Chapter 4: Betrayal.

Today is Tuesday. Today I'll get to see Elsa. Yesterday I saw her, of course, but she was far away from me and when I called her name it seemed as she didn't hear me, and then when I tried to approach her, she got into her class. It was very frustrating because I really wanted to talk to her after what happened on the mall this weekend; it intrigues me to know if the Ice Queen actually has a warm side.

Whatever, the point is, today I will talk to her during English class and, with a little bit of luck, she'll open up a little more. We could even become friends! Oh, how I'd love to be friends with such a beautiful, perfect, gorgeous, smart, kind and absolutely perfect girl!

The first hours pass like years and I really don't pay any attention to what the teachers are saying, daydreaming about what I will tell Elsa and what she may answer.

"Hello." I'll say. She'll look up from her notebook with those beautiful blue eyes and smile only for me.

"Hi." She'll answer with that shy voice if hers, and her cheeks will become pink, contrasting nicely with her pale constitution. She'll be so cute that I won't resist the urge to compliment her.

"You are so beautiful." I'll say caressing the soft skin of her cheeks. "Your eyes are as blue as the color of the sky during a cold winter, but still hold the comforting warm of a good fire at the forest. Your skin is as white and flawless as the snow that falls in your native country, and you, yourself, with your personality that for others is cold, are as unique as a single snowflake that is amazing in its own special way, and that could never be replicated."

She'll sigh and blush at my words, but she is shy and doesn't talk too much, so she'll just say what she wants with actions. She'll lean in, closing the distance within our faces until we'll be able to feel each other breath, and then our lips will touch and…

"WAIT, WHAT?!"

"Miss Summers!" Mr. Weselton yells very angrily.

My eyes widen when I suddenly realize that I've stood up and scream that out loud. Now every pair of eyes in the classroom is pointed in my direction and I feel utterly embarrassed.

"Is it that hard for you to believe that the parabolas' equation is quadratic?"

"N-no… I-I mean yes?" I really don't know what the right answer is, because he seemed angry at both. "I mean…"

"Enough! Sit down, Miss Summers, and try to pay attention this time or you'll have to get out of this classroom."

"Y-yes, Mr. Weaseltow… Weselton."

I quickly sit down again, trying to seem concentrated on the stupid equations. I dare to take a glance of the teacher and I almost flinch when I see his glare. Without doubt, if stares could kill I'd be dead by now.

I don't know what happened to me… well, actually I do know. That sudden dream caught me out of guard, I mean I'm a girl, and a girl shouldn't be fantasizing about those things. I should be dreaming about my first kiss with Hans or even any other boy, but with Elsa? She is also a girl for god's sake! I must be losing my mind because of the anxiety of the waiting, yes that should be it.

Finally, English class, which unfortunately for me is the last class of the day, comes. I'm so excited! Finally I'm going to see Elsa! I try to not get my hopes up because this could be just as any English class, I mean, after all, the behavior Elsa had at the mall was the exception, not the rule, but still, I can't put a hold on myself.

"Hey, Anna, why are you so excited?" Meg asks from behind me, obviously noticing my odd behavior, since I'm shifting anxiously in my chair and playing with my hair.

"Oh, it's nothing really." I answer trying to sound nonchalant because I know the girls told me not to even think about Elsa since she's technically a 'looser', and even if I don't care about it at all, I don't need them knowing that she's on my mind all the time.

"Doesn't seem like nothing." She mutters, so that only I can hear her, however I don't have the time to reply since in that moment the most beautiful girl in the entire world comes through the door.

"Elsa, Elsa!" I shout while standing up and waving enthusiastically at her. She looks at me for a moment and her gaze seems sad, which worries me, but suddenly she becomes as cold as ever and walks towards the back of the classroom without even sparing a second glance at me or saying hello. She utterly, completely, ignores me, and that hurts badly.

What happened? I thought we were more than fine after this weekend. Why doesn't she even look at me anymore? Heck, why did she sit at the other side of the classroom instead of at my side as always? Is she avoiding me? Why? I didn't do anything wrong.

I start walking in her direction, but a hand stops me before I can make two paces. I turn to see it's Meg, holding my wrist, and I want to yell at her when she points to the door with her head and I see the teacher getting in. I reluctantly sit down, looking at Elsa one last time just as the class begins. She is just sitting there, taking notes, as if she didn't care about anything else. Doesn't she misses me by her side as I miss her? I look at the empty sit beside me and a knot forms in throat, while tears appear on my eyes. I try to get rid of them but I know I'm about to cry at any moment, and I can't let that happen. I can't let Elsa seeing what effect she has on me.

I quickly grab my belongings and stand up walking to the entrance, not paying attention to Meg saying: "What are you doing?". I only stop briefly to say to the teacher with the voice of someone about to cry:

"I'm not feeling very well, can I retire?"

He sees me so bad that he nods and I rush out of the classroom, running to find somewhere where I can cry alone. However, as I'm passing through an empty hall I bump into someone familiar: Hans.

"Hey Anna, what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be on class?" He asks. Then he looks at my eyes and probably notices how puffy and wet they are, as well as my sad face. "What happened?" He looks concerned while he asks.

"N-nothing" I say, but remembering it all, I start sobbing badly. I try to wipe my tears, but it's useless; more come in replacement.

"Well, it looks like something. C'mon, I'll take you somewhere where you can cry without anyone seeing you."

I nod because I can't speak right now. And he leads me towards some lonely corner at the school's halls, though I'm not really seeing where are we going, and we sit at a bench. Just then he places his arm around my shoulders, hands me a tissue and asks once more:

"Well? What happened?"

"E-Elsa." I say between sobs. "S-she doesn't s-speak to me anymore. I… I don't understand."

"I told you not to even look at her anymore. This is all your fault for not listening to me." He says somewhat annoyed while removing his arm from my body.

I cry even louder. I'm mad at him for not supporting me in this circumstances, for not trying to comfort me, for just sitting there watching me cry with his neutral face, It's as if he was waiting for a child to stop her tantrum.

"Y-you a-are not helping." I say angrily.

"I tried to, but you ignored me! When I said you shouldn't be friends with Elsa I didn't do it because I didn't want you to make more friends aside from us, but because she is a bad person and she hates us. Obviously she saw you hanging out with me and the girls and so she decided to pretend to be your friend, just to ignore you the next moment to make you suffer and, since you are so painfully innocent, you fell in her trap."

Could he be right? Elsa isn't capable of doing something like that, is she? I don't think so, but it's true that I don't really know anything about her, while she knows a lot from me. Maybe she also planned to know me more and then use that information against me? She did never try to make a real conversation and she was never friendly with me except at the mall. Now she ignores me when I haven't done anything wrong to her. Friends doesn't do things like that. On the other hand, if she really wanted to make me feel badly… It all kind of makes sense.

I don't want to believe it. It hurts to think that Elsa, who even if I didn't want to admit it, was becoming someone important to me, was just trying to make me suffer all this time, even when I haven't been anything but good to her, and why? Just because I'm a friend of the ones she hates? That's not really a reason, not when it was me who persuaded them not to bully her anymore. She shouldn't have reasons to hate them (or hate me) now, but it all points to what Hans said. Elsa, the Ice Queen, has a frozen heart like all those rumors, which I never wanted to believe, say. I feel stupid for not seeing it before, I mean, everyone in the school knew she was a bitch, and they've known her longer than me, but I, as the naive girl I am, didn't listen to all of them. If only I'd have done it I wouldn't be crying now.

After a few minutes sobbing with my face between my hands, Hans finally speaks again.

"You know? I think I know how to make you feel better." I look up at him with hope. "Revenge."

"B-but isn't r-revenge bad?" I ask weakly. He seems to think about it for a moment before answering.

"Not really. It's just another word for justice."

"S-still I rea-really don't want to d-do anything b-bad to Elsa."

"Why? Look at yourself. She made you cry and you still don't want her to pay for it?" He says exasperated. "I'm starting to think that she's not just a classmate for you as you've told me, but something more. A friend perhaps?"

I rush to deny it. I don't want him to think I'm being friends with the "enemy", nor to seem more pathetic for actually caring about the girl who just openly ignored me, and also I don't want to admit to myself that I had started to see Elsa as a… well maybe not completely as a friend, but definitely as someone who I care for.

"Well, then if you don't see her as a friend, why don't you want to avenge what she did to you?"

I really don't have an answer for that. Not one that doesn't sound as if I'm a complete idiot at least. All that comes to my mind is: "Because she doesn't deserve it. I know she is a good person. I don't want to wrong her".

"I… I don't know." I finally say. "Maybe because it was strange for her to do it. Maybe she has a reason, what if she had a bad day and wasn't in the mood to talk?"

"She is never in the mood to talk." He rolls his eyes. When I don't say anything he sighs as stand up. "Come. Let's go ask her."

"W-what?"

"If you don't believe me, then you should ask her why she ignored you. That way you'll see by yourself how evil and ice-hearted she is."

"I-I don't know if that's a good idea." I say nervously.

"Are you afraid of what she'll say?"

"Kind of." I whisper not wanting to be listened.

"She's already hurt you. What else can happen?"

That she confirms what you said; that she was never my friend, that she was just pretending.

"Okay. Lets go." I say reluctantly and stand up to follow him back to my English classroom.

When we arrived, there were still fifteen minutes left for the class to end, so we stayed there waiting, Hans standing as the image of confidence and perfection, texting someone in his cellphone, and me bouncing nervously, wiping my sweating palms and trying to get rid of the thousands of butterflies that in that moment resided on my stomach (And not precisely the good kind of butterflies).

Finally after what for me felt like an eternity, my classmates start heading out, and as soon I see certain platinum blonde, my heart starts racing fast, just not as in the excited way it usually did whenever I saw Elsa, but more like in an anxious way. She sees me too and quickly tries to run in the opposite direction, but Hans grabs her wrist preventing her from doing so.

"My friend here wants to speak with you." He says motioning at me. Then he releases her hand.

"I don't want to speak to her." She says in a cold tone avoiding our gazes, wearing that emotionless mask that I hate so much. But is it really a mask? Maybe her friendly side is the real mask after all.

"Well, she doesn't wish to waste her time talking with you either, but she does want to know why you ignored her earlier after acting as her friend during a month."

"Was it all an act, Elsa?" I ask with a sad tone.

A few seconds pass and I'm thinking she's not going to answer. Finally she raises her head to look at me directly in the eyes and, with the coldest attitude I've ever seen in anyone, says:

"Yes. It was all a plan I made to make you feel bad."

I'm shocked, and for a moment I can't find my voice. Is it all true? Was she trying to make me suffer just because I'm friend with the ones who used to bully her? After everything I've done for her? All this time I thought she was sincere, I thought we could be friends, I thought she needed help since she looked so lonely, and I tried to give it to her… But for her it was only an ill-natured plan.

She achieved her objective. I'm suffering. Is the rejection of someone you considered a friend supposed to hurt this much?

I'm about to cry again, but Hans notices it and whispers to my ear:

"Are you going to let her see you cry? Don't give her the satisfaction. Make her pay for what she did, aren't you angry with her? You don't want to look pathetic in front of all these people, do you? You better show them that no one can mess up like this with you. Teach that Ice Queen a lesson."

I look around me and see a crowd of curious students watching all the scene, including my friends. Hans is right; I shouldn't let them see me broken because of Elsa, who is in the lowest hierarchy at the school, in which place would that let me? Besides, that's exactly what that heartless girl wanted; see me sad. No, I can't show my grief, but I've never been one to keep my feelings at bay, so I just transform it in something different, that was there before anyways: anger.

"Why? What did I ever do to you?!" I snap at her, my voice sounding so angry that not even I can fully recognize it as mine.

"I don't have to answer that question. I'm not wasting my time with you. "

She turns around and starts walking in an almost regal way, just as she did during English class. It's seems as if for her the rest of the world (and me specifically) are just annoying little bugs who doesn't deserve to even breathe the same air as her, let alone talk to her. Now I'm furious, almost out of my mind. Without thinking I grab her hand roughly to prevent her from running away.

"Who the fuck do you think you are?!" I yell. Then I remember what Hans and almost everyone else in the school says about her. She is a nobody, and I am popular because I'm friend of the most amazing people on this High. She should show me some respect. "Who gave you the right to speak like that to me?! You are just a looser, a disgusting crap at my shoe sole, you are nothing!" I was expecting her to turn around and start yelling at me as well, at least that way she'd show some kind of emotion, instead of just being so passive aggressive. She doesn't do anything though, and that makes me get even angrier. "Answer my fucking question! What did I do to you?!"

"Do you really want to know?" She asks turning around. I nod shortly. Of course I want an explanation. She sighs, closes her eyes and starts speaking with an emotionless voice.

"The first day of classes I was reading my book when you came to me and started disturbing my concentration with your clumsiness, your annoying voice, and your silly conversation." She opens her eyes, but keeps her gaze at the floor "Then you started playing with my hair when I didn't want you to. And finally, you kept trying to distract me during English class. I simply can't bear your presence, it's so irritating. I hated you since I first saw you."

SMACK.

All heads in the hall turn toward me as they hear the sound of my palm hitting Elsa's cheek.

She at first stands still, with her head turned at the direction my slap guided it. Then she slowly turns to see me and touches her red and sore cheek. I dare to look at her eyes, expecting to find either coldness or anger, just to meet the gaze one would expect to find in a wounded puppy. She looks so hurt that it breaks my heart, but only for a moment, before remembering that this is all probably another act to make me feel sorry for her and let her get away with this. No. It's not going to work again.

"I should have never trusted you, and I swear I'll take revenge on what you did to me. You will always regret the day you dared to mess up with me." I say, but I'm not so angry anymore, so I have to fake it.

She closes her eyes for a moment takes a deep breath, and when she opens them again, they are cold once more, just maybe not as cold as they were before.

"Fine. It doesn't matter after all. I'll only have another brainless girl to add to the list of people who hate me." Her voice trembles slightly at the last part, and she diverts her gaze towards the floor. I almost feel sorry for her. Almost.

I don't hate you. I'm just mad because of what you did to me. If only you said you are sorry I would forgive you.

Where did that voice come from?! I wouldn't forgive her even if she got on her knees.

"Now, if you excuse me." She says pulling away from my hand and, still looking a little sad, and maybe angry too, but not enough to know for sure if she is just acting or not. "I have more important places to be in right now."

She turns and walks away. This time I don't try to stop her.

I'm walking to the school's entrance with Hans and my other friends. They are laughing remembering what just happened earlier.

"Seriously Anna that was amazing!" Hans says." To be honest at first I wasn't sure that you'd be able to confront the Ice Queen, but you surprised me. I'm really impressed.

"Now you're really one of us." Snow says.

"It was nothing." I answer. I know I should be glad because of the compliments my friends are giving to me, and I am… but still I feel as if I've done something wrong, which is ridiculous; of course I did what was best! "She deserved it. No one can hurt the great Anna Summers and not pay the consequences." I continue with a little grin.

"What will you do with her now?" Meg asks.

"Isn't it obvious?" I ask chuckling. "I'm not going to speak to her anymore, I won't even come near to her if not to make her pay for what she's done."

"Don't you think that's a little bit drastic?"

"That's her decision." Hans interferes before I can answer. "And a good one in my opinion; she deserves to be respected."

"Yes, don't worry Anna, we'll help you to get your revenge from that ice bitch." Ariel says while Cindy and Aurora nod in agreement."

"Thanks girls." I say. "I really appreciate it."

"Now, if you excuse us." Hans puts his arm on my shoulders. "I'd like to talk with Anna alone."

"Of course." Snow agrees. "We'll see you tomorrow. Bye." All the girls wave us goodbye and walk away. Once they are out of our sight Hans turns to me and asks:

"Tell me Anna, have you ever kiss someone?"

"Y-You mean on the lips?" I ask and he nods, which makes me blush and get nervous. Why did he make that question?. "Oh… uhm… No. You know I've been locked inside my house all my life so…"

"Well, then I'll give you the honor of have your first kiss with me. Let's say it's a reward for doing what was correct today."

Before I have time to react he grabs me by the waist and pulls me towards him, crashing our lips together. I know I should've been enraptured for having my first kiss with the most handsome and popular guy in this school… but honestly I only have one feeling, one that I would've never expected to feel while being kissed by Hans: revulsion. The sensation of his rough lips covering mine, his tongue penetrating into my mouth as an unwelcomed invader, his saliva intermixing with mine… all of this almost make me want to puke. This is definitely not how I imagined my first kiss. I don't even feel pleasure, which only worsens the fact that this situation grosses me out.

Finally after what seems like several minutes, he releases me, but keeps holding my waist.

"Did you like it?" He asks with a flirtatious smirk.

For a moment I consider telling the truth, but I bite my tongue just in time; I can't tell him how disgusted I was for the kiss, it would completely ruin my chances of being his girlfriend.

But do I still want to be his girlfriend after this?

What am I thinking? Of course I want to be his girlfriend! He is handsome, and charming, and smart! Who wouldn't?

So I decide to lie. I suppose it would've been different in a more romantic atmosphere and with me being prepared. And if he was my boyfriend. Yes, next time (if there's a next time) I'm sure it will be pleasurable.

"Yeah. Sure, of course." I smile nervously; I've never been good at lying. He frowns noticing something strange in my voice, but I suppose he thinks I'm just nervous because of what just happened, since he lets it pass.

"I unfortunately can't say the same" He says. For an unknown reason my heart clenches at this. I feel a little offended. "But since it was your first kiss, I suppose it wasn't that bad. With a little bit of luck you'll learn quickly and improve. "

What did he mean? Will there be more kisses? Am I his girlfriend now?

Before I can question him about it he says good bye and walks away, leaving me standing there, confused and with a distaste on my mouth. I clean my lips with the back of my hand to get rid of the saliva that remained on them after the kiss and start walking to go to my house.