Her dreams fill with the stench of sweat. Yucky, murky gym locker rooms and the shadow of a broken past chasing her through narrow sports centre corridors. She opens the door at the end of each one. Finding a pair of steep cheekbones and eyes glimmering like unbreakable sapphires. Anna jolts herself awake several times throughout the night. Hurling herself back to bed only for the nightmares to repeat themselves. She doesn't mind. Because she knows those eyes will comfort her at the end of each one.
Listless from her dreams, Anna rises at the crack of dawn. A shadow still hangs over the Quadrangle, and she waits until the sun glows upon the neatly-trimmed grass. It's still too early for a run. She jerks as the streetlights switch off. It's bright enough that she can see her own reflection in the glass - and it forces her to turn away.
You'll never be ready at this rate.
Teeth gritted, Anna puts on a pair of sneakers and heads into the brisk morning air. As expected, it's a bit of a slog. She barely makes one lap before her lungs are on the verge of melting. Wheezing for her dear life. Her eyes fly to an approaching shadow. Just the security guard. Her instincts steel upon every small movement around her, and she ends up half-walking-half-jogging all the way through the next five laps. Acid fills her legs. Her heart strains. A trail of sweat and tears dribble down her chin, probably mixed with saliva. But there's a beaming sense of pride when she successfully chews through the last hundred yards.
Seagulls trace across the morning sky. Bright blue and cloudless. She shuts her eyes and sucks in the biggest lungful of crisp, clear air she can inhale. Letting the freshness cleanse every cell in her aching lungs. A new beginning.
Footsteps flutter by. She opens her eyes to the sight of a familiar blonde striding across the Quadrangle. Elsa? That woman looks like she'd been running for an hour. Which means she must've ran up the dimly-lit hill right before sunrise. Isn't she afraid of getting mugged? Oh wait, she's a fucking boxer or whatever it is she is, Elsa doesn't fear shit. That braid dangles behind her lithe, athletic body as she disappears into an apartment block on the other side. It happens so quickly she swears it could've been a vestigal hallucination from her dream. But even if it was, it only solidifies Anna's only thought towards Elsa.
She wants to be like her.
Running is hard. Heck. Jogging is hard. Wait - did that even count as jogging? Jog-walking is hard. The squeaking in her lungs nearly audible when she hauls her ass up the stairs. Legs wobbly like spaghetti. Belle's already up when she gets back, once again microwaving a bowl of oatmeal.
"Ooh, someone's turning a corner on the whole morning thing," Belle chirps.
Anna smiles, trying to hide the pain flickering through her limbs. She doesn't know if she'd even make it to the shower, and slumps into a dining chair. A cramp develops in her stomach. She grimaces.
"I made some extra," Belle lays out a bowl of steaming oatmeal before Anna's eyes, "you look like you need it."
It resembles a grey puddle of sludge. But it smells sweet. Or perhaps Anna's just ravenous after what little exercise she just did on an empty stomach. When that first spoon hits her tastebuds, the flavour spreads through her brain like spun cotton candy. Already she feels the ache in her muscles lift.
"God, this is yummy!" Anna mumbles with her mouth full, before cramming another spoon in, "What on earth did you put in it?"
"Banana and chocolate, and good ol' sugar."
"That explains it," Anna finishes the rest of her oatmeal. She looks up to see if Belle's watching, before running her tongue around the rim.
"You're an animal," Belle mocks.
"Did you eat like this back home?"
There's a faint sigh leaving Belle's nose. She taps her spoon on an empty bowl.
"Yea, my mom taught me how to make it this way."
Anna's brow twitches. Her mind flutters to the things Iduna taught her. Playing the piano. How to sew. Making chicken casserole. The best place to spot warblers and woodpeckers. Where to hide when things get out of hand.
Belle looks straight at her, teeth biting on a lip.
"I was like, super young when the Officers came by and told us my Dad died in Iraq," Belle rifles a hand through her brown locks, "and my mom - after hearing the god-awful news, still found enough presence of mind to sit my crying ass down and make me a bowl of oatmeal."
"Oh god Belle, I'm so sorry-"
"That was like, 12 years ago," Belle gets up, "But ever since then I kinda viewed a bowl of oatmeal as a symbol of her resilience."
Woah - that's deep. And unexpected. Anna swirls the spoon around the empty bowl. Wondering if there's an a symbol she can cling onto to represent her own resilience towards the broken past she's endured. Or someone.
All her semester pre-readings resemble foreign languages. And none of the run-jog-walk-crawls she endures bring her closer to any semblance of fitness. Heaving and wheezing up the steps after each morning session. Still, Belle's oatmeal presents a welcome breakfast to look forward to. And hearing her mother's gentle voice on the other end of a phone line. Even if she does gently remind her there's no need to call every single day.
Monday rolls around way too quickly. She manages to lose her way to all her classes like a kid in a hedge maze. Manages to get a headache in every single one of her lectures. Despite the cheery girls in her Economics tutorial asking if she'd like to join a group project. And the slightly too friendly guys asking her to sign up for a beer pong contest. Anna still finds herself looking over her shoulder at the end of every hallway. Eyes jumping from blonde to blonde. Ash. Champagne. Strawberry. Too dark. Too red. Never that right shade of ice-white. Kristoff said she's a freshman, didn't he?
It doesn't help when Anna shows up to the boxing gym ahead of time and fails to spot Elsa. That weird stench of man-sweat multiplied over the weekend. The corridors appear narrower. Kristoff, however, looks ecstatic.
"You came! I thought you were going to change your mind and I'll have to start looking for a homeless shelter-"
Anna peers around the gym. The same two dudes punching each other in the face. An asian guy skipping in Elsa's corner. Another two guys working at the heavy bags. She mentally plots a straight line through each one of them and finds a spot furthest away from them all. A rolled up skipping rope flies into her hands the instant she drops her bags.
"Christ-"
"Get skipping!" Kristoff coaxes, setting a timer, "I'll check back on you in a few minutes."
She isn't ready for this. The mirrors glare back at her from every conceivable angle, and she faces away as she tries it out. C'mon, this is kindergarten shit. The rope weighs featherlight, and stings her shins more than once when she trips over it. Minutes later, despite having hopped on the same spot and stumbled more than a few times - Anna feels like she's managed to go nowhere while looking like a fool at the same time. Kristoff comes over and puts her out of her misery with all-too-kind words.
"That was a great job!" Kristoff fails to keep the sarcasm from his voice.
Her lungs heave. Sweat glazes her limbs despite the A/C feeling like winter. How could hopping around in the same spot be this tiring? Limp with exhaustion, she doesn't protest when Kristoff takes what looks like strips of ragcloth and wraps her hands snug.
"Hope you saved some gas. You gotta take up running if you're expecting to get through these classes-"
The gym's still filled with wordless grunts interspersed with the thwack of gloves on leather and flesh. They haven't so much as stopped or taken a break since she's started. Oh yea, you're gonna need a bigger tank.
She flinches when Kristoff stands right behind her and swivels her to face a mirror. Her eyes screw shut at her own reflection in the mirror. Right before Kristoff starts waving a hand before her face.
"Yoohoo!" he chirps in her ears, "This is you, your pretty face - it's not going away."
Her reflection stares back at her when she eases open her eyes. T-shirt sticking to her chest and ragged track pants. Her pigtails have unravelled with sweat. Lips pursed in a line, Anna nods at his words. Not going away.
"Stand straight!" Kristoff coaxes. Her skin prickles from his touch, if only to elevate her hands into a closed guard. Clenched fists beside her cheekbones. He kicks her feet apart into a boxing stance.
"Remember," Kristoff blocks her view for a moment, "the first rule of boxing, keep your guard up at all times. You never know when someone's going to hit you back."
Hit you back.
Anna swallows, and nods again. Still no sign of Elsa. Kristoff stands beside her and teaches her a jab. A cross. A hook. All the while repeatedly adjusting her hands to cover her face after each strike.
"C'mon, you gotta stop dropping that right arm-" the slightest trace of exasperation seeps through his voice.
She looks down at the enormity of his palm as it closes around her elbow. Her heart shrinks at the thought of how easily he could snap it, but that gentle look of care in his eyes eases her fears.
A few more minutes pass. Throwing imaginary punches at her own reflection, getting corrected repeatedly by Kristoff's patient hands. Her shoulders ache from the repetition. It's worse than hauling textbooks up the stairs. And if that's not enough, Kristoff brings out a pair of beat up boxing gloves.
"Put these on."
They smell like ass and weigh a tonne. She looks at the label - Kids' boxing gloves, ages 12 and below. Oh right. She rolls her eyes.
"Oh I saw that," Kristoff snickers, "we all gotta start somewhere!"
"I'm eighteen," Anna argues, "And c'mon I'm not a midget-"
"You can graduate to the grown-up gloves if you keep your damn hands up for more than a minute."
The leather-bound weights drag her aching shoulders down with each punch she hurls into the heavy bag. What did they fill that thing with? Rocks? It barely budges despite Anna throwing everything she's got into each punch. Kristoff keeps stopping to adjust her hands. A warmth spreads through her chest. Lungs ache. But it feels different than the skipping from earlier. Anna keels over to catch her breath, giving her own reflection a side-eye. There's a glow behind her reddened cheeks, and as she searches her mental dictionary for that right word. It dawns upon her.
This actually feels kinda…fun?
She hadn't even noticed the other guys have left, save for the asian dude slumped in a corner swigging Gatorade. Still no sign of Elsa.
"Rest time's over," Kristoff pokes her in the shoulders, "into the ring you go."
"It's not over?" Anna exclaims, "I've been at it for like-"
"Not even thirty minutes-"
A pair of boxing mitts covers Kristoff's hands. The black, worn-down leather appears dull beneath the lights. Probably from years of getting smashed in. And now she's next in line. He holds one up, and Anna punches it. He holds it up again, slightly further - but that little distance is enough to make her miss by miles, stumbling from the weight she's thrown forward.
"Step forward," Kristoff coaxes, "you're not gonna get what you want in life if you don't go there."
"Thank you, Yoda," Anna snarks back. Still, the advice isn't lost on her. She steps forward, catching the mitt with a loud thwack that echoes through the empty gym. It fills her with a satisfying glee.
Thwack, thwack, thwack. That brimming cathartic joy fills her yet again.
Thwack.
"Keep your damn hands up," Kristoff lifts her elbow.
Thwack.
A miniscule shift of his posture, and she nearly trips over her feet trying to keep up.
Thwack.
"C'mon Anna, is that all you got?"
She grits her teeth.
Thwack, thwack, thwack.
"Your hands Anna, keep them up!" Kristoff seethes, bumping her elbow, "I'm not gonna tell you again."
But the gloves weigh like concrete.
Thwack.
She realises her cheek's exposed a split-second too late. All she sees are Kristoff's teeth gritting back at her. He doesn't even twitch. The mitt slaps her hard across the face. Anna's world explodes into shards of pain and tears. The mat catches up to her falling face like a car wreck. Her lungs contract to a pinpoint, straining with unmet breaths. And her heart's ready to detonate from pounding this hard.
Get up, get up.
Kristoff's voice ebbs away into the distance. The last thing she makes out are her hands and knees cramping into the foetal position.
Right on the verge of passing out, Anna hears police sirens and the pouring rain.