She lazily turned around and reached out, expecting to cuddle up to the familiar-yet-unfamiliar warm body, but she literally came up cold.

Her eyes shot open and her body flew up when she found an empty space beside her and the covers pushed down to the end of the bed. There was also absolute silence throughout the apartment, which could only mean that Stacie had fled the place already.

Then came the heavy feeling in her chest that completely vaporized the light-heartedness from earlier. Reality quickly smashed into her like a freight train as she pulled the blankets up to shield her bare body, feeling way too exposed both physically and emotionally.

She slept with her best friend and now the morning after, a day that they both had off from work, she was nowhere to be seen nor heard. There was nothing left to give her any indication of what the other woman was thinking. No texts, no notes, no voicemails, nothing.

These were never good signs.

Slowly, Beca removed herself from her roommate's bed and made her way to her own room, only picking up the clothes that were actually hers from her outfit last night.

After getting herself ready for the day, the small brunette entered the kitchen to make herself some breakfast. She was walking over to the coffee machine when she caught a glimpse of something attached to the front door and froze. She turned and found a note taped over the peephole.

"Out all day. Be home late. Don't wait up. –Stacie"

Okay, that was weird. Stacie was very much like Chloe in the way she wrote messages for Beca, whether it be electronically or physically. They always left "xoxo" after their names and used nicknames. This note was also put in probably the last place the tall blonde thought she'd see it instead of the very first place she'd check in the morning.

"Fuuuck."

Beca woke up with a start at the sound of the front door shutting from where she'd been sleeping on the couch in the living room.

She checked her phone for the time. 2:34 am.

She must've fallen asleep, watching tv while waiting for her best friend to get home even though she'd told her not to in the very short note she'd left.

She watched with slightly squinted eyes as Stacie, who looked slightly disheveled, moved around the kitchen, not noticing her.

When the tall strawberry-blonde finally became aware of her presence, she paused for a couple seconds, before continuing her activities as if nothing had happened.

"Hey, Bec, what's up?" Stacie spoke in a nonchalant tone, which made Beca's eyebrows furrow.

"Um…nothing much," the tiny DJ said, "You're home late."

"Uh, yeah. I was a little busy," the lithe Bella noncommittally responded with a shrug, not even looking up from the very late snack that she was making.

"Stace, your shirt's on backwards," Beca stated in a flat voice with a completely straight expression.

She was trying to mask the full extent of the hurt she felt when she realized where her crush had been all day instead of here with her after what had happened between them.

Obviously, Stacie had just returned from either a date and hookup or just a straight-up hookup and the younger woman didn't feel the need to completely hide her displeasure, considering last night.

"I mean, Bec…is that really a surprise?" the tall blonde rhetorically asked, finishing up her little fruit salad.

"Um, yeah."

Beca had no idea what exactly was going on. She knew for a fact that Stacie hadn't lied about how much she had drunk last night and she also knew that it wasn't enough for her to have forgotten.

"I-I just…I thought…what about—" the small brunette stuttered, not believing that her own best friend was doing this to her, pulling her whole "hump and dump" thing.

"Bec, you're not making any sense right now. I think you need to get back to sleep. It's late, you have work tomorrow—well, this morning—and you probably fell asleep on that thing like an hour ago. Go to bed. Stiff neck at work probably won't be too enjoyable," the older girl advised, almost expertly avoiding the one subject Beca wanted to bring up, "Goodnight, Bec."

The tiny DJ sat still for a moment, almost like she was in slight shock, before she finally stood up, gathered her things, and made her way to her bedroom, mumbling a half-hearted "Goodnight" of her own.

If only she had glanced back once more.

Then she would've caught the heavy sigh that Stacie released as her body slumped and she stabbed her fork into her fruit, leaving it to stick up in the air, a beyond guilty expression taking residence upon her face.

The next day was no better.

In fact, the next two weeks were the same, if not worse.

Stacie still had yet to acknowledge their night together and Beca didn't even get many opportunities to try to bring it up. It definitely was not for lack of trying, but it was because the tall strawberry-blonde was out about 88% of the time, obviously using some of it to go on dates and/or hook up with even more people.

To say that the small brunette was getting annoyed and frustrated and even more disappointed and hurt would probably be one of the biggest understatements that she'd ever heard.

"I don't know what the fuck to do, Chloe! She barely ever gives me the time of day and when we do talk, she somehow always manages to avoid it!" Beca ranted to the redhead, who was sitting on her friend's couch and watching her pace back and forth in the living room.

"Well, how about the next time you see her, trap her and don't let her leave until you give her a piece of your mind? I'll bring a rope if I have to," Chloe bluntly told the younger woman.

"Ah, gee. Thanks, Chlo. So helpful," the tiny DJ sarcastically responded, assuming she was doing the same, and plopped herself down onto the couch beside the other Bella, dropping her head into her hands.

"I wasn't kidding," the ginger replied, "Okay, the rope part, yeah, but other than that, I was being completely serious, Becs. You need to do a little ass-kicking on her and lay everything out on the table for her. Tell her about your feelings and confront her about hers. Just be totally straightforward with her. That's really the only way I can think of to try and fix this."

Just then, the front door opened and both girls' heads turned towards the newcomer to find none other than the tall strawberry-blonde herself.

"Oh. Hey, guys. Sorry. Didn't mean to interrupt. I was just—" Stacie started to make up some excuse about her dropping in for a few minutes, only to leave and not be seen for another couple hours, but she was sharply cut off by an angry Chloe.

The redhead shot up off of the sofa, pointed towards where she had just been sitting, and ordered, "Anastasia Conrad, you get your ass over here and sit down and talk with her. Right here, right now. She deserves that at least."

She then marched out of the apartment without another word.

"Um, what was that about?" the tall blonde asked, pointing behind her shoulder.

"Oh, she's just…tired of your bullshit," Beca answered in a faux casual tone, before turning serious, "like I am."

Stacie straightened slightly and her eyes started to wander without ever falling upon the younger woman's, knowing that if she saw the hurt in them, she wouldn't be able to deny her feelings anymore.

"What are you talking about, Beca?" the tall strawberry-blonde tried to play dumb, but her best friend saw right through it, of course.

"Come on, Stace. Why are we still messing around instead of facing the truth? We slept together. Okay? It happened. Now what does that mean for us?" Beca started, hoping that Stacie would contribute, but of course not, so she continued, "Well, I don't know what it meant to you, if it even meant anything at all—"

"Of course it did," the other Bella quietly interjected, finally moving closer to her friend.

She didn't get very far though as the shorter woman jumped up and yelled suddenly, "Really? Because you're not fucking acting like it!"

"Well, how the fuck am I supposed to act, Beca?" Stacie shouted back, "I had sex with my fucking best friend! Don't you think that's a little scary for me?"

"It's scary for me too, Stacie, and instead of allowing us to work through it together, you fucking left," Beca responded, her voice lowering a bit and unintentionally letting some of her vulnerability slip into it, "I know you don't really do relationships and you have your fucking reputation to uphold, but I needed you, not necessarily as a…a whatever but as my best friend and you weren't there—you were never there.

"Every single time I tried to talk to you about, not just this, but anything, you always ran off to do something better. No, not to do something better, to go and mess around with probably a bunch of boys. And you can't even admit it to me.

"And you can't even tell me that I wasn't trying because we both know how much I was. We needed to talk about this, but you never took me seriously. What the hell was that about?"

"It…I don't know, Beca. You're fucking five years younger than me. I mean, we were born in different decades. Isn't that a little awkward?" the taller woman knew it was pretty pathetic, but it was the first excuse she could think of instead of facing reality.

"More bullshit, Stacie? Really? You're saying that you not wanting to be with me is because I was born in the nineties?" the small brunette concluded incredulously, "I know for a fact that that isn't true. Try again."

"Look, I can't pursue this with you, Bec. I'm not 100% sure that my parents would support it," Stacie finally admitted the truth, "So, there. That's why I've been going out and trying to find the perfect guy that will make them proud and…and who I'll maybe like more than you."

"Stace, I get it, but I know that your parents will love you no matter who you're interested in," Beca gently pointed out as she watched the taller girl sit down and followed suit, "Remember, when I met them? They thought that I was already your first girlfriend."

Of course she was feeling empathetic towards her best friend as she remembered how nervous and scared she was about telling her parents that she liked girls as well as boys.

However, she also knew that the fear was somewhat irrational as she'd noticed some little hints that Stacie hadn't seen in her parents that indicated that, not only would they be okay with them being in a relationship, but that they'd fully support it.

"Beca, don't push me on this," the older girl told the other Bella.

"Well, what am I supposed to do?" Beca exclaimed, standing up again and resuming her pacing, "I wanna be with you and I thought you wanted to be with me, but I honestly don't know anymore!

"I understand that you're afraid to tell your parents, but you could tell them whenever you feel ready. You may not be yet, but I'm 100% sure they'd still love you no matter what. And I don't even care how long it'd take for you to feel comfortable telling them! I just wanna be with you!

"You're the first person I feel like I could fall in love with since Chloe. But that morning, when I woke up and you weren't there, I couldn't help feeling like you were treating me just like another boy."

Something about those words snapped something inside of Stacie, making her finally wake up. It was then that the damage of what she had done—how much she had truly hurt one of the people she cared about the most in this world—finally dawned upon her and it absolutely broke her heart.

All in one swift motion, she shot off of the couch and grabbed her best friend's hand, bringing her pacing to a halt, then pulled her into her and connected their lips in an incredibly meaningful kiss.

When they separated at last, Beca's eyes were shining with hope as they stared up into her own and it only reassured her that she'd finally done the right thing.

"Bec, I'm so sorry. I've been such an asshole and you didn't deserve that. And you're right; I wanna be with you too. So fucking much. If my parents end up being okay with it, then awesome, but if they don't, well…we'll figure it out together," Stacie confessed, then tilted her soon-to-be girlfriend's head upwards so that they were looking directly at each other, "But you were wrong about one thing"—she leaned down to place a loving peck onto the shorter woman's lips—"Beca Mitchell, I never wanna hear you say that again because, to me, you were and never will be just some dumb boy."

AN: The argument at the end was particularly difficult because in the song Charlie Puth's singing about how a girl wasn't taking him seriously because she thought of him as a boy rather than a real man, but that situation doesn't exactly fit with two girls. So, I had to think of a reason why Stacie would be treating Beca like a boy and that's what I came up with.

Anyway though, hope you liked it and thanks for reading.