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i still remember
There are three thousand, one hundred and seventy-five point two miles between Atlanta and LA and somehow, Chloe can feel every single one of them. Apparently that’s what happens when the other half of your heart lives on the other side of the country—she feels ripped in two, constantly, like she’s always waiting for that distance to eclipse into nothing. She’s spent more time tapping her foot in the airport arrival’s lounge than breathing fresh air, and she’s totally fine with it. She watches as the clock on the screen ticks on, the minutes crawling up, waiting for the second Beca’s flight lands safely.
She hears the squeak of suitcase wheels on linoleum, the sound of a laugh she knows all too well. Her heart thuds so fucking loudly she’s pretty sure the old dude sat next to her can hear it thrumming through the uncomfortable plastic seating. She stands, hands shaking, as she barrels into Beca full-force, almost knocking her tiny girlfriend off her feet.
(Oh, and like that, she’s home.)
“Woah, dude,” Beca says, grinning wildly, “It’s like you missed me or something.”
“Of course I missed you,” Chloe murmurs into her hair, Beca filling her lungs, “I miss you every second you’re not, like, stapled into my side.”
“Ah. I see. Well it’s pretty fortunate I feel the same way, otherwise that might have been a bit of an embarrassing confession.”
Chloe leans out of the embrace, studying Beca’s tired face. The dark shadows under her eyes after days camped out in a recording studio and the slight sunburn on her nose from the LA heat; this is a different Beca from the one she’d always known at Barden. It’s a Beca who is living the dream. The smile totally gives it away.
“I’m never embarrassed to say I love you,” Chloe shrugs, like it’s the simplest thing in the world. Beca visibly softens, fingers curling around hers, like she’s remembering how much she always has to leave behind. “Do you wanna get out of here?”
“Hell yeah I do. God. I need a burger. Or a pizza. In LA I’m surrounded by fucking healthfood stores. Honestly, if I see another juice cleanse ad I will not be responsible for my actions.”
Chloe takes her hand and they giddily swing their arms as they cross the airport floor, trying to forget that in two days’ time they’ll both be back here, whispering never let me go.
-x-
the look on your face
The start is actually kind-of easy. Chloe’s never really done long distance before and while the parting is painful, she tries to be optimistic in every single area of her life, including the fact that her girlfriend flies in and out of state multiple times a month.
And—well, her girlfriend is a celebrity now.
She treats their snatches of time together like the countdown to Christmas; because of course she still does those. She counts down the days and hours and minutes on an app on her phone. The excitement builds in her chest, bubbling over like a glass of champagne—until the paparazzi presence is too much for her to wait at the airport for her flight to come in anymore.
It’s okay. It’s okay.
“I don’t want you swept into this, that’s all,” Beca says, her voice scratchy and detached on the other end of the phone. At least this way Beca can’t see the way her face falls. “The paparazzi are… weird. It’s fucking surreal. I’d rather just dive into a taxi and see you at home.”
“No, no,” Chloe says, “Of course. I understand. That’s totally fine.”
“I mean, it’s not, but this is apparently my life now. I’m so sorry Chlo. It sucks.”
There’s a moment of silence, Chloe staring down her mud-stained sneakers. It’s like—she’s realising that this is definitely not as easy as she thought it was going to be. Honestly, there’s nothing easier than loving Beca. It comes as naturally as breathing, her heart beating. But loving Beca isn’t like how it was in college, where their only complexity was the absurdity surrounding collegiate a-cappella fame and the fact her boyfriend lived next-door and that they weren’t even together. Now everything Beca does is chartered by social media and weird men with cameras. There’s no space for privacy anymore.
“You can make it up to me later,” Chloe says, grin tugging at her lips. They don’t have the airport anymore but they do have the apartment, their little square of space away from the eyes of Twitter, where not even Fat Amy stumbles in on them fucking anymore.
(Since gaining access to her millions, Amy’s gone totally off-grid, apart from the odd postcard from increasingly exotic destinations. They’d received a photo of her drinking tequila out of a coconut in Bali next to a man wearing palm-tree leaves for underwear. As well as a nude she swore she was intended for someone else-- which is a bit difficult to believe considering this was all handwritten and postmarked.)
Beca laughs, almost like she’s sat right next to her. “Sure thing, girl. I really love you, you know? Dork.”
“I love you so much,” Chloe replies. It’s a reflex. It’s a promise.
(It’s not desperate, yet. But somehow it becomes that way.)
-x-
lit through the darkness at 1:58
Chloe tries not to pressure her into making their relationship public. While she’d do anything to scream how much she loves her to everyone in the whole fucking world, she gets that it’s different for Beca. Beca prefers discreet confessions murmured amongst bedsheets, not Instagram captions and Facebook posts. And it’s fine, really, because Chloe doesn’t have to come out to the opinion of thousands of people. Her sexuality isn’t a PSA and never will be, and she actually deals with mean-spirited individuals better than Beca does, even if Beca’s laidback attitude would scream otherwise.
It doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt that Beca doesn’t want anyone outside their immediate circle to know she has a girlfriend.
“You’re making it into a big deal,” Chloe says, sat on the counter in Beca’s flashy new apartment, all marble and glass. It’s everything Chloe dreamed it wouldn’t be—walls bare and devoid of heart. Beca doesn’t have time to make it more than just a place to sleep, and she doesn’t even do that all that much. “It doesn’t have to be a big deal.”
Beca hands her a bowl of cereal aggressively. When Chloe throws her a look she hands her a spoon more gently, sighing loudly. “Everything I do is a big deal. God, Chloe. The press had a go at me for wearing sweatpants in public yesterday. Imagine what they’d say if they knew I was in a relationship, let alone bisexual.”
Chloe furrows her brows and spoons some cereal into her mouth. The Cheerio’s are unsurprisingly stale, having sat in Beca’s cupboard since the last time she was here. Six weeks ago. “Why do you worry so much about what other people say about you?”
“It’s pretty hard not to when you wake up in the morning and discover your fashion choices are now a fucking hashtag.”
“So I’m basically the equivalent of your sweatpants now? Embarrassed to be caught with in public?”
Beca freezes and Chloe knows she’s fucked up. Her eyes harden, lips tighten, knuckles white round the handle of the refrigerator door. The atmosphere is about as stern as the harsh interior design.
“Shit, Becs,” Chloe drops her bowl on the breakfast bar with a ceramic clang, bare feet dropping onto the tiled floor. She tries to reach out for Beca’s back, take everything back, turn the clock back. But Beca tenses in her grip and shakes away. “Jesus. I’m sorry. I know it’s not that, I know, it’s just my stupid foot-in-mouth thing—“
“No,” Beca cuts in, turning to face her. “No. Please. Just—don’t apologise for telling me how you feel. Don’t ever do that. I don’t want that to become us.”
Chloe folds her arms. “Right.”
“And for the record. It’s not embarrassment—“
“I know, Beca, that’s not you—“
“Chloe. For once,” Beca reaches out and grabs her hands in her own and for a moment, Chloe looks down at their intertwined fingers. Her own nails are pale blue and recently manicured. Beca’s are black and chipped and bitten down as far as they’ll go. It makes so much sense. “Just stop talking and listen to me.”
Chloe smiles, because this isn’t like Beca at all.
“It’s not embarrassment. It’s never been embarrassment,” Beca confesses, her chest ripped wide open, “There’s nothing embarrassing about you. Well. Maybe apart from your awful taste in music, but I credit that in part to Aubrey and—okay, that’s irrelevant, but…” she laughs a little when she sees Chloe laughing before continuing, sobering up completely. Her lip trembles a little. “But… right. I love you. I love you so much. And—I’m terrified. Really. Because I love really fucking hard and not very often and what we have is, like, special. To me. And I know how celebrity works and I’m terrified it will kill us, because celebrity loves to watch good things die. I don’t want that to happen to us, Chloe. Because it will kill me. To watch you walk away.”
There’s really only one possible response to all this, seeing Beca in the gentle early morning light of her vacant kitchen, admitting she’s scared for the first time in her ridiculous life. Chloe cups her warm cheeks, thumb tracing underneath Beca’s eyes as they flutter closed.
And she kisses her. Muted, subtle, glorious—pyjamas and rapidly cooling coffee, fingers sneaking under t shirts to feel the skin hidden from everyone but each other. It’s not fireworks and supernovae, not like the first time, but that’s completely okay. Because kisses like this feel normal. Feel like nothing could ever go wrong ever again.
But that’s not—that’s not how life works.
-x-
the words that you whisper
There’s no-one Chloe trusts more than Beca, so when she’s snapped by the paparazzi with other guys or girls there’s no twang of jealousy in her stomach or distant thought that maybe she’s not being completely faithful. Most of the time it’s with Theo—who Beca has repeatedly complained about calling him a ridiculous British clown of a person—but one time, one time it’s with Jesse.
She has to blink a few moments when looking at the photo to check it’s legit. Like—there’s a lot of dudes with Jesse Swanson’s build out there, the same dark hair, vaguely toned arms. She zooms in and while the picture is blurry, it’s undeniable. She watched Beca date the guy for about five years. Chloe could recognise him anywhere. And she shouldn’t, but she is, because Beca is laughing and his hand is on her forearm and this photo was taken two days ago and Beca hasn’t said anything about it.
Because meeting up with your ex…that’s a big deal, right? That’s not something that Beca would usually hide from her unless there was, well, a reason for it.
Chloe snaps her laptop shut and tries to forget about it. She makes tea. Reads notes for class. Scrolls through Beyonce’s Instagram page. But her mind boomerangs back to Beca’s carefree grin, how the only real reason Jesse and Beca broke up was the long-distance, and now her and Beca are the long-distance ones and Jesse’s the one in LA.
Beca couldn’t handle the distance the first time round. They lasted about a year traveling between states before they called it quits and Beca started crying a lot, weirdly, because they’d been together five years and couldn’t make it work.
They’ve been together less than a year. And yeah, Chloe loves her with every single part of her heart, but what if, what if, what if… She grabs her phone, dials Beca’s number, because she can’t keep torturing herself like this.
It takes three rings for Beca to pick up and she sounds breathless and croaky, like she’s been prodded awake from a nap. “Chlo?”
She should ease into it gently. But she’s Chloe, and she’s erratic when she’s emotional, so she barges right in like a hurricane. “You never mentioned that you met up with Jesse.”
“Uh…” Beca grunts accompanied by the sound of her shifting, like she’s sitting up, “What?”
“I saw a photograph. On Twitter. Of you two together. Isn’t that something that, I don’t know, you might think to tell me?” Chloe laughs bitterly, “You hide me away, your girlfriend, but you’re totally fine with being seen with your ex-boyfriend?”
“Wait a sec, just calm down, it wasn’t—“
“Calm down?” Chloe throws up a hand dramatically, “Beca, what the hell?”
“You always do this. You always jump to these fucking… obtuse conclusions.”
“Obtuse? Oh my God. Are you actually having a go at me right now?”
Beca sighs heavily and sounds like she’s pacing about, feet shuffling across the familiar of laminate of that desolate living room. There’s only one thing with any sentimental value in that space and it’s some photobooth pictures they took last summer on vacation, before Beca got famous and they didn’t see each other anymore. “I… Chloe, I’ve literally just woken up. I’m not talking to you if you’re going to be like this.”
Jesus Christ, she’s never been angrier. Rage pulses down her arms into clenched fists, and Beca is being so typically Beca about the whole thing, all nonchalant and escapist and like if she runs away from the conversation she won’t have to deal with it at all. But she’s not letting it happen. Not this time.
“No, Beca, you’re talking to me. You are not fobbing me off with some bullshit excuse.”
There’s a moment of complete silence, static crackling between them. Finally, Beca breathes.
“Fine. If you’re going to try and turn this into something it isn’t—I literally just went for a drink with him, okay? You know I haven’t seen Jesse in forever and he’d just broken up with his girlfriend…”
Oh. Oh. Chloe collapses onto the sofa, her chest seizing up. “You know what he’s after though, right? He knows you’re in LA and he’s single. Because let’s face it, Beca. You didn’t break up because you weren’t in love with him anymore.”
“That’s not—are you actually trying to suggest that I’d cheat on you with fucking Jesse?”
“I don’t know, Bec,” Chloe says, “You said it, not me.”
“You know what, I’m not even angry. I’m just fucking sad that after everything I’ve told you, confessed to you, that it would even cross your mind that I’d do that.”
Beca’s voice is small, bursting out of the quiet, a hidden crack in the plasterwork that can and will rip apart foundations. Suddenly Chloe finds herself regretting everything. Opening Twitter, picking up the phone, saying the words she’ll never be able to take back. That’s what happens with hurricanes. They make a mess that’s impossible to pick up.
“You should’ve just told me,” Chloe says quietly, “I would have understood. But instead you kept it a secret.”
“I was going to tell you. But it’s apparent you don’t trust me anyway, so. What’s the point?”
“I do trust—“
“No, you don’t, because we wouldn’t be having this conversation if you did.”
The line goes dead and Chloe doesn’t stop crying for four and a half hours.
-x-
[interlude – like i used to watch you sleep]
Hey! You’ve reached Chloe Beale—leave a message, make it hot!
“So it’s been several hours since…that, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hurt, because I am. But I get it. I get why you were mad at me. Because I was in love with Jesse, and he was in love with me, but all that shit was over two years ago. I know I said it was distance, but there’s a lot more to it than that, so, if, like, that’s what you’re worried about—it’s not. Distance is hard. I think that shows how much we actually love each other. If it was easy we wouldn’t be here. We wouldn’t be talking about this. I love you and miss you so much that sometimes it physically hurts. I’m not embarrassed to say it. And I don’t love Jesse, not like the way I love you. I never loved Jesse the way I love you. And you need to remember that, because fighting with you fucking sucks, especially over something as stupid as Jesse fucking Swanson. I’m…gonna go now. I love you. I miss you. I love you.”
-x-
for just us to know
Two days later Beca shows up on her doorstep sleep-deprived yet grinning. Chloe squeezes her tiny body with everything she’s got and for once, she’s speechless. They stand there, a mess of limbs and tears and fingers caught in hair until the air goes cold and goosebumps bristle up their arms.
“Don’t ever hang up on me again,” Chloe whispers into Beca’s neck, “Please. Don’t put me through that. I’m so, so sorry.”
“I know,” Beca murmurs, “I know, and I’m sorry too.”
(They go official less than three days later at Atlanta Pride, smiling madly and covered in rainbow face-paint, Chloe somehow persuading Beca to let her put glitter in her hair. Cynthia-Rose, Stacie, Emily and Aubrey all join them and it’s a beautiful day, almost a reunion, as for once—Beca doesn’t hide who she really is. They kiss wrapped up in the pride flag and Emily snaps it for her Instagram. Suddenly they’re the internet’s favourite gay couple.
But Beca has to go back to LA at the weekend.
Funnily enough, Chloe doesn’t expect that this becomes their Last Good Day in Atlanta. At the time it’s just another perfect weekend, blissfully happy with her arm constantly looped round Beca’s waist.
She definitely doesn’t expect this to become Beca’s Last Good Day in Atlanta, full stop.)
-x-
you told me you loved me
Beca’s first solo North American tour is a big deal. Such a big deal, actually, that there’s a decision to extend it across Europe and suddenly Chloe’s watching her pack up her life again, throwing dark clothes in suitcases for another three months on the other side of the world. She flew out to Texas and New York and Florida to watch Beca perform, but there’s no way Chloe can afford a flight out of the states.
So, this is it. This is it for over twelve weeks. And she feels really fucking teary about it.
And that’s—that’s when she realises she’s spent more time crying over Beca lately than kissing her.
And Beca’s noticed it too.
“Theo said he can get you a flight anywhere you want. Multiple flights.” Beca says, sitting on top of an exploding black suitcase, acting like this whole thing isn’t a big deal. As per. “The hotels are no problem, and I know you’ve always wanted to see Paris and Amsterdam—“
Chloe shakes her head, biting on the edge of her thumbnail. “I’ve got school, Becs. My attendance has been terrible enough as it is, because of…” She doesn’t want to say because of you. “I just can’t. I actually do want to pass this semester. I actually want to be a vet.”
“Yeah, I know,” Beca sighs, rubbing her temple, “I don’t know why I asked. I know you can’t come.”
Suddenly, Beca completely crumples, a strangled sob escaping from her throat as her shaking hands cover her face. Chloe instantly darts to her knees—there’s no room on Beca’s suitcase throne—and grabs her entire body, fingertips tracing her back. After a few seconds she leans back, plants a kiss on her forehead, glances at the mascara smeared down Beca’s cheeks.
“Get it together, Mitchell,” Chloe says, laughing even though she’s crying too, “I’m supposed to be the emotional ass around here. Not you.”
Beca giggles a little at that, wiping her nose with her fist. She fans herself with her other hand, willing the tears away. “God. I’m sorry. I just. I just don’t know if we can—“
“Don’t say it,” Chloe pleads, because admitting it would only make it real. “Please. Don’t say what I think you’re going to say.”
I don’t know if we can keep going like this.
Beca smiles faintly. She takes Chloe’s hand and kisses it gently. “I’m not. I mean. We’re okay, aren’t we? It’s only twelve weeks.”
“We’re totally okay,” Chloe agrees, even though twelve weeks could be a hundred years. Every hour, minute, second Beca’s in Europe—she’s going to feel it in her bones, her muscle, every single beat of her heart. Because Beca is like that. She gets under your skin. “We’re always okay.”
(When she says I love you so much, it’s desperate. Because that’s what they’ve become.)
-x-
so why did you go away
It’s actually Aubrey who suggests she gets a flight out to London, because they’re in Starbucks when one of Beca’s songs plays on the radio and Chloe starts crying into her iced coffee. Again.
“Chlo, you’re a mess,” Aubrey titters, frantically extracting tissue paper from the container by the toilet and doing her best to wipe the tears away, like she’s her mom or something. “All this over a girl, huh?”
“It’s—more—than—that,” Chloe sobs between hiccups, because it’s apparently one of those days. “I just miss her so much, Bree. All the time.”
Aubrey hums loudly before going to get more tissues. It’s one of those same days that she’s thankful for Aubrey’s sternness, the no-nonsense way she handles problems other than her own. “It sounds to me like you need to talk to Beca.”
“We talk so much—“
“No,” Aubrey states firmly, “You need to talk to her in person. Look. I don’t want you two to break-up, but I love you both and I want you to be happy. And crying in the restroom isn’t you being happy, Chloe.”
Aubrey’s right, like she nearly always is, but there’s a flaw in the logic. Her legs bash ungracefully against the sink. “But how can I possibly be happy without her?”
Aubrey sighs softly, pulling her best friend into a hug. “I’m not saying it will be easy, but this just isn’t healthy anymore, not when you’re so far apart. Maybe when you’ve finished school and Beca’s figured out what she wants—but right now, is this really right for you? Because it doesn’t look that way to me.”
Chloe thinks of how I love you went from a promise to assurance, to sheer desperation, because if they loved each other nothing could actually go wrong.
But in the end—it becomes too much. It isn’t the distance, even though that’s part of it. They love each other too much. And it makes everything impossible.
Suddenly, a lot of things make sense.
-x-
away
Theo manages to sort out a flight the next day. The hours pass by in a blur, like her head is in a completely different timezone to her body, and before she even realises she’s wheeling her suitcase across the tiled floor at Heathrow. The air is much colder so she tugs her sweater tighter around her and grabs a taxi to the hotel. Theo has a key waiting for her at the front desk.
Somehow, she sits on Beca’s bed staring at the blank TV screen mounted on the wall for over six hours. She tries not to look at Beca’s socks strewn across the floor, the deodorant knocked over messily on the vanity, how the sheets smell painfully like Beca and how she can see the Shard out the window. Because the Shard makes her think of taking Beca up there, eating dinner while laughing at how ridiculously posh everything is, miles and miles and miles away from their lives back in Barden and the bedsit they used to share with Fat Amy.
Chloe gulps. Because she’s not going to cry today.
When Beca eventually turns up, so tired she almost doesn’t notice Chloe in the room, they catch eyes. And somehow Beca just knows.
Beca’s knees knock together, her hands knotting clumsily. Her bottom lip trembles.
“Is this it?”
Chloe blinks. Beca’s swathed in darkness, cheekbones illuminated by the white light of the bedside lamp. Midnight London sparkles on, alive with possibility.
And endings. Alive with endings too.
For the last time, Chloe envelopes Beca completely. And she says:
“This is it, my love.”
-x-
[epilogue – like i used to feel you breathe]
There are three thousand, one hundred and seventy five point two miles between Atlanta and LA.
Chloe wishes she could stop feeling every single one of them.