Don't Wake Me Up

Chapter Twelve: Validation

"I think I have an idea to cheer you up." Anna told me as we got into the car to head home.

"Yeah?" I said, wiping the remnants of my tearful breakdown from my eyes.

"Well, how do you feel about your white walls? Because, you know, they seem pretty plain to me…"

"Paint them." I interrupted her, knowing immediately what she was going to suggest. "Yes. Please."

Being in the funeral home had really opened my eyes to my variably approaching mortality. If I was going to live, why not live with as much color as I could?

It warmed my heart to see her eyes light up. "Really?! We can do it together!"

"Oh! Not me, I can't paint for the life of me. I would just screw it up." I declared with a dark laugh as I pulled onto the highway.

"Not if I help, you won't."

I looked at her skeptically.

"Trust me!" She begged, hoping that pleading would change my mind. She wriggled her nose and opened her eyes into a wide, puppy dog stare. How could I say no to that face?

"Alright, alright. You win," I conceded, giving into her whims. "Do we need to go buy paint?"

"All of my good acrylics are still at the foster home, if you want to go there and," she swallowed, "you know."

"I can go and get them if you want to stay in the car," I offered with a soft, sympathetic smile.

She breathed a sigh of relief and her death grip on the car's center console eased. "You are the best."

I just hummed, squeezing my eyes open and shut over and over again in an attempt to suppress the heavy feeling that began to condense in my chest.

"Hardly."

…...

It had been a rollercoaster of a day. And it wasn't even over yet.

There was nothing that could have prepared me for what was waiting up on the second floor of that red, brick building downtown.

As I trudged up the rickety metal stairs, I kept going over in my head where Anna said I would find her paints- in the closet of her old room. I crossed my fingers and hoped to God that I wouldn't run into Hans. That dick.

I was surprised to see the front desk empty as I eased my way into the lobby. The whole room was vacant, in fact. I knew I probably wasn't supposed to without permission, but I pushed the hallway door open and went in search of Gerda.

I spotted the sign for the main office right next to where Anna's room had been. Figuring that I might find her in there, I simultaneously opened the heavy door and knocked on the inside as I peeped my head in.

Oh, I found Gerda all right.

But she wasn't alone.

And from the look on her face, I had just interrupted something that had not meant to be seen by intruding eyes.

The woman sitting opposite Gerda on the other side of her desk was quite peculiar. She was clad in a pristine, fur pashmina that matched her white, leather Burkin Bag. She seemed a little too middle aged for the gold blouse and pencil skirt she was wearing, but who was I to judge?

"Elsa." Gerda said in a reprimanding tone.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to barge in." I immediately apologized, starting to shut the door. "I'll wait out here."

"Wait." Said the overly gilded woman while she ran her acrylic nails through hair extensions. "This is the Elsa she is staying with?"

Gerda nodded with a sickening frown, as if she could predict exactly what was about to happen.

"Who are you?" I demanded, very disconcerted by what she had just said. What business is it of hers? Unless, of course...

Her face was cold and completely devoid of emotion; save for her eyes, which betrayed her anguish.

"I'm Anna's mother."

...

I tried my best not to meet Anna's eyes as I shoved the box of paints into her lap.

"Whoa, hey, sorry." Her body jolted into an upright position. "I fell asleep," she said with an apologetic smile.

I sucked in a breath and cleared my throat. "Sorry I took so long, I had trouble finding them," I lied through my teeth.

Even through my eyes were trained on the road as I backed out if our parking spot, I knew her eyebrows had furrowed. "Is something wrong?" She put her hand on my shoulder and gave it a comforting squeeze. "You seem tense."

"I, uh...I'm ok," I lied again; thoughts flashing back to what Gerda had told me upstairs.

"You can't tell Anna. At least, not yet. No one is ready for this." She told me sternly.

"She has a right to know!" I protested.

"And she will, dear!" Anna's mother assured me. "I'm just waiting for the right time. I'm not even ready."

"How can you even say that? You abandoned her!" I was seething at that point, my balled up fists clenched at my sides.

She opened up her mouth to defend herself, but Gerda interrupted, saying "this is Marianne's first time visiting here. Her story is...complicated. And we will work on making things right." Gerda was up out of her chair now, pacing the length of the room. "You have to understand, Elsa. These things take time."

Until that time came, I promised that I would keep Anna in the dark about what I knew. It felt so wrong, lying to her. Whatever I choose to do, I'm betraying someone.

"Whatever you say, Els." Anna leaned her feet up on the dash and turned her white baseball cap backward. "Let me know when you feel like talking about it.

"You look funny in that hat," I drawled, attempting to change the subject.

"No I don't!" Anna asserted as she smacked her hands down on the center console. "It looks badass! I'm pulling it off."

"Whatever you say, Anna." I chuckled as I repeated what she said to me earlier and shook my head. She really did look adorable in the cap; I just enjoyed giving her a hard time about it. Her reaction was even cuter than the hat.

She crossed her arms over her chest like a three year old having a tantrum and refused to say another word.

"I called Kris and asked him to cover my furniture in plastic so we won't have to worry about dripping paint on anything."

"Ok!" Anna's face lit up and I reveled in her happiness. "Maybe we can get a whole wall done today!"

My worries about keeping secrets from Anna faded from my mind as we pulled onto my street. All I could think about was her streak of silky, golden hair that fluttered in the wind from the passenger side window. And the way her tanned legs shone in the warm, afternoon light; the way she could jabber away for hours on end about the most random things; the way she made my heart flutter every time she said my name.

I was so focused on Anna, in fact, that I dismissed the small pain in my head as nothing. And even as the pressure increased inside, I pushed past it.

She was rambling to me about different kinds of paints and brush techniques as I stuck my key into the lock and let us into my apartment. "Where did you learn all of this stuff anyway?" I inquired, wondering how an orphan could afford technical art classes.

"There was this girl, Rapunzel. Freaky name, right?"

I laughed as I set my stuff down on the kitchen counter before pouring water and grabbing a roll of paper towels for our creative endeavors.

She continued. "Well, a couple years ago, she and I were living at a foster home in Santa Barbara and she taught me everything. She learned it all from this crazy lady who had been her foster mom for a while. She ended up back in the system after this woman died, but eventually found her parents. As it turned out, her mother and father gave her up for adoption because they were an unmarried couple still in high school. They regretted ever letting her go, and eventually found her again. Her dad was actually the mayor of some little town in Northern California." I could see the hope glistening in Anna's eyes that something like this might actually someday happen to her.

I took all of my willpower not to tell her that it actually could.

"That's amazing!" I said as I leaned my weight on the counter. My body was starting to feel achy along with my headache, but I just brushed it off as a lack of sleep the previous night from my nightmares.

She carried the paints into my room and I followed closely behind her. Kristoff had done a great job covering my stuff in tarps so that I wouldn't have to worry about splattering paint anywhere. He had left a sticky note on my plastic covered bed that read: will be gone until 7 pm. Have fun, kiddos ;).

I immediately snatched it up and threw it into my trash can.

"What was that?" Anna asked as she squirted some royal blue acrylic onto her palate.

"Eh, nothing." I answered a little too quickly.

She let out an uneasy laugh. "You've been acting strange lately."

I took a couple labored steps forward and ignored her statement. "You're going to have to teach me how to do this."

She sighed, knowing that there was no getting through to me now, and handed me a brush covered in the thick paint. "Start with small brush strokes, and when you get more comfortable, just go for it."

"But I don't even know what I'm doing! What am I painting? Where do I start?" My voice rose in pitch.

"Shh shh shh," she put a finger to my mouth. "Don't stress. Just start painting and it will come to you."

I gulped and pressed my brush against the wall, smearing a streak of blue across the perfectly white canvas. It was very satisfying, getting to make imperfections on an otherwise immaculate surface. As of late, my whole world seemed to revolve around that idea of satisfaction in destruction and integrity in infirmity. The finished product would be made up of millions of those tiny imperfections on my eggshell walls, all coming together to form a beautiful mural.

From the looks of my struggling, though, it was going to be far from easy.

"Here" Anna came up behind me and placed her fingertips lightly right behind my hand on the brush handle. I shivered as she pressed her body into my back and rested her chin on my shoulder. It was such an out of the blue, bold move that I almost yelped in surprise. I was having serious heart palpitations.

She guided my brush forward and made a perfect, swirling stroke. "See! You are doing fine." Her breath tickled my ear and I found it hard to stand up straight instead of melting into the floor. I leaned my head against her own and I vaguely heard her gulp.

I stammered out a thank you as déjà vu from that very morning hit me: our bodies touching, being weak at the knees, hoping more than anything that she was interested.

I was expecting to hear a "you're welcome," but instead, I felt her hands grab me by the shoulders and spin me around to face her. Without a single word, she pulled me in close and ghosted her lips across mine, barely letting them touch.

"I hope you are thinking the same thing I'm thinking," She said in a low voice as I saw her eyes close.

"I think I am," I managed to mumble out before she grabbed the back of my head and pulled me completely into a lascivious kiss.

My mind was reduced to one thought in that moment: Holy crap holy crap holy crap holy crap holy crap holy crap. I couldn't even believe it was happening.

She bit my bottom lip and I opened my mouth further, granting her tongue deeper access. I moaned and she pulled us apart.

"Good. That's a good reaction."

I didn't even respond and instead pushed her against the wall, capturing her lips in mine once again. I had a taste and I wasn't going to let go any time soon. Tease. She hiked her leg over my hip and I thought I was going to die right then and there.

I attributed my lightheadedness to the lip-lock with Anna, but little did I know, my justification was wrong.

As I felt sharp pain sear across the back of my neck, I pulled away from her.

"Well that was interesting." Anna chuckled, unable to suppress her gigantic smile. She hadn't noticed yet why I had pulled away.

I tried to focus my eyes but my vision blurred, everything looked as if it was pulsating. I grabbed her shoulder, unable to speak the word: help.

She realized something was terribly off when the seizure started. "Oh my God," I heard her muffled voice say as my body rolled into uncontrollable convulsions. She caught me before I fell to the ground and laid me softly on the floor. "I'm calling 911 right now."

The last thing I remembered was the sight of my ceiling through shuddering eyelids.

Then nothing.

...

A/N: Hello avid readers! lets make it to one hundred reviews this update? Whadya say!? I read and love and take to heart every. single. review. Let me know what you liked, disliked and would like to see next. Some of you may have noticed that I'm using people's suggestions- not because I'm a lazy writer, but because I believe that every story is a collaboration and a work of art between many people. That being said, thanks to my amazing beta, Spacerib, for another awesome edit!

Anyway, if you people haven't noticed yet, the chapter titles are all different stages of grief that are jumbled up in correlation to Elsa's battle with cancer. I'm trying to make it reflect the idea that everyone experiences grief differently.

Thanks for all of your support and see you next update!

Always,

Jess