Day 12: The Letter

"Don't you think it's a little early to be drinking, Anna?"

"Don't you think it's a little early to be on my ass, Rapunzel?"

Rapunzel rolls her eyes and sips her iced tea. We've been friends for five years, she knows me well enough to not take my bitchy comments to heart. Not anymore, at least. "All I'm saying is that I don't wanna see 'Drunk Anna' at 1 PM on a Friday."

"And you're not going to, I just…" I pause to grab a few peanuts to eat with my next sip of light beer. Even with the black card, I'm not going for the high-shelf shit, "I just need a couple, that's all."

"And you wanted to go to a steakhouse because…?"

I shrug, "I wanted steak."

She raises an eyebrow, "Uh huh, and it has nothing to do with the fact that you think the waitresses are cute? Or that you wanted to eat something that'd take a while to cook? Possibly so you can continue to avoid a certain someone that you live with?"

"...let's change the subject."

Rapunzel shakes her head, the frays on her new haircut shake slightly as well. It's been months, and I'm still not used to her hair going from a long and flowy blonde, to a short and bold brunette. It was a welcome surprise, though, I told her she needed to shake things up sometimes. "You're insane," she says.

"Yeah well you're friends with me, so what does that say about you?" Gosh, the peanuts here are so bland.

"Have you even talked to Elsa since you guys went to the park?"

"Not exactly," One of the aforementioned cute waitresses comes over to our table to top off my half-empty mug. "Thanks," I tell her, and it takes all my willpower to keep from winking. We're not here to flirt right now Anna Reinhart, so keep it in your pants.

When she walks away, I see that Rapunzel's frowning at me, "That's your last one."

I pout, "Fine. But we can't talk about you-know-who anymore."

"No deal. Why haven't you told her that you haven't moved on from the breakup?"

I take a big sip of my beer to avoid having to answer right away, and also because I have no idea what the hell to say about that. I don't do the whole "best friend" thing, I keep everyone at a safe and manageable distance, but if I ever did have one, it'd probably be Rapunzel. One of the reasons we're such good friends is because she's kept me from doing some pretty stupid stuff, and she's right about a lot of things. But I know she's wrong about this. I pull my lips away from my mug and frown when I realize that it's half-empty again.

"I don't know-" Burp. "-what the hell you're talking about. I've been playing the field since the breakup, and I've been-" Another burp. "-doing pretty damn well for myself."

Rapunzel drinks her ice tea and pulls away burpless, "You've been on twenty dates- yes I counted- since the breakup. You wanna know what I've noticed?"

"That...I've got serious game?"

I get a peanut to the face for that.

She's giving me a look that I've seen a thousand times: a smug grin with a head tilt, which means she's about to say something I'm not gonna like. "Anna Marie Reinhart," she says while emphasizing the middle name I hate so much, "You have a type."

I laugh out of instinct, and a bit too loud too if the other customers looking towards our booth is any indication.

Where is my fucking steak?

When I recover from the coughing fit I use to stop myself from laughing, I take another sip of my nearly empty mug and reply to my wonderful, caring, supportive friend, "First of all, fuck you for the middle name thing."

Rapunzel shrugs, no doubt feeling victorious at getting under my skin.

"Second of all, I do not have a type. Unless that type is pretty girls, in which case I do."

I'm gonna make a third point about how I have moved on from the breakup, but I'm interrupted by my other friend, Lilo, sliding into the booth next to Rapunzel. She's a kindhearted islander chick with impossibly smooth black hair that I met two years ago when I was delivering pizzas. Just like how I met Elsa…

"What are we talking about?" She asks before sipping her glass of water with a straw.

"We're talking about how Anna has a type."

Lilo nods quickly, "Oh she definitely has a type."

"I do not have a type."

"See? I'm not the only one that sees it."

"It's kinda funny that she doesn't see it."

"What am I not seeing?"

"It's really obvious, right?"

"It's super obvious."

"Okay shut up! Both of you!" Again, way too loud. People are staring now, and it takes longer for them to look away this time. I down the rest of my beer and glare at them. "Enough already, I do not have-" Burp. "-a type. So just drop it."

To their credit, they do stop talking. Lilo even runs two fingers across her mouth like a zipper. Rapunzel sips her iced tea, looking amused at her handiwork. I rub my temples with my fingers, thankful that that shut them up. But...damn it I'm curious.

I groan, "But if I did have a type...what would it be?"

They turn to each other again, Rapunzel raises an eyebrow and nods her head towards me, Lilo nods. Finally wrapping up their brief, silent conversation, they turn back to me, and Rapunzel pulls out her phone.

"I have taken the liberty of gathering pictures of the last five girls you went on dates with." She turns her screen towards me and swipes her fingers to scroll through this hot girl slideshow. To my credit, I do remember all these girls. Things didn't work out for one reason or another, and a couple of them I just...didn't want to spend the night alone. "Notice anything that they have in common?"

"Uh...they're all super cute?"

"They're all blonde," Lilo states.

"What? That's not…" Rapunzel scrolls through the pictures again for my benefit and that's when the bell goes off in my head, "Shit."

"Very Scandinavian looking blondes too, by the looks of it," Lilo says as she grabs the phone and looks through the pictures, "Coincidence?"

I bury my fingers into my hair and close my eyes, flipping her off in the process.

"You should tell her what you're feeling, Anna," Rapunzel says with that soothing, motherly voice she likes using after lecturing me. "I'm sure she'll understand."

"I did tell her, and she started crying."

"Well yeah because you were kind of a witch about it." A soft hand wraps around my shirt- Lilo's, judging by the shell bracelet- and pulls it away from my hair. I look up at her, and she continues, "I'm not saying that you should get back with her."

"Not happening," I interrupt.

"I know, because of the money. By the way, is there a sibling version of this contest? I'd love to win $100,000 for putting up with Stitch living in my apartment."

"Still mad at him for killing your fish?" I ask.

"Among other things," she grumbles.

"I would still try talking to Elsa again, but be a little nicer this time?" Rapunzel says, still using that motherly voice, "I know that's not something you like doing. But who knows, by the end of this year you could have more than just the money."

I groan, "I'm not-"

"I'm not saying you should get back together with her. I'm just saying that you could at least be friends again, and that could make living with her a lot easier. Don't you think?"

Ugh. She's right.

It's something that I've been mulling over too, ever since Olaf told me that Elsa could leave at any time if she wanted to. I don't think merely coexisting is gonna cut it, especially since I go through a tidal wave of emotions every time I see her. If this is gonna work, I have to be an adult and actually talk to her about how I'm feeling. And try and hold off on the fuck you's.

"Fine," I reply with a huff, "I'll try."

"Good!" My friends say in unison.

Finally, finally, our food gets here, and it's the second most I've ever been excited to see a steak in my life. As the cute waitress places our food on the table, I notice that she also happens to be blonde. And that her name is Astrid.

And that she's slipped a piece of paper with her number underneath my steak.

Surprisingly, the thought of having a heart-to-heart with my ex-girlfriend made me lose my appetite. After getting a to-go bag for my food, Rapunzel and Lilo dropped me off at Arendelle Towers. Now all that was between me and another rough conversation with Elsa, was the hallway to our room.

Who's to say that she's even here right now? It's 3 PM on a Friday, maybe she's having a late lunch with her own friends. I mean she didn't really have friends when we were dating, but that could have changed in the past year. Look, I just need to knock on her door and see if she's here. And if she's not, then I can take a nap and hold off from having that conversation. Gosh, I hope she's not here.

I open the front door and say "Elsa?" and I realize that it's the first time I've said her name all day. It feels weird coming out of my mouth, like saying a word that I forgot was even a word. No answer, though, but I have to say that I at least tried harder than the bare minimum.

Once I place my leftovers in the fridge, I walk towards her door and take a deep breath before knocking on it. "Elsa? You here?"

No answer, unless you count the force of my knocks slightly opening the door as an answer. In which case, yes there is. I don't think I've ever seen her door open before, every time I come back it's either closed or she's closing it because she's going somewhere. Not only that, but I've also never seen her room before. I'm going through all sorts of uncharted territory before.

Call it bravery, or call it extreme nosiness, but I open the door the rest of the way and get my first look at her...completely normal room.

I mean we live in a hotel, what was I really expecting? We couldn't rearrange the place, and pinning stuff up on the wall wasn't covered in the costs, so decorating was out of the question. Still, it looks way too clean and untouched. Does she clean the place from top to bottom every time she goes out? You'd think that no one actually lived here if it wasn't for the notebook on the desk. And even that just looks like a guest registry.

I should leave. I really should leave. But...I don't want to. It's strange, Elsa's apartment in East Arendelle looks nothing like this, it's messier and the furniture is more antique and thrifty. Nothing about this room reminds me of her, but I can still tell that she's here. She sleeps here, writes here, watches TV here, changes and showers here.

Wait no, bad Anna. Not the time.

Elsa lives here. Five feet away from me. After a year of distance, we're only five feet apart and I...I need to sit down. My head's spinning and I tell myself it's from the beer and not the hundreds of memories flooding my head. I stumble to her desk and sit in her chair, pressing my fingers into my temples.

"Come on, Anna. What the hell's the matter with you?"

Deep breaths. Just gotta take deep breaths. One, two, three…

When I feel myself straighten up again, I reopen my eyes to continue recovering from that intense feeling. I've been angry, cried a lot, and threw shit and got into fights since the breakup, but I never experienced anything like that before.

I go to get up from the chair so that I can go to my own room and take a nap, and that's when I see the first two lines on the page of Elsa's open notebook: Dear Anna…

It's a letter, Elsa's writing a letter. To me. Was she gonna send me this? Was she even finished with it? No, I should leave. I should get out of here, this is a complete invasion of privacy and I should leave.

But I don't.

I sit back down and read what Elsa has to say.

Dear Anna,

I just...I don't even know where to begin. I already said that I'm sorry but I guess that isn't enough. And that's not your fault, it's mine. All of this is my fault. I was selfish and stupid, and I know that we would have been just fine and we'd still be together if I had just said those damn words. But I couldn't.

You have to know, though, that I wanted to. I really wanted to. But I couldn't.

And I'm sorry. I know I already said that but that's all I can really say right now. I'm sorry, Anna. I'm so, so SO sorry for everything. Everything that you said to me at the park was true, I hurt you more than I know. Now I'm seeing how much I hurt you.

This next year is probably gonna be hell for you, and that's all my fault. I'm sorry.

Gosh, I keep saying it. I'm a writer, you'd think I'd have more words to say other than that haha. Ugh, maybe it's not the time for jokes yet.

I want to make it up to you this year. If we're going to be living together, I want to finally take the time to make things right. And you can be as mean and rude as you want to be, because I deserve it, and hopefully that lets you get it out of your system. Hopefully, that gets you to a point where you can forgive me.

But I know I owe you an explanation. Anna, I really want to tell you why I couldn't say those words. Something happened and I

...that's where it leaves off. It doesn't look like Elsa's finished it just yet. I soak in every word that is on the page though, and there's that fucking tidal wave of emotions. I remind myself that I shouldn't be here, but I want to keep reading this letter because I guess I'm a glutton for punishment and I want to know how much pain I caused her. I want to keep reading the words I might never hear Elsa say. Because after reading this, I can't help but shake the feeling that-

"Anna? What are you doing in my room?"

I practically jump off Elsa's seat and face her so fast that my head starts spinning again. I haven't seen her in days, she's still wearing the same outfit from Sunday aside from the flannel being forest green instead of blue. Still with that ring around her neck, still with her backpack over her shoulder.

"Elsa! Uh hey, I...didn't hear you come in." Damn soundproof walls.

"I just got back and my door was closed, I didn't expect…" Her face goes from confusion to shock to fear. "Oh no."

All of a sudden she's pacing towards me, and I don't know why but I'm expecting a punch to the face. Elsa wasn't a violent person when I knew her, so I hope I'm in the clear. She doesn't punch me, but she does shove me out of the way so hard that I would have fallen had I not caught the edge of the table. "The hell?"

Elsa closes her notebook and clutches it tightly to her chest, "Did you read it?"

"Read what? The letter?"

She nods.

"Yeah, I did."

"Why?!"

"It was addressed to me, what else was I supposed to do?"

"Not go into my room and read through my stuff?"

"Your door was open!" It really wasn't, and I don't know why I'm trying to defend myself. I can say with complete honesty that I was wrong to even be here. But it was a letter written to me, and I wanted to know what was going on in Elsa's mind so bad that I...invaded her privacy. "I'm sorry, okay? I-I'll leave."

"Why were you even in here?! It's not finished yet…" She's glaring at me again, I'm not used to this emotion on her. But her hands are also shaking.

"Were you gonna give that letter to me?"

"I…" Elsa closes her eyes and shakes her head. When she opens them, she looks more scared than angry. Like even though this is her room, she's the one that's feeling cornered. "It doesn't matter anymore. Could you just leave? Please?"

"Elsa, what is-"

"Just leave!"

I wince, and my fists clench subconsciously. I don't like it when people raise their voice at me, but Elsa's in the right here. As curious as I am, I'm not gonna get any answers right now. Maybe ever thanks to how badly I fucked this up. "Fine, I'll leave," I say.

"Thank you. Please just leave, please..." Elsa says breathlessly. She's not even looking at me anymore. "Please go..."

I leave her room, and Elsa follows me out like an escort. I turn around to tell her I'm sorry, but she shuts her door before I can. And locks it.

When I'm back in my room, and I can hear that Elsa's for sure in hers, I hear panicked breathing and paper tearing. I should go in there and make sure that she's okay, but she told me to leave and I doubt I'm the last person she wants to see right now. Hell, to be honest, I don't want to see me right now.