Alright, folks. The time has come. I figured I'd stop messing with all your emotions and get these chapters up quickly. This story is moving in directions I hadn't anticipated when I started this little project, and I feel like it's taking longer than expected. As always, thanks for all the feedback and support, you guys are great.

"Elsa? Elsa, are you okay? Look at me. Hey," Anna's voice cuts through the white fog that's enveloped my mind, allowing nothing to move, to enter, or to escape. Her hand seems to come from nowhere to grab my chin and force me to look at her.

"What just happened?" My voice sounds like it's hundreds of miles away.

She blinks in confusion. "What do you mean what just happened? I just got us home safe and sound, without any near-death experiences."

I smile, but it fades almost as quickly as it appears. I have to control my breathing, before I start to panic. In, out. In, out. "Jack," I whisper, closing my eyes. "He heard."

For the second time in an hour, Anna claps her hands over her mouth in horror. "What did he hear? How do you know?"

"I saw him when we left the parking lot. He must have left the school from a different door, otherwise I would have seen him and I could've warned you. And I could've kept my own mouth shut, too. Now he knows that I've been lying to him and he'll hate me forever." I shake my head as tears threaten to spill out of my eyes. "And I was just mad at him for being someone he's not. Look at me. I'm such a hypocrite."

Anna tries to give me a hug, but the seats of the car make the maneuvering difficult, and we end up in an awkward semi-embrace. The ridiculousness of our situation makes me laugh, a high-pitched and shaky giggle. Anna pulls away, laughing as well, but her blue eyes get serious within a matter of seconds.

"Okay, Elsa, here's the deal. Now that he knows, you have to talk to him. You can't just leave it alone and hope it will work itself out. You can't run away and hide from it. You have to talk to him."

I cringe away from the thought of a meeting with Jack. I don't think I've ever seen him really angry, and witnessing it for the first time is not something that I'm looking forward to. "Can't I just text him or something?"

"No. You have to see him in person."

I sigh. "He'll be angry."

She shrugs. "Of course he will. That's to be expected. But he'll get over it."

"But how long? How long will it take for him to stop hating my guts?"

She pauses to think for a moment, then speaks slowly, choosing her words with care. "When you first left, I was angry with you, too. I wondered how you could ever leave me behind, and I thought that I hated you. By the time you came back, I knew that I didn't hate you, but I wasn't sure how I felt about you. I felt abandoned, and that's a miserable feeling. But, when I found out that it was actually you sitting in the closet with me – when we found the letters – I was just…grateful. And happy. And in that moment, I knew that I loved you, and that I always had. And I think that it will be the same for Jack. Hopefully."

I let my breathing settle as I think about what Anna just said. She hated me? Has Jack felt hate towards me, too? Does he hate me now? I guess there's only one way to find out. I work my phone out of my pocket carefully, as if being fragile with it will make my conversation with Jack easier. I don't have any messages, which makes me think two things: first, that Jack is probably still too angry with me to talk to me, and second, that he, for some reason, hasn't told anyone. I type out the message slowly, lingering over each word.

E – Jack, I need to talk to you. Can I come over?

I take a deep breath and hit 'Send.' Anna and I just sit in silence and wait for his response. She keeps throwing worried glances at me, like I might burst into tears at any moment, but I feel calm, now, in control of the situation. I've made my decision; I'm reaching out to him. Now the ball's in his court.

After fifteen minutes, he hasn't responded, and I can't say that I'm surprised. I probably wouldn't respond to a liar, either.

Anna fidgets impatiently, and then abruptly swings open the car door. "Get out of the car," she commands.

I quickly unbuckle my seatbelt and scramble out of the passenger side door, then shoot her a curious glance. Anna's not usually one to be bossy. She marches over to me, grabs my arm in a tight grip, and drags me over to the driver's side door.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm not doing anything. But you're going to drive over to Jack's and talk to him."

"What? Anna, I can't do that! I don't even know if he's home! What if he's not there? I'll have to sit and make conversation with Mrs. Frost and Sophie, and I can't do that! What if he doesn't let me in? I'll be left standing on the doorstep like an idiot."

Anna's grip on my arm becomes harder. "I don't care. You have to make the effort. You've gotta try."

I know that she's right. I have to be the adult in the situation and accept what I did. I have to be responsible. Ugh. I don't like being an adult. I step into the car and settle myself into the driver's seat. "Keys, please," I say, extending my hand palm up towards my sister. She places the keys in my hand and bows solemnly.

"Good luck," she says sincerely, and I nod at her. The situation has suddenly become very real and very serious for the both of us. As I pull out of the driveway and start down the street, my phone begins to buzz, a constant sound that means I'm getting a call. My body immediately gets cold, and I pull it out of my pocket again just to see who it is. I don't think I'm in the mood to talk. I change my mind, though, when I see that it's Bunny calling.

"Hello?"

"Clara? Or do you go by Elsa now? I can't keep your names straight," he begins, and I can't help but crack a smile. I've missed my friends in Arendelle.

"Either one is fine by me," I try to make an attempt at lightheartedness, but my voice catches at the end of my reply.

"I'm gonna call you Clara, because that's who you are to me. Anyway, you've got some explaining to do," he says, his voice suddenly becoming stern, "because I just got off the phone with Jack, and he was really upset. Kept saying something about how he can't believe I never told him, and other stuff. Why's he mad at me? What did I do?"

Bunny just sounds confused. I guess Jack didn't tell him the whole story. "I'm sorry, Bunny. It's my fault. I…well, let's just say that Jack knows who I am now, and he didn't take the news well."

"Yikes. Did you tell him?"

"Um, not really. I was talking to my sister, and I think he just overheard our conversation."

There's a silence on the line. "Bunny?" I ask cautiously.

"Well I guess that explains why he was so angry. So what are you gonna do now?"

"I'm driving to his house now, so I can talk to him. And I'm going to try to not get killed."

He chuckles. "Sounds like a solid plan to me. Good luck, alright? And let me know how it goes. If I'm gonna get caught up in this, I wanna know what's going on."

"Will do," I say. "Talk to you later, Bunny. It's good to hear from you again."

"Yeah, you too, Clara," he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice. "See ya around."

After I hang up, it takes me a few more minutes to reach Jack's house, mainly because I drove five miles under the speed limit the entire way there. His car is parked outside, so he must be home, but I can't see any evidence that there's anyone alive in the house at all. I park my car across the street, for a quick getaway, and walk slowly up to his front door. I can feel my hands shaking as I press on the doorbell, and I quickly clasp them together behind my back. After a few minutes, no one's come to the door, but I know Jack is home, so I ring the doorbell again. Still nothing. I move away from the porch and look up to the row of second-story windows and locate the one that I think is Jack's. The sidewalk leading up to the front door is lined with small bushes, and the bushes are surrounded by small black rocks, so I pick up a few and hold them in my hand while considering my next move. Then, suddenly, I throw one of the pebbles at Jack's window. I have relatively good aim, and I manage to hit the lower left corner of the glass pane. Then I throw another, and another. When I run out of pebbles, I pick up more and continue my barrage of small rocks. I'm just winding back to throw another when the front door opens.

"Okay, fine. Stop," Jack says in a quiet voice.

I turn to look at the owner of that voice with my arm still pulled back, prepared for the toss. He's watching me warily, the way you'd watch a tiger that escaped from the zoo and somehow found its way to your front yard. I let the pebble fall out of my hand and make my way back to the porch in a few steps. Now that the moment's here, I can't think of anything to say. He just stares at me, and his blue eyes look unforgiving and vulnerable at the same time.

"Jack," I begin haltingly, "I…I'm so sorry."

"Sorry for what, Clara?" he asks innocently.

I'm sure the confusion shows on my face, because Jack's innocent look slips a little and becomes something darker, scarier. He's messing with me. He's going to make this hard for me.

"Jack, come on. We both know that you overheard me, we both know that you're mad, and we both know that I'm so sorry."

His face doesn't change as he listens to me. He just folds his arms across his chest. "I want you to tell me the truth. Tell me, not your sister, not your friends. Tell me." His voice, which I expected to get louder, instead gets quiet until it's almost a whisper.

Now I have a choice. Now I get to decide how to go about explaining myself to my once-best friend. I can tell this story any way I want. I can tell him how his mother forced me away, and move the blame from me to her. I can tell him that I didn't want to see him before I left. I can tell him anything I want to, and there won't be anyone to contradict me. I take another step closer to him and take one of his hands in both of mine, gripping it more tightly when he tries to pull away.

"Jack," I say, keeping eye contact with him, "I'm really sorry that you had to find out the way you did. I was going to tell you, but I couldn't find the courage to. And then, we were getting to know each other again and it was great because I could talk to you like I used to, and I didn't want to ruin it. But…anyway. I'm Elsa." When I finish my short speech, I break our eye contact and look down at the ground, and at my hands, which are still holding onto his.

It's silent, and I refuse to be the next one to speak. The quiet between us stretches out until it's almost a tangible thing, and I lose track of how long we stand there.

"Why did you have to leave?"

"I didn't want to," I shrug, "but…I had to."

"What do you mean you had to? You just had to leave when I needed you the most? You just had to leave without saying goodbye to me? Without any explanation at all? And now you just expect me to be okay with you abandoning me for years and then lying to me – lying to my face – when you come back?"

"Jack, it wasn't like that! I tried to talk to you, I did, but…" I trail off, trying to think of a way to leave Mrs. Frost out of this. I don't want him to be mad at his own mother, too.

"But what?"

"When you were still in the hospital, I went to go see you." I don't really have a choice. He wants the truth, and I'll give it to him. "Your mom wouldn't let me in your room. She said she was going to file a restraining order against me, so I wouldn't be able to see you anymore. She said the accident was my fault and that I was a terrible and irresponsible person. That spread to the papers. No one liked me anymore, people were avoiding me, people I'd never even met before. That's why I left. I couldn't tell you, I couldn't tell anyone. I didn't even tell Anna! But I left you the letters, I was hoping that someone would find them, I thought someone would think of looking in the secret place…"

"Elsa," he starts, and he falters a little on my name, "I need to think about this. I don't want to see you, I don't want to talk to you. We can't be music partners anymore." His voice is stern, but it sounds like he's getting upset.

I nod as a few rebellious tears leak from my eyes and trail down my face. "Sure, whatever you need." I let go of his hand and move away from him now, walking backwards so I can still look at him. He doesn't say anything else, but turns to go back inside, and I turn my back on him and begin walking to my car.

"Elsa?"

I whirl around. "Yeah?"

"Your eyes…and your hair…?"

I laugh as a few more tears pool in my eyes. Of all the things he has questions about. "It's dyed. And I have contacts."

He nods and moves to close the door.

"Jack?" He doesn't respond, but looks at me expectantly. I hesitate for a moment. "You know I love you, right?"

He just nods before closing the door.