The wedding was beautiful. Diana and Fred had wanted little pageantry; after years of pressure and perfection imposed upon Diana by her parents, she had taken the opportunity of their limited involvement (two years she'd been dating this woman, and they still couldn't seem get their heads around it being more than a "phase"...) to plan a gathering that was intimate, simple, and beautiful. After all, Fred wouldn't hear of anything with more than fifty guests anyway.
Anne was the maid of honor, of course, looking positively radient in her cornflower blue dress with a cluster of faux pink roses pinned into her hair over her right ear. Gilbert remembered a comment she'd made years ago about how terribly pink went with her red hair, but he couldn't help but think as she walked down the asile, practically glowing with pride, how beautiful the color was with her rosy complexion.
The hot summer day began to cool as the afternoon waned, and the reception in the yard near the Lake of Shining Waters was in full swing, the string lanterns lit and the champagne flowing. Fred and Diana had ditched their shoes in favor of dancing on the grass barefoot to the horribly cliche pop song someone was playing, and Gilbert watched them spin each other around and around, dresses floating in their wake. Anne should have been there too, laughing and clapping and enjoying her best friends' wedding, but when he glanced about, searching for her auburn head amongst the crowd, she was nowhere to be found.
The song ended and the brides exited the dance floor. Diana sat heavily next to GIlbert, taking a sip from the half-full champagne flute left unoccupied next to him.
"Enjoying yourself, Gilbert?" She asked, face a-glow.
"Of course," Gilbert answered, a small smile on his lips. Then he shifted, running a hand absently through his hair. "Have you seen Anne, Diana?"
Diana smiled knowingly. "She said she needed a moment. It's only been a few months since Matthew, anyway, and I think she's still having trouble enjoying herself." She tilted her head slightly, studying him. "Anne's been glad to have you about lately, Gilbert, even if she hasn't told you. I know she took it so hard when I left Redmond two years ago, and you're the only one who really knows her at school..." Diana smiled, and Gilbert felt the tips of his ears redden. "I'm glad she has you; I may be her 'bosom friend', but you are a true kindred spirit, Gilbert Blythe."
They were silent for a moment, Gilbert lost in thought and Diana sitting happily, drinking in the beauty and magic of her wedding evening, before Fred made her way over to the table, grinning.
"Di, you would not believe what your great aunt Jo just said. Did you know she knows someone in Vancouver who does research with AI?! That is so cool!" Fred's cheeks were rosy, and her eyes were sparkling with that particular glow they got when she started talking about coding and technology. Diana laughed.
"Looks like I've been summoned." She gave him a knowing wink, and grinned as Fred tugged her away. "Go find Anne, Gilbert!" She called over her shoulder before disappearing into the crowd.
Gilbert finished his champagne, stood, and wandered away from the party, hands in his pockets. If he were Anne...
The Lake of Shining Waters. Perhaps... yes, that was where she would be. There was a little bridge, one he remembered fondly; he chuckled to himself as a memory from the summer before he'd gone to Queen's crossed his mind. It had been back when he and Anne had been academic rivals in earnest and Anne had made the mistake of taking a Tennyson reenactment too far. Despite his idiotic comment about lake trout, Gilbert had thought Anne made a wonderfully striking Elaine-- even if she had been soaking wet and spitting mad at the time.
He found her on the bridge just as he'd thought, leaning against the railing and staring out at the water, lost in her imagination no doubt. He treaded quietly, approaching her as one might approach a rare bird while trying not to scare it away.
"What are you thinking about?" Gilbert asked, stopping just a meter or so from her.
"'I'm afraid to speak or move for fear that all this wonderful beauty will simply vanish like a broken silence,'" Anne whispered, gazing out at the still, clear lake. She smiled sadly. "I don't remember where I read that... oddly fitting, don't you think?"
Gilbert chuckled softly and came around to stand on her other side, leaning on the railing next to her. "This day, this party... it reminds me of that picnic we had that first summer you were here, do you remember?"
"Mm..." Anne agreed absently, gaze still caught on the glittering water growing dull in the dusk. She swallowed. "I don't want any of it to change, Gilbert." There was a tremble in her voice, and he knew they both were thinking of more than just picnics and summer nights. "I wish I could just hold onto those days forever; I have a feeling things will never be the same again." She bit her lip, but he could see her eyes were shining with unshed tears.
He turned, laying a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Well, I won't change, that I can promise you," he said softly. Then his left hand slid from the railing and strayed to his pocket. He swallowed thickly. "Anne, there's something I wanna ask you."
Anne looked down, eyes squeezed tightly shut as if she was trying to will him away. Her tone was low and nervous. "No, Gil, please don't."
Gilbert searched her face, and his gut twisted. He was taking a risk with this, and already it was going so wrong. "Anne, I know that you're hurting, and I've tried to be there for you in every way I can but... you pull away when you're in pain, you always have, and it never makes anything better and I care about you so--"
She shook her head, turning and looking up at him with those big, sad, beautiful limpid grey-green-blue eyes. "Well stop, please. I don't need you to care for me Gilbert, I never have, even when you insisted upon it." Her voice was like shattered glass, beautiful but with an impossible edge of pain.
"Anne, we only have one year left of Redmond, and then I've got to go to graduate school... What are you going to do now that Marilla's all alone?"
Anne bit her lip. "Mrs. Lynde is moving in with Marilla. Her Thomas has been gone for a few years now, and although they fight like cats and dogs they'll enjoy the company." She looked down, picking at an ink stain under her nail. "I tried to tell Marilla I'd be happy to leave school or see if there'd be a way for me to finish early but she wouldn't hear of it. I'm still so young, and she wants me not to worry about her, even though I do ever so much."
Gilbert sighed. "I'm sorry about last week when I made a fool of myself at that party. I only wanted to show you how much I care, and I wasn't thinking properly... but what I said was true, Anne. You are my everything, and I know I'm no poet, but..." His left hand, having searched his pocket, found what it was looking for and he gripped the tiny box in his fist, trying to steady his shaking hand. He swallowed again, but before he could open his mouth, she held up a finger.
"No, Gil, I know exactly what you're going to say and my answer is no. We'd end up fighting all the time or shutting each other out over and over like we always do, and you know it."
She gestured to her sides in exasperation, then let her hands fall gracelessly. "We'd both be unhappy," she sighed, shaking her head. "And then we'd wish we'd never done it."
Gilbert gripped the box in his pocket harder, chest tightening in dread. "Everybody expects it, Anne, you must know that."
"Well, then, everyone can mind their own damn business, Gil," she retorted, but softened her tone when she saw the hurt on his face in response.
She sighed. "You just think that you love me," she whispered. Gilbert's eyebrows came together in the middle, raised just at their apex, obviously wounded, and Anne bowed her head in resignation.
"Anne," Gilbert whispered, tilting her chin with a soft touch to lift her gaze. "I have loved you for as long as I can remember. I need you... I can't go on knowing that if I had only just--"
Anne swallowed, tearing her gaze and chin away from his fingertips. "I promise that I'll always be here if you need me." She gave him an awkward pat on the arm. "You're my best friend, Gilbert, let's not change that," she added cooly.
Gilbert sighed, defeated, the hand in his pocket letting go of its precious box. "Just friends, huh? I thought we were kindred spirits." Their gaze met one more time, and he tried to put everything he had ever felt for Anne Shirley into that one pleading look.
"Please say yes..." he breathed.
Anne turned. "I can't... Gil, I'm so, so sorry, but I can't."
And as she ran away into the sunset, shoulders shaking with sobs she could not face Gilbert and cry, he watched her go, knowing that it might well have been the beginning of the end.
