The Runaway

There was this girl, her name was Elsa, who had the power to be anything you wanted her to be.

And I was in love with her.

I first met her at this house party for...who knows, honestly. Kristoff didn't want me to go, but I'd just turned twenty-one and I felt like I could make my own decisions now. Like this, like drinking a cup of stale beer, like approaching the girl sitting on a couch in the backyard.

She had on a dark-grey tank top and black skinny jeans, and her light blonde hair was in a ponytail tucked underneath a faded baseball cap. It was like she didn't wanna be noticed, and yet I still did.

I ask Kristoff if he knows her, and he shrugs and says she's probably from out of the town. If that's true, then I have to shoot my shot now. I take one more sip, toss the half-empty cup into a trash can, and I sit right next to her.

Right next to Elsa.

"Hey," I say, maybe a little too eager, a little too loud. But I needed her to hear me past the loud, droning music.

"Hey," she says back. It's neutral, but she says it with a smile. I take that to mean she doesn't mind my company.

We end up talking all night long. I learned that she's lived in a lot of different places, but just moved here about a month ago. I learned that she's looking for a job, preferably not retail. I learned that her favorite food is salmon and some Norwegian dessert I can't pronounce. Most importantly, I learned that she's single.

At the end of the night, Kristoff walks over to us and says that we have to get going because he's got work in the morning. He's my ride, but of course I don't want to go yet.

Or ever.

But then Elsa gets up and says, "It is getting pretty late."

I agree with her, but I don't like it. Kristoff says he'll get the car started, which leaves me alone with her for a little bit longer.

"It was nice meeting you, Anna," she says with her soft, sweet voice, and I swear I've never heard anyone my name said so beautifully.

"Me too," I say. "I- uh, I mean it was nice meeting you too. Not that it was nice meeting me, I've already met me. Because I am me, you know?"

She giggles and runs a hand along my forearm, "I like when you talk."

And she leaves, just like that.

Without even saying goodbye, leaving me with the feeling of her fingers on my arm, the tugging of her presence in my heart, and her number in my phone.

It takes three more weeks of talking before I even have the nerve to ask her out. Surprisingly, she says yes.

I wanna take her to this nice seafood place that's near where she lives, but it's expensive and she said to keep it simple for the first date. Which...hopefully means there'll be more than one?

We settle instead for lunch at this cute cafe, in the middle of both our places which means it's not a bad drive for either of us. I get there fifteen minutes early, pick a spot that has the best view of the city, and where I can tell when she gets there.

The door opens, and she looks around for a second before spotting me. And she looks happy to see me. That's...wow.

She's got on a blue and black flannel, with a white undershirt, and the same skinny jeans from the party. This time her hair is in a neat braid. She's got on minimal makeup, the most visible part being her light-pink lipstick.

"Hey," she says.

"Hey," I say back. "Thanks for agreeing to meet with me."

"Meet with you?" Elsa shakes her head and sips on the glass of iced tea I already ordered for her, "Gosh, Anna, you make this sound like a stuffy board meeting."

That all-too-familiar feeling of panic starts creeping up my spine. "Oh no, I am?! I'm so sorry, I've never been on a date before so I don't know how I'm supposed to act, I don't want you to think this is lame or boring or-"

"Hey hey…" Elsa places her hand on my wrist, it's a little damp from the condensation on her glass. "You're doing fine. That was a joke. I already like you, so there's nothing you need to worry about. Let's just have fun, okay?"

That creeping feeling dies down, and I'm left with just my heart racing. It's crazy, only Kristoff can calm me down as well as she can. And it took him months to be able to do that. With Elsa, it's easier. "Okay," I reply with a calm breath. "Yeah. Let's have fun."

The cafe is amazing, but not as good as the company. Elsa orders a tuna melt, and I order a chicken salad so it looks like I have my act together. Afterward, we take a walk around the park next to the cafe.

I want to kiss her at the end of the date. I...want to tell her how much she already means to me.

But I bite my tongue and wait.

I don't want to screw this up.

Two weeks later, and we're laying on her couch. It's the first time I've been over at her apartment, I don't really push for us to go to mine because I live with Kristoff. It's embarrassing to even think about, I guess?

I'm leaning on her, nestled safely in her arms as she runs a finger up and down my arm and uses her other hand to stroke my hair. "What's this?" she asks as she combs through a certain spot near the back of my head.

I already know what she's talking about.

The scar.

"Got it when I was eight or nine. I was being a stupid kid, walking on top of the monkey bars, and my foot slipped. I guess my head hit one of the bars when I fell."

Elsa hisses sympathetically, "What happened after?"

I shrug, "I blacked out, woke up in the hospital a week later. Doctors said I suffered a major concussion, and that I was lucky to be alive."

The finger that's running along my arm ceases, and she holds the back of my hand tightly. "Anna...I'm so sorry."

"Hey, it's not your fault," I say with a small chuckle. "You didn't push me off the monkey bars. And besides, it was so long ago. Sometimes I like to joke that I was bitten by a troll."

"Still…" Even without seeing her face, I can tell that she's frowning. And so, I do something that I haven't done with her yet. Or with anyone.

I kiss her.

On the palm of her hand, it's soft and light. Pretty much a peck, but it's a start. It's the first kiss I've given anyone, and I swear I can hear, or at least feel, Elsa's breath hitch a little.

I love it.

As much as I love her.

I'm in love with her, but I can't say it. We haven't even called each other "girlfriends" yet. So I won't say it, even though I want to.

"What about you? Any scars? Bumps? Bruises?"

Elsa lets out a sad laugh, and if I wasn't literally in her arms I may have not heard her. "Not any physical ones."

"What do you mean?"

"..."

I tilt my head up, "Elsa?"

She bites her lip and looks away, even though I can barely look at her anyway, "I...growing up was hard. My dad wasn't around, and my mom just wasn't there. Did some things I'm not proud of, just to survive, hurt people and got hurt. Left a lot of people burned so I could get by, and when things got too complicated...I'd bail."

I feel her grip tighten on me. "Elsa…" I whisper, not out of pain, but from concern.

"I'm not a good person, Anna."

"Hey. No." I turn over gently so as to not hurt Elsa, which leaves me facing her and wrapped between her legs. This is...new. "Stop that, you are a good person."

"How do you know that?"

"I wouldn't be with you if you weren't."

Another sad laugh, "You barely know me, Anna."

I scoot up innocently, telling myself it's because of our height difference and I want her to look me in the eye, and place my hands underneath her shoulders to steady myself. She's surprised but isn't pushing me off, and I take that as a good sign to keep talking. "I want to, though. I want to know you, I-I mean if you'll let me. I think you're a good person, and I wanna show you that."

She's looking at everywhere else but me. She's deciding, thinking, second-guessing? Have I screwed this up? Are things over before they can even start? I want to add a "Please…" to see if that helps any, but it dies on my lips.

As she presses her lips on mine.

"What do you want?"

It's such a simple question, and yet so hard to answer. Elsa's not asking me what I want off the menu, or what movie I want to watch, or even what I want to do when we get back to her apartment.

She's asking me what I want from us.

I want to tell her everything, tell her how I go to sleep with fantasies of us spending the rest of our lives together. Ever since that kiss, and even before it, Elsa's already been everything I've dreamed about.

She's kind, gentle, strokes my head in her lap during my headaches, picks me up from work, stomachs my horrible cooking, makes me laugh by being a dork. It feels too good to be true whenever I'm with her, but all I have to do is touch her cheek or run my fingers through her hair to know that this is real.

But I don't wanna freak her out. I don't wanna tell her just yet that I want us to move in together, to sleep in the same bed every night, to adopt an adorable golden retriever, to get married on the beach.

So I tell her that I want her, and only her.

She holds me even tighter as we walk underneath the streetlights of the park we've walked through a hundred times. Eight months, we've been dating for eight months now, and I've yet to tell her I love her. But if that bothers her, it doesn't show.

"I want you too," she says with a smile. I believe her, of course I do.

It's three weeks later when I finally say it. We're at my place, which rarely ever happens but Kristoff is visiting family for the weekend so we're alone. When I tell her this on the phone, she tells me all the...fun things she wants to do.

And it makes me blush. I mean I did say that I liked it when she was flirty, but...wow.

It's the first night, and we've just had dinner- seared salmon, I'm getting better at it. She makes a cheeky remark about wanting dessert, and that leads us straight into my bedroom.

When she's between my legs and doing that thing with her tongue that I love, I let it slip. It's breathless, almost a whisper, but in the quiet of my apartment, it's all either of us can hear.

"I love you."

Elsa doesn't stop, doesn't make a noise, doesn't even look at me, but she does slow down enough for me to think that maybe I shouldn't have said it. It's the lack of response that brings back that pang of anxiety I thought I kicked a long time ago.

Did I say it too soon? Did I overthink the nature of our relationship? Does she not love me back? Do I bring her back up so we can talk about this?

What if I was supposed to let her say it first?

The doubts, the fears, are so strong that I feel like I'm gonna cry. And I just want her to say something, anything at all.

But then I feel her press her fingers into my hips and work her tongue in ways I'd never felt before. Faster, stronger, deeper. And I think we're okay.

I think maybe this is her way to say she loves me back without actually saying it.

Yet, I reassure myself, she hasn't said it yet.

I wake up alone.

Usually, I'll feel her arms around me when I wake up. When I don't, I assume that she rolled over- after all, she's not used to this bed. But when I turn around, she's not there.

Neither are her clothes, her phone, the snowflake hair tie she uses to close her braid, or the half-empty water bottle on the nightstand. It's like she was never here. And I'm alone.

I'm alone.

For the first time in...forever, I'm alone.

It doesn't feel good.

Nothing feels good right now.

She doesn't answer my messages or my phone calls, and everything feels even worse.

That anxiety, that creeping, spine-tingling feeling that's only overtaken me a handful of times in my life is coming back. Breathe, Anna. Remember what your therapist told you when you were a kid.

What did she tell you? Breathe and...breathe. What else? What else are you supposed to do? What else did she fucking tell you?!

I feel the panic surging, the walls closing in, the never-ending tears start pouring. And I'm alone, and no one's here to help me.

Where is Elsa?

...where is Elsa?

Her apartment looks untouched, even the mug I used to drink hot chocolate from is still in the sink. But there are things missing- clothes in her closet, the pink toothbrush on her sink, food in the pantry- which tell me that even though it seems like it…

Elsa's not here.

And yet I search. I look through drawers, shelves, even her mail to see if there's anything that can tell me where she is or where she's going.

I didn't think when I said those words that this would be the reaction. I thought she cared about me, about us, so there's no way that she could just be gone, right?

An hour later, and I'm so desperate for any sort of answer that I begin piecing together "evidence" that makes sense in my head. A magazine dated last week with a palm tree on the cover, placed conveniently next to a cheap pair of sunglasses. That means she has to be going somewhere warm and sunny, and I can catch up to her.

The more I think, the less everything makes sense.

I sit on her bed, both physically and mentally exhausted. The mattress is cold and unfamiliar, but I know these sheets, these pillows. And then I see something which isn't "evidence", but I wish it wasn't left behind either.

In the corner of her closet, a plush snowman I found at a thrift shop. She named it Olaf...we named it Olaf.

I pick him up, and part of me wants to throw him against the wall or out the window. But instead, I just wrap him in my arms and cry. Again.

It's all that I can do right now.

It's hard figuring out what people know about Elsa when you're the only one that really knows her.

Or at least I think I do.

I sift through text conversations and pictures, walking around the park to jog my memory about talks we've had, to see if there's anything that I can piece together. After twelve days, one word finally sticks out above the rest: Mississippi.

She had a relative in Mississippi, someone she hadn't met yet. And she mentioned she never went to the same place twice, and the list of places she hadn't gone to yet was dwindling. At least in the country.

There are pictures too, she's sent me pictures of places she's been. She loves the water and being in nature. I've looked up pictures of Mississippi, and there are water and trees everywhere. She has to be there.

She has to be there.

Kristoff catches me as I'm packing up my second suitcase.

"What are you doing?" he asks concerned.

"Packing," I reply. It's the first word I've spoken in days, it feels weird and alien-like.

"Yeah I can see that, but why?"

"Don't worry about it." The faster I pack, the less he gets to ask. I start stuffing in the clothes instead of folding them.

"Don't worry about it?" He has to get out of my way as I pace from the closet to my bed. "Wait...is this about Elsa? Did you find her?"

"I said don't worry about it." It's a struggle to zip up the suitcase, I have to push down on it just so it can close. "Where do you keep the spare first aid kit? And the tire wrench?"

"Anna, where are you going? What are you doing?!"

"Screw it, I'll just get one at Wal-mart." I grab my keys, but Kristoff's blocking the door to my bedroom, and he's bent one leg behind the other so I can't go underneath them like I usually do.

"Anna, stop."

And I do. Whenever he uses his stern, "older brother" voice, I always go rigid and listen. It's been like that for years, but he's only used it a handful of times. That doesn't mean I become overly complicit, however, and I'm ready with responses and arguments to anything he protests.

"Elsa's gone."

...okay, I'm not ready for that.

"She left you without saying goodbye, just packed up all her shit in the middle of the night and ditched. I'm not saying that you shouldn't feel that pain, but this isn't how you should be coping with it. I'm assuming you've packed up all your stuff to go on a road trip to somewhere you think she's gonna be, but what's gonna happen even if you do find her? She'll just hurt you again, Anna, even more this time."

"You don't know that…" I protest weakly.

"Of course I know that, I've known you almost your whole life. You love people with all your heart, and you see past their flaws no matter how dangerous they are. But this isn't about you, you did nothing wrong. Elsa was the one that messed up and left you. She's not a good person, Anna."

I want to protest, to argue- I had so many arguments just a minute ago- I want to scream at him to get out of my way, I want to shove him, I want to get in my car and drive to Mississippi, I...I want to fight. I want to keep fighting because someone has to, and if Elsa's too far away to do it, then that means I have to.

Right?

I have to fight for this. I told her I love her, and love is something worth fighting for. Even if she said she wasn't a good person, even if Kristoff says she isn't a good person, even if she did leave me in the middle of the night without saying anything.

I...I have to do something.

I need to do something.

Anything.

But when I finally speak, it comes out soft and defeated, and all I can say is, "I don't know what to do."

And everything that I've forced myself not to feel- the anger, betrayal, grief, heartache, and all of the pain- starts spilling out. The weight of it all brings me to my knees, Kristoff follows me down, and I bury my head into his chest and sob. "What am I supposed to do?" I cry, "I-I thought we were okay. I miss her, and maybe I shouldn't but...I...please, tell me what to do!"

"Shhh. It's okay, you're okay," Kristoff replies. "Just breathe. That's all you gotta do, is just breathe."

And I do, but it doesn't feel like it's enough. Nothing I do feels like it's enough, I can cry all the tears I want to and drive around the entire country, but it won't be enough.

This weight in my chest, that feels like it's getting bigger and bigger, is all I have to hold on to as the rest of my world crumbles away. Elsa's gone, and whatever she took from me is with her too. And there's no getting it back, no getting her back.

…

…

…

They say you never really forget your first love.

You can forget the names and the memories, but that feeling of love sticks with you. Because it's so raw and powerful, like nothing you've ever felt before, and you want it to last. Because that feeling is good.

Until it isn't, until one way or another it's gone.

So you try to move on with your life, and it's been three years now for me, but that feeling still lingers. I check myself over in the mirror to make sure there are no stains on my uniform, and pet the stuffed penguin on my desk right next to my community college degree, and the certificate of completion for my outpatient program.

I've done everything I can to...keep living, and things have worked out okay so far. When Kristoff moved out, I found a smaller place to myself, went to college, and started working at this after-school program next to my apartment.

It started out as a volunteering gig, but the owner saw all the work I was putting in, and I gradually worked my way up to a full-time position. The actual job title is pretty long, but the gist of it is that I do anything that anyone needs from me.

And it's nice to feel needed.

I've been with six other women since, the one I'm currently with gives me a cute smirk when I walk into the building. We've been dating for three months now, the longest out of all of them, hopefully this one sticks around.

I'm not trying to replace Elsa, not anymore. She's on my mind less- except in my dreams- and I hope that wherever she is now, she's happy. It'd be so easy for me to harbor negative feelings towards her, but she did warn me about who she was. And me, being so naive and new to love, I took all the good and rejected the bad. It was my fault that I caught feelings for a runaway.

I don't regret it at all, but I do hope that I'm still on her mind too, and in her heart. I hope that I meant as much to her as she did to me.

There was this girl, her name was Elsa, and she had the power to be anything you wanted her to be.

And I was in love with the idea of her.

A/N: I wrote this fic for the Elsanna Monthly Fanfic Contest back in February. I didn't get around to posting it officially until now because, when I was going to, this whole...thing happened and I didn't wanna bum people out even more than they already were. Well, now it's May, and I feel less bad about hurting y'alls feelings, so here you go.