An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
AN: It’s been a long time shirbert fans... anybody still up for some fake-dating shenanigans?
It was raining by the time Diana arrived—the sort of rainfall Anne might have basked in and even written a poem or two about if she’d had a mind for it. Instead, with Gilbert’s short visit still fresh in her mind, it only exacerbated her horrible mood.
Once out the door (slammed behind her, much to Marilla’s great woe), Anne threw her denim jacket overhead to avoid the inevitable ruination of the pretty outfit she’d decided on that day. The walk to the back door of her friend’s car was all it took to dampen her hair and muddy up her beloved white hightops. She didn’t even want to begin to imagine what the state of her hair might be once dry again. The half hour she’d spent on taming the wild red lockes surely going down the drain with every squelching step she took. She shuddered to picture the disobedient strands frizzing and curling annoyingly around her shoulders.
“Anne!” was the first thing she heard when she opened the car door, her hands cold and clammy from grasping the freezing handle.
It was Diana who had exclaimed it, smiling brightly from her spot in the driver’s seat. At its most brilliant sight, Anne’s sour mood nearly melted away - she did so love Diana’s smiles. So for a fleeting moment it was as if it were summer again and they were having one of their lovely days of sloth, with the sun vibrant on their skin as they lay in the fields behind Diana’s house watching the clouds slowly drift across the sky. No school to worry about or boys to try and decipher.
Then thunder rumbled and she was brought back to the present. Sitting wetly in the backseat of Diana’s car next to Jane and catching the very last few syllables of words mumbled from the front.
The brunette beside Anne reached across the gap in the seats to pinch Ruby, who squeaked indignantly.
“We brought coffee,” Diana went on, pulling out onto the road. The higher octave of her voice gave way to the obvious—she was being purposely breezy. Acting as if Anne hadn’t just opened the door and interrupted a conversation in which they had most definitely been talking about her. “I had them put an extra shot in yours because I know that’s the way you like it. Ruby? The coffee?”
Ruby rolled her eyes as she passed the drink to Anne. But she didn’t turn back around when it was in the red-head’s grasp, instead hovering there with an oddly expectant look on her face. A look, Anne realized, that was present on the other girl’s faces as well. Even Diana, big brown eyes wide like a doe’s in the rearview mirror.
“What?” she asked, pausing with her mouth halfway to the straw of her coffee and glancing around awkwardly.
When the only response was the low and torrid voice of Harry Styles drifting through the stereo and a raise of Jane’s eyebrows, Anne’s lips thinned in realization. The very word she had interrupted when she’d opened the door hadn’t been a word at all. It had been a name. Gilbert’s name.
Anne flopped her head back onto the cushioned seat, “Oh god,” she bemoaned. Could she not escape it for five minutes? Not even amongst her most beloved kindred spirits?
But there was nowhere to hide. Not with the three sets of eyes watching her so curiously. Waiting for her to give an explanation that she surely did not have. She was beginning to grow tired of Avonlea’s uncanny ability to spread gossip like wildfire.
“Watch the road,” Anne snapped at her best friend, “or you’ll kill us all.”
Diana gasped and averted her gaze, focusing instead on navigating the road through the pelting rain.
“You can’t deny it happened,” Jane said matter-of-factly. “It’s all over everything.” Then she whipped out her phone, pulling up twitter as a way to prove her point.
“Don’t believe everything you read.” Anne snapped at her.
“So you’re saying it’s just a made up rumor?” asked Ruby, almost hopefully—because while Anne had despised Gilbert since the time she’d first laid eyes on him, Ruby had simply adored him. While Anne would spend every single valuable and precious minute of her English classes poking holes in Gilbert’s foolish arguments, Ruby was sitting not two seats away, mooning. It was exasperating.
“I’m just saying,” Anne folded her arms defensively across her chest, “there was a lot more to it than that.”
“So it happened?!” Ruby exclaimed, with such force she knocked her binder into Diana’s lap and almost spilled both of their drinks.
“Ruby!”
“Well I’m sorry but—this is—you can’t just act like this isn’t a big deal, Anne! He’s Gilbert! ”
“I’m well aware of who he is.”
“You hate him!”
Anne bit the inside of her cheek. Of course she hated him. Of course. But it’s not as if she could tell the truth: that she had used Gilbert as a mere line of defense against dearest Diana’s cousin—her very own flesh and blood. Though how that was possible was beyond Anne considering he was so insufferably annoying, whereas Diana was so sweet and kind and considerate. She never would have pushed anyone the way that Roy had Anne. She never would have refused to take ‘no’ for an answer, never would have imposed so thoroughly on Anne’s personal space that she felt as if suddenly all of the oxygen in the world had run out except what was left in her lungs.
Hell, even Gilbert had taken Anne’s ‘no’ at face value. He had nodded and left, much to her great relief. And how terrible a concept to consider: Marilla inviting him to stay for breakfast! What would she have done then?
“Anne,” Jane poked her cheek. “You’ve got some serious explaining to do.”
Like hell she did. Maybe the decision to kiss Gilbert had been rash, but she wouldn’t have done it had she not felt as though she’d been forced into a corner. And while she did hate Gilbert’s guts, the mere aspect of her kissing him shouldn’t have been ground breaking news. He’d been there. She’d used him as a shield. That was it.
Even if the memory of his lips moving fervently against her own had haunted her dreams all night, it was nobody else's business. After all, he’d technically been her first real kiss. And even if she did think him an insufferable pompous ass, she wasn’t entirely incapable of admitting that he was a rather good-looking boy. She wasn’t blind for chrissake.
But even so, she had absolutely no intention of that little tidbit of information ever leaving the confines of her own mind. Nobody needed to know that she found Gilbert Blythe attractive. Or that she may have very mildly delighted in the fact that he’d been so quick to kiss her back. Or—or that she’d felt a bit of a thrill when she’d seen him again that very morning; a thrill that may or may not have caused her to even entertain the plan that he’d so eloquently presented to her.
The severity of the realization jolted her. Rose her blood levels to an alarming height. Had she just admitted to anticipating Gilbert’s presence?
“I don’t have to explain myself to any of you!” Anne exploded. Though she couldn’t tell if her anger was directed at her friends, at herself, or at the mere prospect of having anything but ill feelings toward her long time rival. “What I do with my life is nobody’s business but my own! I don’t intrude on your private lives like this.”
Ruby shrunk back, but Jane wasn’t deterred. Everyone knew Anne had a terrible temper sometimes. When she yelled it was usually because she felt like she’d been backed into a corner and couldn’t see an escape besides pushing everyone else away.
“Sorry, Anne, but I’m your friend. Friends talk about this stuff. They don’t keep secrets.”
“It’s not a secret.” Anne grumbled. But she knew it was a weak argument. That her friend was right and that she had absolutely no excuse as to why she should keep the truth from them.
Because you’re actually considering Gilbert’s offer, a vexing voice said in her head, And telling them you only did it as a way to escape Royal would ruin it. The voice only annoyed her more despite its truth.
Anne took a sip of her coffee with far more enthusiasm than necessary. Any excuse to avoid talking on the subject further. Avoid meeting the tense stares of her friends.
“I don’t see why it would be such a big deal that you kissed him anyway. Half of our grade has been expecting you two to jump each other’s bones for years.” Jane shrugged nonchalantly.
Anne felt the large gulp lodge in her throat as she choked out a cough, “What?”
Ruby craned her neck around to face her, baby blue eyes wide and vulnerable. Diana released a quiet titter of laughter but didn’t take her eyes off the road.
Traitor.
Jane rolled her eyes exasperatedly, briefly meeting the hurt look of their sensitive friend, “Oh give up, Ruby. He’s known you his whole life and hasn’t made an attempt at you,” When Ruby faced the front again, lower lip jutted out in a pout, her dark gaze swiveled back to Anne’s, “ You , however, caught his attention from the moment you arrived.”
Anne flared her nostrils indignantly, “Not true.”
The girl next to her threw her hands up in frustration, “It is too!”
“Is not.”
“What are we, five?” Jane quipped. And then her face turned smug, “Besides, you guys did end up kissing, didn’t you?”
Jesus, it was a good thing they’d barely missed seeing Gilbert at green gables. Anne hated to think how insufferable her friends might have been had they known he’d stopped by that morning.
She let out a dramatic huff, placing her coffee in the cupholder between them and then crossing her arms to her chest. “Do you just believe everything that Josie Pye posts?”
Jane opened her mouth to retort, but before she could, Ruby turned around in her seat again, “We don’t have to. You’ve been evasive enough to answer the question on if you kissed him or not for us.” She said with an adorable scrunch to her eyebrows. It was obvious she was stung but didn’t want to be left out of the conversation.
A loud clap of thunder sounded outside of the car, mirroring Anne’s emotions perfectly. Oh, how she wished she were a storm cloud sometimes. Floating above it all, no care in the world. No expectations except for that of releasing their torrential rage on unsuspecting passers-by. Perhaps if that were her, she wouldn’t have gotten herself in such a messy situation.
She watched as the windshield wipers slapped at the front window, avoiding looking her friends in their eyes. “How far are we from the school?” she grumbled. Though it was certainly going to be a tough task in it’s own, it would be better than sitting under the excruciating scrutiny of the three girls she was trapped in the small car with.
Diana cleared her throat. “Just another block,” she said.
“If you want me to make sure Josie stays off your back today, I need to have the details.” Jane stated simply.
Anne ground her teeth at the annoying tenacity of her friend. “There aren’t any.”
“There aren’t any? ”
“That’s what I said.”
“How could there possibly not be—“
“Jane!” Anne snapped, teeth gnashing out like that of a caged dog’s, “Just drop it!”
There was a stunned silence for a moment as Jane snapped her mouth shut. No other sound but the constant pattering of the rain against the windows and the quiet hum of the radio. In the rearview mirror, Diana exchanged a sympathetic look with Anne.
“Fine,” Jane said finally, a cool resolve in her brown eyes, “But just because you hate Gilbert doesn’t mean everyone else does. If I can’t get the answer from you, I’ll just ask him.”
Anne stiffened—every muscle in her body pulling taut as she fought the urge to strike out with her constant weapon of choice: words.
Gilbert wouldn’t sell her out… would he? Not when he himself was riding on the possibility of a public relationship saving face.
God, would pretending to date him actually work? Could they even do it? Could she do it? Certainly he’d do something to piss her off. Something that would cause her to lash out and make it obvious that they were not, and would never actually be, in a relationship.
The thoughts tormented her as Diana pulled the car into the student parking lot. As she parked in her normal spot near the entrance. As she turned off the engine and they were swallowed by the sound of the falling rain. How fitting to see that Mother Nature bore such a pitiful mood—gray clouds swirling in the sky the very same way Anne’s feelings were swirling in her head.
As her friends giggled amongst themselves—already having moved on to the next subject of interest and opening their car doors—she took a shaking deep breath. Steeling herself against whatever the day might throw at her and clambering out of the car into sheets of cold rain.
+++
When the lunch bell rang, releasing students from their third period classes, Anne’s relief was as palpable as a cool wave crashing against a hot sandy shore. She gathered her things hastily—stuffing them into her bag and barely zipping it back up before hurrying from her calculus class and out into the crowded hallway.
She had very little want of being left in the classroom with a certain tall, dark, and tousled boy. And since that was how things normally went—since Anne and Gilbert were usually the last two left in the classroom, quickly scrawling the last of their work out on the worksheets before them—her rush to leave the confines of the classroom wasn’t without warrant.
Not for the first time since being acquainted with Gilbert Blythe, Anne cursed the fact that they shared a fair amount of classes. (Or unfair if you’d asked her.) But this day… This day had taken her dislike to an entirely different level.
Or maybe dislike wasn’t the correct word for the churning she felt in her stomach every time she’d caught a glimpse of his disheveled dark curls across the room. Maybe awkwardness was the proper noun with which to describe the tension she felt pulled taut between them. If she could even assume it was a reciprocated tension in the first place, that is. She certainly felt it—choking the air around her like a thick and unwanted layer of dust. But… Gilbert hadn’t necessarily shown any discomfort at the sight of her. He’d backed off on making his usual snide comments or witty remarks, yes, but she wasn’t positive that it was because he was playing an angle or if he genuinely thought it better to leave her alone.
Nevertheless, it made Anne’s gut twist uncomfortably. And because the whole school seemed to already know what had transpired the previous afternoon, she loathed to even look in his direction let alone exchange their usual haughty comments. She had, in not so many words, been avoiding him for the entirety of the school day—ducking out of shared classes with all the speed of a bulleting train and keeping her line of vision pinned straight ahead even when she felt his warm honey gaze settle on the side of her face.
This, of course, did not escape the notice of her ever so nosy classmates. In fact, the fervent silence between the two known rivals after such an unexpected public display of affection had only caused an even deeper upset among her peers. Anne liked to think she had learned to never underestimate the might of a small town’s grape vine, but she certainly hadn’t expected such… such backlash from one simple spontaneous moment in time.
To walk through the hallways of her familiar high school and notice the boisterous noise of groups dwindle around her felt much like her early days in Avonlea—except this time, instead of having smacked the town’s golden boy with a heavy textbook, she’d kissed him. And apparently that warranted an even more uproarious reaction.
Anne pushed through the crowd of students and scrambled to her locker—head down in an attempt to ignore the whispers around her. She’d thought that, after three and a half years, she had moved past the days of being an outcast; past the days of being a subject of interest on nearly every one of her classmate’s tongues.
Apparently she’d been wrong. All this time they’d only been hiding in the shadows, waiting for the precise moment she did anything out of the ordinary, so that they could pounce.
As she exchanged binders and textbooks with what had been stacked neatly in her locker, she was so thoroughly enveloped in her own vortex of thoughts that she hadn’t noticed the tall and skinny figure approach her.
“Anne,” the figure said. And despite the familiar trill of the voice, she startled, nearly slamming her fingers in the locker as she’d closed it.
“Dammit, Cole,” she hissed, but there was a smile beneath it.
She turned to her friend, a feeling of ease settling on her shoulders as it always had around Cole Mackenzie. He was leaning against the lockers with his hands wrung loosely around the straps of his backpack and his familiar blue eyes were warm with affection. After a moment, Anne realized there was a dark smudge just under his right eye—more than likely a result of wiping at his face after working with charcoal or graphite. A quick glance at his smeared hands confirmed just as much.
“You’ve got art on your face,” she said, gesturing at her own as a way to show him.
He released a breathy laugh before using the sleeve of his shirt to wipe it off. “Sorry I wasn’t able to get here sooner, I got caught up in class.”
Anne snorted despite herself. “Sure you did,” she said. “Keep acting like you weren’t flirting with that new exchange student.” She twisted her mouth into a feigned look of utter despair, “You left me to the wolves.”
Cole laughed as she schooled her features back to their normal, friendly state and swung her bag around her shoulder. She entwined her hand with his as they made their way in the direction of the cafeteria.
He fixed her with a faux imperious look. “I was only showing Gabriel the precise way of shading. Charcoal is a difficult medium to work with.”
“Don’t tell me,” Anne lowered her voice, acting as though what she was about to say was an absolute scandal, “You stood behind him and guided his hand with your own, heart pounding against his back as he leaned into you.” She caught at her chest with her free hand, “Oh, how romantic! ” she squealed, much louder than she’d meant to. A few students looked in their direction.
An exasperated laugh burst from her friend’s lips and he squeezed her hand lightly. “Not so loud, Anne.”
She shrugged. “People are gay, Cole. They can get over it.”
Cole wasn’t necessarily closeted. It was a pretty well-known fact within their friend group that he was very much homosexual—you have one conversation with him and he just couldn’t hold back his flamboyancy— but the world was still filled with small-minded bigots. And in a small town like the one they lived in, it was easier just to keep the knowledge of his sexual preference to a minimum.
“I suppose this means our vow to marry one another is broken,” she continued forlornly. It was a joking promise they’d made to one another when they were fifteen and certain they’d be deemed outcasts forever—no one but each other to lean on.
Of course, she’d had Diana. Beautiful Diana. But there were many things Anne experienced that her beloved best friend just couldn’t understand. Diana was popular, beautiful, a glittering star among the backdrop of the night sky—something with which Anne found little to no relatability being the scrawny ostracized girl that she was. But Cole’s friendship allowed a quiet solace; a person who knew what it was like to feel unwanted and unpopular.
Cole snorted. “You broke it first,” he said, “What do Gilbert Blythe’s lips feel like?”
Anne nearly tripped over her own two feet, having briefly forgotten the mess she’d gotten herself into. She snapped her head to look at the tall boy beside her and fixed him with a desperate glare. The look on his face was nonchalant, but she knew he was dying with curiosity.
“Why’d you have to bring that up?” she said, unable to help the whiny tone that had weaved itself into her words.
Cole clucked his tongue. “You left me on read last night. You deserve it.”
“I think I’ve gotten punishment enough,” she replied, a frown twisting at her lips. “It’s all anybody can talk about when they see me.”
He looked at her. “Anne. You kissed Gilbert Blythe . ”
“Yes, I know what I did.”
“Gilbert. Blythe.”
Anne unlatched her hand from Cole’s and threw her arms up exasperatedly. “Can people stop saying his name as if I don’t know who he is!?”
They turned down a slightly less crowded hallway, taking a shortcut they’d found halfway through their freshman year. “Can you stop brushing it off like it’s no big deal?”
“It isn’t a big deal.” Anne grumbled.
He ignored her. “How’d it happen anyway?”
There was a tearing feeling in her stomach—indecision on if she should tell him the truth of the matter or not. The small part of her brain that was hung on Gilbert’s earlier suggestion rioted at her to choose not.
It won. “It just—happened. Okay?”
Cole screwed his nose up. “What does that even mean? ” he said. “What, did you just randomly see him and say ‘fuck it, I’mma give into the three years of overwhelming sexual tension’ and decide to eat his face off?”
Anne blanched at him, stopping dead walk in the middle of the hallway. “Sexual tension?” she sputtered. “Have you been talking to Jane?”
Cole released a light laugh at the expression on her face. “No, but I’m not surprised she feels the same way. Everybody does.”
“I hate it here.” Anne said sadly, mouth turning down at one corner. What a piteous thing to confuse hatred with sexual desire. Because certainly— certainly —Cole and Jane were wrong. There was absolutely no sexual tension between her and Gilbert Blythe. None whatsoever. And she was positive in the fact that there never would be.
“Drama queen.”
“How observant of you,” Anne replied, beginning to make her way down the hallway again. “It’s as if we’re friends. Almost like you know me.”
Her blonde companion snorted, but followed after her.
“Apparently not,” he continued vexingly. “Not if you’re sucking face with Gilbert frickin’ Blythe.”
“Cole, I love you, I really do. But if you don’t shut up right this very moment, I will not hesitate to murder you.”
“Anne—“
“I’m serious,” she said, “I live on a farm—lots of sharp tools at my disposal, Mackenzie. Don’t push me.”
He laughed—a short and exasperated release of breath. “Has anybody ever told you you’re kinda scary when you want to be?”
She glanced over to where he was matching her stride beside her, smiling crookedly and impishly.
Cole’s mouth turned down at the corners. “Please don’t flash me your murder eyes. It gives me the creeps.”
Reaching across the space between them with her arm, she patted his shoulder lightly. “Good.”
They lapsed into casual conversation then, walking quickly the rest of the way to the cafeteria and occasionally bumping each other’s shoulders teasingly. She really did appreciate Cole, she decided. Well, she’d always appreciated him—but unlike the rest of her companions, he never pushed her to talk about the things he knew she was most uncomfortable with. Teased her relentlessly maybe—okay, certainly —but he always, always, knew when enough was enough.
As they passed through the metal-doored threshold of Avonlea High’s sorry excuse for a cafeteria, (even their library was larger than the sparsely decorated area—hardly even eight long tables adorning the length of the walls and smaller rounded ones few and far between) Anne startled at the absolute terror she was faced with.
Being such a small school, the majority of the senior class was pushed into the same lunch schedule. Meaning all the kids she’d grown with for the past few years—all the classmates that knew most definitely about Anne’s adamant hatred towards one Gilbert Blythe—paused fractionally when they noticed her fiery mane out of the corners of their eyes.
Anne’s heart rate kicked up, stomach twisting painfully as the cafeteria quieted ever so slightly and heads swiveled to gawk at her.
She felt Cole’s hand squeeze hers. “Christ,” he mumbled beside her. “They really don’t have any lives do they.”
She snorted, eased slightly by his encouraging and easy-going presence. “Our school doesn’t even have a total of five-hundred students. This is probably the most exciting thing that’s happened since you showed sophomore year and Billie Andrews made it his mission to torment you.”
Her friend winced. “Don’t remind me.”
“Shit, sorr—“
“Anne!”
The breath that had frozen in Anne’s chest upon realizing the upset she’d caused when first entering the cafeteria thawed the rest of the way at the familiar cadence of Diana’s voice. She could see her friend’s veil of dark hair, her infectious smile big and bright as she stood from their usual table tucked in the far corner of the room. The rest of her friends, still sitting, waved to her gregariously.
Friends, Anne reminded herself. Those are your friends and not even the disastrous evening before and whatever trouble Gilbert Blythe insights next can take them away from you.
She felt a warm smile tug at her lips as she moved toward the familiar corner, pulling Cole behind her as she went. But as she got closer, doubt crept into her mind. She saw the nervous glances Tillie, Jane and Ruby exchanged with one another—however miniscule they might have tried to make them seem. The scrunch of Diana’s nose, bringing her hand down from her enthusiastic wave and rubbing at a non-existent itch. Anne recognized it immediately as her bosom friend’s nervous tick.
Her steps slowed as she approached the table, nearly causing Cole to stumble into her from where he’d been following behind. Josie Pye—she was sitting straight backed, arms folded across her chest and an accusing glare flashing in her blue eyes.
Oh no.
Now this— this was the part she’d forgotten all about. Josephine Pye and her ridiculous aversion to amiable conversation. Her insufferable adamance on making Anne’s existence appear as a show for all the school to see. Josie fancied herself a puppet master, tugging at the strings on Anne’s back from the very first moment they’d met. And though a tedious friendship had developed between the two over the last few years, some things just never changed.
“Hey,” Anne squeaked out, instantly noticing how guilty she already sounded. She winced, sat stiffly on the stool across from her friends.
Cole rolled his eyes and plopped down beside her, shoved his bookbag towards the end of the table and folded his artist hands in front of him as he leveled Josie with a shockingly protective gaze.
“There will be absolutely no mentions of a certain happening with a certain someone taking place at a certain time yesterday afternoon, got it?” His voice left no room for discussion.
Diana nodded eagerly, reaching across the table and giving Anne a sympathetic squeeze of the hand. Jane pursed her lips, obviously wanting to say something, anything, about the unfinished conversation the girls had all had in the car that morning—but seemed to think better of it. Tillie and Ruby, always the more soft spoken of the group, simply sat quietly, glancing between Cole and Josie, the latter of which had narrowed her eyes in an obvious challenge.
The blonde grenade snapped her eyes to Anne instead. “I think that—“
“No.” Anne said icily, surprising herself. She’d never been one to overtly challenge Josie. But after dealing with Royal Gardner and Gilbert Blythe and every single pair of eyes that had followed and judged and questioned her all morning, she’d had enough.
She cleared her throat, “No,” she tried again, less hostile this time. “We will not be discussing the kiss because it’s my business and I owe absolutely nobody an explanation.”
“Periodt,” chimed Cole, snapping his fingers. Diana giggled, attempting to smother it with her hand but failing rather obviously.
Tillie’s eyes had turned wide as saucers. “So it’s true? You and Gilbert kissed?”
“Of course it’s true, I saw it with my own two eyes.” Josie snapped, “And obviously—“
“Josie, Anne literally just said we weren’t discussing it.” Diana huffed. It was the most annoyed Anne had ever seen her act with Josie—it made her want to tackle her best friend in a hug. “Please just drop the subject, okay? If she wants to explain herself then she will.”
“Must I repeat myself?” Cole raised an eyebrow at the blonde dragon across from him who was just barely containing the angry smoke Anne was sure to pore from her nostrils.
“Please,” replied Jane, amused.
“Periodt!” And he gave another flamboyant snap of his fingers.
Josie rolled her eyes imperiously. “You guys are dumb,” she said to the snickering gaggle of girls beside her, then she faced Anne again. “Look, I’m not one to really care all that much about your romantic life—“
Cole opened his mouth to protest but without even glancing his way, Josie cut herself off and snapped, “Shut it, Mackenzie.”
He raised his hands in the universal sign of defeat.
“But as your friend,” loosely Anne had to bite back from commenting as Josie continued, “I worry about what this means for your… reputation.”
“Oh, for the love of god, Josephine Pye. We’re in high school, not running for the frickin’ electoral college. I promise you, me kissing somebody is not that deep.”
Did any of them have lives?
A throat cleared beside her—Cole’s. “I mean,” he said quietly, “it kind of is when you’ve vowed to hate said kissee for the rest of your days. ‘So long as you bring air into your lungs’ I believe were your exact words.”
Anne snapped her head over to her traitorous friend, one who’d not moments ago was just defending her.
“Whose side are you on?”
“The gays,” he said solemnly. And then, upon seeing Anne’s unamused look, “Joking, joking—I mean, not joking obviously, but… Look, Anne. As overdramatic as Josie is being—“ said girl harrumphed impertinently, “—Everybody and their mother knows how much you hate Gilbert. I’ll fight tooth and nail for you, girl, but this whole situation is questionable in the least.”
“I just want you to know,” began Anne, “How much I hate all of you right now, nevermind Gilbert.”
“Hey!” Tillie protested, “I haven’t done a single thing besides ask if the rumor was true in the first place.”
“Tillie Boulter with-holding.”
Jane opened her mouth, “I—“
“You’re on thin fuckin’ ice, Jane Andrews.”
Anne was so incredibly and entirely tired of this entire situation. So much for not talking about it… God, she should just out and admit the reasoning already. Clear the air, make sure that everybody knew it was a farce. A ploy to get Roy Gardner to finally leave her alone.
Who was she kidding anyway? Even entertaining the idea that Gilbert had planted in her head earlier that morning was absolute insanity. Them? Dating? Imagine the uproar then. If her classmates were so nosy as to be absolutely entranced by the fact that they simply kissed, imagine if they announced they were dating .
Oh dearest Snow Queen, she asked of her longest comfort, What would you do?
She set her jaw then, determining it was time to come clean. “Listen, guys. Gilbert and I didn’t actually—“
“Anne?”
She froze. Didn’t blink. Didn’t take a single breath for what felt like a solid thirty seconds. Her friends all startled to look behind her, Cole craning his neck to meet the gaze of probably the absolute last person Anne wanted to see right then.
“Roy!” Diana chirped with false cheer. Her eyes flit between Anne and the monstrous cad that stood behind her, betraying the panic she felt on behalf of her best friend. “I thought you had B lunch?”
Anne refused to turn around, still frozen as she watched, horrified, as all her friends looked at each other confused and curious.
“Well, I did. But the adviser decided to switch some of my classes around. She thought it would be best if I stayed with the rest of the senior class even if British academia didn’t quite meet up with American—Anne, are you trying to hide?”
She was, she totally, full-heartedly was. She’d sunk into herself, almost as if she were trying to allow the lunch table to swallow her whole.
“Anne, sit up ,” Josie hissed at her. Was she—god, was she batting her eyelashes at the boy behind her? The boy in which Anne could very clearly feel inching closer to her with every second she didn’t acknowledge him?
She took a deep breath, turned around in her seat finally for fear that he might reach out and touch her, place his disgustingly delicate and nimble hand on her shoulder. “Roy,” she said, not meeting his eyes. “Hi.”
“Hullo.” Roy replied, probably smiling in a way he thought was enormously charming. “Your dress is quite beautiful. Almost as beautiful as the one wearing it, I might say. Almost .”
Oh, for the love of all that is good and— He was insufferable. Anger, white hot and immediate bubbled in her blood.
“What do you want?” She said, rather bluntly. Cole elbowed her in the arm, shot her a confused look. I’ll explain later, she hoped her face portrayed to him.
Diana, ever the mediator, cleared her throat. “Royal. These are my friends. Tillie, Ruby, Jane, Josie, and Cole.” Cole watched him hesitantly, the girls all exchanged giddy glances. “Of course, you already know Anne.”
“How could I ever forget.”
Anne had to resist the urge to feign a gag.
“Anyways. Guys, this is my cousin Royal.”
“Roy. Call me Roy,” he said. But he didn’t even glance at them, his eyes were trained solely on Anne’s. And Anne rather wanted to punch him in his obnoxiously pert nose.
“It’s nice to meet you, Roy—“ Ruby had begun, but the miscreant cut her off, paying sweet Ruby no attention.
“Anne, I was hoping we might talk?”
Anne clenched her jaw, fought to keep from squeezing her eyes closed in exasperation at the sheer audacity Roy had to even ask that of her.
Right. This was why she’d entertained Gilbert’s plan. This was why she had desperately kissed him. Because Royal Gardner had no boundaries and despite being related to her best and closest friend, every moment spent in his presence was a moment she knew she’d never get back.
“Talk,” she said stiffly. She stood up, grabbed a confused Cole’s hand and yanked him up beside her. “But make it fast because Cole and I still haven’t had a chance to get in the lunch line.”
“I am… so confused.” Anne heard one of the girls say behind her. Diana shushed her.
“Privately? Perhaps?”
She was seriously going to punch this boy in the face. Like, actually. Right there in front of everybody.
“Privately?” Anne snapped coldly, her fury like fire in her veins. She stepped around him, cornered him to the table, making sure her back was to the rest of the cafeteria. Too many rumors were already circulating around her. If she caused a scene, lord knew she’d never come back from it. “Are you joking?”
She saw Cole step back from the corner of her eye, scuttle to the other side of the cafeteria table with the girls. All their eyes were wide and unsure of what to make of the situation.
“Anne, there’s no need for such hostility. I was just trying to—“
“Deliberately make her uncomfortable?” a new voice chimed in from behind her. There was an unrecognizable hardness to it, incongruous to all of the other times she had heard it before. Across from her, her friends' eyes widened impossibly, gazes landing on the new addition to the already intolerable conversation.
Anne could feel as all the eyes in the cafeteria turned toward them, a sure spectacle to behold.
She watched as Roy’s jaw hardened, eyes trained behind her with a new intensity as he tracked the movements of Gilbert Blythe lazily sidling up beside Anne.
“I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure of properly meeting,” Gilbert said as he threw an arm around Anne’s shoulders. She had to fight to keep from stiffening up, knew what he was doing, knew exactly what game he was playing at as he pulled her closer to his side and tucked her neatly beneath his arm. And while her blood boiled at his intrusion, at the audacity he had to come running in like he thought he was some god-awful knight-in-shining-armor, at the way her friends’ expressions all changed immediately—all smirking and knowing and not nearly as surprised as she thought they’d be—the smallest part of her was relieved.
Relieved.
Like she’d still been gunning for that stupid, ludicrous plan that Gilbert had blabbered on about that very morning to actually work. Which in itself was most positively and unmitigatedly not going to happen in a million—
“Right. Is this him then?” The accusation in Roy’s voice broke Anne from her spiraling thoughts, solidifying the situation she was in. There, in front of all of her friends and essentially the entire senior class, she was facing off with one of the most impudent males she’d ever had the displeasure of meeting.
And, lord above, Gilbert Blythe of all people was the only person with the ability to make Roy leave her alone.
“Just a few months.” His words pinged around in her mind, “We get Royal and Winnie off our backs. And then we never have to deal with each other outside of class again .”
She scowled, resisting the urge to fidget beneath Gilbert’s arm. The heat radiating from his body where their sides were pressed flush together was rather difficult to ignore. She felt as though she could feel it fuse with her blood, travel through her veins and warm her cheeks, her toes, clog up her lungs.
“Is this who?” Anne replied, her scowl deepening.
“The boyfriend. The reason I can’t pursue you… or so you say.”
A choking sound came from her group of friends, though she absolutely refused to look in their direction. She was positive that the fire she felt across her cheeks no longer had anything to do with Gilbert’s body heat.
Roy raised a single brow when she opened her mouth, snapped it back shut immediately—a fish floundering on dry land. Gilbert’s arm tightened around her shoulder, probably meant to be comforting, reassuring, but it only made her want to elbow him in the side. The mortification leaching any and all relief she’d previously felt by his presence.
“I—uh,” she stuttered. Oh god, ohgodohgodohgodohgod. How in the hell had she gotten herself into this situation?
“My god, he broke her,” she heard Cole whisper.
“Anne? You did tell me you had one, right?” Roy’s eyebrow was still raised, the brazen confidence leaking from every pore. She hated him, she decided. Hated him more than the curly haired boy whose arm was wrapped around her and whose current silence felt like a ticking time bomb.
“I did,” she replied, and to her utmost horror it came out weakly.
“As much as I love being talked about as if I’m not standing right here,” Gilbert interjected, and Anne wasn’t sure if he’d noticed it but his thumb had started rubbing tiny comforting circles where it rested on her upper arm, “Anne doesn’t owe you an explanation. As a matter of fact, she doesn’t owe you a damn thing. So whether she has a boyfriend or not—whether I’m that boyfriend or not—is none of your business.”
Woah.
Wait a minute, not woah , what the hell? Had he really said that? Had it really made her heart rate kick up in her chest at the way he’d not only defended her but her right to make her own choices without explanation?
Royal blinked, opened his mouth, closed it. But Gilbert ignored him, turned his head to face Anne. The expression on his face said It’s up to you , the small curve at the corner of his mouth added, Carrots.
She closed her eyes, counted one, two, before opening them back up and meeting Roy’s gaze.
God help her.
“Yeah, Roy,” she said, swallowed thickly, “Gilbert is my boyfriend."
