Chapter Text
Beca isn’t sure what she did to deserve all this attention and at times she’s not always certain she even wants it. It’s her freshman year of college and she seems to have become the star that both Jesse and Chloe choose to orbit around.
Chloe is sunshine and Jesse’s a moon beam and all of it makes Beca feel like a summer storm. (Fat Amy is obviously an unbearably loud rainbow.) The way her emotions and feelings sweep through her raucously and without warning is unbearable at times. Confusion pours down on her and there’s nothing she can do to shield herself.
Because Jesse is easy and kind and eager, and Chloe is perfect and sweet and unafraid. And Beca just doesn’t know what to do.
Beca isn’t proud that she’s chronically shy, she likes to imagine she’s just aloof. It stands out when she lies to Chloe at the Student Activities Fair, rather than sing for her.
“Sorry, I don’t even sing but it was really nice to meet you guys,” Beca lies before walking off. (She’s lying about not singing. It actually was kind of nice to meet them, or Chloe at least.)
(Aubrey does kind of scare her, not that she’d ever admit that to anyone.)
Jesse shows up at the radio station, a perky happy puppy. And his presence is uplifting in an annoying kind of way. Beca’s not dumb. She knows he’s flirting with her. And however annoying it is, it’s also flattering. Jesse’s cute.
Not to be outdone Chloe shows up in her shower. Her fucking shower. And Beca’s not stupid. She knows Chloe is making a pass at her, no matter what she says about joining her a cappella group. And the way she pesters her while they’re both standing there in the nude might be deemed inappropriate by some, but really Chloe’s presence there in the grimy shower stall is much more a promise than a threat.
(You kind of had to be there.)
(Beca’s glad you weren’t there.)
It’s still terrifying.
Not so terrifying that Beca doesn’t try out for the Bellas. No, she can’t resist doing that. Not after what she saw in the shower, let’s be honest.
So now she’s got Jesse at work and Chloe at rehearsal and she wonders if her life is really a poorly written sitcom or even worse, a romance novel.
Jesse insists on buying her lunch and Chloe tries to pay for dinner and Beca just wants to scream at the world to stop turning so fast. Beca is worried the stress might poison her.
But then Jesse makes her laugh so hard she cries, and Chloe says something so saccharine it hurts her teeth and maybe having all these weirdos being in love with her isn’t so bad after all. And Jesse’s compliments make Beca blush and Chloe’s dance moves make her stomach twist with arousal. Beca is getting exhausted. Of course, there are worse places to be than trapped between a teddy bear and a soft place.
All this drama doesn’t stop Beca from memorizing the path to Chloe’s apartment that she shares with Aubrey and visiting it so frequently that Chloe starts to leave her door unlocked.
“Hey what are you doing?” Beca asks Chloe as she bounds into her apartment on a bright spring afternoon. Chloe’s got her headphones in and is sitting at the kitchen table, hunched over some book writing in it. She looks up and pops her headphones out.
“Listening to Taylor Swift.”
“Ew,” Beca says with a crinkled nose. “Come on it’s finally starting to get nice out and you promised you’d show me how to throw a football.”
Chloe rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling broadly. “Don’t hate on my music, I listen to all of yours.”
“That’s because all of my music is good music.”
All things being equal she would…probably choose Chloe. She feels a more carnal attraction to her, as well as a slightly more comfortably connection, though she adores them both. But all things aren’t equal.
She’s not in Seattle where she’d already told a few trusted high school friends that she was pretty sure she was attracted to both men and women. She’s in the hellish suburbs of Southern Baptist friendly Atlanta, Georgia where there’s a church (or two) on every street corner. She’s not with her laissez-faire mother who waves her hand around and says, ‘love wins out!’ when one of the local news channels highlights the pride parade in the summer. Instead she’s on her dad’s turf and he thinks Tucker Carlson’s hot takes are astute and he listens to Alex Jones on the radio.
Besides Jesse is a freshman just like her and Chloe is a graduating senior. Beca isn’t entirely sure about Chloe’s plans for after graduation, it’s actually a subject she’s actively avoided speaking about with Chloe since it makes her sad to think about. But surely Chloe isn’t going to stay in Atlanta. Surely, she’ll go back to Portland or move to some liberal northeastern or west coast city and start her real life without Beca and without the Bellas.
So, in the end she chooses Jesse to kiss. It’s easier that way, right? She walks confidentially across the performance hall and marches up to him.
“Told you,” he says with a hint of smugness playing in his voice. Whether he’s smug about Beca’s surrender to the gods of a cappella or the fact that she’s obviously chosen him over Chloe, Beca isn’t sure. (Or maybe he thinks she’s chosen him over Luke but if he does, he clearly hasn’t been paying attention all year.)
“Endings are the best part.”
“You’re such a weirdo,” she says with a smile before giving him a chaste kiss. She can’t help but laugh into it. It does feel a bit like a bad teen movie.
She starts to wonder if she’s made the right choice before the kiss even ends.
That can’t be a good sign.
But her mind is might up, right?
Afterwards Aubrey corners her in her room. Beca thinks she might scold her for breaking the Anti-Treble Oath but no.
“How could you flirt with Chloe like that all year and then kiss him?” Aubrey is fuming.
“I didn’t…” Beca had thought the little triangle romance was playing out more privately than that.
“I don’t care what you did or didn’t,” Aubrey says.
“He said- “
“I don’t CARE what he said. You could have said no.”
Maybe she should’ve.