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Sins of the Past

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Chapter Seven

I woke once again to the feeling of intense cold.

I groggily forced my eyes open, struggling to get up as my body screamed of fatigue. I had ended up staying awake until dawn last night, bonding with Elsa, before sheer willpower alone was no longer sufficient to keep me from passing out.

But I'd say that was time well spent, sleep deprivation be damned, because I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

My fist came crashing down upon my bedside alarm clock, silencing its infernal racket. The cold subsided.

"Sorry Elsa." I said, with an extended yawn. "But I gotta wake up somehow."

I received a jolt of cold for my snarky reply.

I shambled into the bathroom, body on autopilot as I brushed my teeth and whatnot. I haphazardly threw on a hoodie for the day's attire, content to keep the hood up all day long to cover up my pathetic attempt at combing my hair when I suddenly remembered.

"Crap. There's was this party thing going on today that I should prepare for."

I had forgotten to prepare an outfit the day before.

Oh well.

It's a good thing that I wasn't planning on attending history lecture today. Gives me a whole extra hour or two of free time to goof around.

I turned on my heel and made my way back into my room.

"Okay!" I said to myself, as I stood in front of my closet. "Where's the rest of my stuff?"

It hadn't taken long to pick out some clothes, since I've quite frankly outgrown the phase where I lived and died on how people thought of me. A green sweater and some shorts would suffice for all I care, but I was still somewhat of a stickler for accessories, and mine were nowhere to be found.

"God damnit." I muttered to myself, as I dug through the unpacked cardboard boxes stacked in the corner. "Where are they?"

The temperature dipped, and I glanced upward toward the wardrobe doors that had been left ajar from the day prior. I found Elsa staring back at me with an inquisitive look on her face.

"Hi Elsa." I greeted, before rummaging further into my stuff. "I'm looking for my jewelry. There's a party going on tonight that I'm planning on attending."

Elsa's face lit up at this, and she beckoned wildly for me to come. Upon arrival, she then began gesturing towards a small little chest that sat at the bottom of the wardrobe.

I had forgotten this thing was here.

I had found the small chest, which was about the size of a toaster oven, during my initial search of the house when we first moved in, but then dismissed it without a second thought when I found it locked.

I wonder what's inside?

I tried the chest again and found that it now opened easily, strangely enough. I took a peek inside and found a cache of smaller plain cardboard boxes, alongside an assortment of other little knick-knacks and things.

I had a distinct feeling that these were Elsa's possessions, and knew well enough that not everything here may be meant for my eyes.

"Is there something in here that you're sharing with me?"

She nodded when I glanced upward at the wardrobe mirror.

"I see." I picked a box at random and held it up. "Is this it?"

She shook her head. I set the box aside onto the floor before picking up another nondescript cardboard box.

She shook her head again, so I dug deeper. This time I held up a parchment of envelopes.

I had a feeling this wasn't it since what in the world would I do with a bunch of letters? But hey who knows.

Elsa's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates before frantically waving me away.

Huh.

My breath hitched when I took another look into the now mostly empty lockbox. Tucked away in a corner, previously hidden by the envelope package, was a small ornate box. I figured that this may very well be what Elsa had intended for me to borrow, since it was my need of jewelry that sparked all this.

My suspicions were confirmed when I held it up and received an enthusiastic nod in response. I opened the box to find a set of beautiful sapphire-blue teardrop earrings the size of my thumbnail sitting inside.

"No way." I glanced back up to Elsa in disbelief. "This? You're letting me borrow this? I can't possibly."

She made an underhanded pushing motion toward me with a smile that stretched ear-to-ear plastered upon her face, as though encouraging me to take it.

"W-what if I lose it?" I stuttered, as I traced the shape of the earrings. "These must cost a fortune."

I looked back up again to find that Elsa had disappeared, leaving me with the jewelry and herself as the victor in our one-sided argument.

"Okay. You win this one, Elsa."

I cleaned up the miniature mess I had made before throwing my spare change of clothes into a plastic bag to sling it over my shoulder. I pocketed the little ornate box for safekeeping, and then made my way downstairs to get myself some breakfast.

The bus ride to school was uneventful, as were the classes themselves. Most of Calculus was spent hammering prerequisite skills back into our heads, as surely enough, most of us including myself have forgotten almost everything from high school over the summer. How did I ever manage to wrap my brain around logarithms?

I bumped into Rapunzel between classes and took the opportunity to give her my spare change of clothes to stash away in the locker, along with my phone number, because it was kind of silly for us to not be able to text each other. I kept the earrings with me, in the inner coat pocket next to my heart because there's no way I am risking losing these things.

I slept through Economics again, and before long it was somewhere around 3PM—time to meet up with Rapunzel again and get changed for the party.

"How was class?" Rapunzel began, calling over to me from a stall as we changed in the bathroom. Classes were in session, so we had the place mostly to ourselves.

"Fine." I yelled back from a stall of my own, as I pulled my hoodie off and replaced it with the green sweater. "I feel that I might not do so well in Econ though. I slept through today's lecture as well."

"Ooh, not a good idea.." she warned. "I heard that the prof for your class is pretty tough if you skip."

I step out of my stall, Elsa's sapphire earrings in hand. "I can't help it. His monotonous voice puts me to sleep."

Rapunzel had already finished changing, and was now standing by a sink applying some makeup. I made my way to a sink adjacent to her, and leaned in to wear the earrings. I felt a tiny pang of discomfort as I inserted the first, and a deep chill screamed through my body when I did the second. My footing slipped and I nearly fell into the sink in surprise.

"You alright?" Rapunzel asked, unable to check for herself as she was in the middle of applying some eyeliner.

"Y-yeah." I stuttered. "Just felt a chill all of a sudden. Did you?"

"No. I didn't feel a thing." She replied. "Which is strange, because I'm not wearing a big bulky sweater like you are. If you did, then by all means I should've."

...Strange indeed, but maybe it's nothing? I turned around to stash the empty earring box in my backpack when I stumbled and fell to the floor for real this time because holy crap.

Elsa.

Was right in front of me.

At school.

And I could see her.

Without a mirror.

"What the hell?"

I don't actually know how large a gemstone would have to be to qualify as "eye-boggling large," so I went with a guess. Would the size of the backspace key be considered as large?

I also have never taken an entry level Economics course, so I have no idea what they teach! Which probably means that Anna's going to be sleeping through a lot of those lectures. I'd totally have this covered if Anna was a Chemistry major, but that wouldn't really fit with the story.