Love, Beca

8 - Stress, Suspicions And Spotify

FROM: blueandblackrain@gmail.com
TO: fromtheyellowcup@gmail.com
SUBJECT: how do people do this?

Morning Red,

These exams are STRESSING ME TF OUT.

I'm getting around five hours a sleep a night, if I'm lucky and trying to make up for the lack of sleep with extreme amounts of caffeine. Consequently, I am a fucking zombie. Seriously, I feel like I'm constantly floating above my body at the moment.

How are you surviving? Please feel free to send all of your study tips and tricks my way.

Love, Melody.

-

FROM: fromtheyellowcup@gmail.com
TO: blueandblackrain@gmail.com
SUBJECT: Re: how do people do this?

Sweet Melody,

Remember to breathe.

I'm barely surviving either, but my study sessions are fuelled with double shot espressos and a lot of salty snacks. I've actually got a very good way at memorising things like facts and statistics. I come up with a song and by the end of the night I can't get the tune and the words out of my head. If that isn't your thing then my other favourite study technique is highlighting, my books look like frickin traffic lights.

Hope that helps?

Love, Red.

-

Normally Beca would have thought that coming up with a song to remember information was lame - Music was meant to be fun, why would you ruin it with school shit? And if it was anyone else she probably would have, but it was Red. And ever since that first email, Beca had had a hard time getting Red out of her mind. Not that she wanted to, it was more that she needed to - it was becoming exceedingly more difficult to concentrate on school work, her friends and even her music.

Before Red, nobody had really filled her mind that way before, Beca was always stuck in her music; humming the lyrics of songs in the shower, turning two songs into a remix as she found similar melodies and blended them together, her head would spin as she attempted to write lyrics for her band. And if she wasn't creating original music, Beca was making spotify playlists and listening to record after record of her favourite artists. She didn't allow herself to occupy her time with a lot other than music, of course she hung out with her friends often, but Beca didn't really have anything else going for her.

That was why music was so important to her, and she was scared that if she let her guard down for even two seconds then her potential music career would come tumbling down. She didn't know if she could let Red, or anyone else, break down another wall.

Beca had always been the type of person to act on her thoughts, not allowing her heart to guide her like others. She didn't need those kind of distractions in her life, she needed to succeed in her music and things like that would've held her back, because love was weakness, right?

But recently her judgement has been a little clouded.

-

Beca could imagine Red sitting at her desk, colouring her book with different colour highlighters, each colour indicating something different; Green for the things she knows and was confident with, Amber/Orange for the stuff she wasn't quite sure on and Red for the things she didn't really know at all.