Not so unexpected

8. I didn't see that one coming

After Chloe left that Saturday, Beca hardly moved from her bed. Her mother stopped messing with her and took care of her, always making some joke that made Beca's head and stomach ache from laughter.

The red head and Beca didn’t talk during the weekend. The brunette still felt a little embarrassed over the night before. Did she say something she didn't mean? She couldn't remember a thing.

"Be thankful you aren't dead yet."

It was Monday morning. Beca entered the school and grabbed her best friend's wrist.

"What." Stacie asked obviously confused.

Beca narrowed her eyes at the taller brunette. "You know exactly what I mean, Conrad. The red issue."

"You're on your period, so?" She practically yelled.

"LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK." Beca slapped her friend's arm yelling it. Stacie laughed at the smaller brunette. "I’m not on my period."

“Are you embarrassed of being a woman with a period?” Stacie asked with a funny face that made Beca get more annoyed.

She closed her friend's locker and walked with her to Geography. "I’m talking about what happened last Friday. You told Chloe to stay with me."

They placed their bags on the desk and sat on their seats. "What's the biggie? You guys seemed like good friends, kinda close.”

“Dude.” Beca said grabbing Stacie’s full attention. “You’ve been my best friend for years now and you know how I am about… everything.”

“yeah yeah, you don’t do closeness.” Her best friend said rolling her eyes. “But you liked that the red head stayed with you." She was now wriggling her eyebrows.

"What? I. No. How." Stacie raised an eyebrow. She took deep breath and put the words in order in her head before saying them. "Why do you think that?"

"I can feel the s****l tension between you two." Stacie wiggled her eyebrows again making Beca wonder if people could have the eyebrow muscle tired from moving them so much.

The teacher got in the room and started to write something on the board.

"There's no such thing." Beca whispered. Stacie hummed in response.

Was there a s****l tension between the two of them? Was Beca so obvious?

Lunch time. Beca left her history class with Amy. She found out she had some classes with lots of Bellas but she’d never noticed.

"Are you going to practice today?" Amy asked.

"Do I have other option?" Beca snapped walking towards her locker. "Do you have an idea of what're we going to do?" The brunette took out her lunch and closed her locker.

Amy shrugged. "Probably warm ups and talk about team bonding and stuff."

"Geez, this is like the soccer team." Beca muttered to herself.

"Shorty played soccer?" Amy has a great hearing, great.

Beca nodded and walked to the cafeteria, the blonde following her behind.

Amy kept asking questions or talking, Beca wasn't really paying attention. Her focus was on certain red head talking to some guy. He must be the guy from the party. He's probably her boyfriend by now.

"Earth to Shaw shank?" Amy clapped her hands trying to get Beca's attention.

"Huh?"

"Your b***r for ginger is hitting my face." Beca felt the heat getting to her cheeks, her face turned red and Amy started giggling. "See? You're even trying to match her hair."

Beca rolled her eyes and somehow managed to stop the blushing. "Whatever."

The table started to get crowded. First Jesse and Benji, Then Stacie appeared with Jessica and Ashley. Beca wasn't used to lunch with more than 3 people, but she had to get used to it from now on.

She wasn't talking or hearing what they were saying, she was using her phone from underneath the table when she felt a body sit next to her. "What's up, rice."

She raised her gaze from her phone and met two big blue eyes. "I see you're trying to be Asian judging the amount of rice you're eating."

"Racist." She said with her mouth full of rice, rolling her eyes. "I heard you like Tom."

She immediately regretted her statement, not only because it came out more aggressive than she intended to but because she was no one to say that.

Beca was surprised by Chloe's response. Chloe started laughing. "I'd rather go back with my ex than go out with him."

"Go out or make out with him?" Beca stood up, threw her napkin in the trash and made her way out of cafeteria. She didn't notice the red head following her.

"You saw us at the party?" Beca stopped walking and faced her friend. Chloe had a bit of guilt in her eyes. Why that?

"Hum yeah, every aca-nerd saw you two. Sucking each other's face." Chloe wasn’t looking at Beca. For some reason she was blushing. Why wasn't she looking at Beca?

"Anyways, we should head to Math." Beca dropped the topic.

They walked to their class. Chloe finally talked to Beca and things were normal again.

"Hey." somebody whispered behind Beca.

She turned around and saw her best friend trying to say something. "What do you want Jess?"

After some silent seconds of staring at each other, Jesse continued to work on his sheet. "Nothing, I just wanted to know if you had something on your face, since Chloe couldn't stop staring at you."

Beca felt her cheeks starting to get warm again; it took everything from her to cool off. "She wasn't staring, she's looking at the homework she didn't do."

"Uh huh. Whatevs." He said going back to his seat.

Beca looked at her paper sheet, acting focused, she only wanted to see if what Jesse said was true. She felt a pair of blue eyes staring straight at her, she couldn't help but smile. She looked at the red head and saw her focusing her eyes somewhere else.

Chloe started blushing and couldn't stop giggling.

Beca broke a part of her sheet and wrote something on it, then passed it to Chloe.

"Gotcha." it said making Chloe blush even more.

They shared a few glances and silent giggles the whole class, Beca had to explain the subject to Chloe anyways.

The hour went by faster than what they expected. They left the classroom together and walked to Beca's house because they didn't feel like taking the bus.

"So..." Time to address the big elephant in the room. "What's wrong with Tom?"

Chloe looked at her confused. "Huh?"

"I mean, why you say you'd rather go back with your ex-boyfriend than to go out with Tom?" Chloe looked at the floor thoughtful, like if she was trying to figure out how to say something. Well, she was.

"Hum 2 things. First one, Tom seemed nice at first. He's handsome and funny but after we kissed-“

“You realized he is one of those f**k boys who only wants one night things?” Beca wondered.

“No, I was going to say his kisses are awful but I can do one night stands, what I can’t do is disrespect my mouth with someone like him.” Beca couldn’t stop laughing at Chloe. "And second of all..."

She made a long pause. Fighting with herself if she should tell Beca or not. Beca realized Chloe was struggling to speak or put her words in order.

“Dude, you don’t have to tell me something you don’t want. I won’t force you.” She said as intrigue ate her.

"...When I said I’d rather go back to with my ex, I... I was talking about a girlfriend." Beca stopped walking and Chloe walked faster. She didn't expect that.

Chloe? With a girl? Beca has nothing against it, she just felt in shock because of what she just heard.

"So you're gay?" Beca asked.

"Pretty much." She shrugged. "Any problem with that?" Now Chloe was starting to get defensive.

"What? No." Beca answered walking towards the red head. "I'm super good with it. It's your life, your decisions." She smiled At Chloe.

A smile grew on Chloe's face and she hugged the shorter girl, who tensed at the sudden contact but relaxed after a seconds.

"I’m so happy you reacted like this." Beca was confused.

"What do you mean?"

Chloe released her hold from the hug and started walking as well as Beca.

"In my other school, the girls who were supposed to be my friends started bullshitting me and started saying I was with them because I had a crush on all of them, some guys started calling me dyke."

Beca felt badly for Chloe, the thought of somebody making the ball of happiness sad made her sick. She started wondering how was so easy to Chloe to open up to other people and how she got through it.

"I was alone; everybody hated me because I'm not like them." Chloe swallowed the knot that was forming in her throat before saying "One day I met Julia, I was at religion class and some asshole started asking homophobic questions to the teacher, then Julis started defending me. You can imagine how we ended together." she smiled at the memory of said girl.

Beca was never good with comforting people; damn she wasn't even good at hugging.

"Well, the fact that you like girls or boys doesn’t change how I fee...THINK of you." She said embracing Chloe in a tight hug. "You'll still be the same."

A tear fell from Chloe's eye, and Beca whipped it with her sleeve. "Besides, that means there're more boys for me." She winked at Chloe, who laughed at her friend.

After another 8 minutes of walking, they got to Beca's house.

"Oh by the way." Chloe said opening her backpack. "I brought some stuff." she took a medium size box of frosted flakes and a little bag of gummy.

"Chloe Beale, you're my savior. I could kiss you right now."

Wrong choice of words.

After spending almost two and a half hours at Beca's room studying math, Chloe's phone rang.

She muttered a quick sorry to Beca, who was explaining something to her before answering.

"Chloe freaking Beale, where are you?" Aubrey asked frustrated.

"At Beca's studying. What's the matter?" Chloe simply asked.

Aubrey was so close to starting world war III. "ARE YOU SERIOUS? PRACTICE STARTS IN TEN MINUTES AND YOU AREN'T EVEN HERE."

SHIT. Chloe looked at Beca who didn't understand what was happening. "s**t I FORGOT. I'll be there." and she hung up.

"Bellas practice." Was all that Chloe had to say to get Beca's attention.

"I have a quick and very short question." Beca said to her friend, who was putting all of her stuff back in her backpack, ready to leave. "Do we sing in front of the group the first day?"

"Well, duh." Chloe said as if it was obvious. "Or maybe we'll practice the choreography."

Chloe saw how Beca reacted; she knew something went past the brunette's mind. "Is everything okay?"

"Uh yeah. Just, let me grab some water before we go." Beca practically ran towards the bathroom, taking the empty bottle that was on her desk.

She left the bathroom 10 seconds later. She seemed more relaxed for some reason. "Ready."

"We'll never get there in time, it’s a 30 minute walk to school or 9 by bus, but i don’t think it'll come any time soon." Chloe said looking at the clock in her phone. 3:41PM.

She was obviously worried, she didn't want to be late the first day of practice, and actually she didn't want her cousin to be mad at her for being late.

"Where are you going?" Chloe asked as she saw how Beca started jogging towards her house again.

"Wait there." She simply said.

The brunette reappeared some seconds later riding a black BMX. "It was either this or run."

She motioned the red head to sit behind her, which was pretty difficult for somebody who was wearing skinny jeans. Chloe hugged Beca's tiny waist so she wouldn’t fall. The brunette had to ride as fast as she could, and she did.

After almost killing a man, crushing against a bench and trying not to fall, they reached the school.

"You better run." Chloe said taking Beca by the wrist.

3:58PM. They made it to the practice with two minutes left. Beca was still trying to catch her breath. She barely had time to breathe when she got off her bike.

"We made it just in time." Chloe said excited. Beca gave her thumbs up. She had her hands on her knees and still tried to catch her breath.

"That’s why we do cardio." Aubrey said from behind the brunette. Beca's eyes opened in a size bigger than usual.

"Cardio?" Beca asked, the blonde nodded. "Shit."

For the next few minutes, more girls kept coming and Beca's breathing went back to normal.

"Hello Bellas, welcome to the first practice." Aubrey said pacing back and forth after everyone sat down. "As you can see, Kori and Mary Elise are not here. Last Friday, they were Treble-boned. They have been uninvited from the Bellas."

"That oath was serious?" Beca asked.

"Dixie Chicks serious. You can fool around with whoever you want to, just not a treble." Beca couldn't believe how serious Aubrey took the group.

"We will practice every Monday and Wednesday for at least an hour and a half, team bonding some Saturdays or other days. And I trust you will add your own cardio." BOOM that earned Aubrey a few glances from all the girls.

"Yeah, no. Don't put me down for cardio." Amy said.

Aubrey decided to ignore the blonde, she was getting to the point where she either kills somebody or yells.

"Anyways... We will start with some laps and then vocal warming." Beca swallowed hard, she didn’t expect to start using her voice the first practice.

The action didn't go unnoticed by the red head.

"So? What are you waiting for? 14 LAPS AROUND THE ROOM." Aubrey demanded.

Everybody started jogging around the room, up and down the stairs, everyone following Chloe.

"Come on girls! Let's go! Go, go, go! Pick up your knees! Faster, faster! One, two, one, two, one two! Knees up, knees up! Go, go! Go! Let's get it!" Aubrey started to get dense for every girl in the room, I mean, who doesn't hate somebody who's constantly yelling at you while you run?

"Amy! What are you doing?" Everyone stopped and turned to look at the Australian.

"I'm doing horizontal running." Amy said innocently

Clever. Beca thought letting out a laugh.

Aubrey was counting to 10 to not murder a human. "Whatever, take 30 seconds to drink water and we start with vocal warm ups."

Beca automatically walked towards her backpack and started looking for something, Chloe tried to see what was she looking for. What was the thing she put in there before leaving her house?

"I need your help with the choreography." A savage blonde appeared and blocked her view.

"What do you want me to do?" Chloe said taking another sip of her bottle.

"Just help me to show it and teach it." The blonde shrugged.

Aubrey started to explain some exercises for the warm ups, everyone listened and did as Aubrey instructed. Beca didn't seem too comfortable.

After almost 3 weeks with Beca, Chloe learned that whenever the brunette was nervous or anxious, she started playing with her fingers or sleeves. And now, she was nervous. Maybe Beca was scared to sing in front of people...no, that couldn't be. She wouldn't be in the Bellas if that was a problem. Right?

Aubrey, somehow, managed to teach them how to sing, or play in this case, the bass notes. The thing is that she taught them how, but it didn't sound...normal.

On the other hand, Chloe started showing them the choreography, Aubrey wasn't so happy with the results.

"Ookay." everyone's attention was on Aubrey now. "That's it for today, keep practicing the dance, run for at least 5 minutes every day and don't forget to take care of your voices."

You could hear some sighs from the girls; Beca was the first one to storm out of the room, Stacie following behind. If Chloe said she wasn't following them, she would be lying. She stood behind them, a few feet away.

"I can't keep coming." Chloe heard the brunette said to Stacie. "I didn't think it would be this stressing."

"It’s not stressing, you're just not used to it." Stacie placed her hands on Beca's shoulder and took her chin with one of her hands, forcing her to look at her. "Why are you doing this? Did you take your pills?"

Beca nodded, not meeting the taller woman's eyes.

"Good." Stacie embraced Beca's figure in a tight hug. "Don't pressure yourself, if you wanna leave the group it’s okay, I’ll invent something to them."

"No, it’s okay." she replied. "I can handle it." Beca sighed. “I don’t like this acapella group but you know.”

“I know, Bec. I know.” Stacie said caressing her friend’s shoulders. “You hate the fact that this stops you from doing things.”

The two brunettes started walking away. What the hell happened? Why Beca was taking pills? Pills for what? Chloe needed to know what was going on with Beca, maybe she could help her, or maybe she shouldn’t try to help her.