Day 16: The Arendelle Public Library

Trigger Warning: Mentions of self-harm.

You know, being the huge nerd that she is, I should have expected Elsa to want to hang out at a library one of these days. I just didn't expect it to be soon, and I didn't expect her to want to go where we had our first date.

There are five public libraries in Arendelle, with the largest one being in the northern part of the city. It's five stories tall, has an indoor aquarium and sculpture garden, and of course it has every book known to man. It's made from stainless steel with a skyscraper design, and the roof splinters into three jagged peaks. If not for the glowing purple and green lights illuminating the base, and the hundreds of children running around the water fountain, it'd be the perfect tower for a supervillain. It's a great tourist attraction, and it saved my ass so many times with my research papers.

That's not where we're at though.

Elsa wanted to go to the Arendelle Public Library, a few miles away from the suburbs near the edge of Central Arendelle. It's a lot more modest, with only two stories and a stone water fountain with tons of coins at the bottom from idiots who believe in that whole wishing thing. It's got a brick exterior that gives it this village bakery vibe, and I only came here when me and my friends wanted to do dumb teenage shit.

When I told Elsa that, she laughed and said she was probably inside studying while I was outside drinking and flipping off birds. This library holds a special place in her heart, so for her to take me here on our first date was huge for her.

Which has me wondering why we're here now.

Elsa sits on the rim of the fountain and sighs contently as she looks at the library. "Man, the last time I was here was…"

"With me?"

"Last week," she replies with a smirk. "Good guess, though."

I should sit down. I think. It'd probably be better than standing in front of her, holding our ice cream cups like a mannequin. But where? Sitting right next to her might make her uncomfortable, sitting far away would be stupid too, or I could also sit on the gross floor that I've seen a homeless guy pee on before. Maybe standing is the best bet.

"You can sit, you know. I'm not gonna bite," Elsa laughs and pats the spot next to her. And now I definitely want to stay standing. Her moods have been so unpredictable. Yesterday she wouldn't talk to me once she woke up, today she's acting like we're best friends catching up. If I sit down, what will happen?

Regardless, I do it.

"Thanks," she says when I hand her her ice cream. Mint chocolate...just like mine. "So you still like mint, huh?"

She got me into it one day when the gas station was out of all the other pints. It's pretty much the only ice cream flavor I eat now. "Nothing else sounded good," I reply.

Elsa takes a bite and smiles with her eyes closed, "Still the best ice cream in the city. The last time I had some was with you. Remember that?"

I do. She was overworking herself trying to finish her novel by the deadline, and I had to drag her out of the apartment so she could get some sunlight. I hadn't seen her for like a week before that and was getting kinda pissy, but hey she was also clearly exhausted and stressed out. A couple of guys set up an ice cream parlor right next to the library, so I made a deal with her: come with me to take a break and get ice cream, and I would let her go back to her apartment to finish her novel.

We ended up staying at the parlor for two hours.

"I was convinced the owners were gonna kick us out after we sampled their cheesecake flavor five times in a row," I say with a laugh of my own. It sounds foreign to me, and I realize that it's because I haven't really laughed in weeks. Not something as real as that one, at least. It's instinctual, there's still that damn spot in the back of my mind that makes me enjoy being around Elsa. No matter how hard it is.

"But they didn't. That was a...really nice day." Elsa takes another bite of her ice cream but doesn't smile the same way.

We sort of just sit there eating in silence, sometimes making silly comments about the people around the library. As delicious as the ice cream is, and as gorgeous as today is, they don't distract us from the real reason we're here.

We need to talk, about everything. Or at least we have to start. I'd be lying if I said I could control myself, there's just something about talking to Elsa that confuses all my emotions too. I wish I could just turn them off, but unfortunately, I'm stuck with them. Whatever, this needs to happen. No sense in stalling, just gotta rip the bandaid off. Again.

I take another bite of mint chocolate goodness for luck, "So do you wanna start or should I?"

She takes one too, possibly for the same reasons. "Well the last time I started, you- I mean, we…" She trails off, there's no need to recount what happened a couple of weeks ago.

"Right. Well, uh…" Breathe, Anna, let's just start with the easy stuff first, "Where do you go during the day? Like what do you do?"

Elsa's eyebrows furrow, clearly she thought I was going to ask her something else, "Um, well I guess that's something you should know. Sometimes being in my room sorta makes me anxious, too anxious. And I think it's because you're right on the other side of my wall, it just brings up so many memories. Memories that kinda...really hurt."

I nod.

"So sometimes I need to leave because it's too overwhelming, and sometimes I leave because…" Elsa looks down and her voice gets quieter, "...I go to therapy."

"...oh. You do?"

"Twice a week." She picks at a spot on her jeans and winces, it's barely noticeable but I know she does. "When we broke up, I realized that enough was enough. I couldn't keep hurting people that I...really care about. After the first couple of sessions, my therapist diagnosed me with a type of generalized anxiety. Which made sense, now that I look back at some things from my past."

"So how do they feel about us living together?"

Elsa lets out a nervous laugh and takes another bite before answering, "She's completely against it. Something about how seeing you again could have all these memories flooding back, and trigger a lot of anxiety for me."

"And does it?"

There's more silence, and the longer she takes to answer, the more she actually gives one. She looks at me after what seems like a minute and nods. I've barely said anything, and yet she's already on the verge of tears. This might be too much for her. I'm expecting her to say we should stop talking about this, but instead she continues.

"I...I know I already said that I'm sorry, and I know you didn't accept that. Which is fair."

"Elsa, it's not that I don't forgive you, it's just-"

"It's hard to. I know. If I was you, I'd find it hard to forgive me too. Seeing you makes me relive all those crappy few weeks before we broke up, and of course the breakup itself. It hurts, a lot. In my head and in my heart I just can't get the thoughts out of my head, and sometimes they get so overwhelming that I just…"

"Have to leave?" I definitely understand that feeling.

"No. I mean yes, but it's…" Elsa closes her eyes, "It's not just that."

"What do you mean?"

She doesn't say anything, and her eyes are still closed. Whatever she's not saying, it worries me more than everything she has said. I can feel it, like a chill that goes through my whole body, and I doubt that's the ice cream. "Elsa, what do you mean?" I ask again.

Her eyes are closed even tighter now, and I notice that she's clenching her fists really hard. Instinctively, I reach out to hold them but then I stop myself. We're not dating anymore, we're- well I don't know what we are now. I might be overstepping some boundaries, but I've seen something like this happen before and my mind always goes into comfort mode when it happens. And then suddenly her eyes are open again, she looks at me with a guilty expression, and she speaks three breathless words:

"I hurt myself."

The words drop into the pit of my stomach, and the chill that runs through me grows colder. "Why?" I ask her, just as breathless.

"There's so much stuff going on in my head all the time. And it's like it's really painful, like there's something in my skin. So I need to do something, anything, to stop the pain or- or cut it out."

I look down at the black tank top she's wearing and frown, "I don't understand. Your arms look fine, I don't see-"

"They're not on my arms."

"Then where…" And that's when I notice something. It's only April so it's not entirely out of the ordinary, but most of the time I see Elsa she's wearing jeans. And on the rare occasion that I catch her at a time she's not going anywhere, she's wearing sweatpants. I haven't seen her wear shorts, and I haven't seen her legs.

"It started a couple of months after we broke up. I was with this guy named Hans who was kind of a jerk all things considered. He didn't hurt me or anything, actually, it was the other way around. Two weeks into our relationship he tells me that he's falling in love with me, so I ghosted him. I get a text from him later that said some really hurtful stuff and they reminded me of stuff that you said during the breakup."

I wince, it never feels good to be compared to a jerk.

"So I was reading that, and I realized this never-ending cycle I'd put myself on. This happens every time I get close to someone. They fall in love with me, and then I hurt them, and they leave, and it's all my fault. And that was running through my head so much, and I got really panicked and scared, it felt like something was crawling under my skin. So I took a knife from my kitchen and I…" Elsa runs a finger horizontally across her thighs. A tear falls onto her jeans.

"When was the last time that you…?"

She looks at me, almost scared, and says, "After we got back from the park."

Shit.

"Elsa, I'm so sorry, if I had known that you were hurting this bad-"

"No. Don't apologize. You have every right to be mad at me because I'm still mad at me. If I had only just told you that-"

"Stop it," I tell her. Too loud, if the way she twitches- and the way the other people around the fountain look at us- is any indication. But it's not just my volume that I need to keep in check. It's only now that I notice I've moved closer to her. And it's only now that I notice my hand is on top of hers. I immediately pull it away once I realize this, muttering a quick "Sorry". So much for keeping my distance...

"My therapist and I have been working on different ways to cope- healthier ways. It's just been really hard these past few weeks. Remember that letter you read?"

I bite my lip, "Yeah?"

"Well, that was sort of a grief exercise. She knows I love to write and wanted me to write a letter to something that I'm grieving. Or someone, in my case. I'm supposed to write the words that I wish I could have said or stuff that I want to say but can't."

I think back to the words in the letter, realizing that it was more honest and vulnerable than Elsa usually was. Not that she wasn't honest, but it was a level I hadn't seen before. And now, knowing that they were words she wished she could say, I feel even dirtier having read it. "Were you going to give it to me?" I ask.

"I don't know. What you read was actually my fifth draft, I just can't get the words right."

"You're telling me that the famous author, Elsa Stark, is having trouble with words?"

"I'm not famous," she rebutted.

"Yet."

Elsa rolls her eyes but doesn't do anything else. She could have snapped at me and told me to stop teasing her like she did the first day, but she didn't. That means I lightened the mood, even just a little bit, which was something she liked about me while we were dating. All it'd take is just one dumb joke, one silly comment, one curse-fueled rant about my day, and whatever was on her mind wouldn't seem so bad anymore.

I just figured that right now, she needed that. Although it doesn't look like it's doing much.

"I think I've grilled you enough for one day," I say as I take both of our empty ice cream cups and throw them in a nearby trash can. "Why don't you ask me something now. Anything. Nothing's off-limits."

Elsa raises an eyebrow, and once I sit back down she asks, "Seriously?"

I should say no, I should tell her that there are some things I'd rather she not ask me, but I don't. I asked her something that turned out to be really personal, and she shared more than I thought she would. And I'm not too much of an asshole that I wouldn't hold myself to that same standard. So even though my brain is screaming at me, I take a deep breath and nod.

"Oh, okay then." Elsa looks down at the floor, also seeming like she's hesitant to say anything. She takes a deep breath of her own and speaks cautiously, "Do you...do you hate me?"

Oh, wow. Didn't think she'd go straight for the hard question.

Do I hate Elsa? I mean the fact that she never said "I love you too" really hurt, and made me second guess our relationship and her feelings for me. And apparently I have a type of girl that I'm attracted to now thanks to her. And of course, there's the whole rant I unloaded on her about not caring about how I feel or want. But...damn it.

"No, I don't."

And I mean that.

Elsa looks at me confused, "But at the park…"

"I mean yeah, that was stuff I needed to get off my chest, but that doesn't mean I hate you. I hate what you did, but that doesn't mean I hate you." I bite my tongue to keep from continuing, saying those words out loud made me realize how ridiculous they sounded. The word "hate" was still used, if I were Elsa I wouldn't be reassured at all.

And the way that she wraps her arms around her stomach, and shrinks into herself even more, tells me that she isn't. "How could you not hate me, Anna? I mean you said it yourself: you hate what I did."

"Because…ugh, you know I'm not good at explaining things. I'm not like you."

"I know."

"I guess it's because…" I take a deep breath- the exhale's way louder than I think it will be- and run my hands through my hair. "You know how many girls I've dated before you, right?"

"Seven." Of course, I bet she can name them all too.

"Well it was different with them. I liked them, yeah, and I had fun with them and made some great memories, but we knew going in that the relationship wasn't going last. I never had that whole 'where do you see this going' talk with every girl I dated, except for you. You were different."

That perked her up, I could see it from the twitch of her lip. "How?"

"I actually had that conversation with you. Remember?"

"Three times, I think. Or at least that's how many I remember."

Maybe three official times, but I know that I used to casually mention all the time about how important the "girlfriend" word was for me. "Do you remember what I told you?"

She nods, "You said that I was the only one that you ever really called your 'girlfriend'. And that it felt like every other girl before me didn't count."

"And I meant that. So you wanna know why I don't hate you?"

I shouldn't say it. I really, really shouldn't say it. They're words that will be hard to come back from, and could jeopardize our whole situation. I don't know how Elsa will react, and what she'll think, so I should just keep my mouth shut or make something up. But damn it, I know that won't work. She knows when I'm lying, apparently I have a tell that she refuses to disclose. And when she looks at me with those stupid, baby deer eyes and loosens her grip on her stomach, I know I'm fucking putty in her hands. So even though every part of me is telling me not to, I say it anyway:

"Because I loved you too much to hate you."

Elsa's reaction is immediate. She opens her mouth to speak, only succeeds in letting out a choked breath, and then that one tear that fell earlier turns into five, then ten, then more than I can count. I didn't even say anything mean this time, and I still made her cry.

Anna Reinhart: Relationship extraordinaire.

Her eyes are shut tighter than the grip she has over her stomach, and she's leaning forward so much that I'm afraid she's gonna fall over. The sound of the fountain behind us just barely covers the sound of her sobbing and sniffling. People are looking at us again- because of course they are- and as much as I want to flip them off, I want to comfort Elsa even more.

Call it instinct, or call it me wanting to clean up my mess. Either way, I need to do something.

"Elsa hey, come on. Please don't-"

"Stop talking. Please."

Yikes, that's the second time this month that Elsa's been this demanding towards me. The crying quieted her reply, but it didn't do much to dull the sharpness of it. It's all she says though, before she goes back to shaking and sobbing, and I just have to sit there and realize I'm the asshole that did this to her.

Again.

So that's all I do. Just...just sit there, and keep my mouth shut. It's maybe a minute or two that Elsa does something other than cry. She shifts in her concrete seat, and I'm expecting her to stand back up and say that we should go, but instead, she scoots closer and leans on me.

She's leaning on me.

What the fuck?

Again, though, I don't even say anything. I don't even move. She's still crying, so I just let her and keep my hands on the fountain. I don't know what's gonna happen after she stops crying, maybe I'll cut off my tongue so I never say anything stupid ever again, or maybe I'll move out to spare her the heartache and anxiety attacks. Or maybe...maybe I'll stay. Whatever anger I had is still there, but it's simmered down a hell of a lot. There are still some questions I need answered, and there are some things that Elsa still needs to work through.

I'm not saying that living together is a great idea- because it sure as hell isn't- but I think it might be good for both of us. In some weird, twisted way. It can help us sort some shit out.

Plus, the $100,000.

And that's what goes through my head as Elsa continues to cry on me, even when the tears start soaking my third-favorite shirt. I just think about the money, and think about us.

What I think about more is anyone's guess.