Now I have stupid cancer.
The funny thing about cancer is that you feel pretty much fine, until they start trying to do something about it, Beca mused to herself, as lay back on her bed, panting slightly, having just thrown up in her bedroom bin.
A little bit of tiredness, a bit of a sore leg. That was it. I could have managed that! she thought, remembering back to Before.
But now she had thrown up three times and it wasn’t even noon yet and she had only had her first treatment two days ago. Now her lips burned like her spit was lemon juice every time she licked them, and cracked and bled seconds later. If she had thought her fatigue was bone deep before, she was wrong, because was fatigue in the deepest depths of her soul. Today, anyway. Tomorrow she might feel a little better. Tomorrow she might get out of bed and watch TV with Chloe on the sofa, instead of watching TV with Chloe in her bed. Today, she was rolling over and going to sleep and hoping it would be tomorrow.
Sadly, tomorrow was not much better. Perhaps this is what being pregnant is like? Beca mused, as she sat slumped over the toilet in the one bathroom the Bellas shared. Not that I’ll ever know, she added sourly, although she was unable to dwell on this thought as yet more bile made its way up her throat and her whole body tensed as she retched. Unfortunately, in her mad dash (hop) from her bedroom to the bathroom (thank goodness they were on the same floor), she hadn’t had time to tie her hair up. Her hair, strands of which were now clinging together and covered in stomach acid. Nice. Convinced that there couldn’t even be bile in her belly to throw up now, Beca closed the lid of the loo and flushed it, all without getting up from her position on the floor. She managed to manoeuvre herself onto her hands and knees, and from there used the toilet to pull herself up (getting up like a freaking pregnant women Beca moaned internally. What was it with the pregnancy stuff today anyway?). Unfortunately, standing up was not a good position for Beca right now. Her leg was hurting, she hadn’t eaten in three days, and she was just beginning to see spots when she felt hands on her arms pushing her gently onto a sitting position on the toilet. She closed her eyes, as if not being able to see would somehow make the room stop spinning.
“Easy there, Becs.”
Chloe’s voice was far too cheerful for this time in the morning, and Beca left her eyes closed. She could hear, however, the sound of the shower being turned on, the opening and closing of the bathroom cabinet, the tap running.
She opened her eyes as she found her arm being lifted from her side and a toothbrush being shoved into her hand.
“Brush your teeth.”
Blinking slowly (it was still the crack of before noon after all) Beca starting brushing her teeth without thinking. Eventually she spat the toothbrush out (still from her position sat on the loo), and looked up at Chloe expectantly.
“What next, mom?” she asked hoarsely.
Chloe rolled her eyes.
“Strip and get in the shower.”
“Ooh, bossy Chloe is hot Chloe, very nice,” Beca smirked, not moving.
At this point Chloe rolled her eyes andblushed.
“Shut it, smart arse. You smell like vom, you’ve got sick in your hair and you haven’t washed in three days, now get in the damn shower. Nothing I haven’t seen before if you’ll recall, Becs,” Chloe retorted, grinning like a Cheshire cat as she shut the bathroom door, staying (in Beca's opinion) on the wrong side of it.
At this point it was Beca’s turn to blush as she stood up, “aren’t you at least going to turn around, Beale?”
“Nope!” replied Chloe, going over to the bathroom mirror.
Beca rolled her eyes again and began undressing. To be fair, this was not an uncommon event. It had become clear within the first few weeks of living with the four other Bellas that although this house was perfect in every way, the only thing it lacked was bathrooms. It was quickly established that the only way to cope with the situation was to abandon all pretence at modesty and have an open door bathroom when people were in the shower, so other girls could still come in and pee slash brush their teeth. This was particularly taken advantage of by Chloe, who liked nothing better than to come and sit on the loo and chat with Beca while the brunette showered and was grateful for the hot water to cover up the inevitable blush she got making conversation with the redhead while completely naked.
Chloe was particularly glad of this fact now: only a few minutes after Beca had stepped into the shower there was a loud thud and a groan. Never having had much regard for modesty in the first place, Chloe threw open the shower curtain to see that Beca was now sitting down, her bad leg stretched out in front of her, her weight resting back on her hands, and with a severe pout on her face. She didn’t even try to cover herself any more.
“Hi,” said Chloe, trying not to smile.
“Hey,” replied Beca,
“Want a hand?”
“Nah. Reckon I’ll just stay down here for a while. It’s pretty comfy having a plug hole under your ass. Pass me my shampoo?”
At which point Chloe snorted, passed Beca the shampoo, and started brushing her teeth. And if she brushed them for 5 whole minutes, until Beca had finished washing her hair, so that she happened to be there to help the brunette out of the bath, who was gonna mention it?
Beca, of course.
“Got clean enough teeth there, Beale? You oughta be careful, I hear you can brush the top layer right off.”
For a second, Chloe tried to think of something witty and sarcastic to say in reply, but in the end she just shrugged as she cleaned off her toothbrush, looking down at the water whirling down the sink, and not really understanding why tears were filling her eyes, again.
Beca turned the tap off, pulled Chloe to face her, tried to catch her eye as the redhead looked upwards and furiously tried to blink her tears away.
“Hey, Beale, relax. For once in my life I’m not gonna make this difficult for you, ok? I’m gonna let you like, help me, or, whatever. Even if it means public nudity and talking to you when you can see my junk. You just have to promise me one thing, Chlo, ok?” and Chloe finally met the other girl’s eyes, eyelids wide open now, knowing her next blink would send tears cascading down her face, “you have to let someone look after you. Promise me, ok? Cos I’m not so hot at that right now and there’s no way I could cope without my ginger,” Beca’s tone was still light and sarcastic, but her eyes were all navy sincerity.
And there they went, tears down her face, arms round Beca’s neck, a face full of towel as she nuzzled Beca’s turbaned head, the absorbent material sucking up her tears before they had a chance to fall on Beca’s bare shoulders, a muffled “Ok,” mumbled in between.
It had been 2 weeks since Beca’s last cycle of chemo, and although the last 14 days had been a bit of a blur, she was pretty sure Chloe had only left her side for the 20 hours of Bella’s practice there had been in the last 14 days. In fact, not even that, because in the last couple of days Beca had been feeling well enough (and bored enough) to drag her ass out of bed to watch. After the first few days of not eating and throwing up, Beca had woken up on day four with an appetite and enough energy to at least hobble down stairs to watch TV after dinner with the girls. After that, she had settled into a routine of mixing in the morning, napping in the afternoon, and watching TV with the other Bellas in the evening. All with Chloe by her side of course.
Somehow, despite the fact it was now being treated, the pain in her leg was only getting worse, and she had finally admitted defeat and resorted to using crutches to get around, so the Bellas choreography was definitely out, but as Chloe had pointed out on that fateful day at activities day, acapella is “all from our mouths”, so after some gentle persuasion on Chloe’s part, Beca joined in with the singing. Unfortunately, this didn’t go as well as anyone had hoped.
Beca could stand pretty comfortably on her crutches, but the other girls insisted that they sing through the pieces sitting down. Beca huffed, and muttered under her breath about posture and squished diaphragms, but eventually acquiesced after a pleading glance from Chloe.
They settled into a tight circle, the circle they practised in when they were just working on the vocals, the circle they sat in to learn new mixes and work on their harmonies. While singing a set Beca had finished making almost 2 months before, that they had almost perfected the vocals on, that they knew inside and out.
And then they sang it, exactly as they had learnt it, exactly as Beca mixed it 2 months previously, exactly as they had been planning on singing it at Varsity. Exactly as if nothing had changed.
“Why are we doing this?!”
10 pairs of eyes turned to look at the angry Bella, who was trying to gather her crutches and get up from her chair and out of the circle at the same time.
“Well shortstack, we are an acapella group, singing is kind of our deal,” Amy pointed out helpfully.
“That’s not what I mean! This is all wrong! We’re rehearsing it in a circle as if we’re just learning the vocals when I know you had them down the last time I was here and that was weeks ago. We’re singing this through like I’m going to be singing with you, when you need to be reassigning my solos and covering my part. You’re completely ignoring the choreography, even though you need to work out how to fill the gaps I’m going to leave. You’re singing this like I’m gonna be there, when we all know that I’m not! If this is supposed to make me feel better, congratulations, y’all are doing a really shitty job,” and on this note, Beca stormed out, as quickly as her crutches would allow, leaving 9 stunned Bellas in her wake.
Fortunately, it was 9 Bella’s plus Aubrey Posen, who had given up all pretence of not dating Stacie in the last few weeks, and was present at almost all Bellas practices.
“Much as you all know I hate to disagree with alt-girl, she’s right. Chloe – you go find Beca, make sure she’s ok. CR – you take Beca’s solo in Crazy Youngsters, take a look at the part now. Amy, come here and help me work out which bits of Beca’s part you need to cover. Stacie – you go over the choreography and work out how to take Beca out.”
For a second, nobody moved.
“GO!” yelled Aubrey, and off the Bellas went in a scramble of activity.
It didn’t take Chloe long to find Beca. She wasn’t great on her crutches yet, and going down stairs on them without someone next to her to break her fall was not something she had been prepared to try for the first time while her eye sight may or may not have been slightly clouded by excess salty water. Chloe found her, therefore, jabbing impatiently at the ‘down’ button for the lift, muttering curses at the elevator (and all its children, if Chloe heard right) for not turning up exactly when she wanted it.
“Hey Becs,” Chloe said cautiously, alerting Beca to her presence so as not the alarm to angry brunette.
“Stupid fucking cancer,” Beca huffed, “doesn’t even let me make a dramatic exit in style.”
“Yeah, it can be a bitch like that,” Chloe agreed, nodding. “If you want, we can walk home, and then I can pretend to have found you there, post-dramatic-exit?”
“Nah. It’s cool. Thanks for the offer though,” Beca shrugged. Giving up on the lift. She turned around and slumped against the wall. Chloe joined her.
“I’m sorry I pushed you to come to rehearsals, Becs.”
“S’okay,” Beca shrugged, “I have cancer. I think there was gonna be shouting sooner or later. Par for the course, right? Should probably apologise to the girls at some point thought.”
The two girls sat in silence for a minute.
“This was meant to be our year, Chlo,” Beca said quietly.
“I know Becs, but - ”
“We were supposed to win Varsity and graduate and start our real lives.”
“I knew, Beca, but -”
“And now I have stupid cancer.”
“Beca! Next year can be our year,” Chloe finally finished.
“Chlo,” Beca turned to face the other girl, “you’re finally graduating this year. It won’t be our year without you.”
“Well see… that’s the thing,” Chloe smiled, oh so carefully tucking Beca’s hair back behind her ear, aware, even if the brunette didn’t seem to be, of just how fragile it was now, “Remember how I spoke to my academic tutor while you were in the hospital?”
“Yeeesss…,” Beca drew out, hoping against hope that her best friend hadn’t done anything stupid like fail another unit just to hang around.
“Well, I was talking to him because… I changed courses, Becs. I’m on the Masters now. I’m doing an MA, and I’m still gonna be in Bristol next year.”
“What?! Chloe that’s awesome! You’ve been talking about transferring to the Masters for ages!” Beca threw her arms round Chloe and whispered in her ear, “I’m so proud of you, Chloe.” Beca squeezed her tight, all annoyance at the Bellas practise forgotten Let's not point out that it was completely typical of Beca to be pleased for Choe that the girl had finally had the confidence to transfer to the masters, rather than be please that her best friend was going to be around for another year, because that would not be good for her rep.
Chloe blushed. “The great badass Beca Mitchell, proud of someone and admitting it? Just wait till the girls hear about this!”
Beca pulled back abruptly and poked Chloe in the chest, face deadpan as she said, “Just remember, Beale, I know where you sleep at night, and you know no one will suspect the cancer girl.” Chloe’s smile almost faltered… Before it widened to a grain. Sarcastic Beca had been missing for the last couple of days, and the bitch was back.