#seriously I was awake until 4am twice to read

[kat-from-minasmorgul]

yes hello I am completely and utterly obsessed, this book is amazing

[wannabe-bella]

Beca’s Side

Part 2 to “Your Side” 

Beca’s Side

Slouching into the couch, Beca lets out a tired sigh from being stuck in the studio all day working on an upcoming artist's album. She lets her head rest on the cushion behind before picking up the remote and switching on the TV.  

Scrolling through the channels for something to watch, she sighs from finding nothing. Deciding to check her phone instead, she clicks on Instagram only to be find that she's just reached 4 million followers.  

"Jesus," She mumbles with a small smile before scrolling through the feed. Liking a few of her friend's pictures, she lets out a chuckle from seeing a picture that Jesse posted.  

@jesseswanson

#tbt to the Barden days! Also, this is the only pic I have of @djbecamitchell smiling.

Liking it, she comments a quick, "You're a weirdo," before pausing to stare at the photo.  

It was set back in Barden during their graduation day and it was of her, Jesse, Aubrey and Chloe being the centre of it.  

Chloe.  

There's a name she hasn't thought about in a while.  

Okay, that's a lie.  

She thinks about her every day.  

Shaking her head, Beca carelessly chucks the phone to the opposite end of the couch before shutting her eyes.  

"Beca, get over here!" Comes Jesse's voice stopping her mid-sentence. Glancing away from her dad, she looks over her shoulder to him.  

"I'm in a conversation here!" She replies, twisting back to Dr. Mitchell only to see a small grin on his face.  

"Go join them," He says, tapping her on the shoulder.  

"You sure?"  

"Yeah," He answers, "After all, you did hold up your end of the deal." He says before smiling wide, "Now look at you, you're a college graduate!"  

With a short laugh, Beca nods, "Yeah, I am. But..." Trailing off, she smirks, "I recall you saying you'd help me get to LA."  

"And I will," He promises before bringing her into a hug, "I'm so proud of you, Bec," He whispers into her ear before pulling back. His eyes now a little glossy. "Go have fun," He tells her.  

And she doesn't need to be told twice.  

Spinning on the spot, she looks around for her friends only to automatically catch bright red hair. With a smirk, she sneaks her way over to Chloe and without warning, wraps her arms around her from behind before kissing her on the cheek.  

Letting out a loud squeak, Chloe twists around to find Beca standing in front of her. "Becs!" She squeals in delight, pulling her in for a quick kiss.  

"Hey, there," The brunette grins, her hands going to the redhead's waist.  

"We did it!" Chloe cheers in glee, wrapping her arms around Beca's neck.  

"Yeah, we did," The DJ replies with a smirk.  

"WE ARE THE KINGS OF CAPMPUS!" Comes the booming voice of Jesse from behind Chloe interrupting them. "Guys, get over here!" He gestures to them, wrapping an arm around Aubrey's shoulder.  

"I'm seriously debating not going over there," Beca says making Chloe giggle.  

Trailing her hands down the brunette's arms, the redhead grabs Beca's hand before dragging her over to them, "Come on."  

Rolling her eyes, Beca begrudgingly stands beside her, sneakily snaking her arm around her waist while they wait for a picture of them to be taken. Glancing over, she catches Jesse's gaze who throws her an over exaggerated wink bringing a smile to her face.  

SNAP!

Sitting up, Beca blinks her eyes open. Glancing around, she sees the shine of the moonlight through the window making her acknowledge that she hadn't napped for long.  

Kicking her legs over the side of the couch, she leans her elbows on her knees before taking a deep breath.  

Looking to the side, her phone catches her attention. Leaning over she picks it up only to see that it's left on the picture from the night before. While staring down at it, she notices that Chloe had left a comment on it 3 hours ago.  

@acabeale

Ah! I miss these days!  

That was all she wrote. A simple sentence.  But seeing the name intrigues the brunette, considering it had been years since she last saw Chloe.  

Her thumb hovers over Chloe's name before she decides to click on it.  

Once being brought to her page, she can't help but roll her eyes as she sees that it's an open page. Nothing private about it.  

"Typically, Chloe-" The brunette says but halts when her eyes focus on the latest photo uploaded. Tapping on it, she reads the caption.  

@acabeale

So happy to be with him! @chicagowalp #6months

She's not sure as to why, but something inside Beca breaks as she looks over the picture. Chloe stands to the man's right, their hands joined, her smile bright and wide as they look at each other.  

Beca's vision blurs a little, but she blinks it clear, and looks to the comments instead.  

@chicagowalp So happy to be you! #6months

@stacie_conrad Aw! You guys are SO cute!  

@aca_aubrey This is adorable. And yes, I did just say that.  

Of course, Chloe would have moved on, Beca thinks. But it's not as if Beca hadn't dated since their breakup. In fact, the DJ had. She had tried the whole "dating thing" only to come up short. Beca didn't think it was fair on her partner to be with someone who didn't love them back, so she decided to end the relationship before things could get too serious.  

Beca was faithful to her past partners, never wanted to hurt them...  Whether it was intentionally or not.  

That being said, she has had her fair share of one-night stands.

Shutting the phone off, she sets it aside before standing. Making her way to the kitchen, she grabs a bottle of water before taking a sip. As she sets the drink onto the counter, her eyes catch sight of the piano perched at the back of the apartment. Inspired, she makes her way over, taking a seat on the bench.  

She lets her hands fall onto the keys, familiarizing them before drifting off into her own world. Playing a few chords, she mixes them around for a little before making a slow progression while tapping her feet to a beat.  

Playing the chords over and over, she waits until she finds the right lyrics.

"But somethings changed Had a change of heart-"

Stalling, Beca glances at her hands as she focuses. Chewing on her lip, she continues the chord progression in hopes of a spurt of inspiration. Suddenly her mind is taken up of images of Chloe and Chicago and before she knows it-

"But somethings changed You had a change of heart"

Taking a breath, she plays the chords again before singing the next lyrics.  

"If I can't have you every way, don't want to know you're wanting somebody else If I can't have you every way, I need to hear it, hear it-"  

Letting her hands fall to rest on the keys, she opens her eyes not knowing when they'd closed. After a few moments of processing the song, she abruptly stands from the piano and hurries her way to her room. Seconds later, she returns only now with a black guitar in her left hand and a notebook in her right.

Setting the notebook on top of the piano, she quickly jots down the lyrics from earlier before sitting at the edge of the bench, perching the guitar on her lap.  

Strumming the chords from the piano, she hums along to the lyrics she wrote.  

"This doesn't work!" She huffs, moments later, sounding frustrated.  

In her frustrated state, she continues to strum the guitar as she thinks back to the night of the breakup. She hates how it went. She hates how Chloe never let her explain. But most of all, she hates how she let Chloe get away.  

Glancing to the fretboard, she watches her fingers change from chord to chord and taking a deep breath, she lets the lyrics flow.  

"But somethings changed  

You had a change of heart

I'd told you I would come back home,

Cuz I know you hate to be alone...

But somethings changed  

Instead of kissing you, I'm kissing strangers

Always listen but I'll never learn

Shoulda' been hanging on your every word

I was taking you for granted, never realized the danger

And now I took too long

And now she's gone

If I only knew right from wrong

She'd be right back in my arms..."

Strumming for a few bars she waits before continuing.  

"If I can't have you every way, don't want to know you're wanting somebody else

(all I got is you)  

If I can't have you every way, I need to hear it, hear it

(all I got is you)

I always meant to hold you closer

But I don't always do what I'm supposed to

Now you're slipping through my fingers and I don't know what to do

And I keep hoping you call back

Can we forget about the past?

Cause baby all I really want is you

And now I took too long

And now she's gone

If I only knew right from wrong

She'd be right back in my arms"

Closing her eyes, Beca strums the guitar with more force, adding dynamic and more passion to the song before singing the chorus.  

"If I can't have you every way, don't want to know you're wanting somebody else 

(all I got is you)  

If I can't have you every way, I need to hear it, hear it

(all I got is you)"  

Opening her eyes, she strums the guitar softly this time, when her eyes catch sight of the clock on the wall.  

"4am and I cannot say goodbye

Crawling back home, I'd do anything for you

And I'm sitting up awake and now I can't forget you and I don't know what to do"

Letting her hand fall to her lap, she sings the last few bars with no guitar, just Beca and her voice.  

"And now I took too long

And now she's gone

If I only knew right from wrong

She'd be right back in my arms..."

6 Months Later

Feeling a tickle run up her spine, Beca smiles, "Good morning," She mumbles from laying on her stomach before twisting her head to the right to find sparkling green eyes staring down at her.  

"Morning, babe," The girl says, continuing to run her hand up and down the brunette's back. "How was your sleep?"  

"Uh, uneventful," Beca replies, "Nothing too exciting, got trapped in a maze at one point." She adds causing the other girl to chuckle.  

"You're adorable," The green-eyed beauty states with a grin, leaning down to capture Beca's lips in her own.  

After writing the song, Beca had finally come to terms with the breakup. In a way, she thinks it did her good. It helped her express her feelings, raw and venerable and in the most Beca way imaginable. Music.  

It freed her, she likes to think.  

She can finally put Chloe behind her, to move on, to learn from past mistakes.

And not long after writing it, she met the girl she's currently with. Chelsea. The pair met in a coffee shop and hit it off immediately and for the first time in years, Beca is genuinely happy.  

Chelsea was the opposite of Chloe, look wise. Chelsea had long flowy dark hair with light green eyes, her music taste was awesome (Beca's words) and was an all-round nice person. Of course, she knew who Beca was, which had worried the DJ at first, but after a while of getting to know each other, she realized there was nothing to stress over. Chelsea treated her as a normal person, not some DJ sensation.  

Breaking the kiss, Beca looks at the girl above her, "How are you so pretty?" She asks as her gaze flicker over her facial features.  

"I could ask you the same thing," Chelsea replies with a wink.  

"Smooth," Beca chuckles when suddenly the alarm on her phone blares off interrupting them and causing her to let out a groan. "Ugh." Stretching her arm out, Beca taps at the screen until it shuts off. "Guess I gotta get up now," She says with a dramatic sigh.  

"Yep. Gotta go make some dope music." Her girlfriend says making her cringe.  

"I should've never said that word around you." Beca states before sitting up. Stretching out her limbs, she goes to move the comforter away but instead finds herself being pulled back in and lips landing on her own.  

Strolling her way toward the record label she works for, Beca takes a sip of the coffee in her hand before pushing on the door. Entering the building, she greets her co-workers before sliding into her office.  

Setting the coffee aside, she takes a seat in her desk chair and boots up the computer. While she patiently waits, she hears her phone ting and picking it up, she sees that Chelsea has tagged her in an Instagram post.

@its_me_chelsea

Look at this cutie! @djbecamitchell

She rolls her eyes at the photo of Beca herself sleeping, head on the desk, at her home studio in her apartment.

Going to the comments, she types out a, "When did you take this?" Before switching off the device.  

Her attention is then brought to the boring task of replying to emails. Quickly doing that, she decides to browse through her past mixes and songs when one catches her eye.  

It's simply titled, "All I Got."

She knows she shouldn't click on it.  

But she does.  

"But somethings changed  

You had a change of heart

I'd told you I would come back home

Cuz I know you hate to be alone

But somethings changed  

Instead of kissing you, I'm kissing strangers

Always listen but I'll never learn

Shoulda' been hanging on your every word

I was taking you for granted, never realized the danger

And now I took too long

And now she's gone

If I only knew right from wrong

She'd be right back in my a-"

Before the song can continue, Beca hears three faint taps come from the door making her pause. Gathering her thoughts, she quickly X's out of the folder before mumbling out a, "Come in!"

Taking a sip from her coffee, she taps her finger along the desk as she waits for her visitor to make an appearance.  

At first, she thinks she's seeing things... but then again, who is she kidding?  

She could catch that hair a mile away.  

If some of you are a little annoyed with Chloe not letting Beca explain, I was annoyed with that too. But Chloe, I think, is someone who overreacts to certain situations. Hence the sudden move to break up with Beca.  

Also, I added this Chelsea chick in because I didn't want Beca to be lonely for the full 12 months that Chloe was with Chicago.  

The song which Beca wrote is actually two songs combined which I found, they're:

Anki - All Or Nothing feat. NEAVV, With October  

Said The Sky - All I Got With Kwesi  

[hashtagsmitty]

Smitty's Thailand Adventure - Day 1

I'm inspired right now by Uncle Gilly's travel blogs. And since I'm in my hotel room at 11pm Thai time and nowhere near sleep despite being up for some ungodly number of hours, here we go!

Heading into this trip I was super anxious. I haven't gone overseas for 7 years, and I've never travelled alone before. It's not so bad since I'm hanging out with Josh the whole time, but it's still a bit weird. Plus, I don't speak a word of Thai. I'm sure that will be fine, but it's a bit iffy going in.

April and her mum drove me to the airport. We left early to make sure we'd get past any traffic. Plus, last time April and I went anywhere I fucked up the timing and we missed our flight. I guess that was on her mind? Long story short we were at the airport 3 hours early.

I got through security and check in fine. My passport photo is from when I was 21, with a baby face and bad hair. Some beefy security dude pulled me aside to scan my passport manually when the facial recognition shit didn't work. Slight monkas.

I got through fine, bought some Thai Baht and got jibbed on the exchange rate, and then went to the gate. I bought earbuds because I don't own any. It occurred to me later that I'd ordered the entertainment package on the plane which comes with them. It turned out being a good thing, because 3 hours is a long time to listen to airport sounds.

I walked around the terminal to get my bearings, then went to a café thing. It wasn't a real café, but it was close enough to make me comfortable. I got a steak, then sat down and started reading. I'm reading "Growth Mindset", a text about how the way you think about success and achievement is the biggest predictor for future successes and how you deal with failure. It's really interesting, lots of real-world examples, and I'm hyped to try to teach it to my new students.

The steak arrived. I asked for a steak knife and the poor waiter gave me the most embarrassed look. He went to check, then came back and said he wasn't allowed to hand out steak knives in the airport.

Thinking back, of course he wouldn't be, but in the moment it was a weird thing. I guess it felt too much like a real café?

2 hours left. I sat at the gate and read. I had pre-downloaded a whole bunch of Podcasts and music, too, so I was listening to music while I read and swapping to podcasts when I was bored. I kept checking the time because 2 hours is a goddamn long time to wait.

Eventually though the time ticked over and the JetStar dudes were calling for business class people. Before I could react, a whole bunch of vultures had lined up. Seriously like 100 people. I joined the line. They started calling for rows 44 to 57. I checked my ticket - row 57. I walked forward hesitantly, to see if I was allowed to cut the line and board. I pussied out and realized that I'd lost my place in line. I did a slow walk of shame to the back of the line. Then the Jetstar dude started walking down the line and calling for those rows. I cut the line and got on the plane. The dude checking tickets looked dead inside.

My seat was in the middle of the last row on the plane. Two old white dudes sat either side of me. Nobody spoke, as is appropriate. The dude to my right was a bit grumpy, and took up our entire overhead bin. I sat down after putting my bag away and started my music back up. While we were waiting for takeoff, I remembered my trip to Italy from when I was 16. I wasn't sitting next to anyone I knew for both of the 26 hour flights, but the in-flight entertainment had Pokemon Pinball, and I played the shit out of it. It sorta became a tradition when I fly, and I redownloaded the rom right before the plane took off.

It was good that I did, because the in-flight entertainment was garbage. I played chess, and the piece of shit computer played the same opening against me twice. The only difference between medium and hard was that it took 2 minutes to decide each move on hard. I played two games then quit.

The flight was boring. At the end, the pilot had to do some stupid holding pattern because the flight was early:

The green circle bit was repeated 5 times. It added like an hour to the flight. It sucked being so close and having to wait so long. Speaking of waiting so long, being at the very end of the plane meant waiting 10 minutes to get off, and then waiting longer while people only grabbed their bags once they were supposed to move. Monsters.

Disembarked, went through immigration with no problems. The dude who waved me through was being so slow with his line. I held my passport open to the photo page when I gave it to him and he closed it when he took it. Awkward.

Customs didn't exist. Just walked straight out.

I met up with Josh. He was on the opposite side of the airport to where I came out. There were stacks of dodgy WiFi networks to sort through to find the one non-dodgy one. I felt like having to fight through 12 phishing networks before I left the airport was a bit much.

Josh and I got Korean chicken at the airport. It was okay, I'm not big on chicken with sauces. Or sauces in general. Or most foods in general. But, I felt like I should just dive in and broaden my comfort zone a bit. It was pretty good chicken. I'm sure it would be better at a non-airport franchise.

We caught a taxi to my hotel. Josh is staying in an AirBNB somewhere else. On the way Josh talked a bit to the taxi driver. She didn't speak any English and he barely speaks Thai, but she got us to our destination fine. It really drove (dwoop) home how foreign this place is, and how screwed I'd be if not for Josh living here. The taxi driver was not great. She was driving in two lanes for most of the trip, and I don't think I heard her indicate. The traffic lights have a dank coloured countdown for how long until the lights change. We need that in Melbourne.

We got dropped off at a skytrain station. It was attached to a huge shopping center like Melbourne Central. It was pretty sweet - I'd like to check it out when I'm less fried.

The streets looked pretty low-tier, but Josh said that it was average for Thailand, and that the closer you are to main roads or train lines, the nicer it is.

I needed toothpaste, and Josh insisted I get a local SIM card, so we went into 7-11. Josh explained that they're actually really cheap and good quality here. While we were sorting out the SIM card, the clerk needed to see my passport and take a photo for me to be able to buy it. It was weird, but everyone acted like it was normal, so whatever. The same thing happened at the hotel. Josh said they send the info to the government, but didn't say why. The clerk called me handsome in Thai as we were leaving. We got some weird salt toothpaste that Josh swore by. He said the first time was meh but the second time is amazing.

I was warned that there would be "massage parlors" on the street my hotel is on. Josh said the girls out the front would go out of their way to make me uncomfortable, and double so if we ignored them. We just stayed in the other side of the road instead.

The hotel is okay. Bed isn't great, but there's air con and a hair dryer. And a bidet, which I'm excited to try.

It feels lonely up here on my own. Like I said, I haven't travelled solo before, so it's a new experience. Bros will get a video tour of the room when I'm awake - it's 4am AUS time and I'm so fried. Gotta avoid that jet lag though, so normal sleep times.

I tried the salt toothpaste. It was okay.