"Couldn't something have come up?" Gilbert thought to himself as he fidgeted with the suspenders on his waistband.
Fred and Diana's wedding fell on the one weekend Gilbert actually had open.
"No exams eminent enough to seriously study for. No family engagements. They're all here! Not even any car trouble! That stupid Saturn is always broken, but not this stinking weekend! Oh, no, it had to be out of the shop by Wednesday, not Friday like the guy said."
Gilbert's mind raced with nervous ramblings as the seconds ticked by, and each second forced the inevitable upon Gilbert: he would have to see Anne.
Gilbert had been looking for ways to get out of the wedding since the night Anne turned him down. He knew he only had a few days before Fred would ask him to be his best man, and obviously, Anne would be Diana's maid-of-honor.
"No way, no way," Gilbert had told himself, "I just can't see her again. Not in a setting like that. Our families will be there, staring at us. The whole crazy town will show up and try to force us together. Oh, don't the best man and maid-of-honor have a dance together? Oh, gosh, they'll make us dance. I can't slow dance with Anne Shirley! And I'll have to walk her down the freakin' aisle! She'll be gorgeous, and I'll be a mess. Nope. Not happening. Something has to come up!"
But nothing did. Everything had been horribly fortuitous. Everything that could have prevented his attendance fell through. Or resolved itself. Or changed date. And Fred and Diana's wedding approached ever nearer.
When Fred asked Gilbert to be his best man, Gilbert started receiving information about the wedding in an obnoxious group text between himself, Fred, Diana, and Anne. The wedding was to be in the field at Green Gables, Anne's childhood home. He needed to meet Fred for the suit fitting at 3:00. The colors were yellow and green. The ceremony would start at 2:30. The bachelor's party would be up to him.
Every detail slowly cemented the certainty of the event. And still nothing came up. No emergencies whatsoever.
So now he was here. And Anne was here. And he was about to lose his mind.
As Gilbert fiddled with the antique cuff links on his wrist, he started to take deep breaths. He needed to calm down a tiny, little, gigantic bit.
"Come on, Gil. You are an adult. It's been months since she said no. It's just a couple of hours. The dance won't be that bad. Just take deep breaths. Deep like the ocean, deep like Charlie Sloan with couple beers in him at last night's bachelor's party," Gilbert coached himself into tranquility. "Everything is fine."
Then the girls' changing room door creaked open.
