Day One: Reintroduction

I've done a lot of crazy stuff in my life. I've also done a lot of dumb stuff in my life. But this? This has got to be the craziest, dumbest thing I'm ever going to do. It's at least in the top three, easily. And as I'm following the bellhop that's pushing all my crap onto the elevator, all I can think to say is:

"Anna Reinhart, you are fucking insane."

Part of me thinks this is some sort of dream, or a nightmare depending on what's waiting for me at the end of this elevator ride. But I know it's not because I'm wearing pants and I don't feel like my limbs are moving through jelly. If I punched this super helpful bellhop, it'd send him and all my luggage crashing onto the floor. And then I'd have to drag my stuff to my room, oh and I'd also have to apologize and all that.

Maybe part of me wants this to be a dream. It'd sure as hell explain why I called the number on that ridiculous ad, passed the interview process, and am now spending a year all expenses paid in Arendelle Towers.

And that's not even the craziest part of this whole thing. I've got the ad burned into my damn brain from reading it so much to make sure that it was really real.

LIVE WITH YOUR EX FOR ONE YEAR, AND WIN $100,000

Eccentric millionaire Adrian Arendelle is seeking out former couples that ended on not-so-good terms for the opportunity of a lifetime. If chosen, and having passed the interview process, you and your ex will spend one year together in the beautiful Arendelle Towers. All expenses paid, and full access to all the accommodations in this grand hotel. If you last through an entire calendar year, you will both win $100,000.

But here's the catch: If you fall in love again at any time, you forfeit the $100,000 and will be evicted from Arendelle Towers.

If I fall in love again. If I fall in love again.

Well, technically it's if we fall in love again but I'm not holding my breath at the love being on both sides. I've been in a few unofficial relationships here and there (never put the label on them because of one reason or another), but I've only ever been in one official relationship.

One that I can honestly say I invested everything into.

One that I can honestly say broke my heart.

Which is why I'm not sweating that catch, because I seriously doubt that I'm gonna fall in love with Elsa Stark again.

The elevator doors open, and I feel like I've overestimated the amount of stuff I should have brought. The way I see it, this whole experiment ends in two ways: we spend the next year barely tolerating and talking to each other so that we get the money, or things blow up before I even have time to unpack. I want to stay here for the whole year to get that $100,000 but who knows what Elsa wants.

I sure as hell don't know anymore.

"Be honest, you guys place bets on how long each couple lasts here, huh?" I ask the bellhop as I adjust the strap on my backpack.

"I'm not sure what you're talking about, ma'am."

I walk behind him silently. Any second now…

He sighs, "I have you guys down for six months."

I smirk, the silent treatment always works. "Honestly, that's a little longer than I'm expecting. But hey, maybe a shit-ton of miracles come our way and we're able to make it through the whole year."

The bellhop laughs, "Me and my ex would probably last six days."

Before I know it, we've made it: Room 914. My room- er, our room. Do I even call it a room? Because it looks like a small house.

The kitchen/loft is bigger than my entire shitty apartment in East Arendelle. It's got couches- plural- and the kitchen's fully stocked. The floor is wood instead of a carpet made out of dirty sheep hair or whatever it is, and the walls are super white.

I'm in heaven, but I'm still expecting to live in my own personal hell.

The bedrooms are on the left side of this...bigger room, and our names are taped to the doors. Just like college, or at least what I've seen from TV. I never actually went. Elsa did though because of course she did. Her room is on the far side, mine is closest to the front door. We're only five feet apart from each other.

I open my door and holy shit. There's a TV in here! A huge flat-screen mounted to the wall! The bed's big enough to fit two of me, and the bathroom is big enough that I could do backflips and stuff if I wanted to. I mean I'm not going to, but it's nice to have the option. Even the A/C feels just right, it doesn't feel like I'm walking into a meat cooler.

I let out a weird breath, "I'm being pranked, right? There's a cameraman in that closet and an ax murderer under my bed, isn't there?"

"Not that I know of." The bellhop takes the last of my stuff off the cart and whistles. "This place is niiiiiice."

"You've never been in one of these before?"

"The competition suites? Nah. If I were you, I'd try to stay here as long as possible."

"That's the plan." I smile at him and pull out $5 from my wallet. "Thanks for your help, I definitely needed it."

He took the tip and bowed his head. "That's my job. Have a good day ma'am, and good luck to both of you."

"Thanks." When I hear the front door close, I take a look at at my luggage. I have a lot of unpacking to do, and I'm not just talking about my clothes. This was gonna be interesting, and probably super awkward. But I wasn't gonna give up this room that easily. This life.

First things first though, I jump onto my bed and sink into the mattress. Unpacking can wait.

I wake up to the sound of the front door opening. I didn't even know I fell asleep.

"Anna? You here?"

Shit, it's her. I thought I'd have a little more time than this before I saw Elsa again, but I guess I burned through all that free time with my nap. I haven't seen her in a year, more than a year I think; not since the breakup. The fact that I didn't even see her out in the wild is a testament to how good my ex-girlfriend avoiding skills are. Unfortunately, they're so good that I haven't prepared myself for the inevitable. I honestly didn't know how to plan for this, I didn't even expect them to choose us for this contest.

But now she's here, in the room- our room, what the fuck- and I'm not ready to see her. Which doesn't matter, because I'm going to in like two seconds.

The sound of the wheels on her suitcase gets louder until they're right up to my open door. Elsa peeks through my door frame...

Damn it, she still looks gorgeous.

She's got these big blue eyes that make you feel all warm and fuzzy, and her freckles are more visible than I remember. Her hair is still the same as before: platinum blonde in a complicated French braid over her shoulder. The jeans she's wearing show off her impossibly curved hips, and she's got on a t-shirt of this indie band that I remember getting her into.

"H-hey," I stammer out. Good job, Anna, your shit communication skills are already shining.

"Hey," she says back in that stupidly sweet voice of hers. "How long have you been here?"

I sit up from my bed and fumble for my phone- how the hell did it get on the floor? "Uh...about two hours- wait seriously two hours? Holy shit, I was out for that long?"

Elsa shrugs, "I guess so."

"Wow…" I should be saying more, right? I should be making an effort to have a conversation. I've never done this before, my amazing avoiding skills means that I don't know how to talk to girls like Elsa. How the hell are you even supposed to start a conversation with your ex-girlfriend?

"So you've just been taking a nap this whole time?" Elsa asks, saving me the trouble of coming up with anything.

"You know how long my naps usually take."

Elsa smiles, and I'm definitely not having trouble with breathing. "I do. Hey, how about after we unpack, we go get some food and catch up? And talk about...this." She spins a finger around. "Sound good?"

"Sounds great!" Alright, dial it back, girl. Don't sound so excited, remember how she broke your heart?

And now Elsa's smile has reached her fucking eyes. Damn. It. "Great, I'll talk to you in a little bit." She closes my door, which finally gives me a chance to breathe again.

And collapse back onto my bed.

This is gonna be harder than I thought.

Even the way she eats a sandwich is cuter than I remember. She's got both hands near the bottom like a hamster eating sunflower seeds, and she's looking at it like it's the greatest sandwich ever made.

And I'm looking down at my plate wondering who the hell thought pickles on a chicken sandwich was a good idea.

I don't really have much of an appetite considering Elsa's sitting right in front of me, and your stomach doesn't exactly do well when you're sitting in front of the girl you had a nasty break-up with a year ago. Besides, she wanted to talk, right? Might as well just rip the band-aid off now and bring up the massive elephant in the room.

"So...we're gonna be living together for a year."

Elsa nods and dabs at her mouth with a napkin, "And if we make it, we get $100,000."

"If? Do you think we're not gonna last a whole year together?" That'd be a surprisingly negative take from Elsa.

She shrugs, "Living together's a different story, which is why we need to come up with a plan as soon as possible."

I nod, at least we're on the same page with that.

"They told you the rules, right?"

Rules? "I thought there was only the one?"

"There was an attachment in the email they sent." She says with kind of a condescending tone. "Didn't you read it?"

"Well obviously not." I frown, why is she being so defensive and acting like I'm an idiot? This is exactly how she was acting right before the breakup, it's like nothing's changed. I want to call her out on it, but I can't. Think about the $100,000, Anna. Think about what you can do with that money. You can buy your parents' house so you can stick it to those assholes.

Instead of saying any of that, I just say: "What are the rules?"

Elsa looks at me and smiles, and now I'm more confused than ever. "Well obviously we need to live together in this hotel, but we have free rein to go wherever we want and whenever we want."

Great, that means I can leave whenever things get awkward. And I can still hang out with my friends.

"All the expenses are paid, that means food too and anything else that we might need. Anything purchased outside of Arendelle Towers, though, is on us."

I'm fine with that. I crashed a wedding here once and the food is amazing. And the pool is like a small river.

"And there's a weekly check-in that happens every Sunday. So the first one is gonna be in six days."

Kind of a weird way to say that the first check-in is happening this Sunday, but I guess that's good to know for people that can't do math. "What's the check-in for?"

"It's just to gauge how well we're taking to living together. And to make sure that we don't...you know."

I raise an eyebrow. She can't say it. I mean of course she can't, but you'd think she'd at least say the word in passing even if she doesn't mean it. "Make sure that we don't what, Elsa?"

She rolls her eyes, "You know what I'm talking about."

"Do I though?"

"Drop it, Anna." Elsa glares at me, and I swear I almost shit my pants from the total mood shift. I want to go on the offensive because of it but I can't. Again, I have to think about the money.

After a couple of seconds of tense, uncomfortable silence, she sighs and rubs her temple with her hand. "Sorry, uh...it was kind of a long drive getting here. I'm just tired."

I know she's lying, but damn it I can't call her out on it.

"So why not take a nap? You know, like I did." And so that I can get some much-needed time to myself.

She laughs, and I pretend my weird heart palpitation is from the cholesterol in the chicken. That I haven't even touched. You can get cholesterol by smelling it, right? "I'm not even finished with my lunch yet, you stinker."

Stinker. That's what we used to call each other. Why is she doing this? Why is she acting like we're two friends just catching up? Is that what she wants? ...what do I want?

I want that $100,000, so if that means not asking her these things then I guess I won't. Even though I want to grab her by the collar and tell her how shitty the breakup made me feel. I want to say that right to her stupid, dumb face. With those stupid, dumb eyes that make you wanna drown in them, and those stupid, dumb freckles that look like the finishing touches of an artist's masterpiece, and that stupid, dumb hair swoop that frames that stupid...dumb...pretty face.

Fuck.

"Anna, you there?"

I blink. "Wha- yeah I'm here. Why?"

She raises one stupid, dumb eyebrow, "You spaced out there for a minute, and you've barely touched your food. You doing okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just not hungry. I'll get a box and bring it up to the room."

"...okaaaaaay. Well I'm almost done, so we can go soon. Unless there's something else you wanted to talk about." She's looking at me with those stupid, dumb eyes again, and I cannot get a read on her. It's infuriating, this whole lunch was a horrible idea. And definitely not what I expected from our reintroduction. That's a word, right?

"Like what?" I ask with a shred of frustration, seeing if she gets the hint.

She shrugs, "Whatever you want."

It doesn't seem like she does, and my frustration grows from there. Does she expect me to talk about the breakup? Does she want to talk about the breakup? Do I want to talk about the breakup? No, I know what I want to do.

"I just want to go back to the room."

Elsa laughs again, and even though it sounds less convincing, it still...ugh. "That's fair," she says. "I did wake you up from your nap. Lemme go pay and we can head up together. Okay?"

No, it's not okay. None of this okay.

And I wanted to get up there first so I could get a headstart on avoiding her, but I can't be that much of a bitch on the first day. Day 365? Absolutely. Day 1? Absolutely not.

"Okay," I say with the fakest smile I can give without it seeming too obvious that it's not okay.

She gives one more stupid, dumb smile and as she sits up, she says, "I'll get you a box too for your food."

When she walks away, I say thank you to her back. I know I'll get more alone time once I retreat back to my room, but I can't hold the sigh of relief that comes out of me when she moves away. At least I think it's a sigh of relief. I'm watching her talk to the hostess, and seeing her be polite and kind and everything that I fell in love with before...and then I have to stop. I push my plate away, and lean my head on one of my hands and groan.

"Anna Reinhart, you are fucking insane."

A/N: Hello dudes and dudettes, I have returned. How long's it been? Like two months? Whatever, I can't do math.

Life's been kinda shit, but I've just sorta gotten used to that hahaha...

I recently went through a really shitty breakup, and I wrote this story to cope. I also wrote it because I saw some stupid meme on Reddit that inspired me to write a story with the premise being based off one question: Would you live with your ex for one year for $100,000? I am not going to answer that question so don't even ask.

It's gonna be a day-to-day sorta story with time skips and all that because writing 365 chapters would be a bitch. Not every chapter is gonna be the same length, and their personalities are obviously going to be very different than what they were in my last few stories. I don't know my update schedule yet, I'm going to try and update this weekly and stick to that schedule but life sometimes kicks me in the ass, you know?

Anyway, I'm back and ready to go on another journey with y'all. I hope you stick with me through it.