Elsa clutches an Ikea shark plushie to herself as Dr. Robinson scribbles down her thoughts.
"So far we've addressed the reaction you had towards your parents after they belittled your track results. And we've explored the emotions leading to that reaction - but I really want to dig deeper and look at the root of it all. How did you feel after getting third at the State Finals?"
There isn't even a ticking clock or the buzz of office lights to fill her mind. It's just utter, complete silence - and it allows Elsa to think.
"Frankly, I was upset because it meant I'd probably lose out on a scholarship-"
Robinson cuts in, "What if there wasn't a scholarship on the line?"
Again with the digging. But after weeks of talking to this woman, Elsa had gotten used to being probed. And she's starting to enjoy it. The way it stripped away all the pretences they brought her up to endure.
"I-I don't know," Elsa answers, sinking her face into the softness, "I don't even think I'd care. I like running so it doesn't even matter-"
Whether you got third place or thirteenth.
"So running makes you happy?"
"Well, yea - until my parents saw it as a way to set yourself apart," Elsa mocks with air quotes.
"What else makes you happy?"
"Running, well - running away from everything, that is," Elsa lets out a stiff laugh, "escapism, pretty much. Reading, writing."
"Books? Fiction?"
Elsa nods, before Robinson's question repeats itself in her mind. What makes you happy?
She shuts her eyes and immediately sees Anna's face. And hears that voice singing to her in the imagined darkness. All ripe with sweetness and bearing the heady bliss of not caring for anything else in the world besides making her smile once again. It makes her happy. And yet it fills her with a hungry dissatisfaction that there just wasn't enough Anna to go around. She wanted more.
"You're smiling," Dr. Robinson remarks. Elsa's eyes fly open. A pen's perched on the clipboard like she's waiting.
"Sorry, I got carried away."
"By?"
Elsa thinks. She looks down at the soft rug, before turning her attention to Dr. Robinson.
"Doctor," Elsa swallows, wrapping her arms tight around the plushie, "How do you know if you're in love with someone?"
Robinson's answer steeps in Elsa's head as she sits in the driveway. The setting sun glows on her pale features. Her eyes flutter shut. Fingers trail across that empty seat cushion where Anna sat days ago. Soaking in the memory of her presence. She looks at her phone again, poring over every one of Anna's sparse messages.
Elsa: I hope detention's been treating you well, please reach out to me if you need any help!
Anna: im all good Elsa omg please ur too kind to me
Anna: sorry im late they take our phones away
Anna: so all i can do is study and read ur book :(
Anna: not that its a bad book actually pretty exciting ngl
Anna: and i dont mean THAT kinda exciting if u get wat i mean ;)
Another message lights up her phone. This one floods her nerves with static.
Mom: are you coming in or not? We need to talk to you.
She makes out two silhouettes behind the curtains, watching her every move. That chain tightens around her throat again. Better prepare first. Her fist closes around her results from this term. A long row of perfect, unblemished straight As. But as Elsa searches her heart while plodding up the driveway, she knows it's not enough. It's never going to be enough.
Stifling air chokes her when she enters the house. But worse still are her parents seated on the couch, arms folded again. She tosses her results on the coffee table, and neither so much as looks at them. Because it's not enough. She notices an opened envelope on the table. And a folded card with Van Gogh's Starry Night on its cover. The card she wrote to Anna. It must've slipped from the book.
Boom.
All the blood drains from her face and she misses Agnarr's snarled instructions - only for her mother to repeat it in that sickening, monotonic lawyer voice.
"Please, Elsa - sit down. We may have been too harsh on you recently so we want to hear your side of the story first."
She topples backwards into an armchair. The weight of defeat crushes her soul. From her angle, she makes out the blue ink so meticulously calligraphed with a ruler.
Dearest Anna,
I've adored every one of the short moments we've spent together. Your voice. Your charm. Your smile. I can't stop thinking about you. And I wish I could spend a little more time with you each day. I wish there could be something more between us. But until then, please take this book as a token of my gratitude for being the amazing star in my life - and I shall content myself knowing that we sleep together under the same star-speckled tent that we call the night sky.
-Elsa.
"Who the hell is Anna?" Agnarr repeats himself, flecks of saliva spitting from his tongue.
Caught like a deer before a lion, Elsa only manages to stutter, "S-she's just a friend."
"Stop. Lying," Agnarr explodes, hoarse voice bouncing off the walls.
Iduna places a hand on her husband's knee, the action doing nothing to calm the shaking.
"Sweetie, you have to be honest with us for this to work," Iduna picks up the card. The mere sight of that woman's eyes roaming across the words puts a head-splitting ache between her ears. Don't you fucking touch it. That was meant for Anna. Her brain goes numb with the realisation that she did this to herself. Her usual fastidious and meticulous demeanour flung out the window at the prospect of seeing Anna smile. And it occurred during the one time where it mattered.
She's now going to pay the price for this.
"Would you write a note like this to a friend?" Iduna's voice buckles under the strain, "Because I've had girlfriends in school and we've never written stuff like this to one another. Heck - your father doesn't even write things like this to me."
What a sad marriage you have.
"That's you," Elsa seethes, looking aside and just willing away the tears that threaten to spill.
"Just come clean with us," Iduna mentions, "this Anna girl is the infatuation that's been distracting you, isn't it?"
A bubble of rage explodes in Elsa's brain. Anna is not an infatuation.
"Oh, would you listen to yourself?" Elsa cries, flicking her results over, "I more than made up for it with straight As. I topped the entire grade-"
Without warning, Agnarr crumples her scores and hurls it back at her. Before bellowing at the top of his lungs, "Answer your mother's question! What the hell are you up to with this girl?"
The force of his voice cowers her. A tear slides down her cheek. She finds only the courage to whimper, "Nothing."
And when Iduna pulls her Macbook from behind her seat, Elsa realises the worst of her parents' vengeance has yet bared its claws. All the air leaves her lungs in one long gasp when the screen pops open. It takes her a few tries, choking on her own breath like she's suddenly forgot how to breathe. All the saucy lesbian fanfiction she'd written lays bare on the screen beneath the living room's harsh lights. A scene describing the lovey-dovey confession between two of her favourite, obviously female characters and the lascivious, raunchy lovemaking that occurs thereafter.
"We weren't even surprised when we found this filth-" Agnarr scowls.
"Stop," Iduna cuts him off.
"What on earth are you doing looking at my computer?" Elsa demands.
"You left the card on your keyboard, sweetie, you can't expect us not to look," Iduna's voice trembles, "I mean - we've always known you were a little different growing up but, seriously? Women? Elsa - we're disappointed in you."
The accusation sends Elsa leaping to her feet. A hand rakes through her hair so hard it unravels her braid, "And exactly what is wrong about this?"
"Are you even listening to yourself right now?" Agnarr bolts up and shoves a finger in her face, "What in Gods name makes you think this is ok?"
"This is me!" Elsa yells back as she pounds her chest, "This is my life - I've published stories about women since I was a Freshman and none of this affected the perfect grades you've forced me-"
Agnarr's hand slices through the air, "This isn't even about your goddamned grades now-"
"Hasn't it always been?"
"I didn't raise you to be some sort of freak!" Agnarr's voice booms through the house.
She staggers backwards. The sight of Iduna's grey-slated, emotionless expression somehow stings more than her father's reddened face. Nothing stops the tears now. And the heaving in her chest when she sees the glowing hatred in their eyes.
"A freak," Elsa whispers with stuttery breaths, blurry eyes staring at the carpet, "Because I like girls."
Agnarr reacts like he's just been shot, slumping into the chair and covering his face.
"Don't worry about this," Iduna pats her husband's knee, "I'll have a word with Dr. Robinson, and maybe she can help her get over this."
"You two are not serious!" Elsa shrieks.
"Shut up! Shut it. It's over for you, miss," Agnarr lurches forward until his towering frame cowers Elsa into submission, "Give me your fucking phone now! And your car keys!"
"Take it!" Elsa screams, hurling both at him, "I don't even want this anymore!"
Faintness overwhelms Elsa's senses but she forces herself up the stairs. She faintly registers the clomp, clomp of her stuff getting hurled into a bin, before she turns around and yells.
"And how the hell am I supposed to study for chem now? All my notes are online, idiot!"
"Come back here!" Agnarr shouts, "We're not done with you yet you prick!"
The shadow of her father's footsteps and the stomping noise hurls her into a blind panic. She stumbles over her feet, bruising her shins on the stairs as she clambers towards her room. She reaches the door just in time, slamming it in his face and locking it shut. The pounding injects another surge of adrenaline into her veins.
"Open the door you fuck," Agnarr's muffled voice breaks through the pounding.
Elsa's eyes flit from wall to wall. The breath leaves her in ragged spurts. Window. Roof. It's not enough but she has to get away from the monster threatening to break down her door. The cool night air hitting her face fails to alleviate her fear. And for the first time, the fear of her father overshadows the fear of that one storey drop. Her eyes water. The last of the sunset's glow just barely drapes their lawn in golden streaks.
Elsa sucks in a breath, and drops herself from the gutter. Hanging onto the edge for a hair-raising few seconds before allowing herself to fall. The impact wrenches all the air from her lungs in one big oomph. But she recoils from the realisation that it's not as painful as she thought. Or she's just numb.
Outside in the quiet night air, Agnarr now sounds like a mile away, "Where the fuck did you go?"
Immediately, she ducks from the house's lights. That source of once-homely warmth and comfort now a jarring pain in her soul. The thought that her parents could very well disown her over this floods her brain with nausea. She needs to get away from all the rage and unfairness. She blindly stumbles into the garage and hauls off one of the half-dozen bicycles from the rack. Through gritted teeth, she comes across her father's guitar collection. Steel stringed, nylons, classicals. The instruments which once lent so much melody into her girly soul now sitting in a row and gathering dust. Fuck him.
She straps one to her back and cycles into the frigid dusk air. Unsure of the life she's leaving behind. Sure only of where she's headed.
As the shaking wears off - it only takes a few minutes for Elsa to realise just how far from home she is. The clean-swept, well-lit suburban pavements give way to broken windows and streetlights. Police sirens wail in the distance. And - are those gunshots? A faint chemical smell lingers in the air. But she presses on. Her persistence rewarded by that single glowing figure on the rooftop of a mossy home.
"Anna," Elsa's broken voice cuts through the darkness. It takes a few tries, hopping and waving to get the attention of a girl so easily lost in one of her own fictional worlds. But she bolts up on the roof when she sees her. Nearly falling off the tiles.
"Oh my god!" Anna cries, voice slicing through the silent air, "What're you doing here?" A dog barks in the distance.
I ran away from home.
Elsa shrugs, and that's all it takes for Anna to invite her onto the roof, "C'mon - get up here - there's a box around the back you can climb on."
Dry splintered wood chafes Elsa's hands. But she's gone through enough today not to overcome this. Anna helps take the guitar off her hands the moment she clambers onto those tiles. Rough and hard, without any of the comfortable trappings of her own rooftop abode. It feels lived-in. Anna quickly makes herself comfortable in the same spot, sitting cross-legged as she unzips the guitar case.
"Did you, um, did you come all the way here to give me a guitar?" Anna's fingers caress the varnished wood, ears leaning towards that delicate, hollow sound it makes.
"No, I um-" Elsa shakes her head.
"Have you been crying?" Anna observes, looking into her reddened eyes. Dried tears still cake her pale skin beneath the dull, orange streetlights.
"It's stupid," Elsa mumbles, "I just needed to get away from that house for a while. I knew you'd be here and I'm sorry for-"
"Don't be," Anna whispers. Her hands warm to the guitar's resonance. She strums a few notes. The gentle sound dances in Elsa's ears and her expression lifts.
"You know how to play a guitar," the trembling in Elsa's voice calms.
"Toldcha I could," Anna pieces a melody together and watches Elsa recline on the tiles, "So what happened? Not that you have to tell me anything, of course. I mean, you've been so kind to me that day and every day after and-"
Elsa sucks in a deep breath, "I came out to my parents."
"Oh," Anna pauses strumming for a second, before continuing, "and, um, I'm guessing it didn't go well."
"It didn't," Elsa sighs, eyes falling on Anna's fingers as they dance across the strings, "they think I'm some sort of freak."
A twang hits her ears as Anna stops playing, "You're not a freak."
Elsa sighs and wipes her eyes, "it's just - after all these years. Everything they've put me through. It still hurts coming from them."
Anna resumes strumming. Switching to a melody made up on the spot. Her mind fractures at the thought of Elsa asking how she came out to Gerda. She dreads telling Elsa about that hug her mother gave her. That never-changing warmth of her embrace. The words whispered into her ears - Oh you'll make some girl so happy one day!
But the question doesn't come. And Anna lets out her breath in relief.
"I don't know if it's appropriate, but should I ask, um, why you did it?" Anna whispers, words interspersed with guitar notes.
"I got caught," Elsa snivels, "the book I gave you - it was supposed to come with a card I wrote and - and they found it."
Anna's eyes widen, "Oh god Elsa, I'm so terribly sorry."
"It's not your fault, if they didn't catch that - they would've found all the homoerotic fanfiction I've been writing online anyway."
The sudden revelation perks Anna upright. Fingers frozen on the guitar strings.
"Homoerotic fanfiction," Anna repeats, the syllables slow and deliberate, "you mean lesbian fanfiction? Between women?"
"It's stupid."
"W-what exactly do you write about in these…fictions?" Anna purrs her question, shifting closer.
"Oh you'd like to know, wouldn't you?" Elsa giggles, "I'm afraid I lack the depth of Rhoda Belleza - all I can do is write about drama and romances between women. Almost like an outlet for all the repressed shit I go through each day."
"A-and they're in love?" Anna's voice deepens.
Elsa's face flushes red as she feels the girl's eyes burning into her. She turns from the intensity of her stare, looking away at the stars. The glittering sky only reminds her of how much inspiration their own story has brought to hers. This girl. That one soul glowing across a distance as immeasurable as the galaxies. Yet right now unbearably close to her in all her brokenness. Elsa's eyes fall shut as she recounts her story.
"I wrote a story about two women in Victorian England, estranged by the expectations of their respective families, yet bound together by the timelessness of the stars scattered across the night-"
Anna's breath halts. Eyes wide open, stars twinking in those baby blues. Her fingers scratch along the tiles for her phone.
"You are not serious!" Anna shrieks, turning her phone towards Elsa. The blonde squints at the dim screen, story's text plain for her to see. The title slams into her head faster than she can comprehend - Stars behind the night sky.
"You - you read-"
"You're ice-princess?" Anna gawks, sucking in several breaths before she sputters, "W-what? Why on earth didn't you tell me?"
The heat rushing through Elsa's face boils over and spreads to her limbs, "It's not like something I'd share - god not even Rapunzel knows-"
A hand closes around Elsa's elbow. Anna's gentle touch despite the eagerness in her voice, "Do you even know how much you've gotten me invested in Cass and 'lise's story?"
Elsa sniggers, "Is that what you've named them?"
"Yes, and you can't stop me!" Anna giggles, nudging Elsa's elbow, "A-are you going to update the next chapter soon?"
A heavy silence falls upon Elsa. Anna withdraws her hand.
"Sorry."
"Anna I'm, I'm sorry - I think I'm gonna take a break from writing for a while," Elsa snivels, "I j-just can't."
"I got excited," Anna whispers, "that story has helped me so much over the months - s-somehow I knew it'd be you."
"You did?"
"The way we met - those quiet nights we spent with each other without even knowing the other existed," Anna describes, her voice low and steeped with desire, "all those letters of longing Cassandra left for Elise, just waiting to be discovered - her listless breaths under the night sky. It all reminds me, so painfully - of you."
The burning embarrassment in Elsa's chest is replaced by that ache again. That thread of longing now wound tight by her utter proximity to Anna and those eyes glowing with desire beneath the dim lights. When Anna's fingers resume their strumming - Elsa's teetering on the edge of breaking. Emptying her heart and venting all of her seething frustration into one feelings-laced confession. Rejection be damned.
"Anna, I-"
"I wrote a song about them," Anna interrupts, "it's stupid."
Elsa's eyes widen, "I want to hear it."
The melody's already simmering in the night air, and Anna's honey-sweet voice sings the lyrics. Her song fills Elsa's heart with a giddy glee. At least she's managed to make someone's life more bearable. A story to look forward to. A love to cling onto - even if it isn't her own. She folds her arms against the cold as Anna plays and sings; just wishing she could wrap them around the girl and soak in the bliss of her innocence and carefree youth. But for now, she's content with letting Anna's song do the job for her.
"Where were we? On that night I met you
All our heart's dreams came true-
Beneath that winter's night sky
Between the stars, we'd fly-"
And something about those sappy lyrics. The melody of Anna's sweet voice. Those eyes brimming with sincerity. It clenches her lungs with longing. A thought grips her very core. If all she did was disappoint two people today.
The very least she could do is make one person proud.