AN: I'm glad you guys are enjoying the story so far! Some of you have noticed the genre listing under tragedy and are wondering about its meaning... I don't want to spoil anything so I can't say why it's labeled like that. I'm sorry. D:

"Like, oh my God! Look at this gorgeous dress! It's absolutely breathtaking!" Jasmine gushed dreamily, feeling the fabric of a showy, turquoise dress. "I just have to have it!"

Belle, Ariel, and Anna all sighed in unison. Every single time they came to this one store Jasmine was always drawn to the dress, exclaiming that she had to get it. The three girls had to constantly remind their not-so-bright friend that she'd already bought the same dress on three separate occasions, and so far she never even wore any of them. They dragged her away from the dress and all went into a café where they ordered caffienated beverages.

"I so need a vacation," Belle declared, stirring the cream on top of her coffee. "But my parents are being so stupid and are saying they want to go to Alaska. Alaska! Who goes to Alaska these days?"

Ariel nodded. "The Bahamas are totally in. That's where all the hot guys are. Besides, if you go to Alaska you'll be attacked by penguins and contract the mad penguin disease."

Anna choked on her espresso and had to pat herself on the back. Her friends just gave her dirty looks and didn't even bother asking if she was okay. "Mad penguin disease? Where the hell did you hear that?" she gasped out.

"Why, from my uncle Scuttle. He's been to Alaska, you know, and he saw for himself someone who was infected. It makes your hair turn gray and you grow webbed feet and you get sudden cravings for fish!" Ariel informed them seriously. Belle and Jasmine were captivated by this news, but Anna didn't buy it. She may not know a lot about diseases and stuff, but she was pretty sure mad penguin disease did not exist.

"You guys," Anna interjected in an attempt to change the topic when they all started a heated discussion about the nonexistent disease. "You won't believe what happened to me the other day." Their attention turned to her but none of them looked like they cared about what she was going to say. They clearly wanted to talk about the fascinating disease.

"What?" Jasmine said, sounding more than a bit irritated.

Ignoring her friend's tone, she told the three of them about how she went on a chat room to look for a date. "I met someone and we actually went out on a date."

That perked them up. "Oh yeah? Is he cute? What does he look like? How'd your date go?" Ariel fired her questions at Anna in machine gun fashion.

"Well," drawled Anna, "you won't believe it but … it turned out…"

"Yes? What?" All three of them leaned in close expectantly. The suspense was killing them.

Anna blurted it out. "The person was actually a girl."

This revelation was met with an awkward silence that lasted for an entire thirty seconds. Ariel was the first to pipe up. "Ew… Gross. You went out with another girl?" Disgust was vivid on her heavily made up face. She had a tendency to put on too much makeup and clearly didn't know what a mirror was for.

Belle gasped into her hands. "Oh my God, Anna! You mean you're…"

"No!" Anna denied fiercely. "Jeez. I'm not! Look, I didn't know she was a she, I thought she was a guy! Her screen name was chick magnet for crying out loud. What would you think?"

Jasmine chewed on her hair thoughtfully. "Why didn't you lock yourself in your room? Why did you go with her?" She didn't give Anna any time to answer, just kept popping out more and more questions. "How old was she? Was she ugly? Did she kiss you? Did you vomit?"

Anna covered her ears and wished Jasmine would shut up. She didn't waste her breath saying it out loud because once Jasmine got started she never closed her mouth. She watched as her friends began talking animatedly about her as if she weren't even sitting at the same table.

"No guy wants her so she turns to females. How sickening!"

"What if she has a crush on one of us?" This created three simultaneous gasps and three pairs of eyes fixed on Anna, looking at her as if she were the plague.

"Are you serious?" Anna's hip bumped the table as she got up to leave, causing the drinks on the table to slosh and spill over the sides of the cups. These people were supposed to be her friends and they were talking crap about her right in front of her face! It was outrageous! In a cool manner she took one last drink of her beverage, placed it on the table, and said in an equally unfriendly tone, "I'm not going to sit here and listen to this nonsense." She spun deftly on her heel, pivoting so fast her hair fanned out behind her gracefully.

She left her friends at the café and she didn't care if she never spoke to any of them again.

Anna scoffed to herself. She couldn't believe they had the gall to accuse her of being a lesbian. She definitely, totally was not a lesbian and never in a million years would she become one.

"Hey," Elsa greeted warmly on Saturday as Anna slid into the Mustang. Elsa was extremely excited to see the redhead and had to try and contain that excitement but was having a difficult time doing so. She had thought about Anna constantly during the week: when she lay awake in bed at night; while she was at work. Elsa couldn't exactly explain what it was, but she really liked Anna. Anna was wearing jeans- which she looked fine in - and a jacket over her blouse. "How was your week?"

Anna rolled down the window, not looking at her. "Well, thanks to you I lost my three only friends." She tapped her finger against her knee.

Elsa was surprised. "What do you mean?"

She told Elsa what happened in the café. Elsa drove while listening intently, her jaw slightly clenched. She was astounded. "I wouldn't call them friends if they talk about you like that. Imagine what they said about you before this. I'd say good riddance." Anna snorted but said nothing. "So… is there anything in particular you want to do? If not I've got a great idea."

For once Anna actually looked at Elsa. Really looked at her. Her blond hair was in a ponytail this time and several strands of it were free of confinement and hanging loosely around her neck. Anna watched as Elsa absentmindedly brushed them back, tucking them behind her ear. From what she could see by checking out Elsa's profile, she was far from ugly. She wore no makeup, but she really didn't need to. Anna also didn't need it since she was a natural beauty herself, but makeup was one of the things that made a female feminine. Plus her mother would be horrified if she didn't wear any. Despite lacking makeup, there wasn't anything manly about Elsa, which puzzled Anna. Didn't lesbians have some manly characteristics? She vaguely wondered if Elsa had hairy pits but she couldn't detect anything with the shirt she was wearing. Anna's eyes trailed down Elsa's arm to her surprisingly slender hands, gripping the steering wheel firmly. On her right hand there was a gold ring with a tiny dark blue jewel on the finger between her pinky and middle finger.

Returning her attention to Elsa's face once more, Anna quickly realized Elsa was aware of her close scrutiny. The blond didn't say anything, but judging from the side smirk she had on her lips Anna was positive she knew she was being observed. Anna flushed and shifted her eyes downward, clasping her hands together tightly in her lap. "I don't know. I didn't even think about it," she muttered in answer to Elsa's question.

That wasn't true. Anna pondered what to do many times during the week. She came up with nothing. Her mind was blank. Oh, there were many things that she wanted to do, like go to the zoo for instance. But she remembered a conversation they had online, before she ever met Elsa in real life and before she found out she was a girl.

Elsa loved animals but she opposed zoos. She considered them prisons for animals but, unlike human prisons, the animals were always innocent. "Animals shouldn't be penned up. They should be free to roam around in their natural habitat. But you know what? Pretty soon those prisons are going to be the only place animals will exist. Because as long as we keep killing them off and destroying their habitats they'll die out…"

Going to a zoo was out of the question. Besides, it was too late to go to one now anyway. "What's your 'great idea'?"

Elsa's great idea was to go for a walk in the park.

"This is exciting," Anna said flatly, her words dripping thickly with sarcasm, expressing how truly thrilled she was.

Her remark caused a throaty laugh to slip from Elsa's mouth and the sound had a peculiar affect on Anna, sending a shot of heat spiraling unexpectedly to her abdominal area. It was such an unsettling sensation that it brought her to an abrupt stop and she inhaled harshly. Whirling on Elsa and jabbing an extended index finger at her, she said sharply, "Don't do that again!"

Taken aback by the angry outburst, Elsa regarded her with a look of puzzlement. "Don't do what?"

Anna grumbled under her breath and ignored her question, sliding a hand under her shirt and rubbing her stomach as if to soothe herself.

Elsa arched an eyebrow and shrugged, accepting the display as part of Anna's ever growing, interesting personality. Returning back to Anna's exciting comment, she explained with a light chuckle, "It's not really supposed to be exciting. It's supposed to be relaxing!" Elsa was hoping the fresh air would help resolve the tension that was wedged between them and give them time to talk outside of a stuffy and crowded environment.

"Well, it's stupid!" Anna hugged herself and glanced around surreptitiously and complained, "It's dark out. Don't you know bad things always happen to people in parks at night?" She was furious when Elsa burst out laughing. "I'm serious! It always happens in movies and books."

"You read books?" Elsa asked incredulously. She'd have never guessed. The topic never came up during one of their online discussions and Anna seemed like the type who would despise reading.

"Occasionally," Anna said defensively, puffing out her cheeks.

They followed the cement pathway that went through the park and Elsa made it a game of hopping over the cracks. "The reason it always happens in movies and books is simply because the park is a perfect setting for scary scenarios. It's usually deserted at night and it's suspenseful when a character cuts through the park when there's a killer on the loose." Elsa lowered her voice and leaned closer to Anna. "Who knows, maybe there's a killer spying on us right now, plotting on a way to kill us. It could even be a vampire, or perhaps a zombie..."

Anna quickly scanned her surroundings for any shady characters lurking in the shadows. The only person she could see other than Elsa was a homeless man sleeping on a cold bench with newspaper covering him like a flimsy blanket and he wasn't looking anything but grungy. Looks could be deceiving, she reminded herself. He could have been a killer disguised as a hobo, waiting for unsuspecting victims to walk by him so he could grab them and…

Anna stiffened when she felt Elsa's invading breath against her ear and the older girl whispered spookily, "They're coming to get you, Anna."

"Shut up," Anna hissed, shoving Elsa away roughly as her heart rate picked up. The mischievous grin on Elsa's face infuriated her and she was tempted to smack it off. As they drew closer to the sleeping man, Anna purposely steered clear of the bench, walking off the path onto the grass on the opposite side just to avoid going near him.

Elsa didn't follow her lead.

The blond paused directly in front of him, and Anna tensed up fully expecting the man to spring up and attack her. Frantically she waved for Elsa to hurry up, but Elsa was in no rush. She knelt down so her face was level with his and touched his arm.

"Wha!" He flung up an arm as if trying to fend off an attacker. When nothing happened to him he sat up dazedly. The newspaper that previously covered him floated gently to the ground. He squinted at Elsa suspiciously, pulling on his matted, scraggly beard, wondering what was happening.

Elsa scooped the newspaper up and set it on the bench. Anna watched with a mixture of disgust and bewilderment when Elsa gave the man money. She guessed from the happiness that radiated from the man that whatever she gave him must have been a decent amount. He thanked her ecstatically and enveloped her in a hug, much to Anna's horror. "Thank you! God bless you!"

"Why did you do that?" Anna demanded when Elsa returned to her and they watched the bum go on his way with a huge grin stuck on his face. "He's just going to go buy alcohol or drugs with it!"

"Anna, not all homeless people are alcoholics or drug addicts," Elsa informed her gently. "I may not know his story but he certainly didn't strike me as either of those things." She stuffed her hands in the pockets of her pants, her shoes scuffing the walkway. "I gave him money because I've been in his position before. I know what it's like to live on the streets," she revealed. "It's not easy."

Anna thought she was joking around and started to laugh but quickly realized Elsa was dead serious by the deep frown that marred her face. "Really? You mean you were homeless?"

"For almost half a year, yes. My parents kicked me out of the house when I was fourteen and I literally had nothing but the clothes on my back. I was too young to legally work so most of the time I had to beg for money or find other means of coming up with the proper necessities to survive." Elsa exhaled deeply, reliving painful memories. "It was a very difficult time for me and I did a lot of things I'm not proud of… But in a time of crisis you do what you have to do."

Anna took in this news somberly. "Wow, that… um… that really must have sucked."

"It did," Elsa agreed, kicking a rock chilling in her path. "But I managed to catch some luck, in the end. After barely surviving on my own for about six months, a kind old couple stumbled upon me early one morning when I was taking shelter in a park. I was sleeping under a slide at the playground there when I was woken up by voices and found an old man and an old lady peering down at me. They saw I was homeless and took me in, and I was so grateful for their help." She smiled faintly. "They helped me get back on my feet. Eventually I saved up enough money to comfortably support myself so when they made the decision to move to Florida I was able to afford my own apartment. I hate to think of where I'd be now if they didn't intervene…"

The reason behind why Elsa's parents kicked her out of her home was nagging at Anna, but she told herself it really wasn't her business and she didn't want to seem nosy… but curiosity got the better of her. She opened her mouth to ask, but before she could get her question out Elsa interrupted her.

Covering her eyes with one hand and scowling, Elsa said, "Sorry about that. We're supposed to be on a peaceful stroll and here I am talking about something depressing. Enough of my sob story." Throwing her head back, she took in a healthy lungful of refreshing air and sighed contentedly. "I really love taking walks. It's a perfect time to admire the world and let loose your thoughts." What she enjoyed most about it was the solitude it brought and not having to deal with other people, but she wasn't complaining about her current company, even if she was a bit feisty.

Anna discovered it was quite relaxing, though she didn't dare admit that out loud because she knew Elsa would tease her relentlessly about it. Anna was so relaxed that she was even tempted to lay on the cool grass and gaze up at the star filled sky even knowing it was probably crawling with nasty critters. She made a note to take walks more often as they walked past the lake and marveled at how the water sparkled in the moonlight. Anna ducked low and dipped her hand in the water, skimming the calm surface. It was a lot colder than she expected so she quickly removed her hand, drying it on her pants. A slight breeze blew her hair gently around her, tickling the side of her face and she pulled it back to get it out of the way.

Elsa tilted her head, looking at Anna sideways and caught the redhead adorably nibbling furiously on her bottom lip. "You're gorgeous," she murmured unthinkingly.

It was like she doused Anna in gasoline and set her on fire with a match, for as soon as she spoke those words Anna's entire body heated up. Her cheeks flamed red and the redness rapidly spread up to her ears and down her neck. She avoided eye contact and stammered unintelligibly as she walked faster, putting a great distance between them.

They walked separately for some time in silence until Elsa, after mentally berating herself five whole minutes for being an idiot, caught up with Anna and apologized. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. I just… it just came out, I'm sorry."

Anna slowed her pace and sighed heavily. "It's… okay. I overreacted. I guess I'm just not used to hearing compliments like that from anyone." Especially not from another girl, she thought. "It surprised me." She wrung her hands together in a nervous gesture. "To tell you the truth I've never really had a friend or someone close to me who wasn't stuck up or bitchy. You're the first person who has been honest and sincere with me and I think… you could be a very great friend. Considering I'm currently friendless, I could use one of those."

Elsa nodded slowly and said with a wink, "Consider yourself no longer friendless."

Anna's blush renewed at the wink, though this time it wasn't so noticeable. Their peaceful walk continued until she shivered, and at the corner of her eye she caught Elsa moving closer to her, lifting an arm as if she were going to put it around Anna to warm her. But then Elsa stopped, apparently thinking better of it, and let her arm drop back to her side, inching away and leaving more space between them.

"If you're cold we can go back to the car," Elsa suggested.

"That would be great." Anna yawned, her hand going up to cover her mouth. She took her eyes off the ground for less than a second and her foot hit a tree root protruding from the concrete path that she hadn't noticed, causing her to trip and fall. She would have kissed the pavement if Elsa hadn't jumped in front of her, catching her in her arms and halting her fall.

The catch transformed into an embrace. Elsa's arms went around Anna and she held on to her, enjoying the warmth of her. She didn't want to let go. But Anna, whose heart was hammering so hard in her chest from her panic due to Elsa being so close, twisted away, and after mumbling a thank you, hurriedly power walked toward the car, leaving Elsa deflated and for the second time that night feeling like an idiot.

The ride back to the mansion was hushed, thick with tension. Elsa fiddled with the radio knobs, searching for a good station. She stopped on one that was playing an Evanescence song and turned the volume up to drown out the stiff silence that permeated the air. By the time she pulled into Anna's driveway she was feeling a teensy bit better. She accompanied Anna to the door. The motion sensor light that should have automatically blinked on, illuminating a large part of the front area, didn't come on, leaving the both of them standing in darkness.

Elsa worried her ring, twisting it around her finger. "Anna, I-" She cut herself off, hearing a horse neighing somewhere close by. Her eyes lit up. "Do you have a horse?"

"Yes. I told you that," Anna said.

"No you didn't. You mentioned your cat and a llama that you once had. I'm pretty sure you never said anything about a horse." Elsa definitely would have remembered.

"Oh." Anna shrugged indifferently. "I have a horse. Trixie's probably bothering him right now. She tends to do that a lot."

"Can I see him?" Elsa looked like an excited little girl.

Anna was tired from their walk in the park. "No. Not right now." She hesitated. "Another time."

Elsa perked up at that, her face bright with delight at the prospect of seeing her again. "Real soon, I hope."

Both girls looked towards the door when it swung open and Benjamin looked out. His jaw practically dropped to the floor when he saw Elsa there. It was evident he was surprised to see her again. She waved at him in greeting before he closed the door after receiving a long, hard stare from Anna. To Elsa, she said evenly, "We'll see. I'll talk to you online. Good night."

"Night," Elsa responded and waited till Anna slipped inside before turning to go.