Revised on 7/6/15

A/N

This chapter is a continuation of the last one. Trigger Warning: Abuse ahead. It doesn't go into detail, but it's there.

xXxXx

Elsa's POV

Little does she know that I want to be more than friends. I thought as Anna started rambling about random things. No, that's stupid, Elsa. You literally just met her.

Anna's red hair framed the features of her face perfectly. I noticed a strip of white that stood out amongst the fiery red. Does she dye it? I think it makes a wonderful contrast regardless.

"So I have a question for you. If you don't want to answer it that's perfectly fine. You totally don't have to if you don't want to." I nodded for her to continue. "Why were you so... you know… rude and stuff when we first met in Mr. Harrison's class?"

I was surprised by the question; it was not at all what I expected. "Uh... Well I figured that if I was like that then people wouldn't want to talk to me and they would leave me alone," I responded slowly.

"But why would you want to be alone? No one wants to be alone."

Because I'm a fuckup and other normal people don't need my problems plaguing them. I don't want to be alone, but it's in the best interest of everyone else that I am.

"Do I need to have a reason? I want to be alone and that's that," I said instead, a little too harshly. I turned away when I saw the hurt and confusion reflected in Anna's eyes.

"Look, I'll see you in school. I've got to go," I said still not looking at her. I took a couple of steps forward and then stopped before looking back at her. Her brows were furrowed in confusion as she stared back at me. I dropped my gaze to my shoes as I brought the other chocolate bar out of my pocket, tossing it in front of her, and walking off without looking back again.

xXxXx

After my trip to the gas station and impromptu conversation with Anna, I was about fifteen minutes late getting home. Father is going to kill me for being late.

I stopped calling him dad after my mother died. It seemed too friendly, to caring. It was everything he wasn't.

I entered the apartment thinking that I would try to sneak into my room. I knew it was pointless however when I saw my father on the couch sitting across from the door, staring at me.

Well, so much for trying not to be noticed.

"Why are you late?" He asked in a dangerous tone.

"I-uh- was with a friend," I responded nervously, subconsciously wrapping my arms around myself.

"Who is this friend?"

"Um…" I can't tell him about Anna. He would jump to a conclusion within ten seconds and then absolutely flip out. He doesn't need to know about someone as sweet as her. "I was with um-"

"Awe, was my little girl with a boy, perhaps?" He asked mockingly. "Oh no, that's ridiculous. No one would ever want you in that kind of way. Not a stupid little bitch like you."

I looked down at the floor trying my best to ignore his words. It wasn't uncommon to have my father go into twenty minute rants about how useless I was.

"Are you even listening to me?" He barked suddenly, making me snap my head up to look him in the eye. "I'm trying to help you. I'm trying to get you to see the truth so you don't become even more of an embarrassment than you already are and you don't even have the manners to listen to me. You really are a fuckup, you know that right?" I kept my face blank and continued to look at him, not answering his seemingly rhetorical question.

His face quickly twisted into a look of fury upon my silence. He leapt off of the couch, strode angrily toward me, and backhanded me hard across the face.

"That's four things you have done in the last five minutes to warrant this," He growled, pointing a stubby finger in my face. "First, you come home late. Then you try to lie to me. You ignore me, and then don't answer my questions," He yelled as he slapped me again.

"You deserve every second of this," He growled as he removed his belt and wrapped the end of it around his hand.

xXxXx

Earlier…

xXxXx

Anna's POV

"But why would you want to be alone? No one wants to be alone," I said to her.

Elsa took a minute before responding. "Do I need to have a reason? I want to be alone and that's that." The answer was harsh and cold. Just like Elsa's appearance earlier in the day. Her tone and sudden change of attitude was shocking and hurtful.

We were getting along great not even three minutes ago. What did I do? What did I say to trigger such a sudden revert to her fake, icy personality? She opened up to me, showed me that there was a confused, lone girl inside, masked by the cold that consumed her in seconds.

As I stared at Elsa's retreating back, I realized that I had only chipped away a small piece of her shell. Something about what I said to her triggered a seemingly instinctive retreat into herself. That means that whatever caused the retreat can be broken down with more help.

"Look, I'll see you in school. I've got to go," Elsa had taken a few steps away, but stopped and turned back to look at me once more. We stared at each other for a moment before she dropped her head, put her hand in her back pocket, and withdrew the second Hershey bar. She tossed the bar in front of my feet before turning and walking away.

I glanced down at the bar of chocolate when I could no longer see Elsa.

"I really love chocolate you see, but I don't get it very often." Is what she had told me. Then why would she just give me both the bars she risked stealing?

I sighed as she disappeared from view.

None of this makes sense and I'm going to figure it all out, whether she likes it or not.

xXxXx

Two months later…

xXxXx

It had been two months since Elsa had moved to Arendelle and first attended Arendelle High. Since then, I'd sat with her every day at lunch, no matter how many times she'd glared and told me to go away. I knew now that she was only like that because she didn't want anyone else to approach her. After school, we've hung out at a nearby park and I'd learned a many small things about her. She loved chocolate and reading. Her favorite subject was math and her favorite food besides chocolate was apples. Curiously though, anytime we'd approach the subject of her past or family, she'd just shut herself down again.

"Miss Andersen, if you could please review for me one of the three examples of the Law of Cosines that we have just been discussing..." Mr. Harrison's voice rang out.

Oh shit. I haven't been paying attention to anything he's said all period.

I tried to buy myself some time to think. "Which one?" I asked, racking my brains for something that might have anything to do with anything about the Law of Cosines.

"Any one is fine, Miss Andersen."

Dammit. He knows that I wasn't paying attention and he's putting me on the spot anyway.

"Side A equals side B squared plus side C squared minus two BC times the cosine of angle A." A voice hissed from next to me, lips barely moving.

I looked over slightly to see Elsa looking over at me though the corner of her peripheral vision, whispering to me. She's helping you, you dipshit. She just gave you the answer, use it.

"Um... Side A is equal to side B squared plus side C squared minus two times BC times the cosine of angle A," I repeated carefully to Mr. Harrison. He looked surprised for a moment that I answered correctly but then continued and addressed the rest of the class about the night's homework.

I breathed out a small sigh of relief and snuck a peek over at Elsa. She was listening adamantly to Mr. Harrison's words, though she wore a small smile of triumph on her face.

At the end of the day I walked to my locker to retrieve the books I needed to complete my homework. I opened the cold metal door and withdrew several notebooks and switched them out with the ones already in my bag. Placing the last one into the locker, I withdrew my hand to zip up my backpack. A split-second after I withdrew it, another hand belonging to another person slammed the open door shut. If I had been any slower, my hand would have been crushed between the door.

I looked up and the owner of the hand only to see my ass of and ex boyfriend, Hans Southern, smirking down at me. I had broken up with him about a month ago when I realized that he was a good for nothing jerk with extreme anger management problems.

"Good day Anna," He drawled.

"It was before I ran into you," I replied, staring at him coldly.

"Come on now, don't be like that. I've been doing some thinking recently-"

"That must have hurt," I cut in.

"-and you're going to get back together with me," He finished, as if there had been no interruption.

"Excuse me? For starters, you don't tell me that I'm going to go back out with you. Second, I'm not getting back together with you now, and I don't plan on doing it ever. Stop being so hardheaded for once in your life Hans, and realize that the world is not all about you."

To that, he simply chuckled, "I thought you might say something like that. Although I was not expecting that 'hardheaded' comment; that was a low blow." He shoved me back into my recently closed locker. "I, fortunately, made myself a little plan for how I was going to get you to go out with me even after you'd declined," He used his left hand to hold my hands above my head as he drew his right one back into a tight fist. I closed my eyes and turned my head so that half of it was hidden in my arm, awaiting the oncoming blow from Hans' rock of a hand.

When it never came however, I popped one eye open to see what had happened. The pressure of Hans' hand covering my own was gone and I lowered my hands from above my head taking in the scene in front of me. Hans' back was turned to me and he was facing Elsa, who was clutching her bleeding mouth; he had obviously just punched her in the face.

He turned back to me, his face contorted in a look of pure fury.

"Now, as I was saying before this bitch here so rudely interrupted me…" He said, seething, as he approached me. He raised his clenched fist again. Out of nowhere, a shoe came up from behind him and went straight up between his thighs. He groaned and sunk to the floor, revealing Elsa behind him, lowering her leg.

"Let's get out of here, Anna," She said still glaring at Hans' slumped form.

"You'll pay for that you bitch. Both of you!" He bellowed as we walked away.

"Yeah, whatever. Send the bill to my accountant, will you?" Elsa yelled back over her shoulder. I couldn't help but laugh as we walked out of the building. When we were out, I turned and looked at Elsa, smile vanishing almost immediately.

"Oh my gosh, your mouth!" I looked her over intently, a light panic flaring. "I'm so sorry, that was all my fault. I'm taking you to my house and we're going to get you cleaned up," I announced, prepared to not take 'no' for an answer.

"That's not necessary Anna. I'm fine, really. It's just a little bit of blood, I've dealt with worse, it's not a big deal," She protested.

I gaped at her, "Not a big deal? Someone just punched you in the face and that's not a big deal?"

She sighed and shifted her gaze to her feet before replying with a small, "Fine."

xXxXx

Ten minutes later we arrived at my house. I led Elsa through the maze of rooms and up a set of stairs to my bedroom. I used a washcloth to clean off the blood from her lips, ignoring her protests that she could do it herself.

I honestly can't believe her. She stepped in front of Hans for me, and gotten punched in the face, again, for me, and now she won't even let me help her. Well, she's got another thing coming.

"I still don't get why you got yourself punched in the face in the first place and why you're being so nonchalant about it afterwards."

I stood and tossed the, now slightly bloody, washcloth into my laundry basket.

"What's not to get?" She sighed. "I saw some dude in the hall about to hit you in the face. I grabbed his shoulder and told him to knock it off. He socked me in the face and turned around to hit you again, so I kicked him as hard as I could in the nuts. That's what happened. It's not a big deal because there's nothing wrong with me taking a hit for a friend," Elsa paused. "We are friends, aren't we?"

"Yeah, of course." I muttered absentmindedly as I stared at her, brows furrowed.

She insists on others leaving her alone, but she's like the best friend that a friend could ask for…

Elsa turned toward me to see my staring. "…What?"

"Hm? Oh, nothing," I shook my head and sat down next to her on my bed, still feeling genuinely touched. "Well, thank you. And thanks for the help in Harrison's class earlier, I wasn't listening and I had no clue what he was talking about. He likes making me look bad," I said, looking over at her.

"It's no big deal. You seem to have a problem not paying attention," She replied shrugging yet smiling. She looked over at me. Her bottom lip was split pretty badly, but she told me not to worry about it.

I had never been this close to her before. I noticed a light dashing of freckles across her nose and cheeks. She had a slight rosy tint beneath them that outlined them and made me wonder how I had never seen them before. I let my eyes wander from her cheeks down to her lips. I had unconsciously leaned forward, ever so slightly closer.

My obvious staring and slight leaning didn't go unnoticed by Elsa, but her reaction went unnoticed by me. I didn't notice her eyes widen and the sudden hitch when her breath caught in her throat.

I jumped slightly when Elsa abruptly stood up and strode towards the door. "I'm sorry Anna, I'm late. I should have been home an hour ago; my father is going to be furious. I have to go, I'll see you tomorrow."

I threw myself back onto the bed when I heard the front door slam shut.

Anna you idiot, what were you thinking? You probably really freaked her out now. You ma'am, are a genius. A freaking genius, Anna. You've done it now.

xXxXx

Elsa's POV

What the hell was that? No. She wasn't going to kiss me. You're misreading the situation Elsa. It only seemed like that because you're infatuated with her and everything she does. Regardless, you're over an hour late and you're not even home yet. If father was mad about you being late last time, he's going to be pissed today.

I sighed at the thought of what would be awaiting me when I got home. "This is good for you," Father would say, "I'm teaching you to learn to be punctual."

He sickened me. He was constantly giving himself excuses for what he did so he wouldn't feel bad about himself and he could go to sleep at night. It sickened me that I was too weak-willed to do anything about it.

And yet, I believed it all. All of the casual destructive remarks, the constant criticizing… It didn't matter what he said to me anymore. The same words echoed throughout my head constantly. I was just as bad as he was.

Five minutes later I stood outside of my apartment. I hesitated when I put my hand on the knob. You could just not go in. You could never go back in. You could leave this forever. I shook my head at myself as I opened the door. I can't.

My father's voice came from behind me as I shut the door, "You're late."

xXxXx

A/N

Sorry for the late update, I didn't have internet access for a couple of days.