A/N: Another longer chapter, I hope you don't mind. After seeing a handful of people wanting me to finish this I thought I'd continue. Please continue to leave reviews telling me what you think. Tbh the more eager you all seem the more effort I put into the chapter and the more likely it is to come out sooner. So yeah. Anyway, as per usual I'm sorry about how long it's been and I don't know when I'll update again. But I will update, I promise.
also, slight trigger warning? idk nothing too much but I think it's enough to warrant a warning
"Are you sure that you should have left Aubrey like that?" Beca checked with the older girl as she unlocked her empty dorm room.
"She's a big girl Beca, she can handle herself." There was a noticeable pause. "Plus I don't want to be around anyone that treats my friends that poorly."
Beca stopped dead in her tracks, stopping in the middle of her room. "Whoa, whoa, whoa." Beca waved her hands in front of the taller girl, signalling her to stop. "That's really nice of you and all but, I'm not worth losing that friendship. You can't just let go of, like, ten years like that. Especially not over me." Beca became frantic. "What are you even doing her Chlo? – Ah, sorry. Chloe."
"Hun, calm down." She reached out to grab Becas shoulders. "What I'm doing is letting Aubrey calm down, whilst making sure you're okay." The taller girl said as she placed a hand on Becas cheek.
"Are you sure?" Beca looked up to Chloe as she placed her hand atop of hers, which was still cupping her face.
"I'm positive. Like you just said, we've been friends since we were 12 – I know how to handle her." Chloe removed her hand, walking past the brunette to sit on her bed. "Also, a couple of things."
Beca cocked an eyebrow.
"Firstly," Chloe raised a single finger, "you really need to stop asking if I'm sure. Girl you need to give me a little more credit." Chloe laughed at the still raised brow. "Secondly," she raised a second finger, "Dude, you can call me Chlo, I don't mind. It's all g."
Beca rolled her eyes. "Did you really just say that?" Beca laughed as she sat next to the redhead.
"Hey now, it's cool! I'm cool!" She joked and sarcastically sat up straighter as she tightened an imaginary tie. Chloe began again, after they had both stopped laughing.
"And lastly," She went to raise her hand, to indicate the next number. "Ah" She paused as she couldn't remember the number she was up to. "I don't remember what number I was up to, but what ever."
"Three dude! Three!." Beca laughed as the playfully pushed the older girl. "Seriously you can't count to three? How did they let you in here?" Beca was doubled over in laughter.
"Oh it was definitely my looks. For sure." She sat up, sitting away from Beca. As she placed her left hand on her hip she quickly looked over her shoulder, back to Beca. "I went Elle Woods on their ass. I sent in a headshot with my application." Once again they were both in fits of laughter.
After they had both settles down Chloe began again.
"Okay, THREE." She said as she slowly counted to three on her fingers, lingering on the second. "Of all the beds in the world, how on earth is yours made?" She gestured to the neatly made bed they were sitting on. "Like, you have about six empty Redbull cans lying around and there are records that aren't in their cases up there." She waved to the built in bookcase they were both leaning on. "PLUS, there are about four different pairs of headphones just chilling around the place."
"Wow, we've upgraded to counting to four, huh? That's a lot for one day Chlo." She poked fun at Chloe.
"Hey now, not cool." She laughed.
"But, uh, yeah. Always having a made bed was something my Mum always used to say." Chloe's face fell. "She said that if there was one thing you do each morning before you leave, it should be to pull up your bed. She believed it made you happier each night if you got into a made bed."
"Oh Beca. I'm sorry, I wouldn't have said anything if I'd known."
"I wasn't lying when I said I was fine. It's been nearly four years." Beca sat up and crossed her legs. There was a long pause before Beca broke the silence.
"Chloe, what did you mean back there?" Beca stared at her crossed legs, picking at her jeans.
"Uh, what do you mean?" Even though Chloe knew exactly what she was asking about.
"When you stood up for me to Aubrey, before I showed everyone." Her voice was small and gentle, but Chloe easily understood her. "You said something about going through the same thing." She slowly brought her eyes up to meet Chloes before returning to her jeans. Beca knew that if she didn't immediately tear her eyes back away, she'd be lost in the sea of blue.
"Oh, yeah, right. That." She hesitated.
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to I'm sorry, we can totally forget that I asked."
Chloe rested her hand on her thigh. She tried her hardest not to wince or back away from the contact. No matter how much pressure Chloe was applying to new cuts, of which the redhead was unaware, it hurt her.
"It's okay. I kind of want to tell you, I just haven't spoken about it since I first told Bre and I pretty much told her straight away." Chloe deliberately inhaled and exhaled before continuing. "I was 12 when things first started to slip downhill. It was my first year of highschool and my first year being at the same school as my older bother and sister. But I was excited. It was meant to be great, plus I had Bree with me. I really couldn't have been happier."
"Whoa, you have an older brother and sister? No way, I always assumed you were an only child." Unless someone explicitly spoke of siblings, Beca assumed they were an only child. Plus Chloe was so over zealous, it was hard to imagine that a kid would have room to grow up like that with siblings.
"And a younger sister."
Beca's eyes grew wider as she mouthed 'wow'. Chloe nodded again.
"My younger sister is six years younger and my older brother and sister are both four years older, they're twins. I should have only spent a year with them in high school, but they ended up being held down early in primary school because we moved states."
Beca was still trying to wrap her head around Chloe having siblings. She imagined they were just as gorgeous and statuesque as she is.
"Beca?"
It turned out that Beca had been more engulfed by that thought than she realised.
"You okay?"
"Yeah, sorry. I just really didn't even think you having siblings was a possibility; which is odd to say. But please, go on." Becas cheeks were now lightly dusted a rosy pink.
"Well these are the twins." She said as she unlocked her phone that had been sitting in her pocket. She turned the phone towards Beca, revealing a family photo. Beca was taken aback by the beautiful family. "This is Elise," She said pointing to a tall, thin, tanned blonde. Honestly this girl could have been a model.
'But so could Chloe.' Beca thought to herself.
"And this is Chad, the other twin." Beca nodded. He was equally attractive. It looked as though he was nearly six foot, well built and with a killer jawline.
"Your parents look like lovely people." Beca offered.
"They really are the best. I couldn't have asked for better, more understanding parents. But wait, you don't recognise them?" To say that Chloe was a little shocked was an understatement.
Beca just shook her head. "No, should I?"
Chloe was in disbelief. "Beca my Aunty is the first lady."
Beca froze.
"Dude what?" Beca had no idea what to say or do.
Chloe laughed. "Why do you think my family is so competitive and driven?"
"This is insane. Your Uncle is the president!" She was dumbfounded at how this hadn't come up in conversation before.
"Eh, he's married into the family and I don't really know him. So he isn't really my Uncle." The older girl shrugged. There was a moment before she continued. "And anyway, this is my younger sister, Eliza."
Beca laughed. "Ech, cute."
"I beg your pardon? You don't like the look of my family?" Chloe laughed.
"No man, E, E, C, C? Elise, Eliza, Chloe and Chad?"
"Oh right." Chloe shook her head. "You're a weirdo."
Beca shrugged and laughed. "Wait, we're just going to gloss over your uncle?" She said as she realised how converstation had changed again.
"There isn't really much to talk about Bec. I don't really know him and no one really knows. A lot of people tend to assume that Beale is a popular last name, so they don't question it. I pretty much just whip it out to intimidate people. If we could just not bring this up again, that'd be cool. It makes me feel weird because I really have nothing to do with them."
Beca went to push the topic, but stopped herself as she didn't want to upset the ginger.
Chloe continued "Anyway yeah, they're my gorgeous siblings. Believe it or not they've been that attractive all their lives."
As Beca went to disagree, Chloe stopped her and continued.
"In primary school I always looked up to the twins. I really wanted to be like a triplet to them. So I was ecstatic to go to their highschool. I just had no idea how hard it was going to be. I had no idea how perfect they were at everything. For the longest time I was just 'little Beale'. There were groups of people that went years without knowing what my actual name was. In the first few weeks of grade 8 I signed up for everything I could: band, soccer, track, field, badmington, science club, book club; you name it, I did it. But I quickly learnt that everyone expected me to be as great as the twins were. Even though I was new and only 12." Chloe took as breath to calm herself.
"After a year of trying to be as great as they both were, I had fizzled out and I pretty much felt like I wasn't good at anything." She slightly turned to her left, mimicking someone as she spoke. " 'Oh well Elise practices her scales every day'" she turned to the right to begin mimicking someone else, " 'Well Chad could do differential equations at your age.'" She came back to the middle, " ' Chad and Elise had broken the schools 1400metre record by your age; continuing to beat it year after year.'"
Chloe relaxed back onto the shelf behind her. "I couldn't do it anymore. I wasn't Chloe by that point and honestly, no one cared about Chloe. I spent the entire year trying to push myself out of their shadows and I ended up digging my grave in it." She momentarily stopped to gather her thoughts.
Beca placed her hand atop of Chloe's, offering moral support.
"After I began to realise that no one cared about Chloe, I began to not care about me either." She pulled her knees to her chest, trying not to cry. "It was weird and it happened quickly. I went from having awful anxiety about absolutely everything to just nothing."
Beca looked up to the older girl, who had her eyes glued to the navy cushion in front of her.
"Being 13 is hard enough when you hate yourself, let alone when everyone else hates you too." Chloe's voice was laced with defeat and sadness. Beca was expecting to see her crying, but instead her face long, deeply saddened. Her usually vibrant blue eyes were dark and lifeless. It was killing Beca to see her like this; it was so unlike the girl she knew.
"Chlo" It was barely a whisper. As the word escaped her lips, a tear rolled down her cheek. "Chloe." She quickly sat up on her knees and reached out to the older girl. "Please tell me you don't feel like this anymore. Please tell me you know and can see what a beautiful, talented, amazing woman you are. Please, please please." Tears were now streaming down the brunettes face. "You're too smart not to know these things."
There was a moment of silence. They both sat lost in the moment, with Becas hands still placed on Chloe's bicep, their eyes locked. Beca was scanning the redheads for an answer, for anything.
"Oh my God, Beca." Chloe moved her right hand, placing it on Beca's. "You're too sweet." There were tears welling in the gingers eyes.
"Please." The younger girl was still rapidly trying to find an answer in her eyes.
"I'm much better, yes." She said eyes still locked. Their faces had been separated only by a few centimetres for the last few moments, neither of them seemed to care. Chloe found herself struggling not to move her gaze down to Beca's lips; instead she chose to continue swimming in the dark blue sea.
"That doesn't answer my question Chlo."
The older girl could smell the redbull that laced Beca's breath, it was almost endearing.
"Becs, I'm human. I have my down days, just like everyone else." Although the red heads voice was full of hope the brunette found herself furiously shaking her head.
"No, no no no Chloe." She cupped the older girls face, as she moved her body closer to hers. Their faces still centimetres apart. "I can't believe that you don't understand how amazing you are every moment of every day."
Chloe inhaled, "Beca, like I said I'm human."
Beca moved, pulling herself away from Chloe. The older girl was momentarily confused as she quickly found Beca stradeling her waist. Beca's left hand moved down to the older girls waist where Chloe's shirt had slightly risen, exposing a small portion of her hip, unbeknown to her.
Chloe froze at the contact, panic now plagued her face.
Beca thought this was just Chloe's reaction to her sudden change in position. How wrong she was.
"Chloe, Chloe, Chloe." Beca was running her right thumb over the older girls cheek, whilst playing with her side. "I don't want to scare you or anything, that's the last thing I want. I just want you to know how much I –" Beca stopped as she glanced down to see what she waws feeling. Beca's hand had been running over Chloe's bare hip. Although, her skin wasn't smooth and perfectly even like she was expecting it to be. She could feel like ridges in her skin.
"Beca, no." She tried to avert the brunettes eyes, as she took Beca's hand off her waist and began to sit up. "Beca what were you sayi-" The younger girl cut her off.
"Chlo." The brunette had tears streaming down her face once again. "No." She breathed as she brought her hands up to cover her mouth. She was shaking her head in disbelief as she stood up. Beca began pacing the length of her small dorm room.
A/N: I hope you all enjoyed this (plz don't hate me).
Again please leave a review letting me know what you think! I hope you all have a great weekend.