The Basketcase and The Princess

CHAPTER 2

Beca had been at least a little intrigued if not a bit interested, maybe at a push excited when she had gotten the job at the radio station. At least it was a step in the right direction.

A baby step. But a step.

Gotta walk before you can run. Gotta pay your dues. Before? What? She didn't seek out fame and fortune. Well fortune wouldn't be a bad thing. To be paid to do what you love, can't complain about that. But no. Not fame. Beca wasn't seeking that. So if a poxy job at the college radio station was a rung on that ladder, then she'd start climbing. It was just really hard to keep telling herself that this job was worth it.

Here she was, another week gone by since she last told herself she was gonna stick it out another week and if it didn't get any better she'd quit. It hadn't gotten any better. She hadn't quit. And once again another Monday rolled round where she told herself to just give it another week but she's just stacking vinyl's, so clearly it's not getting any better yet again when Jesse walked in. She had spent the majority of her first month at the station, hoping to manoeuvre her way into the booth. Onto the air. Anything to make it worth her time.

Maybe. Yeah maybe she had hoped for too much too soon. But this wasn't part of what she envisioned 'paying her dues' to be like. Not here. That would happen a little more out West.

He smiled his goofy smile at her as she wondered why it didn't make her feel like Chloe's had. She hadn't stopped thinking about that first smile of Chloe's. How it alone had drawn her in, like it was meant for her only. Shut up Beca you're being a total sap, she scolded herself, as the song 'Secret Smile' started to invade her thoughts. Nobody knows it but you've got a secret smile and you use it only for me. Just stop it, Beca, stop it. Jesse made small talk as she had a conversation with herself in her own mind. Life would be so much easier if his smile effected her the way Chloe's had.

She made a conscious decision to not think about Chloe. She made this decision over and over realising that all she was thinking about was trying not to think about Chloe. Good plan Beca. You dumb ass.

She tried to think about how where she was right now in her life wasn't going to last. Barden wouldn't be forever. How her attraction to Chloe was fleeting. Had to be. She couldn't go another day with her brain completely pre-occupied by Chloe. Each morning since she had met Chloe she had woken up and rolled her eyes at herself as her first thought had been that Chloe existed. That out there was this perfect angel of a woman made for her. It took her only a minute or two of being awake to hate herself for thinking that. But each night she would be too exhausted, having trouble sleeping, headphones on, drifting off to her mixes and her final thoughts?

Chloe.

The songs she listened to permeating her dreams, no matter what the song was, if she was going to be honest, reminded her in some way of Chloe. The image of the sunniest of smiles dancing behind her eyelids.

Yes. That was where she was at.

No. She wouldn't be there forever.

She couldn't take another week of this.

She couldn't take another week at Barden. She couldn't take another week of Chloe's existence. She didn't know what she would do if forced to take one more week.

Give up? Give in? But to what? To who?

She knew rationally that she would look back and hopefully not even remember much of any of this. But she wasn't thinking nor feeling very rational right now.

Her ears perked up when she heard Jesse rambling on about auditions. Good going you dope, she thought, as she had managed to not think about Chloe for like a record breaking two minutes at that point.