Tossing and Turning and having difficulty sleeping was something that often plagued Kristoff even on good days. Once his Uber dropped him off at home that night he didn't even try to head to sleep in his bed. Kristoff flicked on the TV and laid down on the couch hoping that his thoughts could be forgotten if they were drowned out with late night TV. He still felt his heart racing, it had been since Anna started kissing him, but it had been racing in a different way since he'd left her place. Her kisses made his heart race out of arousal and excitment, but the second that he noticed her trying to push things further his racing heart was because of panic. He'd had to get out of there as fast as he could. His mind had been swimming in thoughts and he had to leave before he drowned and brought Anna down with him. Funny how fear and romance could elicit the same physical feelings. That was one of the reasons that Kristoff thought of just avoiding dating altogether, despite all of Sven and his mother's pressure.
Somehow, at some point in the night, Kristoff had fallen asleep. At noon he was woken up by his phone ringing.
"Hello?" he groaned into his phone. His eyes were still closed, he didn't know that it was Sven calling until he heard his cheery voice saying, "Wow, sounds like someone had a long night. Were you up late with Anna?"
"Not up late with Anna. I was up late because of Anna" Kristoff groaned. Of course Sven would be calling to check up how the rest of the night went. Frankly, it seemed like a miracle that he had been able to wait this long to check in.
"Just stop being cryptic and tell me what went on"
The ship had sailed on Kristoff lying about what had happeneed, he'd already confessed to thoughts of Anna keeping him awake. After being best friends with Sven since kindergarten Sven also had a way ofb easily being able to figure out when Kristoff was lying.
"She kissed me and that ended up in us making out on her kitchen floor. She wanted to take it further and..."
"and you guys did it right?"
"God, you're way to invested in my love life. No Sven," Kristodd sighed loudly, "I stopped her."
"Why the hell did you do that? You got the green light"
"Because we were both drunk!" Kristoff yelled and then winced at hearing his own loud voice ring in his head, "I could have been the asshole who she thinks took advantage of her or that she regrets sleeping with." And she deserves better. Of course them being drunk wasn't the only reason he'd stopped her, it was just the reason that was a lot easier to talk about.
"What a gentleman you are! So...did you ask her out or schedule a sober rendez-vous?" Sven asked excitedly.
"Well...no. I just told her we should stop and I left." He knew that Sven was going to lay into him for that.
"I hope you don't mean you were just like 'nope' and then peaced out. Like what else did you say?"
"Just that we had to stop and that I had to go and I thanked her for the party and I left" he wiched.
"Are you serious? You didn't even give her your reason, you just left her drunk and confused on her kitchen floor? I take it back, you're not so gentlemanly"
"I panicked, I had to leave" Kristoff whispered. Sven knew all of what some would call Kristoff's quirks; the panic attacks, the difficulty sleeping, the irritability, the recluse behaviour. He was one of the very few people to know that they weren't quirks, but symptoms of a formal diagnosis of PTSD: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
"But why? I told you, she likes you. She was flirting with you all night, she even tried to sleep with you" Sven's tone softened.
"But she doesn't know me. I mean she got a taste of it last night, but she doesn't know the me that comes with the PTSD warning sign. She just broke up with her douchebag of an ex-fiance. She doesn't need to be with someone who's unstable like me, someone who could hurt her again. You just pointed out that I've probably already hurt her with what I did last night. I'm either going to hurt her or she's going to run."
"Or she's going to be understanding and supportive and fall madly in love with you. Not every girl is Katherine."
Katherine was Kristoff's last serious girlfriend. It'd been almost a year since they'd broken up, and it'd been about a week longer than that since he'd been first diagnosed with PTSD. Coincidence? It absolutey was not.
"There you go, you two can bond over how horrible your exes are. Look, you obviously care about Anna because you're willing to be sad and lonely to try and save her from being hurt, that's admirable of you. I think you owe it to both of you to at least try" Sven said, "But now that you've decided to finally tell me the whole truth about what's going on with Anna I'll lay off you a bit."
"Thanks buddy. I just need to clear my head right now"
The next morning Anna was feeling absolutely horrible, both emotionally and physically. She pulled her blankets over her eyes and tried to sleep as late as she possibly could, but she needed some ibuprofen and some water and she couldn't manage to sleep any longer. As awful as she felt she knew that she had to get out of the house. She'd just feel worse if she were left to spend her hours at the very scene of her embarrassment. She never wanted to look at her kitchen sink or floor again. She took a shower to wash off the night before, threw her hair up in a ponytail and tossed on the first outfit she found and head out to her bakery.
She gave a little wave to the girls working the front counter and she quickly slipped into the back kitchen where she found Olaf.
"Oh hey, I didn't think you were coming in today. What a nice surpirse" Olaf exclaimed when he saw her. He put down the bread dough that he was kneading to rush over and give her one of his signature warm hugs.
"Surpirse, you never know when I'll pop up" Anna giggled. Whenever she was sad she always tried to put on a brave, happy face when she was around others. She didn't want to bring them down.
"Your party was great by the way, I forget if I already told you that but it deserves to be said again anyway"
"Thanks" Anna replied nonchalantly as she took over kneading the bread. She focused on folding and digging her palms into the bread, sometimes giving it a little punch. It was quite the release of her frustration.
"Uhhh, Anna are you okay?" Olaf asked.
"I'll be okay. I'm just a bit hungover cause, as you probably saw I was a bit tipsy"
"No, I mean because you're kneading that dough pretty hard. Something on your mind? You can tell me. You know I'm good at keeping secrets." Olaf wasn't that good at secrets, not because he wanted to spill, but he'd just get so caught up in talking that he'd speak before thinking.
"Okay, fine. So I already covered that I was tipsy last night..." Anna looked up at Olaf and bit her lip, "Well, while I was tipsy I kissed Kristoff and then I tried to take off his pants." Anna said the last part rapidly, she closed her eyes and winced at the end.
"My goodness Anna! That's so saucy" Olaf gasped, "So what happened? I mean it seems like you didn't succeed with taking off his pants"
"He just said we had to stop and he got up and left. I must have really upset him. Like by being so forward made him not even able to be around me. Why do I always mess things up?" Anna was aggressively punching the bread again.
" Don't take it out on the bread" Olaf grabbed her by the shoulders, "Look at me, you don't always mess things up. You were tipsy, we all do silly things when we're tipsy"
"I know, but I may have ruined things with him. I had a crush and I just wanted us to at least be friends even if he didn't return the feelings. He did kiss me back so I thought he liked me too and I got brave. Now, what if he can't even be friends with me now? " Anna whined.
" He didn't give you a reason though. You don't know that he doesn't really like you. He could have been just being a half gentleman."
"a half gentleman?" Anna gave Olaf a confused look.
"Ya, like he was gentlemanly enough to not take advantage of you, but not quite gentlemanly enough to tell you those thoughts and give a proper ending to the night. If that's not the case and he was leading you on then he can deal with me" Olaf flexed his chubby arm.
"Thanks Olaf. You're right. Maybe hope isn't quite lost " Anna smiled at him
"That's the spirit! Besides, if he decides to not even be your friend then he isn't worth the time and it's his problem. You're the best friend someone could have."
"Awwww, no you're the best friend Olaf"
Despite what Kristoff had told Sven his head was anything but clear as time passed. Even after he was no longer actually hungover he still had a headache. Of course his knee jerk reaction was to just run from Anna and his feelings and try and forget it all. Sven had been convincing though. If he just assumed that she wouldn't give him a chance if she knew about his mental illness then he really wasn't giving her enough credit. Yet another thing he had done that showed he wasn't good enough for her and that he'd just somehow hurt her. He felt no closer to actually deciding what he should do. He decided to go out for a walk, maybe that would clear his head. It was starting to get dark, but he prefered walking in the dark since it was much quieter. He didn't set out with a specific destination. He just kept walking until he started to feel some rain coming down. He was going to turn around to head hom but he noticed that he was stopped outside of a store front with a gigantic pink sign saying 'Sprinkles'. The lights were still on and he could see Anna in there behind the cash. It was a sign. It was time to stop thinking and just act. He fellt his heart starting to race a bit, he took three deep breaths and opened the door.
"Sorry, we're about to close soon. We don't have much inventory left. It's been a busy day" Anna said without looking up.
"I'm not here for the baking" he replied
Anna looked up at him with surprised eyes.
"Can we talk?" he shrugged.
"We can talk" Anna nodded.