y'all were so nice about the last thing i wrote so here you go. title from 'the eye' by brandi carlile.

It's funny how things work out. Or don't work out.

For instance, Chloe would have never in a million years imagined the current life she leads as hers. She's in an old farmhouse, her old farmhouse, looking out as the sun rises in a frame of old live oaks.

Granted it's super tiny because music teachers aren't exactly raking it in these days, but it's her spot all the same. It's cute.

She'd definitely never thought she'd stay in Georgia. But she'd never really had any other place in mind. So it makes sense in a way, she thinks, stirring her polka-dotted mug of coffee as she stares, that the view is of trees and grass and green instead of waves and sand.

She'd practically grown up on the beach in Miami. When everyone calls you Ariel as a little kid and you respond to it? That's when you know. Freshman year at Barden she'd invited some of the Bella's back with her that first spring break, only Aubrey had taken her up on it. The look on the blonde's face full of wonder and the calm relief that only the sea gives once they'd trudged over the first dune was one of those moments Chloe can never forget.

(When Aubrey came back in the fall that year, she was more restrained and increasingly spouted quotes and business sayings from her father. It makes the memory of those three seconds on a random beach in Florida just that much more special to Chloe.)

She puts the milk away and a breeze catches on the fridge door as it shuts, dislodging a rumpled piece of paper. Chloe smiles, tucking a loose curl from her messy bun behind her ear, and slips the drawing of a smiley face ("WE LUV U MS B" is scrawled across it along with what she guesses is supposed to be a musical note) back under a magnet from Los Angeles. There are so many clippings from her kids that she's started to double up.

And she doesn't get as many magnets any more.

But Chloe tilts her head at the covered door and layers of hearts and smiley faces and generally adorable things those kids do and she absolutely cannot help the inescapably warm smile that stretches across her face as if the little humans are smiling back, gap teeth and all.

So maybe she couldn't totally make a living on helping inner city kids through music like she'd expected, but she looks forward to the few hours a week she can volunteer to do so. One of her favorite things about both teaching music and music therapy volunteering is the way all the kids take to it, enjoy it, no matter their background. Occasionally it scares her how much of a role she has in shaping their futures. Sometimes it breaks her heart to know what some of them have gone through. Mostly she's just happy to be something good.

Because kids come to school or sessions carefree and eager and laughing and Chloe can't help but be the same. Another group leader, Matt, had chuckled at her when she'd said that aloud.

"It helps that you're carefree, eager, and laughing to start out with too," he'd said with a wink.

"But I'm not six years old," she'd shot back, arms akimbo.

"You sure about that?" Chloe had gasped playfully and successfully turned the kids against him for the session.

(He'd asked her out the second week of sessioning together but after a few dates they'd agreed they were better as friends. (It was Chloe's suggestion. Matt had been disappointed but accepted it. (He's a total sweetheart but something else tugged at her.)) It's different to make friends as 'adults' but they have a group they've mismatched and mixed between the two of them so it worked out fine.)

She's not quite six but even now she doesn't feel completely 27 years old. She's still the bubbly, outgoing Chloe everyone from Barden probably remembers, but she can feel a muted change to her. She doesn't know what it is or when it happened. She's in no way old but most of it probably came with age, this strange subtle calm in her life. She has elements of intensity and impulsiveness, sure, but part of her has always been drawn to soft moments.

Beyond all that, there's something else, too, just below the surface.

As the thought ripples through her, Chloe shifts her shoulder under her oversized knit sweater and rubs her thumb along the rim of her mug, tapping the sides of the thick ceramic lightly. She gnaws her bottom lip.

Because it's weird. The thing. Every now and then she has a weird flash. Sometimes it's a memory. Sometimes it's something else. (She's hesitant to call it a daydream (or even worse—a fantasy).) But the aftermath is always a dull ache.

The flash is something super ridiculous like a slap-happy bark of laughter heard at 4 am after staying up all night before finals. Almost calling out to the other room. A bare arm curling around her waist in damp air under an umbrella in Copenhagen. Or a slouched figure in the passenger seat of her new car that some nights she swears she sees out of the corner of her eye. She's haunted by this ghost made up of missing pieces.

So after the ache she mostly gets mad because she can easily just call or text despite whatever time difference (even if what she really wants is FaceTime or Skype). There might just be a slight delay in response, even if the amount of communication has just dropped off a bit. And she's not used to restraining herself anyway. It's so hard to wait. So she gets frustrated enough to nearly stomp her foot or pout like the six year old she's totally not because she's caught between a rock and a hard place because she wants and she wants to talk.

But the things she wants to say are silly things, little things, like how great the laundry booster she got smells. Adult things like that she's thinking of picking up 'A Naan-Full' for dinner. Or how soft her new sheets are. And yeah that's normal talk, totally within the realm of exchanges between friends, but she'd keep going and going and the root of where it's coming from is so domestic that it causes her to stop.

It causes her to stop. And it causes her to do something stupid like what she's doing right now, running her fingers over a corny plastic magnet meant to look like a retro postcard that says "Greetings from Los Angeles!". A magnet that was sent to her four years ago from a girl who at the time had just shot her a text as she stepped off a plane in LAX en route to a record company 'discussion'.

Over time, so much freaking time, the 'discussion' evolved into a 'deal' which evolved into an 'EP' which evolved into an 'record' which evolved into a 'tour'. And due to this evolution there are over two dozen magnets scattered across the fridge, pieces of her life held together by glimpses of someone else's. The pictures sent to her phone are saved somewhere in her harddrive but these she sees every day. The names of cities grow farther from what she knows and more exotic—Vegas, London, Milan, Berlin, Tokyo. And then less frequent. But each time she can almost imagine herself there.

She can imagine herself there, herself with Beca. Because of course its Beca. She can imagine herself a part of Beca's new life. Chloe doesn't want to be a roadie or ride Beca's coattails. Chloe's never wanted fame and it's not about escape. She has her life and loves her job. It's the person involved and the level of missing her.

She wants feeling. She chases happiness. She does things she likes because she likes them, even if it hurts—see 'singing with nodes in college'. And she can indulge now and then, and when she is feeling particularly bold, she can picture a one life mixed between the two of theirs.

(And this jumps about four stages because they never actually even talked about it. Them. There was something unspoken that their connection was different from the start. But she's starting to think she's crazy and the only one who felt it—but that's impossible though, right? It was real. Right?)

In the beginning she'd Googled the hell out of Beca because she was so proud and it was so surreal and she'd sent screenshots of raving YouTube comments and Soundcloud freakouts to her with an emoji of the monkey covering his mouth mostly because the sarcastic responses were super hilarious. The evolution wasn't sudden and it took years of Beca working damn hard and stringing herself too thin sometimes (in Chloe's opinion).

Even Chloe got fed up once or twice or 47 times because why the hell was it taking so long for people to connect the music to Beca.

The 36 hour days and constant travel and edits upon edits of words and beats paid off in the end. Because then the screenshots of YouTube comments became of music reviews and pics of posters around Atlanta and gig shots then album covers until the little game was lost when paparazzi became everyday life and Grammy red carpets were the norm.

She used to know at least the names of the people in the pictures with her. But Beca's world got bigger and it became almost a new set of faces every week. Beca tried to keep up by sending pics or checking in but it dropped off and it's totally understandable and Chloe won't be demanding.

Chloe still googles from time to time, to see clubs and gigs, and she still imagines what it would be like to be there in a crowd listening to the final cut of a song she'd been sent in a rough mp3 during a Skype session a year prior (Beca always wanted to watch her reaction). She wonder what it would be like to see Beca in action. It would probably blow her mind.

It's for the best though, that she's not there, she thinks. Wherever 'there' may be, it's for the best that she's here. She will take what she can get being the friend, the support system, a million miles away with encouraging responses to a spattering of texts. She won't put pressure on it. Beyond hearing her friend's thoughts on things, Chloe's seen what Beca goes through and how she has reacted to the harsh side of fame. She knows that's partly to blame for what has happened between the two of them. Because when she googles to see the posed pictures other pictures pop up too. The kind with faces being shielded from blinding flashes on the way to dinner, or sunglasses in an SUV with tinted windows that still aren't dark enough.

Chloe probably wouldn't be able to deal with that, she thinks, sipping at her coffee. She'd probably lose herself in all the pictures. She'd end up being someone she wouldn't know. She thinks. On hard days she says it aloud. This is for the best.

(She can almost convince herself.)

The sun is almost over the fence line now and the light has shifted from pink to orange and yellow and it's a new day. The morning is drenched in golden promise and Chloe smiles.

So it's for the best that things are the way they are. She will sit and wait for what she gets from Beca and she will be whatever her friend needs her to be. She's fine. She's content.

She can think of a hand in hers in Milan or a smudge on the shoulder of her favorite white blouse from snuggling with heavily eyelinered eyes in Sydney and maybe even the whip of dark curls in her face during fireworks in Bangkok.

And then she's back in her kitchen in Georgia. She's miles from the city. And it is a beautiful August day and it is Saturday and she has grading to catch up on while she streams the radio station she uses for mornings like these. She'll meet Aubrey on her way to the city for brunch then head to the center for a few hours with the kids and she'll bust out glow sticks and hula hoops and they will be smiling and laughing and then there's 'Saturday Supper' with her friends at Matt's and everything is fine.

And she's almost glad Beca never fell in love with her.

(She'll convince herself tomorrow.)