Threads of Summer
Chapter 9: Anna
"Oh lordy, child! What happened to your face? It looks like you got beat into next Tuesday!"
Although Anna's fisted tussle with Hans Isles had quickly taken over the Aarondale gossip circuit—with some even claiming she'd put Hans in the hospital in traction—the story hadn't yet escaped their immediate social circles. Parents were typically the last to know, or at least that's what they let their kids believe. Most parents feigned ignorance about their children's antics, knowing that showing how much they really knew might cut them out of the loop entirely.
But Anna could tell her mother, Jenn Aarons, wasn't faking her surprise. The genuine shock on her face as Anna entered the house, her left eye swollen and blackened, made that clear.
"Momma…" Anna whined, drawing out the word as she followed her mother into the kitchen.
She half-convinced herself that her appearance didn't matter, but a quick glance in the decorative mirror above the kitchen sink said otherwise. The redness around the lump on her forehead had faded, but the black eye looked worse than ever. Her vision had blurred on the car ride home, and it was almost impossible to keep her eye open now. The sight of her reflection made her stomach sink, and she wondered if Elsa had been just as put off by her battered face.
"Here, take this," her mother said, tossing a bag of frozen peas from the freezer.
Anna fumbled the bag, nearly dropping it, before pressing it gingerly to her eye. She hissed at the icy sting.
"Wrap a napkin around it," her mother instructed.
Anna complied, sighing in relief as the compress dulled the pain. It didn't do much for her hangover, but at least it was something.
"Better?" Jenn asked, leaning in to inspect the damage.
"Better," Anna replied.
Jenn pried the compress away, carefully opening Anna's eyelids to examine the movement of her eye. She blew gently over it as Anna's lids fluttered shut, then replaced the compress with a satisfied nod.
"You're going to be just fine," Jenn said, stepping back and crossing her arms. "But you still haven't told me how you got that shiner."
Her mother's tone and posture had shifted into her usual no-nonsense mode, the one that usually accompanied a lecture or grounding. But Anna could see the concern behind the act.
She sighed. The last thing she wanted was to worry her mother. But if Jenn told her father and Kai, she was certain they'd go after Hans in a fury. And while Hans probably deserved it, Anna figured she'd already handled him enough—his bruised ego was payback enough for his very public humiliation.
"I wasn't watching my step and ran into a pole," she fibbed.
Jenn raised a skeptical brow. "Is that so?"
Before Anna could say more, Kristoff entered the kitchen with a loud snort.
"A pole?" he scoffed. "The only pole I know is a tool named Hans Isles."
"Kristoff!" Anna swung the bag of peas at him, missing wildly.
"Hey! It's the truth. Why are you even covering for that loser?"
"I'm not!" Anna shot back.
"Well, it sure seems that way to me," Kristoff countered.
"You've got it all wrong," Anna protested. "I'm just—"
"—being a total doormat for some asswipe who doesn't even deserve to breathe," Kristoff interrupted. "I just don't get you sometimes. Grow a spine."
Jenn placed a firm hand on Kristoff's shoulder, silencing him. "You're just trying not to rile up your daddy and me?" she asked, her tone softening. "Afraid he might do something to that boy that'd land us in trouble?"
"Yes, ma'am," Anna muttered, lowering her gaze. Her mother could read her like a book.
She debated leaving it at that but decided it was better that her mother heard the truth from her before the gossip did. "I… I may have—possibly—broken Hans's nose."
"You—?"
Anna nodded. "I decked him pretty hard. There was a lot of blood."
Jenn didn't respond right away. Anna braced herself for an outburst, but instead, her mother's face turned thoughtful. Without a word, she switched on the coffee maker and reached for a pair of snowman mugs from the cupboard.
"Coffee?" Jenn offered, holding up the mugs to Anna and Kristoff.
They both nodded.
Kristoff pulled a loaf of bread from the pantry while Anna grabbed bacon and eggs from the fridge.
"So," Jenn began casually, pouring coffee into the mugs, "tell me everything about this party. Are they still throwing those end-of-summer raves at Sutter's Grove?"
"They haven't done that in ages," Anna said, setting a frying pan on the stove. "It moved after the barn burned down. And we don't call them raves anymore. It's not the '90s."
She gave her mother a teasing smile, and they fell into easy conversation. Anna listed off the people who'd been at the bonfire, while Jenn chimed in with nostalgic stories of her own summer parties from years ago.
But Kristoff stayed unusually quiet, and it didn't take Anna long to figure out why.
"Don't worry about it," she whispered when her mother wasn't looking. "We're good."
Kristoff nodded, his expression softening, and mumbled a quiet, "I'm sorry."
~X~
After breakfast, Anna trudged her way up the stairs to her bedroom and collapsed on her bed like a sack of potatoes. An image of Hans crumbled on the ground, rocking his bloodied nose, briefly flickered in her mind.
Her eyes closed as soon as her head made contact with the pillow, but sleep didn't come. Her thoughts churned, torn between the ache of her hangover and the gnawing worry over how her father might react to the black eye she'd earned from their former Golden Boy. Her mother, on the other hand, had been entirely unbothered. In fact, when Kai joined them for breakfast and asked about her shiner, her mother had been downright gleeful.
"Rocky over here knocked the smug out of Hans the stud," Jenn Aarons had quipped, her words muffled by a mouthful of bacon.
Kai had been startled at first, but Kristoff, ever ready with a remark, muttered into his coffee, "You mean 'Hans the dud,' right?"
That had done it. The cowhand had burst into hearty laughter, and Anna, despite her pounding headache, couldn't stop herself from cracking a small, reluctant smile.
The conversation had inevitably shifted to the upcoming rodeo. Anna, already tuning out, excused herself from the table. Her hangover wasn't cooperating, and the eggs hadn't agreed with her and all she could stomach were coffee and toast.
Upstairs, the faint murmur of Kristoff's voice floated up the stairs. Despite her room being on the second floor, his excitement carried easily. She couldn't make out exactly what he was telling her mother and Kai, but she caught bits and pieces, mostly about Elsa. Of course, it was about Elsa.
These days, everything about Elsa seemed to excite Kristoff. The way he made moon eyes at her cousin, trailing after her like some lovesick puppy, left Anna with a deep, unsettled knot in her stomach. She felt embarrassed for him—he didn't even seem to realize how desperate he looked—but beyond that, resentment was beginning to creep in.
What if she likes him back?
The thought made her stomach churn. She couldn't shake the memory of last night: Elsa and Kristoff sitting close under the stars, the flickering glow of the bonfire casting a warm light over them. It had been the perfect setup, like something straight out of a Folgers coffee commercial.
Anna clenched her fists and slammed them into her pillow, heat rising in her cheeks.
I can't believe I kissed her last night. Who does that?
Groaning, she buried her face into the pillow and clutched it tightly, frustration coursing through her. Embarrassment and regret seeped out of her, so much so that she felt herself drowning it. But exhaustion weighed upon her more heavily than her overwhelming shame, and she eventually drifted off, the memory of the kiss still lingering in her thoughts.
~X~
It was a cold night, the rolling fog so dense that Anna couldn't see anything beyond the frosted windows of her mother's pickup truck. She pressed her hand to the glass, expecting the chill to bite at her skin, but it was warm—uncomfortably warm—despite the misty puffs of breath that formed as she exhaled sharply.
"Do you like me?" Elsa's voice came soft and low, a whisper that sent an electrifying tingle skimming along Anna's ear and down her spine.
Anna startled, the suddenness of her cousin's presence unsettled her, yet it melted beneath the magnetic pull of Elsa's warmth and the way her azure eyes seemed to capture the dim glow of the truck's dashboard light. The strangeness of their circumstance dissipated with the fog, and Anna found herself leaning closer. Her lips parted slightly, anticipation fluttering in her chest, her eyes drifting closed as she became distantly aware of a familiar song playing on the radio.
"Why won't you say it?" Elsa murmured, her voice impossibly close now. Anna could feel the heat of her breath, warm and familiar yet strangely surreal, ghosting over her lips. Something about this moment felt disconnected, untethered from reality.
This isn't right.
Anna's gaze flicked downward, catching the faint glow of the radio. The lyrics of the song pricked at her memory, teasing her with a memory she couldn't quite grasp.
"…for miles along the highway… well, that's just my way of sayin' I…"
I know this song.
"…always walkin' after midnight, searchin' for you…"
Elsa's fingers gently tilted Anna's chin, her touch both tender and commanding. "I know you like me, Anna. You like me a lot."
Her husky voice paralyzed Anna, robbing her of words and silencing any rational thought. She couldn't move away, couldn't resist, as their lips closed the space between them. The kiss was inevitable, and when it finally came, Anna surrendered to it completely, her hand instinctively rising to cradle Elsa's face.
But just as she began to lose herself in the moment, Elsa was gone.
The warmth vanished, replaced by the cold bite of emptiness. The truck door, locked just seconds ago, now hung wide open. Beyond it, the fog stretched endlessly into an abyss. The silence pressed in, broken only by the faint echo of the song that seemed to have followed Elsa into the void.
This never happened. Her mind grasped at the thought like a lifeline. This isn't real.
"It's not real," a man's voice echoed her unspoken thoughts.
Anna jolted, her head whipping around to find Kristoff sprawled in the cramped backseat, his long legs awkwardly folded.
"This is a dream," he said matter-of-factly, frowning as he shifted uncomfortably. "There's not much legroom back here, is there?"
"Kristoff?" Anna rasped, her voice meek as she struggled to make sense of the strangeness unfolding around her.
He leaned back, grinning lazily. "You really need to wake up, Anna," he drawled. "Because you're dreaming if you think she'll choose you over me."
~X~
"Wake up, Anna! We've got practice."
Anna groaned, peeling herself off the pillow. Her head was foggy, and the dried trail of drool on her cheek and the damp patch on her pillowcase didn't improve her mood. A shaft of sunlight pierced through the window, blinding her momentarily, and she flopped back down to adjust to the glare.
Practice? Since when do we have practice?
She struggled to piece things together, vaguely recalling a conversation over breakfast about the rodeo—something she'd tuned out after her mother had slipped her half a dose of Vicodin.
"Come on!" Kristoff's impatient voice interrupted her thoughts as he tugged at her arm, attempting to drag her out of bed. "Elsa and Jane are waiting for us downstairs."
Before Anna could fully comprehend what was happening, Jane's head appeared in the doorway. The girl stammered a string of apologies about intruding on Anna's personal space, her words awkward and hurried. By the time Anna had managed to shove both Kristoff and Jane out of her room, the picture had started to come together. Kristoff had apparently invited the girls over that morning when he'd gone to pick her up at Elsa's family ranch.
Not ready to face her cousin so soon—and still groggy from the medication—Anna thought about postponing practice. But one look at Kristoff's pleading expression as he hovered outside the door won her over.
"Fine! I'll come down. Just give me a minute to get ready."
As soon as she heard their footsteps descend into the living room, Anna crept out of her room and peered over the railing. She wasn't surprised to see Kristoff had already gravitated toward Elsa, who was deep in conversation with Anna's mother. Unlike the casual tone Jenn Aarons always used with Anna, she addressed Elsa like an adult, speaking to her like an equal. Quite the opposite from Anna.
And it wasn't hard to see why.
Anna, by comparison, looked like a child—unkempt in her messy braids and oversized plaid shirts. Elsa, however, exuded poise and elegance. She wore a pale, long-sleeved blouse with gold buttons, its ruffled collar fastened neatly with a thin brown satin bow tie. Her asymmetrical skirt, though slightly too short for Sunday service, still struck the perfect balance of femininity and style.
Anna would never dream of wearing something so distinctly girlish, yet she couldn't help but admire how effortlessly it suited Elsa. For the first time, Anna considered that maybe skirts and dresses weren't so bad after all.
She realized she'd been staring far too long when Elsa's gaze suddenly flicked upward, catching her in the act. Heat rushed to Anna's face, and she stumbled backward into her room.
Three minutes later, Anna had thrown on a pair of blue jeans, black boots, and a dark collared shirt, ignoring the stack of red plaid flannels cluttering her closet. It wasn't much, but it would do.
As she turned to the mirror, though, her hair gave her pause. Her long braids, usually her preferred style, suddenly seemed juvenile when paired with her black eye. She looked like a delinquent thirteen-year-old, and for reasons she couldn't quite articulate, the thought unsettled her.
It took her another fifteen minutes to undo the braids and wrangle her hair into something resembling a natural wave. When she finally made her way downstairs, Kristoff gave a low whistle.
"First, you go all Butch Cassidy on Hans' face, and now you're letting your hair down," he said, shaking his head in disbelief. "Am I in the Twilight Zone, or have the pod people invaded?"
"The what?" Jane asked, blinking at Kristoff as though he'd just sprouted a third eye on his forehead.
"It's a science fiction reference, Janie," Elsa explained, though her answer did little to clarify things for her friend.
Jane still looked puzzled, so Elsa added with a shrug, "It's a nerd thing."
Anna couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of the exchange, her laugh light and unguarded. The tips of Kristoff's ears flushed a bright pink, though Jane's unimpressed expression didn't waver. Then Kristoff shot a bashful glance in Elsa's direction, running his fingers through his hair in a boyish, self-conscious sort of gesture. And the sight made something twist uncomfortably in Anna's chest. She couldn't shake off the unease that lingered from the strange dream she'd had earlier.
But none of that mattered when Elsa's eyes met hers.
"You look nice," Elsa said softly, the rasp in her voice disarming Anna's composure.
The room seemed to narrow. Everything else faded into the background, and a warmth crept up Anna's neck, settling beneath her collar. She suddenly felt unsteady, almost lightheaded. The thought crossed through her mind that it might have been side effects from the medication, but deep down, she knew it wasn't that. It was Elsa—her eyes, her presence, and the way her lips curved faintly in amusement—that was sending Anna into a tizzy.
Anna had momentarily forgotten her insecurities about her battered appearance, and even the nagging shame tied to the unspoken feelings she harbored for her cousin. So why couldn't she shake off that stupid dream? Or the creeping resentment it had left behind?