Day One Hundred and Seven: Anna, the Waitress

A/N: Hello hello. This is the second major timeskip of the story, don't worry we won't be doing these all the time. But there are moments where nothing of note is happening in their lives, and I really don't think you guys want ten chapters straight of "Anna comes back from the gym, Elsa gets back from therapy, and they binge-watch Parks and Rec for the twentieth time."

Anyway, the angst storm has finally settled (for now), and things are gonna start ramping up for Beauty and the Bitch. Hope you guys like conversations.

I've done a lot of crazy stuff in my life. I've also done a lot of dumb stuff in my life. But going back to work as a waitress? Downright idiotic. The door to our place cannot open fast enough, and when I get inside, I immediately plop down onto the couch.

"Uuuuuuuuugh!" I groan before flopping face down onto the beaten-up throw pillow.

Elsa's sitting in the chair next to me typing away on her laptop, way too used to this. "How was work today?" she asks neutrally.

"Muh mmph muh muuuuuh!" I respond with my face still buried into the cotton.

"That bad, huh?"

"Mmhmm…muh mmph muuuuh…"

"Anna, you know I don't understand you when you talk like that."

I flip over begrudgingly, "I swear the next old guy that tries to hit on me because I 'remind them of a lost love' is gonna get punched in the mouth."

"Did anyone comment on your tattoo?" she asks, trying to ease my frustration.

I blow an unruly strand of hair off my face and cross my arms. From an outsider's perspective, this might look like a stereotypical therapy session, what with me laying on a couch talking about my problems, and Elsa sitting across from me and typing away. "A little girl told me she 'liked my birdies'," I reply and then mumble, "That was pretty cute…"

"But everything else sucked?" Elsa sighed, "Anna, why don't you just take that job at the coffee shop?"

"You know I'm not cheery enough to fit in there."

"Or that office job?"

"Sitting in front of a computer all day? Yeah, I'll pass."

Elsa frowns at the obvious dig on her career, "The bakery?"

"I fucking hate baking, and you know it."

She chuckles, "Yeah I know. But come on, there's gotta be something you like about the diner."

"...the tips are nice." I'm never gonna complain about a hundred dollars a week in my wallet. And this is going to sound really conceited, but I swear people tipped more once I started working there. I guess everyone likes a redhead in a ponytail and apron.

I could easily quit and give up on this whole "having a job" business, but that's a bad idea. I need to keep myself preoccupied so I don't ruminate (a new word I learned, thanks to Elsa) on all the shit that happened with Aurora. I haven't talked to her since that day, even though she's tried contacting me a few times, and I'm still too ashamed to tell Elsa much, so talking to her isn't an option just yet either.

Which left me with, in my opinion, two options: hole myself up in my room until I'm finally ready to go outside and be Anna again, or keep myself so busy that I don't even have time to think about what happened.

I chose the latter, obviously.

Hey, it's actually been helping more than I thought it would. It's not like I'm denying my emotions or feelings or whatever, I'm just making it so I don't waste all my time ruminating. And I'm taking all the energy I'd spend on helping myself and using it to help others. Okay well "help" is a strong word. It's more like I don't spill their food on their lap, and I laugh at their shitty jokes so they pay more.

Anyway, enough about me for now. I sit up and cross my legs, and the fried onion smell on my uniform hits me dead in the face. "Bleugh. So, how's the novel coming along?"

Finally, Elsa closes her laptop. She sighs and pouts, "I'm stuck."

I raise an eyebrow, "What do you mean?"

"There's this chapter that I've been trying to write for two weeks now. I'm about to introduce a major conflict between the two main characters, and I want to do that with some confrontational dialogue." She rubs the back of her neck, "The problem is that I want it to sound realistic and, you know me, I'm not good at confrontation."

Understatement of the year, then again I'm not good at it either.

With two decent-selling novels to her name, you'd think that Elsa wouldn't struggle with this kind of thing. But then I've written zero novels, so who am I to judge? "What's this one about again?"

She taps her fingers on her laptop and bites her lip, "It's uh...this risky office romance thing. The main characters were together, had a falling out, and they don't see each other for years until one of them gets employed at the other's company."

I smirk, "Well I never thought I'd see the day that Elsa Stark would be writing a romance novel."

"My publisher thinks it'd be good if I expanded my range," Elsa explains with a pout.

"Mmhmm. Sure. So which chapter do they have steamy office sex in?"

"Anna!" She says, visibly red in the face now. "It's not that kind of story!"

Once I calm down from my laughing fit at the expense of Elsa's embarrassment (almost snorting a few times), I speak, "What's it called?"

"I don't know yet, I'm thinking something like 'Business and Pleasure'. It's gonna have the word 'business' in it, I know that for sure."

"Oh my gosh," I reply amused. "Please don't call it that. It sounds like the name of a 1980s porno."

After a second of pondering and lip-biting, Elsa quickly opens up her laptop and I hear her smack a key a few times. "Noted...", she says with more of that redness painting her face.

"Well, I could help but then it'd just end up reading like bad fanfiction. They'd probably just yell at each other. And it'd end with them getting into a fight, a physical one." Or they'd get kicked out of the house for disrespecting their bitch of a stepmother...

Elsa laughs, setting her laptop on the coffee table and sitting cross-legged on her chair. "That's okay. I think I just need a break, that's all. I've been racking my brain on this for so long, it's not going to be as good as I want it to if I keep trying to force something. I need to clear my head."

Clearing her head, I could go for the same thing right now. My head, not hers. Suffering as a waitress can only do so much to help with my psyche. Which is doubly impacted by me only going to two places: the diner, and Arendelle Towers.

The one thing that's different, though, is that I'm cooped up in here with a calmer, supportive, much more easygoing Elsa. Ever since I groveled for her forgiveness and ruined her shirt with my snot and tears, it's like things are normal again.

A new, new normal.

And I'm also calmer, I think? I'm keeping to my promise of being there for her and I'm overall nicer to her. Which is surprisingly easy to do after making her almost kill herself.

Which I still haven't forgiven myself for, but that's not important right now.

'

We talk about shit, she tells me about therapy, hell we even started watching late-night movies together again. She even came with me to the first couple of interviews I got when I started looking for a part-time job. If she wasn't my ex, then I'd definitely be comfortable calling her my friend.

I just haven't told her about Aurora yet...

Elsa's resting her hands on her knees, and tapping her fingers. Before she can ask me something, I beat her to the punch. "Hey, when's the last time you and I went out and did something?"

Elsa blinks, startled by my question. "Uh...your birthday."

Oh, right. Shit.

I bite my lip, "Er...mmkay, when was the last time we did something that didn't end with one of us getting depressed?"

"Umm…" Elsa ponders this for a second and then tilts her head, "I can't think of anything. At least since we moved in here. Does going to the movies count?"

Absolutely not, I was on edge that entire time. "Eh, I guess so but not really." I scoot my butt over to the other side of the couch so I'm closer to Elsa, and I lean on the armrest. "Anyway, I've got the day off tomorrow. Why don't we go and, you know, do something?"

Elsa looks at me with wide eyes, and I grow a little self-conscious. Was it too much to ask? It's not like this is the first time I've asked her to hang out, but it's definitely the first time since our (most recent) blow-up. I'm about to take back the invitation when she shakes her head and clears her throat.

"Ahem, sorry about that. I was just surprised because I was going to ask you the same thing."

"Oh. For real?"

"Mmhmm."

"So, I take it that means you want to go do something?"

"I-I mean if you're up for it then sure. Absolutely. Yeah, let's go do something."

Uh...huh. Something's off. Do I ask her about it? Fuck it, I want to anyway. "Are you okay? You seem a little, I don't know, awkward."

She laughs, or she makes a weird high-pitched breathy noise that I think is her laughing, "I-I'm always awkward, Anna. You know me."

"Yeah but more awkward than usual. Did I say something wrong again?"

"No! No no, you're okay- you didn't say anything wrong, you just said what I was thinking so I was surprised. This is me surprised, that's all."

I roll my eyes, "Buuuuullshiiiit. Come on, Elsa. Something's wrong, what is it?"

"Nothing's wrong!" She wrings her hands together, showing me that there's definitely something wrong. Or at least there's something she doesn't wanna tell me. And then it clicks.

I scoff, "You didn't think I wanted to hang out with you anymore!"

"I-I...you…" Elsa closes her eyes and sighs, "It's just that things are weird between us, so I wasn't sure if I should ask."

"Things are always weird between us."

She bites her lip, "Good point. I thought you'd want some space from me, that's all. Whatever it is that you went through seemed like it really hurt you. And I want to be there for you, but I was afraid that if I tried to get close at all, then you'd just feel even worse. Part of the reason you feel so bad is because of me, right?"

It takes me a second to realize that she's referring to the whole me getting mad at her while hungover, and possibly me crying on her a few days later. I sigh, "Maybe like ten percent. But Elsa, you know if I didn't want anything to do with you, I would be trying way harder to avoid you."

"Um, thank you?"

"No problem," I replied sarcastically, "My point is that I've got nothing against you. Not anymore, at least."

"But you used to."

"Yes, but not anymore. Let's focus on that, and not on our fucked-up past." The irony of that statement isn't lost on me, considering I haven't told her much about my fucked-up last few weeks.

It's not that I don't trust her, hell she's one of the few people I can trust right now, but...yeah.

"Well what did you have in mind?" I ask, trying to get back on-topic, "After all, you were gonna ask me to hang out too, right?"

"I...kind of had this whole thing planned."

"What? Were you gonna give like a speech or something?"

"No. Well kind of?"

Okay this is going nowhere. I stand up and sit cross-legged on the coffee table so that now we're face to face. Whenever she used to step around asking me something, I would usually do something like this. Get close enough so she couldn't look at anything but me, but not so close that she can't move away. And then I say, "Spill it, Elsa Stark."

She goes wide-eyed again for a second before opening her mouth, letting out a sharp breath, and pouts, "How does that still work?"

I wink and give her a smug grin.

"There's a pretty important day coming up for me, and it involves that girl I told you about before."

"Mystery Bitch," I nod, "Yes, I remember."

"Uh...o-okay? Well, there are some things that I need to get off my chest about that. Stuff that I haven't said out loud to anyone, not even my family. My therapist told me that I should find someone to vent about this with, so it doesn't stay in my head anymore. She said it should be someone close to me."

"Wait...you're talking about me?"

She looks at me and then at her hands, almost defeatedly. To say that I'm shocked about this would be an understatement, but I don't say anything else. Not yet. Not until she's finished.

"I know it seems pathetic that the person I feel closest to right now is my ex-girlfriend, but that's how it is. If that makes you uncomfortable in any way, then I'm sorry."

It should, I think, given our weird living situation. But it doesn't.

I don't know what I'm feeling right now, like I feel warm all over but I also kinda want to scoot back so I'm not so close to her. Not because I'm uncomfortable, but because I can't really predict what's going to happen anymore. With her and with me.

Fuck, am I having another internal dilemma again? I thought we were done with these.

"And what I have to say kind of has to do with you anyway. Or it had to do with us, and why we broke up."

I find myself still at a loss for words, which might be okay since it seems like Elsa's not done yet.

She wrings her hands together. "So my plan- if you were up for it- was to climb Sunrise Peak because hiking helps clear my head up a lot." It's the same for me too. "I'll tell you what I need to tell you and then hopefully, finally…" She sighs and looks back at me with a shrug, "Let it go."

"Uh, let what go?"

"This thing that's been heavy on my heart for a while. It's like this really big weight that I need to just let go, you know?"

I do know.

I know way too much about what that feels like.

Elsa clears her throat, "So yeah, anyway, that's my plan. I-I don't know if you had anything you wanted to do. If you did, we could just do that instead and put my plan off for a little bit longer."

"No!" I interrupt her, way too loud, "I just mean that...uh...shit, what was I gonna say?"

She shrugs.

"Um, I don't...want you to put off what you wanna do just because you're concerned about me. You had a plan anyway, and I didn't. Besides, a hike sounds pretty nice right about now. It's still warm enough that I won't freeze my ass off, and I need an excuse to wear these new leggings I bought."

And maybe it's time for me to tell Elsa some things too, maybe it's time for me to tell her about Aurora. It's been like two months, and that heaviness that Elsa mentioned seems pretty familiar. It might explain why I feel so guilty and intimidated sometimes when I look at her.

Elsa smiles and lets out what I think is a sigh of relief, "Thank you, Anna, it means a lot that you're on board with this."

"Don't mention it." Ugh, there's that intimidating feeling again. I need to get out of here, but I need to keep it from sounding like I'm trying to avoid Elsa. Which I'm not, I'm just trying to avoid this damn feeling. "Now if you excuse me, I think it's about time I take a shower. I gotta get this goddamn uniform off of me."

"Yeah," she giggled, "That's probably for the best."

My face muscles move into what I hope is a smile, and I get off the table. A hot shower will help calm me down hopefully, and if anything it'll at least get this smell of fried onions off of me. I hate onions, I hate being a waitress.

And I hate unexplainable feelings.