Chapter 50

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Anna

"What's wrong with you?"

I sighed, arms crossed, staring at the starry sky.

"I don't know," I whispered, secretly hoping that my words were not sufficiently audible.

"How can you not know?"

I leaned back, exasperated by my own response.

"Kristoff?"

I turned to Anna. She stood in the center of the room, beside the bed, and seemed desperate, frightened and sad at the same time. Despite the darkness of the night, I managed to distinguish his worried eyes that did not leave me and under which began to draw large circles. Her jaw muscles were tense. Her whole face seemed tense, holding back the excess of emotion she was trying to hide. The glow of the Moon brought out the whiteness of her skin. This pallor, which revealed an obvious lack of sleep, worried me a little more day after day. The young woman had not left me. She seemed horrified by my silence. I also stared at her, impassive, unable to react. What does she want? Tell her what she already knows? Remind her of the sad reality we live in?

"Anna... I'm tired and...

"And what?" she asked in a high voice, holding back her sobs.

I opened my mouth but no sound came out. The young woman's hand then tightened around one of the wooden uprights of the canopy bed.

"I don't understand..." she whispered.

His gaze had suddenly become empty, leaving no emotion.

"Since the beginning of our relationship, you have never been so distant with me... And now, for the past few days, you've been avoiding my gaze, reducing our conversations to the bare minimum and categorically refusing to tell me the truth when I ask you what's going on. Worse! You're deliberately lying to me by looking me in the eye and saying you're just tired when I know there's something else. You've never behaved like that with me. Never! So I ask you again: And what?"

The tone of his voice had suddenly changed. The beginning of his reproaches had been calm and posed while the end had suddenly turned into a howl of despair breaking in the middle of his flight, broken by sobs and tears that had finally managed to drown his blue eyes. There was another moment of silence during which Anna was about to leave my room, wounded by my silence.

"Yes, I'm tired, but I'm mostly worried. Worried because the world I live in is shredding, collapsing, piece by piece. Worried because I do not know what future I will have in the midst of such chaos that seems difficult to reverse. Worried because I have to marry the woman I love in less than two weeks and promise to protect her at any cost even though I don't know if I can, if I can offer her a decent life in this broken world. Because yes it is, and seems to be hit a little more severely every day."

Anna stopped, her hand frozen on the doorknob. She turned her back on me, preventing me from seeing her reaction to my remarks. I approached her and put my hand on her shoulder. When our skins came into contact, the young woman turned suddenly, grabbed my neck and pressed her lips against mine. Surprised, I slightly lost balance but managed to catch up on the door behind her, while returning her kiss.

"I thought you didn't love me anymore...she ends up saying after a few seconds, still breathless.

"Me? Never," I reassured her as I passed my thumb over her cheeks to wipe her tears.

She smiled and hugged me with her head on my chest. Her sobs had finally calmed down. Her breathing had become fluid again.

"Why don't we spend the night together for once?"

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