3.30.16
Hey y'all. Just finished a big cross country move, and I am freaking exhausted. As a result, I had to cut this chapter a bit short. I didn't want to make everyone wait another 2 weeks for the next post.
Anyway, we're setting the stage for some good drama here, so enjoy!
-Rex
9.
Tuesday morning dawns cold, wet, and dark.
She skips class and lies curled up in her underwear, wool socks, and bloody shirt, burrowed deep under her blankets, listening to heavy raindrops pelt the windows. Weak, grey light seeps in through the blinds, casting a pewter gloom onto the beige, brick walls. It doesn't bother her. She doesn't mind the rain at all. She sees it for the blessing it is and thanks whoever's listening.
Maybe no one. Not to her, anyway. Good people don't ask for respite from the sun.
The all-revealing sun.
The cuts on her leg are raw and tender, wrapped up and slathered with Neosporin. Footsteps trail down the hallway outside her door, and from her little cocoon of warmth, Elsa tries to remember if she cleaned up all the blood in the bathroom, whether she put away the knife and the little box of horrors. It's hard to care now with the lethargy of stress and fatigue lying heavy on her bones. It's hard to care now about gritting her teeth with a washrag in her hand, trying to speak to Jenny in a normal voice through the sting of rubbing alcohol.
A twinge of pain shoots up her leg when the blanket brushes over her bandages at awkward angle. Elsa groans and shuts her eyes. The burns were worse, but this is a close second.
She's getting reckless.
Jenny and Sam both call and leave voicemails. Elsa silences her phone, rolls over in bed, and sleeps until her spine hurts. She only gets up for her bladder, when it insists, but she doesn't stay up. The bed is her castle, and the blankets are her walls. The outside world is fraught with perils.
She sleeps on.
/-/-/-/-/
The clock on her desk reads four in the afternoon when she finally hates herself too much to sleep anymore. The needles of self-loathing have become knives, and she reluctantly pulls herself upright, quilt falling away to pool around her waist. If nothing else, it's the worth the effort just to stretch out her back, sore and aching from hours spent curled up into unnatural positions. The sweat on her skin cools and chills her instantly. Elsa yawns, shivering a bit, hugging her chest to trap a little heat. It's Halloween and the dorm is loud. Outside her door, footsteps carry up and down the hallway, voices echo from the other rooms, laughing, talking, shouting to each other. Doors slam and rock the walls. Music blares from her neighbors on both sides.
She stares at the bedspread and wishes she was still asleep. Instead, she reaches for her phone and reads through the waiting messages.
The first three are, predictably, from Sam.
where are you?
class is starting
are you sick? wanna do dinner w mari?
The rest are from Jenny.
hey it was good catching up last night. you okay still? im here if you need anything.
at least text me and let me know you're okay
elsa?
wtf are you?
don't ignore me you slut
Elsa wipes at her groggy eyes and fires back two brief responses, one to each of them. Yes to dinner. Yes she's okay. It has to be enough because she can't manage more at the moment. She returns to the home screen and blinks at the notification.
*1 New Voicemail*
Reluctantly, Elsa opens the message and listens.
"Elsa, it's your mother." She rolls her eyes. Does her mom really not think she knows her voice by now. "Call me when you get this. We need to talk about holiday plans. I think I'm flying out to Seattle to visit your aunt and...anyway, love you. Call me."
Her aunt? Aunt Brie? Elsa squints at her phone. She ticks off her fingers, counting the years in her head. How long's it been?
She dials the number and puts the phone to her ear.
"Elsa?"
"Hey, mom. You're going to see Aunt Brie?"
"Oh, hello, daughter. How are you? I am well, thank you for asking."
"Mom."
"Yes, she invited me to come visit."
"Oh. Okay."
"Would you like to come?"
Elsa bites her lip, stares down at her blankets. As she's thinking about it, a card key clicks in the lock and the door begins to open. It feels as though it's been a very long time without outside human contact. The intrusion of a real person into her gloomy little space is unwelcome. She's not prepared. She very nearly panics.
"Elsa?"
"Um, sorry I-" Elsa's eyes dart around, floundering for something to say. "Yeah, I'm just checking my calendar. "
"But don't you get some time off?"
Anna trudges through the door in a pink raincoat, and freezes for just half a second when she spies Elsa lying in bed. A shy smile lights up her face.
"Hi!" she says, and then winces when she sees the phone. "Oh, sorry!"
"Who's that?"
"Um, it's um… it's my roommate."
"Is that your mom?" Anna stage whispers, pointing dramatically at the phone.
"Oh, your roommate? Oh! I never met her! How is she?"
"Yes," Elsa says to Anna. "Good," she says to her mother.
"Do you like her? Do you guys get along?"
Elsa flushes pink and turns away towards the wall, steaming in her own embarrassment. "Let's talk about that another time, maybe?"
Her mom laughs. "Sure, honey."
Anna catches her eye and gives her a thumbs up. Elsa gives her a tight smile in return. This is absolutely not a situation she wants to deal with right now. She'd rather to crawl under her covers and hide forever. Of course, Anna would come home now, of all times, to find Elsa slumming it in bed after another of their sexy encounters. What's she going to think? It's so obvious what's going on. What other conclusions could Anna really draw from this? Frantic thoughts race through her brain. Elsa wants to put her head through the wall.
Anna, meanwhile, chucks her bag on the floor and head for the bathroom, and Elsa experiences a brief moment of panic when she recalls that never did check to see if she wiped up all the blood. Her eyes widen. She yanks the covers away from her stomach and glances down at the front of her shirt.
Shit.
Not good.
Elsa scrambles out of bed and stumbles to her closet.
"So, did you want to come to Seattle with me? I need to know ASAP so I can book you a ticket."
"Ummm," Elsa digs through her drawer and pulls out a flannel shirt. "For how long?"
She peels the soiled shirt up over her head and chucks it in the back of the closet, then hastily sets about stuffing her arms into the sleeves of her clean flannel. Halfway through she realizes that it's inside out, curses, rips it off, and starts over again.
"Well, how many days do you have off?"
"Umm." She shrugs the shirt up over her shoulders. "Just Thursday and Friday, I think."
"What? That's it?"
At that moment, the bathroom door flies open and Anna's head pokes out. "Hey, Elsa, why is the...?" She pauses, eyes widening, gaze fixing itself intently on Elsa's chest. "Uh."
Anna's pupils dilate, teal swallowed up by expanding orbs of black. For a second, both of them are frozen, speechless, until, in a flash of extreme embarrassment, Elsa realizes what the problem is. She glances down at her torso. She's braless, and her flannel hangs open down to the waist, unbuttoned, exposing the valley of pale skin between each of her breasts. She turns her eyes back to Anna, swallowing thickly as she watches the tip of Anna's tongue flick out to moisten her lips. Elsa's heart skips a beat. She scrambles to steady herself against the closet door, mind held momentarily hostage by an overwhelming impulse to suck Anna's tongue into her mouth.
She shudders, and suddenly, despite the cold, she is sweating under the collar of her shirt.
"Elsa?"
She flushes violently, reaching down with clumsy fingers to fasten the buttons across her chest. "Sorry," she says, hastily, but she still can't tear her eyes off Anna's face.
"Do you want to go or not? I can fly you out Wednesday night."
"From Buffalo?"
"Yes."
Anna's eyes slither down her torso, lingering to swirl over her navel, trailing south over her pelvis to her thighs, where they immediately widen and come to an abrupt stop. Elsa quivers when she remembers what she had almost forgotten.
No pants.
Bandages.
"Your leg," Anna says.
Shit.
Her face doesn't look quite so flushed anymore, maybe just a bit green. Elsa's throat bobs. Her fingers tighten on her shirt. The phone quivers unsteadily in her hand.
"Here's one that leaves Buffalo at 8pm. It gets in at midnight."
Elsa searches Anna's eyes, pleads with them. "I cut myself shaving."
Anna peers into the bathroom. "There's a bloody rag in the trash." She turns back, pinning Elsa to the spot with knowing eyes.
Shit.
"What was that, honey?"
"Nothing, um." Elsa swallows hard, closes her eyes, tries to breathe. "Um, how would I get to Buffalo? Take the bus?"
"You could. Let me look at bus fares."
"Elsa."
She opens her eyes and glances up. A shock of red and blue fills her vision. Anna is hovering right in front of her. With a tiny yelp of surprise, Elsa trips over her feet, stumbling back until her legs hit the bed and she flops artlessly onto the mattress. It's a ridiculous scene. It should be funny, and maybe it would be in another moment, a lighter one, but Anna doesn't smile. Elsa runs a sheepish hand through her hair. Her scattered thoughts are traitorous, just flashes of sound and sensation, the smell of Anna's hair, the feel of her breath against Elsa's neck, the tightening of her grip on Elsa's shoulders. Their tryst library feels so fresh that Elsa wonders if it ever ended. The weight of Anna's gaze brings everything rushing right back, like no time has passed at all, like Elsa hasn't been stewing in rage and regret for 24 straight hours, like she hasn't been quietly obsessed since the last time they were together in this room. Elsa's traitorous body shivers, because it remembers. It recalls how the atmosphere was so very, radically, charged then.
Elsa laments that it may never forget.
If it's charged now, however, it's for none of the same reasons, because this time Anna is walking over and kneeling down to look at the wounds on her leg. This time Elsa is shaking because she's so nauseous she might throw up any second. This time Elsa is biting her lip and trying not to cry.
And her mother is trying to tell her about bus fares, and it's too much.
Elsa is awful. She knows. She knows this. She knows.
This conversation should be good. It should be amazing. She should be crying tears of happiness and hope. Her mother is taking the first steps toward healing, is going to visit a sister she hasn't seen in years, a sister that walked away from them after the conviction and the fated call to CPS, the call that sealed their relationship with a bitter promise not to stand idly by while Elsa's childhood was destroyed by a "meth-addled monster".
Somehow, even knowing all this, as she watches Anna's eyes flick back and forth over the damage, it's still too much.
"Mom, I'm sorry-" she chokes, stumbles, tries to breathe. "Mom I have to go."
Anna touches the bandage and Elsa flinches away. It hurts. It hurts in ways that she can't put to words. It burns in ways that she doesn't want to think about. It's too much. It's too close. No one was supposed to know. No one was supposed to get hurt. How will she explain? How will she explain the shadow of violence that follows her? How can she speak her evils aloud and expect them to remain repressed, locked up safe in dark crevices?
A troubled expression crosses Anna's face, pinched and drawn, tight around the eyes, thin through the lips and the mouth, but it's only fleeting, just a cloud passing over the sun. When she peers up again, Elsa can't read her at all.
"What? Is everything alright? I can-"
"Mom, I'm...sorry. I really have t-to g-go." The words are jagged and stilted, forced through clenched teeth.
She ends the call and drops the phone on the bed, shaking like a leaf.
"Elsa?"
"I'm fine."
Anna scoffs.
Anger flares up in Elsa's chest, and the tears that track down her face are scorching. "What?" She spits the word with venom, with vitriol. "Something you want to say?'
Anna, to her credit, doesn't flinch. "Oh no, I was just sitting here thinking about how obviously fine you are with a chopped up leg and all that. Don't mind me."
She starts to touch the bandages again, but Elsa lunges out and grabs her roughly by the wrist, holding her still. "You don't know anything about it."
"I don't," Anna admits, palming her knee, sliding her fingers very gently along Elsa's skin. "Wanna enlighten me?" Her eyes drop to Elsa's lips, and Elsa trembles with a different feeling when she catches a flicker of thirst there.
Elsa shudders, and now she's not even certain what she's shaking for.
Fear, probably.
"I've done things I regret. I deserve a lot more than this."
Anna strokes gently with her thumb, and Elsa's eyes flutter closed. "You don't deserve this."
"You don't know that."
"Maybe I do."
Elsa opens her eyes and traces the firm, hard set of Anna's jaw. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying we've all done things we regret."
"And how much would you give to take it all back?" Elsa wipes her tears away, takes a quivering breath. "How much?"
Anna lowers her gaze, and brushes her thumb once more across the gauze. Her answer is quiet when it finally arrives. "More than this, I guess."
Icy fingers grip Elsa's heart, chilling her, sending a shiver through her body. They sit in silence for almost a full minute, each contemplating their own thoughts. At length, Anna shifts impatiently, a familiar look of resolve crossing her face.
"Let me touch you," she says, suddenly determined.
"W-what?"
"I'm serious. It'll make you feel better. Let me touch you."
The suggestion floats softly into Elsa's ears, rolls softly down Elsa's spine, conjuring fresh memories of the day before. She can still feel the the tight burn and the electric pulse, the friction of her fingers buried deep between her own legs, the chill of the metal bathroom stall pressed hard against her temple. She didn't give Anna a chance to return the favor, and it wasn't for lack of wanting. She curls her hands to dispel the sudden throbbing in her fingertips. The phantom sensation of Anna's skin tingles on her palms.
"C'mon," Anna urges, and her breathlessness gives her away. "I owe you for yesterday."
Elsa chafes at the thought, recovering some of her resolve. "I don't want any favors from you."
Anna flinches at her chilly tone.
"What?" Elsa grits her teeth. "Not enjoying it this time?"
"Better at hiding it." Anna bends down to press a soft kiss to skin at the edge of Elsa's bandages, fingers ghosting lightly over her calf, then settling, with warmth and weight, on her thigh. "But we're not worrying about me today."
Neatly clipped fingernails dig pale crescents into Elsa's skin, staking their claim. Elsa catches her lip between her teeth and bites down, strangling a whimper. Her whole body is responding and it's almost impossible to hold back. It's like being electrocuted. It's like being plunged into icy water. It's like…
Anna scrapes red trails into Elsa's thigh, and suddenly she is gasping.
She's not sure how she knows that Anna recently cut her nails, but she knows, and she knows why. It hits her like a plot twist that she should've seen coming. Their encounter Friday night, with the tequila and the seemingly random, seemingly impetuous proposition, is looking more deliberate by the second. Elsa's stomach tightens.
Anna shifts to press another kiss against her thigh, longer and lewder. The next one strays further inward over increasingly sensitive terrain.
Elsa takes in a deep breath, holds it until she can't anymore, and blows it out.
Fresh tears bubble up and spill over, dripping into Anna's hair. She claws at Anna's braids until the rubber bands are coming loose and soft red curls are unraveling in her hands. Silky tendrils tumble over her knuckles and her wrists, and she threads her fingers in deep at the back of Anna's scalp until she's anchored there like a ship, holding on to spite the waves. Anna shivers. Greedy hands grab Elsa's ass and tug her indelicately toward the edge of the mattress, forcing her thighs further apart. Anna's lips move higher, wetter and more pliant, teeth darting out to nip and bite. With her knuckles, she strokes the fabric between Elsa's legs, and a wicked smile curls the corners of her lips when she finds it already damp.
"Are you...s-sure you want to do this?" Elsa pants, but even as she asks her hips are pressing forward, grinding harder into Anna's fingers.
Anna rolls her eyes and deftly strips away Elsa's underwear, mindful of the bandages. Her middle finger dips in deep to gather and spread the moisture, sending a bolt of sharp pleasure up Elsa's spine. Elsa's eyes roll back into her head. She's already forgotten her question by the time Anna says, "I'm sure," and leans forward to execute a rather complex maneuver with her tongue.
With two fingers curling inside her she soon forgets her own name.
/-/-/-/-/
She's late to dinner.
Mari and Sam wait for her just inside the student life building, peering with disgust through the windows out into the pouring rain. The wind has picked up and the precipitation is coming in waves now, torrents starting up suddenly here and there without pattern or preference. Low clouds catch the street lights from the city, and their wispy edges glow orange, trailing like fingers of smoke and fire across the sky. Wet, brown leaves, the last dregs of Autumn, squelch beneath Elsa's boots as she makes her way quickly across the quad. She angles her body away and attempts to shield herself from the worst of it, but the wind shakes the trees, blowing a deluge of watery missiles from their branches up under the hood of her coat.
Her friends offer sympathy waves as she approaches. They strip off their sodden jackets together and hang them by the door as they enter the cafeteria.
"You missed class today." Sam spools an impressive knot of spaghetti around her fork and shoves it in her mouth. "Mmph. M'why?"
Mari rolls her eyes. "Sorry my roommate talks with her mouth full. She was raised by cavemen."
"Mm. Wolves actually."
"Cave wolves? You're an etiquette tragedy, Samantha."
The brunette shrugs. "At least I don't cry when I break a nail."
"God, I told you. They took an hour to do! An hour!"
"Christ," Sam holds out a placating hand, "okay, okay."
Elsa huffs a laugh and bites into her garlic bread. It's her second piece, and she seriously considers swinging through the line again to pick up a third, just to mop up the rest of her bolognese sauce. She's worked up an impressive appetite, never mind the reason, and, despite the weather, she feels uncharacteristically lighthearted. The rest of campus seems to reflect her mood. All around her, the cafeteria is filled with excited students in costumes. There are jack-o-lanterns and miniature plastic cauldrons of candy corn set out on the tables. The kitchen staff has tacked up translucent ghost cutouts on the large, panoramic windows and strung fake spider webs across the walls. A robotic witch next to the soda machine shrieks every time someone goes to refill a drink. Shrill cackles presently echo through the hall, followed by the distinct clatter of a plastic cup hitting the ground. Elsa smiles.
"She doesn't look sick."
"Because she's not, obviously."
Elsa zones back in. Are they talking about her?
"Yeah, but Elsa never misses class."
Yes.
"I didn't feel like going," Elsa answers calmly, almost serenely. "I was up late."
"Yeah, well you looked like shit yesterday, so that's probably a good thing. You didn't miss much anyway."
Mari gives Sam pointed a look. "Rude."
"What?"
"Don't just tell people they look like shit. What the fuck is wrong with you?"
Sam rubs the back of her neck. "Cave wolves?"
Elsa snorts and polishes off the last bite of bread. "I'm going for more garlic bread. Anyone else want more?"
Mari and Sam both stop to stare at her as she stands, plate in hand.
"What?"
Mari arches a brow. "Somebody's hungry tonight."
"Um." Elsa's eyes shift between them. "I haven't eaten all day?"
"Is that a question?" Mari smirks and waves her hand. "Go. Get food. Oh, and bring me a cookie."
"What kind?"
"Chocolate chip." She scoffs. "I'm going to pretend you didn't ask me that." Sam sucks a bit of red sauce off her fingers, and Mari frowns at her. "Use your fork."
Sam ignores her. "What about your diet?"
"Cheat day."
"But if everyday is a cheat day-"
"-What would you know about it? You're a human garbage disposal."
"Hey!" Sam pats her stomach. "I'm a growing cave wolf!"
"Oh my god."
"You've created a monster," Elsa says, adopting a note of mock disdain. She shakes her head and tuts under her breath. "We'll have to donate her to the zoo."
Mari snorts and shoos her away. "Cookie. Go."
The roommates continue to bicker and squawk as she heads toward the kitchen. Elsa just smiles.
For now, everything feels…
Okay.
/-/-/-/-/
"This can't become a thing." Jennifer's worried voice crackles down the line. "Elsa, tell me this won't become a thing."
Elsa sighs and stares at her face in the mirror.
It was too good to last, really. She looks tired.
"I think it's already a thing, Jen."
"Elsa. No. It can't be a thing."
"Why not?" She angles her hip against the vanity counter and roots through Anna's pile of hair products for the elusive box of clean Q-tips.
"You know why."
Yeah, alright. She does know why. That doesn't mean she's going to dwell on it.
"I'm trying not to overthink it."
"There's really nothing to overthink here, Elce. Just stop whatever you're doing. Stop doing it. Period. End of story."
Elsa bites her lip. "And what if I don't want to?"
Jenny is silent for a long moment. "I'm not your mom," she replies irritably, and it's clear enough what that means.
She's washing her hands of the situation.
"I'm sorry, I just…I don't really know what I'm doing." Elsa picks up and examines a box of blackhead clearing facial strips that Anna has ripped open from the wrong end. "I'm out of my depth."
"You'll be even more out of your depth when she breaks your fucking heart, Larsen."
"She won't."
"How can you be sure? She's already a cheater. You don't think you're special or something, right? Because you're not. Cheaters are cheaters are cheaters."
"She won't." Elsa drops the box and continues her search, sweeping aside a pile of hair ties and bobby pins. "I don't exactly have a heart to break anymore."
"God, you're such a dramatic hoe. Can you even hear yourself talk? That's most the emo load of shit I've ever heard."
Elsa laughs under her breath. "Wasn't it you who went on a 30-minute tirade about the collective evils of slut-shaming?"
"Dramatic. Hoe."
"Whatever."
"Look, so what if you shot your piece of shit dad?" Elsa winces and turns away from the mirror. "You still have a heart. Fuck, Adolph fucking Hitler had a fucking heart. Don't fucking spew that bullshit at me and pretend you're some untouchable piece of ice, Elsa, because you're really going to fucking regret it when this all goes south."
Elsa hums, toeing the carpet. "...You're really passionate about this."
Jenny sighs, and for several seconds, only silence carries down the line. Elsa grips her phone a little tighter. She gives up searching the vanity and shuffles into the bathroom to look for the elusive box of Q-tips in the cabinet.
"I hate that I have to keep telling you this. I care about you, Elsa. A lot."
"I know."
"No, I don't think you do." Jenny's voice sounds strained all of a sudden, hoarse even, and Elsa stops to listen. "I think you believe that everyone's gonna leave you in the end. I think you keep everyone at arm's length so you can protect yourself from the inevitable abandonment."
Tears sting Elsa's eyes. "Jen."
"You think you're immune to Anna because you already expect her to leave, but Elsa that's not… God, that's just not how it fucking works."
Elsa's lip trembles. Her eyes fall to the tile floor. Her chest feels like wet parchment being stretched out to dry. Every breath she takes is uniquely painful.
The words sting as she utters them. "Isn't it?"
"No, babe."
Elsa's muscles lurch, and she covers her mouth, shaking with effort it takes to hold herself back. The darkness presses against her chest from within, banging against her ribs, screaming like an inmate cursing through the prison bars. Elsa tries to swallow the rancor. She tries to hold it all in.
"Isn't it?" she gasps.
She hears Jenny take a deep breath. "Tell me honestly that you don't already love her."
Elsa nearly chokes. She squeezes her words out with sheer willpower, but they sound like they've passed through a filter of day-old porridge flecked with bits of corroded metal.
"I don't love her."
"...Whatever you say."
"Jen..."
"Just...please be careful."
Elsa sinks down onto the lid of the toilet and puts her head in her hands.
"Elsa. Promise me this won't become a thing."
"Okay."
"Promise me."
"Okay. I promise."
"...I don't think you've ever sounded less convincing."
Elsa smiles weakly into her fingers. She doesn't think so either.
/-/-/-/-/
Finals draw nearer and their professors begin talking about the end of term papers. Pressure mounts as the holidays loom and it's all anyone can do to stay abreast of the tidal wave of adult responsibilities. Studying isn't really Elsa's problem. She's always been a good student, and, ordinarily, she has an uncanny memory, but in high school she had been a loner with a social life that consisted of walking to McDonald's with Jenny after school. She's never had to deal with so many distractions before, and now, even in the darkest, most desolate corners of the library, her mind wanders away from her. She's hard pressed to concentrate on anything for longer than a few minutes at a time.
By mid November, the stress is getting to her.
'i know a pretty good way to relieve that tension,' is all Anna sends before Elsa's typing back a message of 'where and when?'
After two sessions, the code they develop for it is efficient, if not subtle.
Stress relief?
Elsa forces herself to wait twenty minutes sometimes before she responds. It's a point of pride for her, to hold out for as long as she can. The truth is that she'd sprint a mile just to meet Anna in a wet dumpster, but no one has to know that. Not Anna, and definitely not Jen. The illusion of dignity is just as important as the real thing, in this case.
The running narrative, of course, remains the same.
It doesn't become regular.
Occasional at best. Maybe.
Elsa licks up the inside of Anna's thigh in a bathroom stall and repeats the words to herself like a mantra until Anna's harsh breathing drowns out her thoughts completely.
It's not a thing.
It's not.
It's not.
/-/-/-/-/
Elsa tells her mother that she's too busy with schoolwork to make a trip out to Seattle. She feels only a little guilty because it's actually a little true. Her study guide for biology is 15 pages long, she hasn't finished Crime & Punishment, or her German essay on Kafka's Die Verwandlung, and her term paper for Am Civ I, which she has taken care to start early, isn't going well at all. A gloomy Friday night finds her sitting in the campus coffee bar under low lights making cranky expressions at her computer. The words that normally come to her so easily look clunky and foreign as she types them out on the screen. She's been editing the same paragraph for over half an hour without making any progress. The cursor blinks steadily against a daunting expanse of white pixels, like some digital form of Chinese water torture.
Elsa sips at her tea. It's cold now and oversteeped, but the astringency of it is likely the only thing keeping her alert. She braces herself and takes another sip.
Anna finds her unexpectedly at her back corner table behind a potted ficus tree. The weather has been cold and dry, so she's dressed elegantly in a grey peacoat and hunter boots, a thick scarf of blue merino wool wrapped twice around her neck. Her crimson hair is windblown, her freckled cheeks ruddy and flushed. She looks like she's ready for a day of ice skating, and Elsa wonders suddenly what it be like to take her.
"Fancy seeing you here." Anna unwinds her scarf a little to free up her mouth. "Whatcha workin' on?"
"Am Civ term paper," Elsa grunts, spine popping audibly as she leans back in the hard metal chair.
"When's it due?"
"Two weeks."
Anna smiles warmly. "Overachiever."
"You know that my scholarship is merit based, right?"
Anna pulls out a chair and sits down, edging away from a low-hanging ficus branch. "I didn't know you had a scholarship."
"I'm sure I told you." Elsa frowns. "Didn't I?"
"I don't think so. I would've remembered if you had. Explains the adorable nerdiness." Anna sighs lightly and gazes around at the sparsely inhabited cafe. "Whatcha drinkin'?"
"Earl Grey Tea." Elsa takes another sip and wrinkles her nose. "Cold Earl Grey Tea."
"Want a refill?"
"I'm fine. The grossness is keeping me awake."
Anna laughs and studies Elsa thoughtfully for a moment. Her teal eyes are dark in the low light, but they still seem to glitter somehow, tracing the contours of Elsa's face in contented silence.
Elsa adds another poorly crafted sentence to her rough draft before she speaks again. "So, what're you doing here so late?"
Her roommate hums, shifting slowly out of her quiet reverie. "I'm meeting Hans."
"Oh." Elsa's mouth twists.
She looks back down at her computer and tries to neutralize the frown creeping up on her face.
It's really not his fault, anyway.
Fortunately, Anna doesn't seem particularly interested in elaborating. Instead, she crosses her arms and then her legs, which, Elsa knows by now, means she's feeling vulnerable about something.
"I had a question for you, actually, "she says, and her eyes are careful as they watch Elsa, gauging her reaction.
"Really?"
Anna snorts softly. "You sound so surprised."
Oh, no!" Elsa shakes her head. "No, sorry. I'm just being a weirdo. What's your question?"
Anna unwraps the rest of her scarf and pops the top button of her coat. Elsa curses her weak self control as her eyes follow each movement like a cat stalking a mouse, with rapt, unwavering attention. A thought rises unbidden to the surface of her mind and she is too weak not to indulge herself for a moment, imagining the feel of her own fingers against coarse wool, sliding the rest of the buttons through their holes and peeling the garment from Anna's slim shoulders. Elsa's eyes droop, and she wishes she could lay her head on Anna's chest while she drifts off to sleep.
She's just tired, really.
"What're you doing for Thanksgiving?"
Elsa shakes the images away. "Nothing. Staying here, I guess."
"You should come home with me."
"Home?" Elsa blinks. "As in, your home?"
"No, Rosie O'donnell's home."
"Um…"
"Yes, Elsa." Anna's eyes dance. "My home. Well, my home and my grandma's home, actually, but whatever. Potayto, potahto."
Elsa blushes and scrubs at her cheeks to hide it. It only makes it worse.
"Are you sure?"
At this, Anna looks extremely amused. "Seriously, you're too cute. Of course I'm sure! I wouldn't ask unless I was."
"I just…" Elsa trails off while she thinks of a delicate way to word her concerns. "I just wondered whether maybe you hadn't considered all of the consequences of inviting me to spend Thanksgiving at your house. With your parents."
"Don't forget the siblings," Anna says cheerfully, and if it seems just slightly more forced, neither of them are eager to acknowledge it.
The strain goes unmentioned, and really, Elsa only has to think about it for a second. "Okay, if you're sure, then yes."
"Yes, you'll come?"
Elsa smiles, and it's a little bit breathless, a little bit shaky. "Yes, I'll come."
"Yay!" Anna squeals and hops in her chair a little bit. "I'm so glad!"
Elsa rubs the back of her neck, chagrined. She can feel the flush creeping up her neck, and it's then she realizes how flustered she is, how excited, how nervous, how scared. Her natural instincts take over. She almost can't help herself. Anna's smile is too bright to look at. Anna's smile is scalding. Elsa needs to deflect.
"Will you really need stress relief that bad over the holidays?" she mutters, shifting her gaze.
Anna gives her a strange look. "That's not what this is about."
"I…well, I just didn't want to assume that-"
"-Elsa."
"Sorry, what?"
"It's fine. You're fine. I mean, I guess I've never really told you, but I also just…"
"...What?"
Anna looks down at her fingers, twined together. "I also just enjoy your company."
Elsa doesn't know quite what to say. Her tongue feels as though it has swollen to fill her mouth.
"Oh," is all she manages.
Anna returns an apologetic smile and reaches for her phone, buzzing on the tabletop. Mired in her frantic thoughts, Elsa hadn't noticed it before, but the spell is broken now. The sounds in the cafe slowly return to her. The computer screen in front of her flickers and goes dark. How late is it? How long have they been talking? Honestly, she zones in so hard on Anna sometimes that the world disappears. Sometimes she forgets who she is.
"I've got to go," Anna announces.
She stows her phone in her pocket and pauses, peering at Elsa's hands for a moment. Elsa looks down to find that her hands have curled themselves into fists, balled up on either side of her laptop. She forces them to relax as Anna shakes herself and reaches up to retie her scarf. The buttons of her coat are done up again, tucking Anna's pale throat away behind a layer of thick wool.
"Hans?" Elsa asks.
She immediately wants to clap a hand over her horrible, jealous mouth. Why is she even asking? She doesn't actually want to know. Anna doesn't actually want to say it. They stare at each other, biting their lips, considering their words reluctantly, until finally, Anna nods and moves to stand.
Elsa's eyes narrow. "Is he coming in here?"
"Not if I hurry." Anna glances at her from the corner of her eye, expression shrewder than Elsa's ever seen it. "I know you don't like him."
"Does that bother you?"
Anna smirks. "I'm not sure I should answer that."
She turns to leave before Elsa can press for a real answer, and Elsa watches her go, watches her hips, watches her shoulders, watches her hair. Elsa watches until Anna has opened the door and slipped out into the night.
/-/-/-/-/
