come on in, where it all begins
He looks sad.
And that is what prompts Anne to approach him. Anne Shirley Cuthbert isn't the type of girl who maneuvers her way over to settle on a disconsolate level — she thrives on the sunshine that touches her cheeks softly whenever she wakes, or the dancing flowers that say hello whenever she walks up to school.
Anne Shirley Cuthbert has no doubt that she is the worst person in the world to volunteer herself as a good comfort companion. Her lips often blabber on unbelievably too fast to slow down — hardly not what one will love to listen to when they're grieving. In fact, she also has the penchant of saying the wrong things at the wrong time. She breaks moments, not settles them, and does not do well on sordid affairs… so why on earth is she walking up to Gilbert Blythe?
Gilbert Blythe will probably shut her out faster than she can even get there. A worse thought, he'd call her a goop! (Although, he probably won't. He is, after all, Gilbert Blythe.)
But, oh dear, he does look terribly sad.
Truly different from the boyish smiles and the earthy laughter he glides about with in school. So, with one mustered up breathe and a quick and messy word to get permission to stay from Marilla — Anne stays where she is while the dark-clothed populace ambles on back to their own realms, far away from the twilight ending of what is the whole world of Gilbert Blythe.
She stays and watches the boy who can only look and gaze and stare at his father's freshly, dug grave.
Anne wraps a hand around her elbow before walking slowly, feet crunching on the fallen leaves that alerts Gilbert out of his widened head space. His face, which somehow seems to age a ton in one night, somberly glances at Anne's nearing physique.
"You're here." Point-blank and solid. His eyes are fleeting. It is as if he is nowhere next to Anne. Or as if he does not care.
"Indeed," Anne unsurely answers. "I, just, um, I wasn't really sure if it was best to approach you. You see, I'm quite pathetic in this area. I guess I don't really have anything to offer that can help you with this issue. I mean, of course, I didn't mean that I had anything helpful at all in the first place, but I simply meant that, since, I'm an orphan well, was — I have a fair amount of knowledge of being alone. However, I could say that you had it much better because you can fend for yourself while I couldn't because my parents died when I was barely a toddler—"
"I don't need your help, thank you," Gilbert announces tersely before moving farther from Anne with such proximity. His closed off exterior proves that he couldn't care less for visitors this time, as he settles himself on the stone bench they have in the tiny cemetery.
But this does not mean that Anne will leave. She already approached him. She will stay, because… because she cares, as bad as that sounds to her. If she had whispered this to herself a week ago, she would have laughed at the absurd thought. Anne caring for Gilbert Blythe? The oddest of odds!
Here this goes, she thinks.
Anne sucks down another gulp of air before saying, "I was just trying to… I know how it feels to be alone. I've been alone all my life, so I am not here to ridicule you with facts on how to be an orphan. Or the etiquette of being an orphan, if ever there was such thing. I just… wanted to say that — It was wretched. It was everything that I had ever despise. I hated being alone. It is not even something I wish to impart on my truest, worst enemy. So… considering that…" Anne hesitates, "Please — um, just know that I'm always here... For you… Alright?"
Anne solemnly sits down next to Gilbert. The boy watches her — his eyes, undeniably one of the most expressive ones she has ever gazed upon, are soft yet inscrutable. He remains silent.
Anne might officiously say to anyone else that she had voluntarily lingered for Gilbert's grieving sake. But they both know the truth.
It's because he let her stay.
Anne visits him the next day.
Gilbert peers down at her with sad, mournful eyes — it's a new sight. It's fresh and… wet.
"I like to believe that life will get better when you think of the things coming your way," Anne remarks in Gilbert's porch as the boy, flustered, tries to hide the fact that he did cry. "It's what I had told Ruby when she stayed over at Green Gables after the great fire occurred."
Gilbert — confident and patient Gilbert — looks down at her in surprise as Anne gently pries off his rubbing fingers from his own eyes.
"It's okay," she sighs, and says goodbye.
(Later on, as she crawls beneath the thick, contours of her bed, she thinks of Gilbert and what could have been for him if she had not approached the boy at his father's funeral.)
And the next day.
"Would you like to walk with me, Gilbert?" Anne musters up the courage to ask the boy underneath the threshold of his home.
He hesitates… but, he agrees.
They walk and walk and walk around the forests until it's time for Anne to leave
He insists on walking her home in his Gilbert, gentleman-ly fashion, but she profusely refuses, in her perceptibly Anne Cuthbert way. Gilbert almost smiles at this, but instead he nods seriously, knowing that she wouldn't agree in any other way.
"Next time, alright?" Gilbert gravely makes her promise. "My father would drag me to his grave if I acted any less of a gentleman."
Anne strikingly panics if she is to laugh at such a joke, but in the end she merely nods her head vigorously.
"So there's a next time…" Anne trails honestly, and then she wants to bang her head to the ground for being too unfiltered again. Her cheeks brightens considerably faster from such matter than due to the cold.
Gilbert cocks his head boyishly before letting out a small, almost shy appraisal of eyes, as if he is making her take a test that she isn't sure if she will pass.
"Well, I thought you said you'd always be there for me," he jokingly smiles.
"Gilbert Blythe," Anne narrows her eyes. "How cruel of you to twist the most solemn of vows I had ever concocted."
"I might even make tea, Anne Shirley." And then he gives her a depth of a look that can equal the Pacific Ocean. It warms the viscera of her body, making her feel twists and knots beneath her lungs. Eyes like those should not belong in this humdinger of her scrumptious world!
He slowly peers at her questionably, "Are you feeling ill? You look pink."
"I'll see you," she squeaks when Gilbert reaches out to touch her forehead, before high-tailing back to Green Gables.
Now she's here again in Gilbert's farm, his orchard seemingly very snowy. Anne has made acquaintances with the horse that seemed to sparkle a good-needed salutations with its pair of eyes.
Well, Anne thinks as she steps up to Gilbert's porch, he did offer a next time. And how could I refuse tea? Why am I making excuses? Why? Anne, why?
"Here are today's homework," she curtly greets him as soon as the door swings open. Gilbert widens his eyes in surprise as she plops the materials down on his arms.
"Anne, hello." Gilbert politely says. "Would you like to come in?"
Anne thinks back to this morning and how she had already asked permission from Marilla that she will stay a few minutes in Gilbert's abode. Marilla had curiously narrowed her eyebrows, "And you will stay at his home alone and unaccompanied?"
"It will only be fifteen minutes. A quick, grand fifteen minutes. I would waste no second," Anne had said quickly. "I just want to see if he's alright…" And Marilla agreed.
Of course, Gilbert. Of course I would like to come in! Anne embarrassingly thinks as she slowly teeters in the Blythe home for the first time.
"Gorgeous home," she mumbles to him as she takes off her coat. Anne feels nervous all of a sudden. It is true, how absurd it is to spend even at least fifteen minutes with a boy such as Gilbert Blythe. Alone.
Softly grinning, Gilbert shepherds her in the kitchen with his strong, warm hands and Anne can only find herself meekly standing around the kitchen table to watch the boy wander around, looking for something.
"As promised," Gilbert prods his voice to sound much more upbeat. "I will be making tea."
Anne quips, "No, it's quite alright. I am definitely not staying for a long time, so it would be a waste to make tea on my behalf. It's not as if you are a bad sort, you definitely are not — I am only staying shortly, it's because I promised Marilla that I will only be staying for a few minutes and I will be rude to you because you're probably in a middle of something hectic and I am only intruding and — "
He lets the kettle boil, "That is… probably the longest thing I've heard today." Gilbert says, "Settle those run-ons, Anne, or I'll beat you quickly when I get back."
Anne thinks as Gilbert continually cleans the table, how Ruby will definitely toss her in a loony bin for acting like a stuck-up crop to Gilbert.
"Gilbert?"
"Yes, Anne?"
"What will happen to your farm? Do you have plans on it?"
"I…I am actually stuck considering two options."
"May I be of knowing of such options? Are they grand?"
"Maybe in due time. Can we just talk about something else?"
"Yeah, okay. Anyway…"
"…Anyway."
Anne comes every Wednesday after school. She's not sure why Wednesday and not any other day, but it's been a routine and she's not the one who finds the goodness to break it.
Her feelings still vary on the blue whenever she'll knock on the hardwood door — never knowing if she'll be welcomed in today or not. Half of time Gilbert is fine, although Anne knows when the time is right to leave because she notices how his hand shakes whenever he holds up his mug.
Gilbert is alright in pretending that he can act alright. Anne guesses it's because that's how men are.
They talk mostly of meager things, never too familial or too private. Granted, once in a while, something slips out, may it be about his mother or how his father had said something at this time of day and at this time of season. Gilbert likes honey in his tea, but he doesn't like the color of bumblebee yellow. Anne is quick to realize how upset he can get when he doesn't talk and instead watches the flames in the fireplace bristle in hello.
Slowly, but steady, Anne is starting to know who Gilbert Blythe is. It's tidbits of information, but Anne is nothing but a bank collector of description.
"I may travel," Gilbert says when they are walking down a path from his farm.
"Travel? Why, may I ask?" Anne questions, alarmed.
Gilbert stops in his tracks. "Because that's what I think my dad would have wanted. For me to travel. It's a big world out there. Big places, big cities. I want to return to Avonlea as a choice, not an obligation for me. I still haven't decided yet, though."
"Oh…How wonderful," Anne lets her voice fade off as she processes this. "Travel, huh? I would never leave my Green Gables. It's home." She faces him directly. "Well, Gilbert Blythe, I must hate to admit this…but I'll miss you. Since you're leaving, I might as well admit it."
Gilbert's eyes widen, although it fades to a genuine sweetness — like a bumblebee.
He softly smiles, nonetheless. "Yeah?"
On Monday morning, Anne Shirley Cuthbert opens up the door to the schoolhouse with a somber parade. In a strong case of surprise, she tries to steel away her expression as her eyes matches up against a familiar set that seemingly looks like a deer's.
"Anne," Gilbert Blythe greets from his seat. "Hello."
Most of the children has already crowded around him. Ruby and Diana squeals as they run up to Anne.
"Gilbert is back, Anne!" Diana brings upon the news to the redheaded girl while Ruby claps in quick appreciation. Anne can only nod in agreement as she glances at the old Gilbert Blythe — confident and smart and well, here.
He walks her home to many of everyone's surprise.
"What made you stay, Gilbert?" Anne questions curiously as soon as they are out of earshot in the middle of the path in between the forest — where they always take whenever after Anne visits Gilbert for tea.
Gilbert Blythe only gives her a look that can rival the Atlantic Ocean before gently smiling, "This."
title from 'lakehouse' by of monsters men. very fitting for the home setting.
please do give a review on what you think. this was a very short piece, but very fun to write. x
x
check me out on theblythe on Tumblr.