Anna sat on the bathtub floor, knees curled up. The scalding water from the shower beat on her back as she sipped contrastingly iced tea from her mug and thought about how mortified she was.
The previous day, she’d fallen asleep to the sound of water, to light hums, to distant goose quacks. She was floating away. Her dreams were bubblegum pink and felt like home. And that’s when she woke to Elsa’s hands cradling her face, asking if she wanted to sleep more or eat some cheesy fries because they were getting cold.
“No, no, I don’t want to wake up,” Anna sniffled and cozied herself back in Elsa’s hands. “This is the best dream I’ve ever had.” Her eyelids plunged shut again. She barely recalled saying that until the words mulled around in her brain some more. And then she remembered where she was and what she had said and who she had said it to. Her head shot up and out of those hands, her eyes wide enough to eclipse the sun rising above the lake. She fumbled for the tree trunk behind them and used it to hoist her sleepy legs. There was a perfect print of her butt matted in the grass where she sat.
"We should, uh, we should get going." Anna squinted, either in the new brightness or at her stupid choice of words. Please. As if she wanted to ‘get going’, instead of staying here in literal heaven and snoozing the day away on Elsa’s nice shoulders.
Elsa’s eyebrows drew together in question, though she nodded in agreement. They trekked back to the car and once it was moving, Anna couldn’t help herself and fell asleep once more. She woke up as they were pulling into the parking lot and saw Elsa’s hand hovered above her shoulder, probably caught mid-attempt to wake her, before the hand jerked back onto the steering wheel. Anna barely offered warning of a hug as she wrapped her arms around Elsa swiftly and held on tight, drooling goodbyes against the older girl’s shoulder and stumbling up to her own apartment.
So, Anna wasn’t good at hiding her true feelings, that was a given. She just wanted to be able to hide them for at least a little longer- after all, it had only been a week since they met. And two dates, some confident (delusional) inner voice added.
Thus, justifiably mortified. This feeling, along with the nervousness and eagerness, replayed in her head as she showered-- yeah, she actually set aside time to shower. Today was the first day that Anna had the class she’d changed her entire schedule to revolve around and there was no way, no way, that she was going to show up looking like her usual decrepit roadkill self. She’d even set her dusty makeup bag on the counter. The class was supposed to be directly after her shift with only a hair of driving time, and this, she reasoned, would be the best (and only) time to do her routine.
As she dressed, the reflection in her vanity stared back at her pathetically and she shrugged at it, equally as pathetic, and then set to work on her face. Anna felt like a stressed and anxious bundle of excitement and very shakily swiped the last bit of mascara on. Her reflection had a great big smile and she called it. Today was going to be a great day.
She fully believed that, even when her backpack was nearly forgotten as she flew out the door.
All the bad feelings from before officially left her once she saw Elsa standing next to their cars. Her hands were clasped neatly in front of her, her head was tilted to the sky. She looked longing, not lonesome. All signs that she was waiting for someone, waiting for Anna. That thought was enticing, thrilling to the younger girl and made her heart skip a beat and her feet skip a step as she stumbled into Elsa’s field of vision.
"Morning, you! Didn't want to be caught late again, huh?"
"Maybe you're the one who's late."
"It's not unlikely," Anna replied. Against her better judgement, she tried to be casual – leaning against her car with her arms and legs crossed like some smug jock. Though when she looked up and met Elsa’s eyes, she couldn’t help her natural fidgety responses and tucked a few stray hairs behind her ear. "Hey, so I- I had a really good time yesterday."
“Even though you fell asleep?”
“Well, I-, uh,” Anna’s face fell as she stumbled over words, “I mean, -”
“Hey, don’t worry,” Elsa reached out a hand to her shoulder and very lightly pat it once, twice, before letting it rest there, “I'm kidding.” It was a reassuring gesture for certain, but the heat from Elsa’s hand was melting right through Anna’s shirt and she could feel her skin happily boiling underneath. This little itty-bitty crush was getting out of hand.
“So, are you going to the Den today?”
“Of course. Not too long from now.” Elsa let out a puff of amused air. “We could practically race there.”
“A race?” Anna scoffed as she unlocked her car door, “You couldn’t win a race against molasses up a hill.”
Elsa went to her own door. “That may be true…” She looked Anna dead in the eye and annunciated carefully, “…but neither could you.”
That set off some hot spark deep within Anna and she almost missed the sly smile Elsa gave as she closed her door and drove off. Anna ducked down into her own car and sat there for an astonished moment before pulling her car into gear and leaving the parking lot. She was lost in her own elated thoughts, was that flirting? I think that counts as flirting, and when she came upon her usual intersection, she’d noticed another car on the road, which was an unusual occurrence. Even more unusual- it was absolutely, without a doubt, Elsa’s car.
She pulled into the lane next to the car and waved like a maniac. Elsa looked over and, if the windows had been down, Anna probably would’ve been lucky enough to hear her full-on horse laugh. Anna held down the brakes and tapped on the gas, revving her engine. An invitation.
Elsa looked startled, but not altogether displeased. In response, she revved her engine right back. Invitation… Accepted.
The light turned green and the girls sped off down the long road, giggling and throwing each other faux-dirty looks. They raced, going at near-molasses speeds, the few lights along the road alternating the insides of their cars from bright to dark, bright to dark.
Anna tried to keep her eyes both on the road and on her friend. I mean, I have two eyes, I should be able to look at two things at once. Unfortunately, she couldn’t. Because that’s not how eyes work. The car next to her slowed down and she tried to slow down alongside. Elsa waved and offered a small smile barely lit by the streetlights, her turn signal flashing.
She too waved goodbye, and watched as Elsa turned down a long road and disappear into the dark.
It was still dark when Elsa arrived, way earlier than usual. Anna was talking to someone in the drive through when she’d heard the cafe door open. The older girl entered with a wave and small smile, which the younger enthusiastically returned. Anna mimed I’ll be there in a moment, and pointed to her headset, blah blah blah. Elsa held a hand up, miming back, not going anywhere. From the corner where he was recording fridge temperatures, Kristoff pretended not to notice the exchange of wild hand gestures still taking place as each girl smiled and hid laughs more and more. More than he’d ever seen Anna do, even when she witnessed him drop mocha not only in a sink chock full of clean dishes, but also on his clean clothes. And hair. And entire face—okay, putting stain-worthy fluids in a wobbly container on a high shelf was a lesson he learned not only from the mess but also from Anna’s resounding laughter that still echoed in Kristoff’s head. Laughter he heard now from the same girl trying to cover her mouth and her blushes. He smiled to himself and went back to his clipboard.
Anna finished at the drive through and made her way to Elsa at the counter. “Well, hello. I think I beat you here by a good, oh, half an hour. Want your 2nd place- slash last place- slash loser consolation prize?” Elsa grinned, uttered something about a cheater, and nodded. “So, according to my sources, this should be the last drink on the list of good drinks. And boy, have I got the one for you! It's my go-to and yes, it is all about how it looks.”
Elsa barely said yes, the briefest of agreements, before mayhem ensued. Anna grabbed a tea shaker from the grate on the sink. She reached into a fridge and pulled container after container of brightly colored liquids onto the counter, which she then poured into the shaker. It didn’t look like she was measuring any of the ingredients, but she’d made this drink for herself so many times before that it was practically instinct. She pumped light orange syrup into the mix along with ice and lidded it. She shook it once, twice, locked on to Elsa’s eyes with a cocky smirk, and threw the shaker high in the air. Elsa’s eyes followed and her eyebrows practically flew off her face as Anna caught it and shika-shika-shook it a couple extra times. She unceremoniously dumped the mix into a cup, some ignored liquid splattered onto the counter. As a pièce de résistance, she topped it off with a splash of dark pink tea, cascading eeeever soooo slooowly over the ice like a steady stream over rocks, creating a coral ombre sunset of a drink.
Anna confidently lidded it with great gusto and slid it across the counter enthusiastically. Her arms crossed over her chest and she smiled at Elsa, eyebrows waggling up and down as if to say your turn. Elsa very pointedly mumbled showoff as she reached for the drink and a straw.
Elsa examined it at arm’s length. “This has no coffee in it?” Anna shook her head, and Elsa brought the cup closer, elbow’s length. “So it’s iced tea, then,” inflection implied it as a question. She hovered over the straw and then took a sip.
Anna shook her head again, albeit slower. "It has caffeine but no coffee in it."
"Explains why I like it.”
“You do? That’s wonderful!”
“I do. I feel like I could order it every day.” She shook the cup and the ice rattled along, “speaking of which, what do I say when I want to order this? The Anna special?"
"Yep!"
"Do other places have the Anna special?"
"Nope," Anna let out an over-the-top sigh and her shoulders raised in a light shrug, "I suppose you'll just have to keep coming here."
Anna’s gaze followed the crinkles in Elsa’s eyes down to the slightest crescent impression hovered above the raised corners of her lips. She could feel her cheeks color- from the strain of her huge smile or from affection, she couldn’t say. The air was so light as they looked between each other, neither wanting to break the spell and neither aware there was one to break. The headset dinged and the rest of the sounds of the world came rushing back alongside it. Anna was immediately struck by how seamlessly they had faded away in the first place.
Anna rinsed the shaker and only somewhat thought about her words before they passed her lips, "I have to confess... I always miss you, I mean, ‘til I see you next."
Elsa seemed... flustered, almost. Like she was warmer than an iced drink could ever fix. Like Anna hit the mark. She looked at Anna with those big bright eyes and her shoulders very visibly heaved as she took a deep breath and replied a response so unexpected, Anna almost got whiplash.
"Do you want to see where I go every morning?"
Now, Anna always assumed that Elsa did have a destination when she drove in the morning— hello, she liked the drive? To wake up every morning at three to drive? Please. But she didn’t want to push. But she wanted to know. BUT she didn’t want to push.
And so, this meant the world to her. Elsa was letting her in. This moment was so intimate that she was dumbstruck and, finding herself incapable of speaking, only nodded in response.
“Do you want to go tomorrow?”
“Shoot, I can’t, I have to be here.”
“What about the next day?”
“Work again. This entire week is no good.”
"What about after your shift today?"
"Yeah! I-" the brief excitement Anna had was squashed like a bug under a shoe, "wait, no, I can't. I really really wish... but today's the first day of class..."
A spilt second of confusion lined Elsa’s face before she shook it out. A great sadness replaced it, and Anna could feel her own sadness, desperation.
“Hey, Anna,” Kristoff’s voice, tinged with mild concern came in from the headset, "you don't look so good".
"Oh wow, yeah, thanks Kris, I'm just sad" she replied, annoyed and thisclose to using her middle finger to press the talk button on her mic.
"No really, Anna. You look like you're sick. Really sick. The kind of sick where you have to leave early." Kristoff walked behind the bar to the view of both girls.
"What?" Her annoyance flew through the roof as she flipped around to face Kristoff, who stopped and crossed his arms.
"Anna, you feisty butthole, how on earth are you not getting this?” His eyebrows shot high up on his forehead and his eyes flicked between her and Elsa. "Please leave the store."
"Oh?" The lightbulb clicked on. "Oh!"
She started to untie her apron and gave Elsa a reassuring look before heading to the back of the store to gather her things, variously volumed thank you's thrown in his direction.
He smiled and waved her off. "Make sure you still come back for tomorrow's shift!"
The drive wasn't very far from Anna's work. They were just outside the city, on a road adjacent to the main one. The sky was beginning to lighten against the dark clouds above; even through the tinted windows, a blue hue was cast over everything outside of the car. Inside the car, Anna was trying her darnedest not to stare at Elsa and was failing miserably. She wanted Elsa to speak up first- after all, this was her thing. If I make it awkward and stare straight out the windshield, maybe she'll catch on and say something, she thought. Yet after no time at all, Anna found herself unable to do such a task without fidgeting and drumming on her legs to unheard music. Okay, maybe instead I can just stare at her like a maniac. Blatant staring, yes, that'll get her attention. This task, too, was met with difficulties as Anna couldn't stare for too long without feeling flushed and flustered and squirmy at the light catching on Elsa's infinitely long eyelashes and the highlight on the apples of her cheeks and the slight up-curve of a smile that those seemingly-soft lips held—yikes, Anna thought and looked away, nice creeper mode. She then opted to look at the car’s ceiling, the dashboard, her hands still thrumming an increasingly rhythmless beat; she looked everywhere, everywhere but at Elsa. She pursed her lips as she viewed the passing scenery out of her own window, glazing over as they neared a few storefronts, a gas station, and a cemetery— the last of which made her suck in a big breath of air and hold it with comically puffed out cheeks.
"What are you doing?" Elsa had finally spoken first and even though Anna was grateful, the timing wasn’t ideal.
"Oh, uh," her cheeks deflated, "I guess this does seem kinda strange out of context." She tilted her head and shrugged. "When I was younger and my mom would drive me somewhere, anytime we'd go near a cemetery she'd tell me to hold my breath until we passed it. I figure it's some superstition. Anyway, it's a habit that's stuck with me." She sucked in another breath, somehow even more audible.
"Oh, I see," Elsa replied coolly. She flipped on the turn signal, "I suppose you'll be holding your breath for a long time," and pulled into the driveway of the cemetery. It turned into a gravel road that led into a parking lot designated by a single small sign. The car doors echoed when shut, highlighting the emptiness of the solemn area surrounding them. They crunched their way down a thin stone trail. The trees let little light in through their thick leaves. The air was cool and left goosebumps on Anna's bare arms.
Anna was… confused. Although, what did she truly expect? She didn't know much about Elsa, a disheartening fact that she desperately wished to remedy.
The brief sadness was wholly overcome by fear. After all, she didn't know much about Elsa. Anna both could and couldn't believe that it took until this moment to realize that. What if this was all an elaborate rouse and Elsa was actually a kidnapper, or worse? She'd never seen this woman before a week ago, what if Elsa isn't her real name? What if this so-called Elsa garnered her trust and other intimate feelings so she could bring her to this cemetery, murder her in cold blood, and bury her in a shallow grave she'd already dug up?
"Woah," Elsa patted Anna on the shoulder and Anna jumped from the sudden contact, "where did you go just now?"
"Uhhh," Anna started. Nah, it's too far-fetched. "Sorry. I haven't been to a cemetery before."
Elsa accepted this as an answer and her eyes fell back to the walkway. "I don't blame you. I wouldn't go here if I didn't have to."
Anna barely noticed the grave sites around them as they were far and few between, some of them well off the main trail. That, coupled with the seclusion provided by the trees, added an air of privacy to the already quiet atmosphere.
As they walked, Anna's swaying arms kept bumping into Elsa's. Perhaps the pathway was too narrow, perhaps they weren't walking in time. Or perhaps Anna liked how Elsa was warmer than she thought and imagined that she could grab her hand and intertwine their fingers. Or whatever. The other girl murmured a small "almost there" and Anna'd almost forgotten that they were in a cemetery.
Elsa led them off the path toward a raised area with two stone steps as the entryway and a closed silver gate. She kept in front of Anna, unlatched the gate with an expert hand, and held it open. Her head jerked slightly, eyes reading after you.
Anna’s gaze fell to the large, wide gravestone. Two names were printed there with minor descriptions below. Hands floated above, fingers joined together in an infinite grasp, carved in an embrace longer than life. She was unsure of where to go and shuffled her feet. Uncomfortable couldn’t describe how she felt, until Elsa spoke up again. Words that made sense to Anna, words that made her realize the importance of this day.
"Hey mom, dad," Elsa walked ahead and motioned to the girl behind her, "This is Anna."
Anna found her voice, "they know me?"
"You've been brought up once or twice," she said, slowly settling a hand on the gravestone, "Maybe three times, anyway, I'm glad I could finally bring you here.”
Elsa sat on the concrete edging that surrounded the gravesite. She looked up to Anna, still pacing on place, and patted the space next to her with a dull thud.
"You must've been really close to them," Anna breathed out as she went to sit on the space offered.
"I wasn't always. The first three years or so were hard. I never came here. I never came to talk to them I, well, I tried to push them from my mind, honestly. Which was unfortunate for a multitude of reasons, some more obvious than others. I’d grown up knowing that I was going to take over their company eventually but I didn't know it would be so soon. Reminders of them were all around me at the office and one day I just... I snapped.
"I was mad. Mad at them, mad at the drunk driver... mad at myself. I came here to talk to them and ended up yelling at them. It was..." Elsa sighed, her breath heavy, "it was so much. I lost it. I lost them, and that was the first time I had acknowledged it.”
Anna had no idea what to say, what to do with her face. She instead placed her hand on Elsa’s, encouraging her to continue. “I kept coming back because that first time made me feel so much better. It was so freeing, it was better than any kind of closure I could get, and-- in a ridiculous way, their deaths made it easier to talk to them.” She exhaled shakily, as if that admission were the first time she’d said it out loud. “I usually come here after work and tell them about my day, about things that have happened, things they've missed. Most of the time, I don't get to finish my stories before the cemetery closes so I come back as soon as I can so I can finish telling them."
"So they're not left with some kind of cliffhanger?"
"Yes, that’s a good way to put it.” Elsa looked relieved. Maybe at Anna’s lack of invasive questions, maybe at the weight off her shoulders. She placed her hands in her lap and stared at her parent’s gravestone, her thumbs rubbing the backs of her hand. Anna wondered how many times she had done that before, this same scene, and felt herself lean back to stare at the shroud of trees above.
Eventually, they left through the gates, through the trail. The faint rustle of leaves above and the crunch of stones beneath their feet accompanied them in the otherwise silent and comfortable journey. Anna could piece a few things together; their “dates”, their admissions. Their truths. Their bare arms brushed again as they exited the cemetery gate and Anna took that as her sign. She gathered all her courage and turned to look Elsa in the eye. Her face was just barely illuminated from the dark sky, highlighted by a pale streetlamp.
"Hey, I- um,” Anna’s voice wavered, “I didn't want to do this in front of your parents," she said, reaching out to hold Elsa's warm arms.
She leaned in with all the confidence she’d ever had and their lips met in a soft kiss.