Chapter eight

The worst case

One of Elsa's most cherished pastimes with her mom was sitting together on the family room couch and reading. Throughout much of her early teens, her mother would read aloud book after book from some of her favorite science fiction series, sitting tall in the left seat while Elsa listened raptly from the middle. In all, they'd probably made it through at least thirty books this way, and in doing so, had firmly established in Elsa a love for all things science fiction.

Well, "all things" was a bit too sweeping of a descriptor. And the book she now held in her hands was putting it to the test.

Elsa struggled to get through the paragraph before her as it descended, unwarranted, into ludicrous technobabble and excessive prose which utterly failed to disguise the fact that, a third of the way through the slim book, the main plot had barely made an appearance. She finally closed the book without putting in a bookmark, and stared again at the laudatory reviews plastered all over the cover. Whatever week this had topped the New York Times bestseller list, it must have been an off week for the writing community at large.

She got up from the middle seat of the sofa and set the book down on the coffee table. Just like that, her plans for the better part of the afternoon had evaporated. She'd brought other books, of course, but only a limited quantity. If she was going to stay here for…well, however long she was going to, she'd need to avoid just blowing through her entire collection. And there were more in the house, but…

Her eyes drifted to the basement door. She pinched her forehead.

They were down there.

She chastised herself for being such a baby about this. Just dash down, grab a book, dash back up here, simple as that. Except she knew for a fact such decisive actions were too much for her. She'd scan the bookshelves, looking for just the right one, and every book she passed over that she already knew would trigger a new round of memories. Not to mention, if she looked in literally any other direction, a literal mess of memories would assail her. Old toys, games, furniture, and other scraps of a time gone by had formed what was basically a second carpet, and any effort to dig one book out of there would drag a whole lot more with it.

Sure, everywhere in the house was also plastered with memories, but she'd been able to stay relatively focused by fixing her attention on one thing at a time. One sad thought could be brushed aside with ease, using those essential "ignore the problem by focusing on a different, more manageable problem" skills she'd developed in college. But she'd still stayed far from the basement whenever possible, because she saw little chance of doing the same when there were just so many potential triggers down there.

Unless…

An idea arose in her mind. Not necessarily a brilliant one, a 6.5 out of 10 at best, but beggars couldn't be choosers.

What if she didn't view it as hundreds of different things, but instead just one thing – a mess that needed to be cleaned? Not only would cleaning up the basement pave the way for her to go down there later without being overwhelmed, but by filing everything under M, maybe she could create the necessary cognitive distance necessary to not devolve into a weeping wreck. They were just objects, at the end of the day. Her toys never held much emotional significance to her parents when it was time to pick them all up and put them away. Maybe the same principle could apply here.

Oh sure, foolproof plan. I'll give it 8 minutes before you fuck it up somehow.

Just thinking about it now, her heart was already suffering from those awful twinges she'd been doing a passable job at keeping buried. But she knew she'd have to clean the basement at some point. Leaving their house in such disarray would be an affront to their memories, especially her dad's.

So, with white knuckles, she steeled herself. She would do what she always did when something burdened her mind and inaction only emboldened it. She'd grit her teeth, put her head down, and clean the hell out of something.

It was always much chillier in the basement than anywhere else in the house, and Elsa smiled as the refreshing blast of cool air hit her as she descended. All the more reason to reclaim the space for later use.

The absolute carnage was visible even before she even reached a light switch. The small shafts of light shining in through the half-windows just above ground level were enough to illuminate the artificially uneven terrain. Yet once the lights were on, the sheer extent of the disarray was something to behold.

The basement was split about 60/40 between her and Anna's old play area and their mother's craft room, the latter of which had steadily expanded as the two of them had spent less time down here. Both were equally messy, the old Marbleworks sculptures and decayed Lego sculptures giving way to multicolored paper scraps and empty sticker sheets. Besides the obvious qualifier of "not on Mom's side," it was hard to say where she should start.

Against the far wall, she spotted a mostly bare shelf that could be a good receptacle for a lot of the junk at her feet. She began clearing a path towards it, placing the toys directly in her path on a nearby table. Most of the stuff that wasn't in its property place was Anna's, so it was especially fortuitous that she was attempting this task alone. She would not succeed in a mere day, but just making a dent in this mess would be satisfying enough.

She made it to the shelf and began to study the few objects that were upon it, hoping to pick up on any pattern she could potentially play into. As she did, she realized the shelf was not quite flush against the wall, one corner having been yanked away from it at some point in the distant past. Better to adjust that now, while it was mostly empty. She placed her hands on the edge and pushed, and the shelf slid into place with minimal resistance.

WHAM

Elsa jumped. Immediately, she whirled around. Looking down, the source of the sound became immediately clear. It was a board, or more precisely two fragments of one, lying flat on the floor. Anna's first broken board from her brief dalliance with karate class. It must've been on the top shelf, standing on its side to more prominently show off the name and date written on it in sharpie. She hadn't even thought to check before moving the damn shelf. A few feet to the side and it would've landed right on her head. Imagine explaining that one to-

Elsa pinched the bridge of her nose. "Please, Anna, tell me you didn't hear that," she muttered to herself. "You're all the way up in your room, there's no way you could've-"

But as if to spite her, she heard the sound of Anna moving above her. It was hard to miss; even on normal occasions, she rarely descended the stairs quietly.

Well, way to go, Elsa. You wanted to spare her from coming down here and facing all these memories, and instead you forced her hand. Added bonus: you even made her think you got injured in the process. And here I thought it would take you eight whole minutes to fuck something up.

Judging by the sound of her descent, Anna would probably be down here in about eight or nine seconds. But Elsa resolved to put that time to good use. With one hand, she lifted up her braid, and then with the other, she sunk her nails deep into the flesh in the back of her neck, stopping short of drawing blood, but definitely going deep enough to hurt. Her hand gripped her braid tighter, not in pain, but in anger.

Why can't I do anything right?

She's probably fine. That noise could've been anything.

So said the voice in Anna's head, yet she still raced down the stairs at breakneck speed, just in case she was wrong. Sure enough, as soon as she reached the bottom, she saw Elsa standing there, 100% healthy.

"Hey, Anna," she said casually.

"Oh, hey…Elsa," Anna gasped. It seemed the short sprint had left her winded, which gave her one more thing to feel embarrassed about.

"Guess you heard that, then," Elsa said, gesturing at the ground. "It was on the top shelf…"

Anna looked at where she was pointing, at the wooden board on the floor. "Oh yeah, that," she said.

It was a good thing that minor burst of activity had already left her red in the face. She scratched the back of her neck. "Guess I overreacted there," she said sheepishly.

"No, I get it," Elsa said. "Thanks for being concerned."

The air of awkwardness was thickening.

"So, uh, what were you doing down here?" Anna looked around. Against the carpet of stuff, the path of clean Elsa had carved out was clear as day. "Are you cleaning?"

"Ah, just a little," Elsa said dismissively. "Wasn't gonna spend more than a few minutes at it."

Now that was suspicious. Once Elsa started something, she usually intended to see it through to completion, particularly when it involved cleaning. And she was fidgeting a lot.

Anna looked down to the board again. Judging from the date, it had to be the first one she'd ever broken. Mom and Dad had been so proud - they'd even bought her favorite milkshake on the trip back home. After she achieved that, though, her interest in the hobby had waned. She'd done the thing you're supposed to do in a martial arts class, and she felt no different for it. About two boards later, she'd told them she was thinking about quitting, and they'd accepted this without quibble. After all, at that point, it hadn't become a pattern yet…

She snapped her head back up. "I thought we said that memory was the enemy," she said.

Elsa nodded morosely. "Yeah, we did," she said.

"Then why are you down here?" Anna pressed.

Elsa fidgeted some more. "I just thought I could…" she started, before falling silent again. "I thought maybe…" Again, she failed to find any good paths to continue that train of thought.

You think you can take it and I can't, Anna realized. And maybe that's true. But now that I'm down here, I'm not just going to run back up and prove you right.

"Well, whatever," Anna said. She turned to the opposing wall, where their old toy chest sat with door ajar. "If you find anything that belongs over here, just toss it to my side of the room, and I'll do the same."

"Oh, that's really not necessary," Elsa said quickly. "I told you, I was just going to be here for a little while."

"Then I'll just be here for a little while, too," Anna countered. "And we'll have made double the progress that you would've alone." With that, she squatted down and started picking things up.

"Well, still, there's…" Elsa began, before accepting that she wasn't going to be able to talk Anna out of it. "Just let me know if you need help." Mildly frustrated, she turned back to her own shelf.

"Will do," Anna said. Her stubbornness was the cause of many of her struggles in life, but she at least took pride in the fact that she could still stonewall through whatever complex plans her sister might set up.

Unless her plan from the start was to trick me into helping her.

She considered this possibility, but ultimately rejected it. She didn't seem to be in a scheming mood today, more of a 'I'm going to do something I don't want to, and not ask for help when I really need it' mood. It was not an uncommon one for her.

For the time being, she set her mind to the task at hand. She picked up a pair of Barbie dolls that had to be pushing 30 by now, and placed them in the toy box. You know, the toy box her dad had built by hand, the toy box that the two of them had helped paint, the toy box they had begged him not to sell even after they got too old to-

She shook her head. The toy box. Just the toy box. Focus on that.

Afternoon had not yet concluded by the time Elsa decided to take a break, but it was certainly on its way out the door. She and Anna had both been working towards the near end of the room, away from their mother's side and towards their old sofa – the basement got all the hand-me-down furniture from upstairs. She took a seat on it now, and Anna swiftly noticed this and followed suit, flopping down on the other side of it.

When Anna relaxed, she really relaxed. Her whole body went slack, her shoulders sagged as far as they physically could without her dislocating them, and her head lolled back into the sofa. Elsa had always been rather jealous of this talent of hers. She attempted to emulate her, but just felt like she was sinking straight down into the couch like one of those pin mold toys – which, fittingly enough, was one of the many things that she'd put in its proper place today.

She looked upon the semi-cleaned room with pride. Anna's claim about doubling her productivity had been a slight exaggeration, but half of their side of the room was now put in order, which meant a third of the basement was now clean. Well, the carpet looked like it'd need a deeper cleaning, but that was several milestones down the road from now.

Anna had taken it like a champ, as far as she could tell. Throughout the many glances she'd shot her over the last few hours, she seemed to be proceeding without a hint of the emotional pain she had feared she'd be going through. Perhaps, since she hadn't spent any time away from the place for a while, the effect wasn't nearly as strong. Or perhaps Anna was just stronger than she'd given her credit for. Whatever the reason, her worst-case scenario had failed to manifest, despite her best efforts.

"Man, I am beat," Anna said. "Is this what you working types feel like every day?"

Elsa chuckled. "We do still get weekends, you know."

"Sure," Anna said. "But you can't just shake that off in two days, right? It's gotta stick with you over the weekend."

"Sometimes," Elsa admitted. "Depends on the workload."

"Well, guess I've got that to look forward to," Anna said. "Hooray, being an adult."

She pulled the lever on the side of the sofa, and her seat reclined. Elsa did the same, but the lever didn't move, as if it was stuck on something. She jiggled it back and forth, then pulled harder on it.

"Oh, that one's stuck," Anna said. "We've been meaning to check it out, but it hasn't been-"

The foot piece shot up violently, causing both of them to jump. A basketball bounced out from beneath the seat.

Anna watched the ball as it rolled along the floor. "So that's where it ended up," she said.

Elsa walked over and picked the ball up, staring at it in disbelief. "How did that get there?" she asked.

Anna shrugged. "I dunno," she said. I haven't seen that ball in about two years, that's all I know."

Elsa looked at her. "So that seat's been stuck for two years, and you never investigated it?"

"We didn't really use this sofa much," Anna said defensively. "If anyone was sitting on it, it'd usually just be me, so I didn't really need two working seats, did I?"

"I guess," Elsa said, looking back at the ball. "Wow, it's been years since I got any use out of this." She tried spinning the ball on her finger. As if to illustrate her point, it slipped off immediately and bounced away. "Remember when I was sixteen and I convinced Dad to set up that hoop on the driveway, and had a little match?"

"Oh, you mean that match where you let me win?" Anna replied.

Elsa put a hand to her chest in mock offense. "How could you accuse me of such a thing?"

"Gee, I don't know," Anna said. "Maybe because you scored five times in the first few minutes, then spent twenty minutes not scoring once while I tried to score."

"You still remember that?" Elsa marveled. "After almost a decade?"

"Of course," Anna said. "I can't remember the difference between a cosine and a tangent, but that one moment of that one day?" She tapped her head. "In there forever."

"Well, what can I say, except 'you're welcome?'" Elsa said.

Anna chuckled. It was a lot lower energy than she'd had a moment ago, though, something Elsa had become well attuned to over the years. She looked over and, sure enough, Anna was now frowning in concentration, looking at the basketball. It seemed something had dragged her deep into thought with little notice.

The atmosphere seemed to chill as silence fell. It felt to her as if something very important was about to be said. She felt nervous, and considered breaking the moment – if she changed the topic of conversation now, it seemed unlikely Anna would try to bring it back. But she knew she had no right to defer any uncomfortable questions further. She'd had a long enough grace period – it was time for the other shoes to start dropping. "Hey, what's up?" she prompted.

Anna took a while before responding, perhaps arranging and rearranging the words in her head. Then she turned to Elsa. "Did you know back then?" she asked. "How you felt about me."

And there it was. She knew that question would be coming eventually, though the way Anna had framed it was a little concerning.

She exhaled. "Yes, I did. I had for some time, by then."

"How did you know?" Anna asked.

Elsa looked ahead, staring off through the wall. "By the time I left middle school, boys started taking an interest in me – girls too. I was asked out many times, and even got a few handwritten notes to that effect. Very detailed notes, at that. I turned them all down, but all of my classmates started going on dates, and I do mean all of them. So I tried to work through it rationally. I took a look at everyone in my class, then everyone I knew, and tried to think of who exactly I wanted to date. But throughout that whole process, the only one I wanted to be with, the only one who I felt the same way about that those boys felt about me…was you."

Anna stayed silent, so she continued. "Of course, I thought that had to be a mistake. I was just thinking about it the wrong way, surely. So I got more specific. Who would I want to kiss, who do I want to be held by, who do I want to…touch? The answer was always the same – you, you, you. The more the both of us grew up, the stronger these feelings got. It became very clear very fast that I loved you more than any sister should. It wasn't just redheads, it wasn't just cute girls with freckles, it was just you."

She started speeding up, even though she knew very well that it was only going to get worse the deeper she went. Anna had asked, and she was going to get the full blast right here, right now.

"When I went off to college, I was pretty relieved. Finally, with some time on my own, I can find someone else. Surely once I was surrounded by all these new people, my feelings for you would fade, right? Well, that didn't happen. Instead, I just started missing you, with all my heart. There were dozens of girls I met there, hundreds, even. Not one of them grabbed my attention. By day, I only thought of you, and by night, I only dreamed of you."

By her peripheral vision, she could tell that Anna was looking at her intensely. She forced herself to stem the tide of words pouring from her. Part of her wanted to keep going, to spill every last dirty detail, to let Anna know just what kind of monster had been walking around in her sister's skin all these years. But she'd said enough for today. She'd more than answered Anna's question, and she'd provided ample cause for her to run away in disgust. Perhaps Anna was merely waiting for her to stop speaking to make it clear what she thought of all this new information. Mustn't keep her waiting for much longer, then.

"So that's how it started," she summarized. "That's how it was for years. That's still how it is now. I'm sorry I had to spill that all on you. I just hope you understand…"

She turned to Anna, and the sentence died before it was halfway off her tongue.

That look she was giving her…it wasn't disgust. It wasn't fear, or anger, or shock. No, it was much worse.

Elsa kicked down, snapping the seat into its upright position, which got a jump out of Anna. "Well, I think we made good progress today. On the room, I mean. We can finish the cleanup later, huh?"

Anna blinked. "What?"

"Are you exhausted? I know I'm exhausted. I think I'll turn in for the night. See you in the morning!" She leapt to her feet and paced to the stairs, using all her willpower to keep from bolting. Anna was left sitting there, scratching her head.

The sun was still shining through the window as she reached the first floor and headed for the second. She had outdone herself in the category of lamest, most idiotic excuse possible, and that was some feat for her. However, that didn't really matter right now. Her brain had thrown itself into fight-or-flight mode, and she already knew which one she was best at.

The worst-case scenario, she had told herself, was Anna coming down there and being reduced to a sobbing wreck from the memories. This was a lesson, then, against her boundless optimism. There is always a worse case.

She had been expecting to see disgust on Anna's face. You could even say she was hoping for it, as it was the correct response. What she didn't want to see was exactly what she had. It was curiosity. Anna's sweet, innocent, boundless curiosity, being turned in the one direction it had no place exploring.