Crossroads
"It was a mistake," Elsa had insisted, pressing her forehead against the chain link fence. "What happened between us. That time at the picnic...in the laundry room…"
"And in the rain?" was Anna's inquisitive reply.
Elsa didn't respond but she could feel the heat of Anna's presence behind her, and her thoughts were temporarily undone to that unbridled moment of sodden kisses in a downpour that had left them soaked to the bone.
"Why are we doing this?" Elsa uttered, fastening her fingers tightly around the chain link fencing. "Why does this keep happening? You don't even like me."
Anna's hand pressed against hers from behind, entwining their fingers over the chain links, igniting a painful longing from the hollow of her ribs. Elsa resented that longing, and the flickering sparks that singed her fleshed whenever they touched. They were tangled in a web of virulent attraction, toxic and sweet; but as crushing as it was, it made her feel alive, and she hated herself for it.
"I can't stand you," Anna whispered, leaning in enough for Elsa to feel the heat of Anna's breath across her neck. "Everything about you irritates me. Always so perfect, a damn saint. You're like a poster child for the elusive happily-ever-after that every adolescent girl dreams of. But when you're standing next to my brother, you couldn't be more miserable."
"You hate me, then?" Elsa choked out.
"I don't know, maybe. Maybe but..."
Anna's voice trailed off and she leaned closer, startling Elsa by pressing up against her and nuzzling her hair, tentatively touching her lips to the nape of Elsa's slender neck. Anna's hands instinctively tightened around Elsa's cold fingers, clasping possessively as she closed her eyes. Elsa tensed, and held her breath, riding out the sparks that lit up her spine.
"I can't reason when I'm near you," Anna murmured softly, her voice humming along the curves of Elsa's neck. "I hate it when he touches you. I hate it." She pulled her arms up and across Elsa's chest, embracing her firmly from behind, pressing cheek to neck and inhaling sharply.
"So, what does that say about me?" She uttered as she exhaled, feeling her strength leave her with every ounce of breath.
Elsa had no answer.
~X~
The rain wasn't letting up.
Anna waited beneath the awning in front of the university library, listening to the rain as it crackled on stone and concrete, hoping it would be quick to wind down. A half hour crept by, but the rain only pelted down harder, forming wide puddles and flooding over walkways. Anna hadn't prepared for rain that day. Her umbrella was inconveniently tucked away in the back of her closet at home, and she was wearing her red canvas sneakers and a thin drawstring hoodie shirt that had all the appearances of warmth with none of the functionality.
Then there was the matter of her ride home. She still had to walk down to the student union at the bottom of the hill to retrieve her bicycle from the bike lock station. From there, she would have to ride nearly three miles in the rainstorm to get home.
I could call for a cab, she figured, although three dollars and thirty-seven cents was unlikely to get her very far. Anna also considered calling Kristoff to come pick her up, but he was working the evening shift that month, and Hans would still be in class for another three hours.
In the end, it was her sister-in-law who would pick her up from campus.
When Elsa arrived, Anna loaded her bicycle into the bed of the pickup truck and quickly fastened it into place before she hopped into the passenger seat. It was warm inside, and there was a subtle sweetness in the air, like honey, lilacs, and magnolia leaves. A scent that Anna always associated with Elsa. There was also a small white hand towel set out for her on the console between the seats, meticulously folded into a perfect square.
"Thanks for coming to pick me up," Anna mumbled, unfolded the towel and squeezing it over her wet braids, "and for this."
"You're welcome. Besides, I figured you probably didn't bring an umbrella."
"Is that the impression I gave on the phone?"
"No. It's just, you never do," Elsa answered, a small smile touched her lips as she leaned forward to turn on the radio.
"Oh."
Anna's cheeks were warm and wet, and she was certain that they were flushed bright red from the onslaught of the running heater. When Elsa smiled at her, Anna was compelled to hide her face under the damp towel with bated breath, her ears burning hotly.
The drive home took all of five minutes, even with delays set in by the rain. But even five minutes was too long for Anna as she contended with the sweet and heady scent of lilac perfume and unfettered thoughts of the laundry room.
It embarrassed her to remember how obnoxious she had been that day. She had been acting out, lashing anger and resentment at the wrong person.
"Maybe I'll tell him," Anna had threatened back then, finding comfort in her ire. "What do you think about that? Is that what you want?"
She was never going to tell. One mistake was not worth upturning their lives and losing her brother. But she could not abstain from pressing Elsa's buttons; it was almost compulsive the way she sought them out. And she wondered if Elsa thought about her, if she was just as undone as Anna had been that evening, buttons imploding in the darkness.
"Those damn tires," Elsa hissed under her breath as she pulled the truck into the two-car garage. "I told him not to block the door."
Kristoff's muscle car was also parked inside, it's rear was propped up by a couple of heavy duty floor jacks where there should have been tires, and the hood was left propped open. Anna's brother and Ryder had been working on it before she'd left for her first lecture that morning, and they'd left the tires piled in front of the door to the backyard, along with a couple of empty beer bottles on the roof.
"I need to bring the bed sheets in from the rain," Elsa explained as she parked the truck and handed Anna the keys. "Take my purse inside, will you?"
Elsa didn't wait for Anna to respond as she hopped out the driver's side and circled her way out the garage and to the backyard from the side gate.
"Someone's in trouble," Anna mumbled to herself, grabbing her backpack and Elsa's handbag and pulling them over her shoulder. She took down her bike and hoisted it up on the bike rack, careful not to scrape the truck again, and set the car alarm before she entered the house. The last time she'd scrapped the truck, Kristoff had made her touch up and polish the paint on the same night that Band of Horses was playing at the Arena. She'd begrudgingly forfeited her ticket to Hans's eager cousin that day.
"Should I get started on dinner?" Anna called out into the kitchen, setting the keys on the kitchen countertop before locking the garage door behind her. "Elsa?"
Anna peered into the laundry room and down the corridors leading to the master bedroom, but the floors were dry and the rooms were empty. She called Elsa's name again as she wandered into the living room, dropping their bags next to the sofa.
"Where are you?"
But Elsa hadn't yet made it into the house. The rain was pouring buckets now, drumming violently against the rooftop and the east-facing windows, and filling the house with the clamoring hum of the downpour. The sky rumbled too, groaning in intervals, and branches scraped against the northeast windows as the winds pummeled through.
"What are you doing? Are you crazy?" Anna yelled out into the rainstorm as she pulled the sliding door open. "You're gonna get soaked!" but her voice was caught in the rainfall and not one syllable had reached within Elsa's earshot.
Elsa, as it happened, was still hassling with the clothesline, fighting against wind and rain to pull down a tangled bed sheet that had caught against the metal hook ends. She was already soaked to the skin; her long hair wetly hugged her neck and shoulders, and her blouse clung tightly against her torso, drenched and transparent over her bra. And her shoes had nearly disappeared under several centimeters of rain.
"Jesus," Anna groaned, then she pulled her hoodie over her head and sloshed across the flooded backyard into downpour, but the rain had been coming down so heavily that her sheer thin hoodie did nothing to keep her hair dry.
"Come on," Anna urged, taking Elsa by the wrist and tugging her back toward the house. "Just worry about this later."
But Elsa was unyielding, and she pulled out of Anna's grasp, taking her hand in turn.
"Here," Elsa instructed, securing one end of the tangled bed sheet into Anna's grasp. "Hold on while I get it undone."
Anna conceded, pulling the bed sheet down with both hands to keep it from flapping wildly in the wind. "We should just leave this one behind and take the rest," she continued to implore. The other three bed sheets remained fastened to the clothesline, rustling loudly as rain and wind beat against the tightly woven fabric.
"Are you even listening to me?" Anna was nearly yelling, struggling to be heard over the rain. She was soaked now, and trembling. Her bootcut jeans were heavy with rain and pulled at the hips like weighted armor, and her feet ached as the cold from the grassy puddles percolated to her bones.
"Shit!"
Elsa released the clothesline and snapped her hand back, cradling it against her chest, and Anna could see a bright blot of blood on the bed sheet already beginning to wash away near the catch on the hook.
"Are you hurt? Lemme see."
Anna didn't wait for permission when she took Elsa's injured hand, examining it carefully as she pushed back her hoodie. It was a long cut, running from the base of her palm along the fate line and intersecting with the heart line, just below her middle digit. Elsa bit her mouth, gasping as Anna traced the wound with her fingers.
"Is it pretty bad?" Elsa rasped under quick short breaths. There was an intensity brimming behind her eyes that was all too familiar, infecting Anna through mutual touch.
"Not too bad," Anna assured her, releasing her hand, even as the infection spread into her chest. "It's barely bleeding anymore. You're lucky that the cut was not too deep."
She was all too keenly aware of their closeness, mired by the heat in Elsa's eyes, that rueful draw that mirrored her own.
And then it happened again. The space contracted between them, slowly diminishing until it was completely nullified. Their wet bodies pressed against each other, hip to hip, and the warmth of their ragged breaths teased cold trembling lips into supplication. Anna did not know who kissed who first, but it didn't matter. They both wanted this, and it could no longer be a mistake.
Elsa pressed deeper into her mouth, and Anna gasped for breath, resenting the inconvenience of her biological need for air. They clung to each other, foreheads pressed together as their breaths abated, and Anna pressed a hand to Elsa's face, tenderly cupping her cold cheek. Even in pouring rain, Elsa smelled of honey and lilacs, a fact that drew a smile to Anna's lips.
Her smile didn't last long. Their bodies were pressed so close together that one small misstep had them tumbling back. Anna reached for the tangled bed sheet to regain balance, but their combined weight was too much and the bed sheet tore off the hook, sending them into the rain-flooded grass. They landed with a splash, the bed sheet submerged beneath them in the water, and white bed sheets blowing above them, encasing them in a world of white, and Anna was startled by the shimmering droplets of rain that glittered in Elsa's hair like tiny stars.
"We probably should go inside now," Elsa uttered, her unwavering gaze fixed to Anna's face.
"We should?" Anna choked, heat crawling up her neck and sending shivers up her spine.
"We can't stay here like this. I'm freezing."
Then, leaning in closer, her lips almost grazing Elsa's earlobe, Anna whispered, "Do you want to go inside?"
Elsa's eyes went wide, her pupils expanding as her heart throbbed in her chest. The implication born from just one stress of a syllable was not lost to her, and as much as she wanted to say yes, she needed affirmation of reciprocation.
"Do you want to?" Was her tremulous reply, fear and excitement expatiating from the pit of her stomach even as she searched her eyes for some semblance of indifference.
"Yes," Anna whispered back, teasing her mouth over Elsa's. "I want to."
And Elsa kissed her.
Author's Note: So I totally misspoke, this is not the last chapter. This last part was a bit too long and complex, so I'm breaking it into parts. As such, there may be one or two more chapters til the end. Thanks for reading, and let me know what you think.