"I think I'm in love with you," I told Elsa as she pulled up a chair.

Tricked you! It isn't at all what you think. Let me explain: I was meeting her in the student center to work on my Macbeth paper, you horny bastards. Don't worry, I didn't skip anything important, just a night of me snoring. I had gotten excused from English because of my ankle injury from the night before. Obviously, the pain was concerning but thankfully, a trip to the nurse earlier that morning told me I would be better by Friday's game - but the nurse's condition was that I couldn't do any strenuous physical activity in the meantime. I would of course still be performing in the drag show - what the nurse didn't know wouldn't hurt her, right?

Anyway, I figured I would use my new free time to get the stupid paper done. Better late than never! I took a leap of faith and invited Elsa to help me out. For one, because I didn't really know where to start, and secondly because I just really, really wanted her around. I was becoming addicted to her company and couldn't help myself from falling straight down the rabbit hole… except that in this version of the story the rabbit was a beautiful blonde girl and Alice was a ginger.

So Elsa showed up to my table with chocolate bars - that's when I confessed my love to her, which is what friends do, right? Exaggerate things like that? Surely she wouldn't notice if the sentiment was painfully true...

"The trick to writing papers," Elsa said between mouthfuls of chocolaty goodness, "is to get the body first and then finish it off with the introduction and conclusion at the end."

I tried to sit up as straight as I could while still keeping my foot resting on the chair across from me, an ice pack balanced on my bandaged ankle. "Wait, but... why? Shouldn't you write things in, like, a… chronological way?"

"Not necessarily. If you write the meat of the essay first, come up with and flesh out all of your arguments, then you know exactly what your paper is about and can solidly introduce it because it's already written!"

"At this point, I'm just wondering if I should be uncomfortable about all of the weird meat analogies you just made but… you're the expert!" I said, winking at her. When did I become someone who winked at other people? This new "Hans" was something else. Infatuation really does take you to new heights.

Elsa seemed unphased. She pulled a blank piece of lined paper and a pen from her bag. "I'm not going to write it for you. But if you follow this outline," she was scribbling away in her perfect handwriting, "you should have it done in no time. Especially with the absurd amount of chocolate I've provided as your fuel."

"You are so good to me," I said, smirking at her. I didn't deserve her, honestly. "You're really going to leave me here alone?"

"I don't want to distract you," she said, winking back at me. I swear my heart stopped and restarted. "When you're done you'll have plenty of time to spend with me."

"I guess I can't argue with your logic," I said, sighing dramatically. Elsa rewarded me with a giggle and a flash of those white teeth. This girl was going to send me into cardiac arrest. She didn't notice the number she was doing on me, however, as she slid the outline over to me, then stood and slung her bag over a padded shoulder.

"How is your ankle doing, by the way?" she asked. "Will you be okay before Friday?"

"That's what I've been told! So I guess we'll find out. I'm definitely playing in the game, no matter what!"

The serious, icy expression came back. "Be careful. A game isn't worth hurting yourself over."

Her concern puffed me up for a second before I remembered that she had the hots for "Hans" and not for the real me. Which was such a huge bummer, really.

"I'll be fine," I said casually, slipping into my boy grunt. "I'm a tough dude."

The serious did not leave her face. She stared me down unnervingly for a second longer before saying, "right. Well, I'll leave you to it. Good luck, Hans."

And before I knew it she had turned and started to walk away. I quickly called after her. "Will I see you at the drag show?"

She didn't stop or turn, only raised a slender hand and waved it ambiguously.

"What does that even mean?" I called but she only continued her exit. I watched her braid slap the back of her uniform jacket until she had rounded the corner and was gone.

"Dammit," I muttered, looking back down at my blank Word document. I slumped lower in my chair, glaring at my laptop, letting myself have a few seconds of lazy procrastination.

When you're done you'll have plenty of time to spend time with me.

A grin spread across my face and I sat up suddenly, spurred on by the rewards waiting for me on the other side of this paper. I had three days of my ICI left and I was going to make the most of them. By Saturday, Hans would be back in his rightful place, I would be home and have Mom's enduring love and approval, and no one at this school would ever call me "Hans" ever again. It was going to be heaven!

And so, I typed furiously. I'll spare you the most boring, painful details. Just know that the process of writing the first draft of the damned Macbeth essay was punctuated by Facebook breaks, coffee breaks, and many groans of anger and frustration. The usual.

When I had finished the body and only had the introduction to write, someone sat across from me at my study shrine. My heart jumped into my throat - Elsa had impeccable timing, she had to be a goddess.

But to my disappointment, it was wasn't Elsa.

"Hello, Hans."

"Hey, Gerda. What's up?"

She hadn't taken off her gigantic backpack, she was pressing it into the back of the chair, perching on the edge of her seat. She stared at a spot on the tabletop, not meeting my gaze. "I missed you in English. I hope your ankle is doing better."

"It's going to be fine. Thanks, Gerda."

Silence. This girl was great at it but I hated it. I reached desperately for something to say.

"What... are you up to now?

"I've finished all of my homework and my novel for the week," she replied monotonously, scratching at the back of her head.

"Oh," I said, not knowing what else to say. It didn't matter, for she continued as if I had not piped up at all.

"So I thought I would go on a walk. But the thing about walking is that you can't help but think. Reading and academic work keep my mind busy but when it's not, it's free to ponder… things. Difficult things. The longer I walked the more those things filled me up until I thought I would burst from the pressure. That's when I saw you."

"Oh?" I was trying to hide my surprise. I would never get used to Gerda's candid statements.

"Can I ask you a question?"

I hesitated, suddenly nervous about where this might be headed. "Go ahead."

"Have you ever liked someone... romantically... someone that was so different from you that you knew you never had a chance with them?"

I had to physically restrain my jaw from dropping. I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this.

"Uh…"

She had finally looked up and was staring at me through those thick lenses, expectant of an answer. She was talking about me, wasn't she? Or, "Hans," rather.

"Well... yeah," is all I could come up with. "Yeah, I think we all go through that, Gerda."

"It's not very fun," she said, sounding sadder than I've ever heard her. She was becoming Eeyore right before my eyes. I felt terrible but wasn't sure what to say.

"No. It's not at all," I said, anticlimactically. I scrambled for something more profound to say, something authentic and comforting. "But that's, like, the human experience, right? Heartbreak?"

She inhaled slowly and gave a great, long sigh. "I just don't think it's very fair."

"Yeah…"

"Sorry for bothering you, Hans. I'll leave you to your writing. Break a leg at the drag show!" And before I could stop her, she was gone, lost in the stream of a class that had just gotten released.

DAMMIT. I had created a monster. Somehow I had accidentally seduced all three of my Milton friends with this new, terrifying, dastardly "Hans." This was seriously getting out of hand, but I was in too deep to correct anything now. I just had to survive the awkwardness until after the soccer game, then the gig would be up and everyone could return back to the way things were before I interrupted the lives of all these innocents.

Then something else occurred me, something I should have already considered but was too busy and callous to have given much thought...

What if they all hate me when they find out the truth?

Kristoff had prepared a pep talk.

We were standing on deck, waiting to go on the stage. I had dutifully done my roommate's makeup (horrendously badly, which was actually very fun). I had relieved myself of the scratchy boy wig and teased up my real hair to make it look fake. We had on our dresses, neither of which was suited for a performance but no one really seemed to care about that. We were both bust-stuffed to the brim. (Everyone on the soccer team at my old school did it for homecoming last year, so I was a pro. What? Athletes are often cursed to be flat as a board.) Kristoff wore heels but I opted for flats at the last minute to save my already sore ankle.

"All right, gentlemen. Or, man," he corrected himself, pacing in front of me like a sergeant. "It is here, the moment of truth. Everything we have prepared for in the last 48 hours will be laid bare on this stage. All of the blood. All of the sweat. All of the TEARS."

"Are you almost done?"

"Shh," he quieted me, sliding a hand dramatically down my face.

"Dude, you'll smear my makeup!" I smacked him away - he didn't even flinch.

"It will be a sign of our toil…" he replied, sniffling.

The crowd out in the auditorium burst into cheers and the act before us returned to the wings. It was Sven and another guy from the soccer team. They wore sparkly leotards and awful platform boots, allowing them to tower far above us.

"How did it go?" Kristoff asked them, dropping his sergeant pretense.

"Fabulous!" Sven said in a high, girly voice. "Break a leg out there, ladies!"

They stalked away clumsily as Kristoff and I were called to the stage.

The lights were so bright that I couldn't see the audience at all, much less whether or not Elsa was part of it. But as the music started and we began the ridiculous choreography we had come up with I pretended that she was. I performed for her, and it bolstered me through it. I honestly just blacked out, I don't remember anything until the end when we had struck the final pose and were getting applause from the audience. We stumbled off the stage together, waving and smiling and once we were clear and in the wings we fell into each other, laughing like lunatics.

When we had calmed down we made our way to the back of the auditorium to watch the rest of the acts. had no point of reference as to whether we were as everyone else but the whole thing was a riot anyway. What an odd way to come together as a student body but… I'll take it!

At the end of the show, they called for a quick break so the judges could decide the winner (the judges being the student council.) As the audience began to chatter to itself and Kristoff jetted to the bathroom, I felt a tap on my back.

This time it was Elsa and I was almost knocked backward into a cluster of Queens in shock.

"Hey," I said, suddenly fully conscious of the embarrassing amount of makeup I had on and the pseudo size of my chest. "I'm glad you came."

"Yeah, I almost didn't but I had to see…"

"See what?" I asked, thinking I hadn't caught the last bit. The group of Queens behind me had burst into a chorus of loud boy-laughter.

She was scrutinizing me, her gaze deadly serious again, and my stomach was thrown into disarray.

"Elsa?" I asked, scooching closer so I could hear her through the noise of the crowd.

"Are you..?" she started, and this time I knew the rest of the sentence wasn't lost to my ears, she just didn't finish it. Elsa, unable to speak? This was new. Something was wrong.

She waited another few seconds, apparently gathering her thoughts. I cocked my head to the side in curiosity, trying not to show her that I was panicking.

Finally, she said: "Would you lie to me, Hans?"

My knee-jerk reaction was to spin a new lie - I took a breath in preparation but stopped at the look in her hard blue eyes. I didn't recognize it, I had never seen it there before.

An amplified voice rang through the space; they were about to announce the winner of the contest. Kristoff arrived miraculously at my elbow, diffusing the odd tension between Elsa and me.

"Hey, Elsa!" he said, not noticing how thick the air was.

"Hi, Kristoff," she replied shortly. "Sorry, I can't stay. Good luck, hope you win."

In a scary impulse, I reached out and caught her arm before she could flee.

"I finished my paper," I shouted in her ear, so I could be heard above the din, "you'll still proof it for me tomorrow, right?"

"Maybe," was her response before tugging her arm out of my grip and practically running out the door.

"What was that all about?" asked Kristoff, though it was obvious that he was more preoccupied with what was happening on the stage. "The Ice Queen returns, eh? You'd think she'd stay, isn't this her scene?"

I shook my head, unable to speak in case I ended up acting on my urge to puke. I couldn't even pay attention to the announcement, my insides were too busy churning at what Elsa left unsaid...

Next thing I knew I was getting picked up in Kristoff's arms and the sound of the room rushed back to me all at once.

"WE WON! WE WON! TELEPHONE WON!"

I wiggled out of his arms and plastered on a smile as everyone around me tried to shake my hand in congratulations all at once. Kristoff raced up to the stage to accept the cash prize from the student body president.

When he returned, he clapped me on the shoulder. "Come on, Hans! We're going out to celebrate."

"I don't think…" I started, trying to escape.

"Come on, come on, let's go! Think of how much pizza we can get with $50!"

I managed to squeeze out of his death grip on my shoulders.

"You guys go ahead. I have to finish my essay for English." I really wasn't in the mood for celebration.

For the first time, Kristoff seemed to notice my melancholy. Concerned flashed in his eyes and he changed tack on a dime.

"We don't have to party, we can do anything."

I shook my head. "I'd rather just be alone, sorry."

He looked hurt but squeezed my shoulder anyway. I could tell by the touch that he would rather stay and comfort me than go out. But I had to shake him.

"Go, eat pizza. You've earned it, bro."

He looked at me, sizing me up. Finally, he shrugged in what seemed like annoyance.

"Whatever you say, Ladies' Man." And without further ado, Kristoff was whisked away with the rest of the Queens, leaving me to walk back to our dorm more alone than I'd ever felt.

A/N: The amount of patience ya'll have is astounding.