Sooooooooo, I really can't give up these characters, and I love this part of the story anyway. So here is a prequel of sorts to The Wedding! I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thank you for all your support; it really means more than you'll ever know :)
"Anne Shirley, get your perfect little nose and other attached body parts down here right now!" Philippa Gordon yelled up the creaky, anciently wooden staircase of Patty's Place.
In her room, Anne sat pensively, lifting her gray eyes up to the mottled mirror of her vanity table. Staring at her reflection, Anne felt a distance between herself and the mirrored girl. Things were changing rapidly, and Anne felt like she could hardly keep up. Life was changing, and she was, too.
A sophomore at Redmond University, Anne was a different version of the girl who stumbled upon Phil in a cemetery and struggled to find the dining hall. Her mind had grown more cultivated. Her manner more reserved. Her eyes deeper. And she knew her transition was not nearly finished. But she tried not to mourn her past self too greatly.
"I will remember who I was," Anne whispered to her reflection. "And I will enjoy who I am now."
But one thing troubled Anne the most. Lunch today had quite unsettled her mind.
"The way he—" Anne began to murmur, when Phil's voice echoed up the stairway once more.
"Annnnnnnne, I'm dying down here! Are you being melodramatic again? I can't see you, but I just feel like you are!"
Anne spent one last second fortifying her strength with the help of her second self in the mirror, and then she exited her room and flew down the stairs.
Phil was impatiently leaning against the door, checking her phone for messages.
"Thank goodness! I thought you were going to be up there all night, honey," Phil sighed, exasperatedly. "You know we have to go to these things. Keep up appearances and all that."
Phil had become quite popular at Redmond, and Anne, by association and her own right, enjoyed a similar experience. However, Phil was right; with popularity brought the responsibility of party-going. And Anne was feeling a little too introspective tonight for a party, but Phil had practically begged her.
"Alex and Allen both wanted me to attend with them, but I told them I was going to have a girls' night of it," Phil had begged the night before as the two girls typed up papers at their kitchen table. "Please don't make me a complete liar, Anne? Pretty please? I'll take you to the coffee shop by the club afterwards and you can have anything you want! I promise."
So Anne had complied, and now the two girls were walking downtown to a party neither really wanted to attend. Taking place in a club at the center of Kingsport, the party was sure to be reasonably fashionable. In a building of weathered bricks and warped wooden frames, the club occupied a quaint upstairs flat, perfect for an upscale college event hosted by the campus student leadership.
"Anne, I asked what do you think about that?" Phil's words sliced through Anne's foggy mind.
"Oh, can you repeat what you were saying? I had my brain turned off," Anne murmured apologetically, as the two girls turned the corner of a newly renovated organic restaurant.
"Oh, sweetie, Gil told me you were in a bit of a haze today. He said after your lunch together, he practically had to point you in the direction of your mathematics class. But no matter! I was just asking if you thought my idea for choosing between Alex or Allen was legitimate. You see, I was thinking of texting them both at the same time to meet me somewhere, and then the first one I see is the one I'll pick. A bit simplistic, a little up to fate, I know, but what do you think?"
Anne was rattled by Phil's mention of Gil, but she kept her thoughts from straying back to her lunch mate. Phil deserved her full attention now.
"Well, Phil, I'm not really sure that's the way I would do it, but don't you think you'd rather just wait until you know yourself which one you like better, rather than leaving it up to chance. I mean there's just so many variables: phone signal, how far away they are individually, if either has to drive or get gas for his car," Anne answered earnestly while the two women approached the building where the party was held. "And anyway, who says it has to be Alex or Allen? Why must you be with one of them? Just because you've known them the longest? Because everyone expects you to choose one of them?"
Anne felt her face flush and her heart rate increase; Phil's problem struck close to home, and Anne felt her mind whirring with thoughts of her earlier encounter.
"Why can't we just have fun and not change all the time?" Anne blurted out. "Let's just have fun. Let them gossip about our love lives and think what they want! We don't have to choose and ruin everything!"
"I know what you mean, love," Phil replied sincerely, a touch of sadness in her usually shining eyes. "Thanks for giving me feedback, too. I'll just start thinking of other plans to choose. Or get rid of them. Do you think if I asked them both to travel to the Sahara and bring me back a snowball, they'd do it?"
Anne and Phil both laughed as they ascended the claustrophobic staircase to the club's entrance on the second floor of the building.
As they entered the crowded party and split up to cover more ground, Anne felt her deeper thoughts creeping in, fueled by Phil's previous comments.
Her lunch with Gil had shaken her peace, and not because of anything Gil had said. Well, not exactly.
As Anne weaved through the ocean of laughing classmates, she remembered the way most of her conversations with Gil had been unfolding lately. Every exchange was laced heavily with subtext, bobbing between lighthearted nostalgia, her desperate inputs, and weighted comments, Gil's responses. She felt the undercurrent of change flowing into her relationship with Gil, and she resisted. But eventually, Anne knew… well, she just knew. The way every exchange ended lately cemented that hazy, yet certain knowledge: as Anne cheerfully deferred Gil's final subtext-laden response, his eyes would settle on hers with an unmistakable expression.
An expression Anne caught by chance as she gazed over the partygoers. An expression that began to cut across the party to her. The atmosphere shifted, and Anne knew a storm brewed ahead.