Not so unexpected

17. Ruined

"How does she dare to skip such an important practice?"

As you probably notice Aubrey disliked the idea of Beca skipping practice, the last practice before the Riff Off.

"We already talked about this, Bree." Chloe wasn’t in the best mood, it wasn’t even 8 AM and Aubrey was already complaining about stuff, besides, she was disappointed that Beca skipped practice. She feared that her friendship with the brunette would die.

"I’m so going to talk to her and shake that little brain of hers." Aubrey said angrily.

Just after Aubrey finished her death menace towards the brunette, Beca walked in front of them. Chloe knew what was about to happen.

"I ain’t giving her the talk, see you later." Chloe rushed away before Aubrey could drag her to the brunette.

"Whatever." Aubrey muttered to nobody.

She walked towards the brunette; she was going to murder her, that was for sure.

"Mitchell."

Aubrey's voice immediately sounded in Beca's ears, she really wasn’t in the mood to talk to the blonde, and well she's never up to a talk with her but this time was for real.

Nope. Was all she thought, quickly walking away, she didn’t need to turn around to know that Aubrey was coming behind her. She put her ear buds in her ears and got lost in the crowd of teenagers, in times like this, she was thankful for her height.

Aubrey lost her; Beca was nowhere to be found. She sighed frustrated and walked to her class before the bell rang.

"She avoided me." Aubrey said in disbelief sitting down next to Chloe.

Of course she did. Chloe saw this coming, it was obvious. "Maybe she didn’t hear you." the red head lied.

"She did, Chloe. Her body tensed when she heard me." Aubrey sighed, running her fingers through her hair. "Maybe she's not Bella material."

Chloe froze. Her pencil fell from her hand. Aubrey was thinking of kicking Beca out of the group?

The lesson started but questions still bounced in her head. Beca couldn’t leave the Bellas, she would lose her friendship with the tiny brunette, the pairs in the calculus class were done. What was she going to do?

She wasn’t paying attention, she looked like it but she wasn’t. Why was she fighting for Beca anyways? She was the one with the feelings, not Beca. Did she even remember what Chloe told her? Did she remember the kiss? She probably didn’t. Maybe she became a burden for Beca. She should stop trying.

The thought of killing her friendship with Beca hurt like hell but what other option did she had?

Beca walked out of her class with Benji by her side.

"And then Christen Press shot and GOAL, so close to the end of the match and-" The enthusiastic brunette was cut by her grumpy friend.

"I saw the match Benji, we won 2-0."

Benji felt, kinda, hurt? "I’m sorry." He apologized.

Beca immediately felt bad for being rude at him. "No, I’m sorry. It was a bad night of a bad day of a bad week." She sighed rubbing her eyes.

"Oh, I get it. Will you watch the last match of the year with Jesse and me this Saturday?" Benji asked.

She couldn’t say no to him, he was so innocent. "Maybe."

His jaw dropped. "Maybe? It’s the last match of the year AND the last match of Abby Wambach." He pouted.

"I know, I probably will."

Beca couldn’t wait for this week to be over so she could finally be alone during the break. The talk she had with Stacie yesterday was on repeat in her head. She wanted to talk to Chloe about her feelings, but was she feeling something strong for her? She avoided Aubrey the whole day, Stacie somehow got closer to Aubrey and they talked a lot, so Beca spent the rest of the school day with her best friend, Jesse.

"You're going to watch the game with Benji?" Beca asked sitting cross legged on the grass.

"I don’t know, the riff off ends close to the time of the match."

"You’re going?" Beca asked amused.

"well duh, I’m a Treble." He said like if it was obvious.

"Holy s**t. YOU ARE A TREBLE?" Beca was even more surprised.

"I was in the aca initiation night with you, silly." Beca didn’t remember that night so well.

"Why didn’t I know?" She asked to herself.

"Well, our relationship isn’t the same since you are in the Bellas, you have less time to hang out and hardly ever talk to me." Jesse was right; she was such a shitty friend.

"I’m so sorry Jess, I didn’t mean that to happen, I didn’t even wanted to be in the Bellas." She placed her head on his shoulder.

Jesse told her that it was okay, he understood. The rest of the lunch went by and they went to their respective classes till she left school.

Friday wasn’t a big deal, they got more of their finals grades and there were lots of girls acting like it was the end of the world because they wouldn’t see their friends for some weeks. Annoying. Since it was the last day of school before the break they were allowed to leave the school after lunch.

At the end of the day, Beca was leaving school with Jesse, Benji and Stacie. The 4 of them were chatting and laughing at each other.

"Give me a second." Stacie excused herself before jogging towards some of the Bellas.

Beca spotted Aubrey and Chloe in that little group of girls. She also overheard the conversation between Stacie and Chloe.

"Did you pass?" Stacie asked, grabbing Chloe by the shoulders. Then she heard nothing but a squeal, so she guessed Chloe did pass.

"I had a great teacher." Chloe shrugged.

Beca turned to see Chloe, just in time to caught Chloe staring at Beca. The red head gave her a half hearted smile, which Beca smiled back.

They went to the park once Stacie said bye to the Bellas.

The night fell upon the teenage groups of acapella singers, the Riff Off was had finally arrived, however, the Bellas were missing a member.

Something broke inside Chloe.

The Bellas arrived at the destination where the Riff Off was about to be played. The trebles were already there, everyone was getting ready but Beca wasn’t there, maybe she was late was the first thought that crossed everybody's mind, specially Chloe's but she wasn’t late, she wasn’t coming. Chloe wasn’t sure if she was mad at the brunette or hurt. Being mad was useless; she knew the feeling she had towards the brunette wasn’t mutual.

"She doesn’t care." Ashley said to the rest of the group.

"Beca's not like this, but she never really wanted to be part of the Bellas."

When those words came out of Amy's mouth, they knew that Beca wasn’t coming, Amy wasn’t the serious one, and hearing this from her made it pretty serious.

Meanwhile Beca was lying on her bed wearing her blue soccer jersey, the one Chloe had worn weeks ago with her laptop on her belly. The match started after the riff off, she didn’t have an excuse to miss it, she just didn’t want to be there.

"Honey, do you have the box of cereal?" Caren asked opening Beca's door.

"Yes mom, sorry." She apologized.

Caren shut the door. "Watching the match?" She sat on the edge of her bed.

Her daughter shook her head. "The kick off is in 8 minutes."

Caren sensed something was wrong with her daughter, Beca was...calmer? She was used to her daughter being closed off, she never pushed Beca to far, if something bothered her daughter, with time Beca would talk to her.

"Okay, I’m gonna leave now. Will you eat dinner?" She asked

"Probably." Beca shrugged.

Caren stood up to leave, just when she was almost out of the door, Beca called her.

"You can...stay and watch the match. with. me, if you want. Of course." Caren smiled at how awkward her own daughter was.

She felt joy because her daughter was letting her stay and share this moment with her. Soccer and music was the only two things that Beca hardly ever shared. The match started, Beca was emotional, one of her favorite players was retiring. She tried hard not to cry when her mom was next to her, she got used to watching the game with somebody, but that someone wasn’t with her.

First half was done, Beca looked to her side to find her mother asleep, and she debated if she should wake her up or not, she did.

"Mom." She said shaking her arm. "You fell asleep."

"Seems like Satan isn’t the best to watch soccer, huh." Her mother said in a sleepy tone. "I’m going to start making dinner." She placed a kiss on Beca's forehead and went downstairs.

Second half started, Beca was a little ball of sheets curled in a side of her bed, China scored. Beca let out a frustrated sigh.

The match was coming to an end; Abby, the player who was retiring, was subbed out. Beca's eyes started to get filled with tears as she saw her team lose a match after 11 years and a great player.

As tears silently rolled down her face, her phone started buzzing.

From: Legs you let us down, Becs. Aubrey was pretty pissed.

The only thing she didn’t need was the Bellas telling her how disappointed they were.

From: Bossy b***h this was the last time you skipped a practice or performance. You’re not longer a Bella, Mitchell.

Chloe didn’t dare to text Beca, why should she text her anyways? They lost the riff off and now a member of the group as well.

Beca was tired; she didn’t know why her tears kept falling from her eyes.

The texts from Stacie and Aubrey were only a reminder that she let Chloe down and probably hurt her. She was sick of disappointing and hurting people, her walls were slowly getting high again.

She liked that group of friends she had, the Bellas weren’t that bad, but she was no longer part of it and that hurt.

She closed her eyes and tried to relax, falling asleep.