Eight years prior, there had been a tension in Anna's right shoulder and both of her heels had been aching when she unlocked the apartment door after a long day of work and announced "I'm back," to an empty loft. Her fiancé, Hans, was nowhere to be seen in the darkened space and he had made off with her Smart TV, laptop, office desktop, microwave, emergency money mason-jar stash, and all of her jewelry besides the cubic zirconium on her left hand. So when Anna arrived to her house, she always felt that tension in her right shoulder twinge ever so slightly and bring the memory to the front of her juggled, racing thoughts.
The tension ebbed away when Anna opened the door to see her older sister playing Minecraft on the living room's wall-mounted monitor. She'd entered through the side door, where her kitchen was, so Elsa's blonde head stayed facing away from her. The longer Anna stood, the more the tension eased. She wasn't alone. She'd always have Elsa.
"Welcome back," the blonde lifted her hand off of the controller but didn't turn her head.
Anna smiled, "I'm back," she mumbled as she ducked her head and unloaded the cleaning supplies on the kitchen counter before heading back out the door for the next round. She turned off the idled car and brought in the meats and vegetables, next. Elsa was lactose intolerant, so she had to start getting Almond milk and fake cheese, integrating them into her meals.
Most people would expect to move back in with their parents when they lose their job, but Elsa and Anna lost theirs back in their early teenage years. Rather, their parents lost them. Sometimes meth houses on television news aren't always run-down; sometimes, they have white picket fences and a German shepherd named Noodles in the front yard. At the ripe age of 30, Elsa moved into her younger sister's house. Anna never requested rent and she never mentioned her sister's previous marriage, either. The perfect roommate, mostly. Anna had to admit that she had gotten a bit short tempered with Elsa since about ten years ago. Anna was 28 and should be used to it. But Elsa… she was just so… different, now. It was like the older woman was eternally anxious and that bled into Anna's empathetic vibe like koolaid on a bounty paper towel.
Honestly, Anna had never considered her sister to be such a home-maker. Growing up, the blonde's room had always been the sloppiest and there would be an eternal pile of laundry in the hall outside of her door. Vivid memories Anna had included witnessing her sister dig through the mountain of reeking clothing, find a bra she'd discarded toward the bottom, only to head back into her room with it and emerge moments later to head out into the night to some college party. Now, when Anna entered her own home, she'd have a 50% chance of getting nagged at for her cat, Olaf, getting white fur on her own leather couch and carpeted living room after the blonde had just finished dusting.
Elsa was thinking Anna would probably need her help, bringing the groceries in, so she saved and quit her game just in time to see Anna stocking the fridge. The redhead was bent over and humming to herself. Anna was wearing very tight-fitting jeans and Elsa thought briefly, again, that she needed to move out and soon. Blushing, she turned to the toilet paper on the counter and delivered it to the bathroom closet. By the time she returned, Anna was starting to slice flank steak into strips. Prompted, she complimented, "That looks good. Fajitas and nachos, tonight?"
Smirking, her sister shot her a wink, "You wish, carb-ivore. I'm fixing salad, tonight. This is getting tossed in." Elsa kept staring at her profile, when Anna turned back to the task at hand. Sensing she was both not ready to stop staring and yet not willing to make things awkward: Elsa offered to chop the lettuce. "That would be helpful, thank you."
Peeling off the cellophane from the head of lettuce, the older sister didn't want the conversation to stop, just yet, and asked "So how was work?"
"Pretty good," Anna lied, "Just... you know… exhausting." She'd called in to the insurance office so she could have the day off. She spent the morning staring at the ocean from the pier. She didn't tell Elsa because she didn't want to see her face, yet. The blonde had always been the most beautiful girl in any room. Anna had held it against her, at one point in their youth. Back when Elsa tried to integrate her younger sister with her older friends, all the guys and all the girls would nod at her direction, but they would immediately return to looking at Elsa. It hurt, that Elsa had her beat on beauty. Anna thought she'd gotten over it, and she had indeed accepted it, but she had also never really looked at her sister. Then, last night, she did.
Anna hadn't gone to bed, yet, but she had been so tired that she laid down on the couch. It really hit her self-esteem, last night. Last night, her taller, prettier, softer-spoken sister had walked down from the stairs, into the kitchen, cracked the refrigerator open, and chugged the last of the almond milk straight from the carton. At first, she stifled a giggle. It was nice that her sister still had a bit of a slob within her. But illuminated by the light in the darkness, Elsa was only in her underwear. Long, pale legs, a tight ass covered barely peeking out of indigo lace across her back side and an unmatched blue sports bra tight over her chest and back. Platinum, curly hair was whisping all around in fluffy ringlets of her perfect, satisfied face... with a white, almond milk mustache. With the least amount of effort, her sister looked like a goddess and Anna started to feel a shift in how she saw her sister. Then Anna did not, as her sister did without seeing her, go back to bed. What Anna did was think.
She thought about everything.
Anna thought about how Elsa hadn't even been on a single date since she'd moved in with her. It had been three years, and not a single dating app or complaint or mention of someone new. Anna assumed it was because her sister was heartbroken and until last night, she hadn't given it another thought. But Anna then thought about how she, herself, hadn't done anything about dating, either. Ever since her sister had moved in, she had all libido, all the time, but without want of another human being. She'd take care of her own needs, which had originally been once a week, tops, and that had increased to every morning. It had always been triggered by the scent of Elsa's brewing coffee wafting up to her from downstairs.
Anna had thought about all of those countless parties with her sister's hand on her back. about how Elsa never left her alone even when either of them went to the restroom. How, when they fought, Elsa would always apologize and beg her to just hug her and forgive her; Anna had even known she had been in the wrong, wayyy in the wrong, sometimes. Then Anna thought about all of the girlfriends her sister went out with; fun, lively, red heads- all of them. Anna had hated all of them, passively thinking they weren't good enough for her sister, and ignored them all. Her wife had been full-blooded Irish.
She thought about it all at once, how the tension between her and her sister was sexual. It took Anna ten hours of processing until she finally believed it. She was only four hours into it when her auto-pilot drove to the pier. If a sea gull hadn't sounded off, she wouldn't have checked her phone in time to call in to work without a mark on her company card.
"Hey, Elsa," she bumped her sister's hip with her own, "get me the skillet, would you?" Anna watched her sister squat down to the cabinet under the stove and got an eyeful of cleavage. Anna wasn't gay, but... damn. For Elsa, she was; and that was something she'd only recently realized earlier in the day, but she was rolling with it.