2.
Anger is expensive.
All the best things are, Elsa realizes, as she glares into the shop window at a pair of boots that her mother certainly needs, and which neither of them can afford. Her hand is stuffed into the pocket of her coat, curled into a fist around a couple of twenty dollar bills she's earned from her new part time job bagging groceries. It's not nearly enough. The store window is bright and filled with tinsel, and the boots have high quality construction, heavy, oiled leather and thick rubber soles, a fashionable tan and navy blue scheme that's in-step with the current trends. They would make such a nice present. They would make her mother so happy. Elsa squeezes until the edges of the crisp, ATM bills cut into her palm.
They aren't starving by any means, but there's just never quite enough, and the funeral wasn't cheap. Even in death, her father took everything they had in the bank. It's his final parting shot.
Elsa grits her teeth as a family of shoppers floats past her on the slushy sidewalk, carrying bags from William Sonoma and the Apple Store. She watches them enviously. It feels voyeuristic, peering into their world of casual, American affluence. It makes the grass look so much browner on her side, even though, ethically, she knows it shouldn't. Elsa's mom has a decent job. She's been the breadwinner for years, pushing harder and harder through promotions and performance bonuses to keep up with her husband's loose spending habits, and Elsa's now joined her in the workforce to help with groceries. They'll be fine in the long run, when her mother gets the credit card debt under control. They won't be on the edge forever, but right now Elsa is breathing hard under her scarf, tears stinging her eyes, glaring into the shop window as she thinks about all the thousands of dollars pissed away on meth and booze and hookers.
"It's no use dwelling on it," a male voice says suddenly from behind her.
Startled, Elsa spins to look over her shoulder, but the speaker, an old man in a wool coat trench coat, is already pacing down the street in the other direction, engaged in private conversation with his wife. She swallows thickly.
She doesn't believe in signs. She's not superstitious, but it still feels like she should move on, like she needs to leave the store and let it go.
"Another time," she says to the window.
She turns and continues along the busy sidewalk past jovial holiday storefronts. Her throat is so tight it hurts. This isn't what she came for. She didn't bus into the city to get angry about the things she can't change. It's supposed to be about her mom, and she keeps making it about him.
Elsa rounds the corner breathing heavily. Cold wind cuts through her and she has to lean against a lamppost to recover herself. The fire has gone out, and all that's left is heavy exhaustion. She lifts her eyes to the grey winter sky, noting the encroaching indigo hue of twilight. She's spent too much of her energy already, and she's running out of time.
Elsa sighs and pushes away from the post, trudging off down the street. Anger is expensive, but without it she's catatonic.
She digs deep and finds a little more to speed her along.
/-/-/-/-/
"Merry Christmas, honey bunny."
Elsa blinks and looks up from the TV. "Merry Christmas," she says, automatically.
She hadn't even heard her mother come in the door, and the intrusion of human conversation into her headspace wakes her from a trance. It's something that happens more often now.
She glances around the dim room, notes that the sun has set by the glow of the neighbors' decorations outside the living room window. She realizes that she has no idea what time it is and checks her watch. The day has really slipped by with her curled up on the couch, and now, suddenly, her body feels awful, cramped and achy and sore. She groans and stretches her legs out in front of her, accidentally knocking an empty take out container off the coffee table. It lands on the carpet on its side, stained chopsticks splayed out lewdly. She considers it for a moment, and then decides to leave it.
"What're you watching? I Love Lucy?" Her mother hands her a plate that's still warm from the microwave and flops down next to her on the couch.
Elsa nods slowly. She pokes the hot pocket on her plate and hisses. It's still molten hot.
"Charlie Brown Christmas is on at seven if you wanna watch," her mom says after a moment, grabbing the comforter, which is now permanently draped over the couch, and wrapping it around her shoulders. "That one's always been my favorite."
"Sure," Elsa nods.
She reaches up to fix her hair and her fingers trip over soft fabric. How long has she been sitting here with her hood up over her head, huddled up in the dark in her pajamas and her old sweatshirt? The house is cold, but it's not that cold. The heating isn't that expensive.
"You okay, honey bun?" Her mother's concerned face swims into view. "You're awfully pale."
"How can you tell in the dark?" Elsa murmurs.
"I'm your mother. I can tell."
"Hm," she says. "Oh, yeah."
Their little Christmas tree sparkles in the corner of the room and Elsa stares at it, vacant and transfixed, like it's some relic of the ancient world covered in beautiful, indecipherable hieroglyphics. She used to care about Christmas, right? Even when things got tight and they had to eat cereal for dinner she remembers enjoying it. There are some good memories to pull from the murky depths.
The TV flickers, throwing bright flashes of white light against the walls, and she thinks, involuntarily, of the year that her father brought home a bike, wrapped in Disney Princess wrapping paper.
Never mind that he pawned it two years later for a bit of cash.
"I'm sorry that this isn't the best Christmas it could be," her mother says, brushing her short, honey brown hair out of her face. "Hot Pockets are probably the worst Christmas dinner ever. Maybe if I wasn't so lazy I would've actually managed to get a ham or something." She laughs, but to Elsa it sounds so self-deprecating it makes her hair stand on end.
"Don't," she says tersely.
Her mom's laugh falters and she looks at Elsa with surprise. "Don't what?"
"Don't say you're lazy." Elsa's eyes well up unexpectedly and she blinks down at her plate. "You're not lazy."
A teardrop splashes onto the rubbery, microwaved bread and rolls off onto the red porcelain plate. She's not even sure when her teeth started chattering. Suddenly, she's bursting with frustration, and it's leaking out the seams.
"It was just joke, sweetheart."
"It wasn't a joke," Elsa insists, through clenched teeth. "You meant it."
Her mother shifts nervously on the couch, eyes wide and uncertain, more concerned than before. "I didn't mean to upset you. I'm sorry."
"Stop apologizing," Elsa whispers hoarsely. "You're always apologizing. It's not your fault."
A cool hand settles on her arm and her breath hitches. She glances up with tears streaming down her face, coming faster, so thick that she can barely see.
"It isn't yours either," her mother says quietly.
She pulls Elsa into her arms as the storm rolls in and the first sob breaks.
/-/-/-/-/
Eventually it becomes apparent that she'll have to find some way to vent her anger.
Two months after her father's death, Elsa dreams that she's at school with his gun, foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog, hungry to kill. Terrified faces flee before her as the Colt .45 flashes and recoils, firing into the crowd.
She bolts upright in bed, drenched in sweat with the covers kicked off and her hair plastered to her face. Her chest heaves, but she can't get enough air. Her mind is as stormy as the weather outside. Bone-chilling winds howl through the cracks in her window, buffeting the house with such force that it groans and shifts on its foundation. She presses a hand to her forehead and feels the hair matted there, but it still takes her a couple minutes to remember where she's at, brought back, finally, by the familiar drone of the TV through her bedroom wall.
Exhausted, Elsa flops back against her mattress, biting into her fist. She curls herself into a ball under the covers, willing the bad thoughts to go away, but they don't. They come back. They linger. The nightmarish images morph and change. It's never the same setting twice, but she is always the wild-eyed executioner, always foaming at the mouth, always charging into the crowd.
She is forced to admit to herself, some time in the wee hours of the night, that the nightmares aren't as outlandish as she wants them to be.
/-/-/-/-/
She's falling asleep in math class the next day, glaring at the back of Derek Marshall's crew cut, when she comes to a realization.
The truth is she's not actually an ice queen.
She's actually a ticking time bomb, and she's like Pandora's box, all of the evil inside clamoring to escape while she tries, desperately, to keep the lid on. She's frozen on the surface, but she's molten at the center. She feels chaotic and destructive, and if she thinks about it too much maybe she'll foam at the mouth and attack someone like she does in her dreams, laughing maniacally as blood splatters across her face.
The thought makes her lightheaded. Her eyes fluttered closed, and the cliff is there again, below her feet. She looks so much like her father when she peers into the mirror every morning. Is she just delaying the inevitable? She knows what she's capable of now. How far does the apple really fall from the tree?
Her pencil snaps in her fist.
"Where are you going?" The teacher asks, turning from the whiteboard as she frantically gathers up her things mid-lecture.
"Nurse," she manages.
"Are you not feeling well?"
She trips over the legs of her own desk as she stumbles to the door and she can hear people whispering behind her.
"Nurse!" she gasps again, wrenching open the door, fleeing into the empty hallway.
She retreats to the library and quivers against the European history shelf, knuckles shoved between her teeth. The room is silent, but her head is so loud it's deafening. She bites down until it stings and blood runs into her sleeve.
All she can think of is the way her father looked in an orange jumpsuit, holding the phone to his ear behind a thick glass window on her tenth birthday.
/-/-/-/-/
"Have you been eating?"
Elsa shrugs, but she doesn't tear her eyes away from the TV. "Yeah."
"You have?"
"Yeah."
Her mother huffs and goes into the kitchen. Sounds carry into the living room, the pots banging around in the cabinet, water running from the faucet, the clang of the saucepan against the stove. When she returns, she folds her arms across her chest as severely as she can and gives Elsa a slow, once over.
"I'm making spaghetti with extra sausage tonight. You're losing weight."
"No, I'm not."
"Those jeans used to fit."
"They've stretched out."
Bright light flashes from a car commercial, illuminating her mother's face a ghastly white. Elsa shivers involuntarily and curls further into her baggy flannel.
"When did you start lying to me?" her mother asks quietly, so quietly that it's almost a whisper, a private thought uttered aloud.
Elsa doesn't answer. She gets up off the couch and goes to hide away in her room.
/-/-/-/-/
"She's right, though," Jenny says the next day. "You're getting too skinny."
"Isn't that supposed to be a good thing?" Elsa answers dryly, passing Jenny's Pepsi back across the lunch table. "Being thin?"
Jenny takes a sip and caps the bottle. "You don't look thin, you look sick."
Elsa frowns reflexively and glares around at the oblivious faces in the lunchroom. Some of them are smiling and laughing. Some of them are somber, serious, or glum. Her eyes fall to her hands, scrubbed raw to the point of bleeding. She doesn't even feel like she's the same species anymore.
"You didn't have the weight to lose in the first place," Jenny continues, each word grating like sandpaper against her pale skin. "It's not healthy."
"I'm just not hungry," Elsa murmurs.
Jenny gives her a stern look, laced underneath with a palpable fear that Elsa has never seen there before. The shields have fallen away just long enough for her to catch a glimpse. She hangs her head. Miserable tears prick at her dry, aching eyes.
"Stop punishing yourself, Elsa," Jenny pleads, and turns away. "You're scaring me."
/-/-/-/-/
Jenny makes it sound simple, but Elsa knows it's not simple. She can feel the pressure building, and if she doesn't do something soon it will build until she can't contain herself anymore. But she's not going to let herself hurt anyone else. She starts searching in earnest for an outlet.
The idea to cut isn't hers at all, though she has been unconsciously using pain for weeks to control her volatile emotions. The idea actually comes from a girl named Clare Hinkley, who dyed her hair black Sophomore year and puts safety pins through all her clothes.
Elsa waits and approaches her after class.
"You cut?"
Clare is jamming her Chemistry books into a black messenger bag covered with band patches, and her eyes light up like fireworks on the Fourth of July when they meet Elsa's.
"You noticed?" she breathes.
"I couldn't help it," Elsa says dryly. "You have bandages all over your arms."
"Right, yeah." Clare fidgets nervously.
"Do you use a knife?"
She gives Elsa a strange look. "Um, I dunno. I guess it depends. My cousin got me a really sharp hunting knife for Christmas last year and I like to use that. I don't have to apply much pressure."
"Do you sterilize the wounds?"
"Yes?"
"Do they scar?"
"Sometimes."
Elsa tilts her head to the side. "Does it hurt a lot?"
Clare zips up her bag and throws it forcefully over her shoulder. "Of course it fucking hurts. Is this some kind of sick joke?"
"No, I'm just curious. Thanks." Elsa flashes a polite smile and heads for the door.
"You're welcome?" Clare calls after her, bewildered.
That night, alone in her room, she unloads supplies from the pharmacy on her bed: bandages, neosporin, rubbing alcohol, scar cream, pocketknife. Surveying the spread, she doubts that Clare Hinkley puts this much detailed planning into it, imagines her listening to loud music in a dark room wearing even darker eye makeup. Clare is more the type.
Elsa glances down at her powder blue cardigan and snowflake leggings. She is so not the type. Girls like her are supposed to drink clear liquors and get loose with boys.
Then again, girls like her don't murder their fathers. She's already more of a freak than Clare Hinkley will ever be.
Elsa flips the pocketknife open in her hands and studies the tiny serrations near the handle, following the blade as it curves into a straight edge. It's a relief that her mother has been working late, that Jenny can't do emotional intimacy, that her classmates avoid her. It's easier to control her emotions when she's alone, because even the kindest people are clumsy, and sometimes even the best of intentions can hit the wrong trigger, flip the wrong switch. It's better if they're wary of her.
A bitter smile breaks across her face. It's funny because she's beautiful. In another life she could have run for prom queen. In this one, she dodges glances and skips class to hide in the back of the library.
She tries to imagine herself in the spotlight, wearing a dress and a tiara, but she can't picture it.
It wouldn't suit her.
/-/-/-/-/
