SEEK And Find

Chapter 32

Instead of having dinner out as they had planned over brunch, the three of them ordered a pizza and enjoyed some light conversation while waiting for it to arrive. Most of that was filling in Esmé on the vaguest details of what they had talked about while loitering at Es Vedra and during the ride home. She drank in all of it like a fine wine, smirking so much that Elsa kept having to look away, and Anna rolled her eyes so often they began to ache.

"Two little gaylets, right under my nose," she teased at last as the TV blared in the background. "With Anna, I pretty well called it... but now all the things I'd been wondering about Elsa kinda add up. Crazy how life works out."

" Crazy, how?" Elsa asked suspiciously. She had been on edge for a lot of the evening, considering she was the one whose sexual identity had been called into question. Anna trying to cuddle close to her had only made her more nervous in another way, though Elsa did keep quietly squeezing her back.

"Just... I know you never said it or anything, but..." Esmé shrugged, sipping at her margarita and staring at the movie they had forgotten all about paying any real attention to long ago. "Most of us assumed you didn't want to be part of SEEK. Like, that you saw it as a means to an end; that down the road, you'd pull a Ginger Spice and fuck off."

"What? No, I... I like performing with you all. It's just... after the show ends, I don't know what to do with myself, or with you. We've worked out a comfortable pattern of avoidance, I guess, but that isn't what I'd prefer — not at all."

"No, no, it's okay, I get it. You're gay and it's a little weird hanging out with us for you."

At that, Elsa blinked rapidly. "I'm- wait, you really think that's why? I mean... honestly, I didn't even know I might be anything but straight until... well, today. Literally today, Ez."

The older girl blinked over at her, completely unimpressed. "You don't think it contributed to how we all got along? Under the surface? Like, 'in the closet' or whatever you guys say?"

"Hey," Anna put in, noticing how much more tense Elsa was getting. "Listen... it's not always that simple. I think she just..." Taking a breath, she leaned over to whisper to Elsa, "You mind if I tell her about you in school? I don't wanna make you uncomfortable bringing up stuff."

"You can," Elsa whispered back. "I'd rather you tell her so I don't have to, if you think it's important.."

"'Kay." Turning to Esmé, she said, "Elsa got moved when she was little, and lost her mom. Went to a super strict school. That's stuff you probably knew, but... it made it hard for her to want to open up to people. And after a while, she forgot how, I think. Not completely, but it became so hard that she eventually just stopped trying. It's not that she didn't like you, she just didn't get you, and could feel you not getting her, and it made her want to hide."

"Not 'hide'," Elsa corrected hastily, staring at the coffee table. "Just... decline to engage. I never hid."

"Sorry," Anna breathed. But Elsa shook her head and flashed her a smile to tell her she didn't need to apologise. "But does that make some sense, kinda?"

Esmé was nodding. "Sure, whatever you say."

"Don't do that," Elsa snapped. "Don't... invalidate me that way, I hate it!"

"I wasn't," she sighed, setting her glass down on the table and turning to face them. "This is one of those things that pisses me off; I just don't care very much one way or the other. But you're sitting there thinking I like, don't believe you. Whether you're super gay or just bad at making friends, it means you were an awkward turtle, and I never disliked you for it; just didn't want to push so much that it made you hate me even more."