Chapter fourteen

I got a feelin'

Chocolate ice cream. Chocolate syrup. Chocolate chips. Chocolate everything.

By the time Anna made the way back to the table with her sister, her bowl was full to the brim. Elsa's eyebrows arched as she regarded her sister's selection, comparing it to her own relatively modest two scoops of orange sherbet.

"Geez, Anna. You got a hollow leg or something?" she remarked.

Anna looked puzzled. "No…?"

Elsa discarded the metaphor. "I mean, where are you gonna put all that?"

Anna laughed. "Oh, heh. I guess I'll just run it off later."

Elsa marveled at her sister, regarding her perpetually slim figure. "Yeah, I guess it will be that easy for you," she said, pinching a bit of flab around her midsection forlornly.

"Ah, come on, Elsa," Anna said. "I may be skinnier, but my muscles ain't got nothing on yours!" She felt Elsa's bicep approvingly.

Elsa chuckled. "Well, nice to see that not all of my freshman 15 went to my waistline," she said. She flexed her arm, and Anna marveled at the feeling of all that muscle beneath her grip.

"You're a freaking superhuman, Elsa," Anna said. The overt praise was starting to make Elsa blush. "Just look at how fast Hans…"

She trailed off, and her face fell. Elsa, clearly upset that the conversation had turned back to him, reached out and touched her on the shoulder.

"Hey," she said. "Forget about him. Forget everything about him. You're never gonna see him again, I promise you that."

"I know," Anna said, managing a grateful smile. Still, a morose note hung in the air. Anna cursed herself for bringing the conversation back to him.

They fell silent and dug into their ice cream, letting the general noise or the other patrons and the country music playing on the store's speakers serve as a buffer for their conversation.

"So, Anna," Elsa said, pointing her spoon at her sister. "I've been doing some thinking, and…I think I should be around more."

Anna smiled. "I'd like that," she said. "Your exams will be done soon, right?"

Elsa shook her head. "Not soon enough," she said. "They'll all be wrapped up about three weeks from now. But before then, for next week…I think I can make it down here every other day."

"Really?" Anna said incredulously. "Will you even have time to study if you do that?"

"I can study down here just as easily as I can up there," Elsa said dismissively. "Besides, wasn't there a movie you wanted to see with me?"

Anna brightened. "Oh yeah!" she said. "The Moon Has Two Faces! I was looking forward to that! You want to see it with me?"

Elsa gave her a warm smile. "Of course I do." She took Anna's hands in her own. "I want to do everything with you."

Anna beamed. She began to tear up, and wished there were no table between them so they could hug. Elsa sensed this, and came around to her side, and they embraced momentarily. They broke off quickly, sensing the risk of melting ice cream.

As she ate, Anna noticed that something seemed to be occupying her sister's mind. She wasn't sure what, but she felt compelled to find out.

"Hey, Elsa," she said, swallowing another spoonful. "Is something up?"

Elsa glanced at her. "What do you mean?"

"You look like you have something to say, is all," Anna said cautiously.

Elsa waved her hand. "Oh, it's nothing," she said dismissively.

Anna smiled at her knowingly. "It's never nothing, Elsa. You know that."

Elsa continued to deflect. "It's no big deal, really," she insisted. "Not my business talking about it."

Anna smiled. From those comments, meant to be deflective, she had a pretty good guess as to what the question was.

"Yes, I told him you were my girlfriend," she said. From Elsa's reaction, she knew she'd hit the nail on the head. "I was cornered, kind of out of options, so I told him I was already dating someone else."

Elsa nodded. "That's what I figured," she said.

"Technically, I didn't say we were dating," she continued. "I just implied it."

"It's fine, it's fine," Elsa said. "I don't give a shit what he thinks, anyway."

"Good," Anna said.

But, to her surprise, Elsa wasn't quite finished. "While we're on the subject," she continued, cheeks starting to blush slightly, "I've been meaning to ask this, but I haven't got the chance. Have you figured out who you do want to date?"

"Huh?" Anna said, blushing herself.

Elsa quickly started to backpedal. "It's fine if you haven't. You have your whole life to figure that out."

"No, no," Anna said quickly. "I think I know. I did my homework. I like girls."

"Ah, okay," Elsa said, smiling. "That's great!"

"Yeah," Anna said. "Glad I figured it out. You were a big help there."

She sensed the next question coming, and hoped that Elsa wouldn't say it.

"So, do you know what your type is?" she asked.

"Uh, type?" Anna said, playing dumb. "What's that mean?"

She absolutely knew what it meant, but she wanted to stay for time, to come up with a better answer than 'you'.

"Well, a type just means a specific set of traits you're attracted to," Elsa said patiently. "Hair color, eye color, tall or short – anything that you'd look for in an ideal-"

"Taylor Swift," Anna blurted out.

Elsa blinked. "Oh," she said, her train of thought screeching to a halt. She chuckled, and so did Anna. "Well, that simplifies things," she said with a smile. "I think I still have her phone number, but I don't know if she'll pick up after that weekend in Monte Carlo."

Anna laughed. The joke relieved some of the tension that had been building. Still, she was a little concerned at the direction her questions had taken.

Gee, Elsa's being pretty direct with this line of questioning, isn't she? Almost like she suspects something's up with you.

She still hadn't managed to figure out what to do about her burgeoning feelings for Elsa. Further experimentation had served only to confirm that, yes, she was specifically attracted to Elsa, not just girls with blonde hair and blue eyes.

Punzie's warning still rang loudly in her head, that all of this was just her being confused. But she felt less and less confused the more she thought about it. Nobody else she had looked at seemed nearly as attractive as her big sister.

Realizing she had been silent for quite some time now, she returned to the conversation. "You said you like brunettes, right? So just send all the cute blondes you know in my direction," she said, trying to be nonchalant.

Elsa chuckled. "Can do, sis. Although, actually, I might not be into brunettes anymore. I think my tastes are changing."

Anna was surprised. "I didn't even know that was possible," she said. "What kind are you into now?"

Elsa looked concerned all of a sudden, as if she had said too much. "Uh, I guess…I'm not thinking about hair color anymore."

It seemed like a fishy answer, but Anna threw her a line. "Well, that's nice," she said. "Equal opportunity. So what are you looking for?"

"Oh, I guess I'm still figuring that out," she said.

It seemed like an unusually coy answer for Elsa. She'd never been shy about her own sexual preferences, especially since she had started helping Anna out. So why the reticence now?

Well, let's make a logical deduction. She isn't into brunettes anymore, and she still isn't into blondes. So what's left?

Now Elsa seemed flustered, and an awkward silence enveloped the two of them. It was soon broken, not by either of them, but by the next song on the radio, whose opening guitar notes were quite louder than the last song's. Billy Currington began to croon to the ice cream shop's patrons.

I don't want to rush this thing,

I don't want to jump the gun

"So, Elsa," Anna said, deciding to probe further. "Have you meet anyone new lately? Anyone that might be responsible for this shift in taste?"

The simple binary question only seemed to agitate her further. "Oh, uh, no, I don't think so," she stammered. "It just sort of happens over time, I think. You know?"

I really want to say those three little words

But I'm gonna bite my tongue

"Yeah, I guess," Anna said.

This didn't make any sense at all. If Elsa suspected Anna's intentions, why would she be the one getting flustered?

Maybe she had jumped to conclusions here. Surely, there was no way Elsa could suspect anything – they hadn't really seen each other this past week, anyway, so how could she know anything had changed between the two of them? She was just overanalyzing things.

Yeah, I'm just gonna lay on back

Leave it on cruise control

This realization replenished Anna's confidence, and she smiled warmly. "Well, that's good. That means I still have you all to myself!" she exclaimed.

But now, to add to the confusion, this declaration didn't seem to calm Elsa down at all. She only seemed more flustered, if anything. "Ehe, yeah, you do," she said. "Every other day, at least."

I'm gonna hold it all inside

Til the right time comes down the road

"Right, right." Anna decided to crack a joke, hoping that it would relieve the tension once again. "I'll just call up Elsa Schneider on those other days, then. I'm sure we could find some way to fill the time."

Elsa tittered nervously. "Haha, yeah, you could," she said. She stood up quickly. "Excuse me for a second. Bathroom break."

"Uh, sure," Anna said, now very confused.

I got a feelin'

My head's a reelin'

My heart is screamin'

I'm about to bust loose

Anna scratched her head. What was eating Elsa?

She flipped her perspective, and tried to look at the situation from Elsa's point of view. She had been on the same dates Anna had. That kiss on the Ferris wheel was surely as vivid in her mind as Anna's. Maybe she was also getting confused, just like she herself was.

Bottled up emotion

It's more than a notion

Starts with an "I"

And ends with a "you"

No, that couldn't be. Elsa was way too experienced in the field of dating to let a silly little kiss cloud her head.

So if she wasn't confused, then maybe she was…

Anna's eyes widened.

Hey, I got a feelin'

You're feeling it too