Chapter 6

Anne looked with a frozen face back at Gilbert in the dimness, sure she had misheard. "What did you say?"

He folded his arms against his knees, and looked down at them studiously. "I'm not going back to Redmond."

Anne rose to her knees, searching for some way to respond to his bombshell.

"You can't do that-" she said in a shrill voice.

"Actually, I can." he said calmly. "Would you like to hear why?" He watched her jaw and fists clench, and she sat back on her heels to look at him, frightened. Anne raised her eyebrows at him, and he took that as invitation enough.

"I've been doing rather well at Redmond lately, as you might imagine with several extra hours of study each night." He said, his voice mocking. "And that attracted some attention from the Chancellor of the university."

Anne looked at him, speechless.

"There was a scholarship available for one applicant to study at Oxford for a year. I- I won it."

Anne dropped to the floor. "But- but how? I never even heard that being announced-" she said confusedly.

"It's only for the science faculty. Information is only given out at the Dean's discretion."

"In England." She whispered, her eyes glassy.

He nodded.

"I only just heard back from them a week ago."

Anne got to her feet, as if sleepwalking. She went to the door and opened it to the sound of pouring rain, causing Gilbert to spring up. "Anne, you can't go out there now-" he said sharply, only to see her stop in the entryway.

"I'm not-" she mumbled. "I just needed air-". She stood there for a moment, taking long, deep breaths. He closed the door firmly, and slowly she turned to him. Her head came up, and for a moment he nearly stepped back, at the rage he saw on her face.

"You would never have told me if we hadn't been stuck here." She said, her voice shaking. "You would have let me worry- you would have vanished without ever letting me know." Her voice rose in an unbearable anguish. "Of all of the things I have seen that show me how little you value me, this is the worst, the most cruel, hurtful-" she choked and turned from him, her body shaking with great sobs.

Gilbert stood helplessly, watching her fall completely apart and not knowing how to act. Feeling like the worst of fools, he put his arms around her. She fought his hold for a moment, but when he only held her tighter, she slumped against him, and cried in his arms as she never had before. Her knees gave way, and he sank to the floor with her holding her tightly, tears streaming down his own cheeks. For long minutes they sat there together, consumed in their grief.

When her crying had subsided a little, he spoke to her softly. "Anne, I'm going because I have to. I can't keep pretending I'm alright with what happened between us- I can't keep watching you from a distance and hurting. I can't watch you start a life with him and not be consumed by it; I need to go. And it's only a year."

She broke away from him then. "Redmond was your dream." She pleaded.

"I know it was."

"Then stay." She said desperately.

"I can't."

Fresh tears fell now, and she turned back to him. "Then I'll leave."

"No." he said impatiently. "Anne, I will complete my degree at Oxford; for Pete's sake, this is not a bad opportunity. Your life is in Kingsport now. You need to live it."

She began to laugh, her voice bitter. "Gilbert, I needed to see you. To know that you were alright. I needed, even at a distance, to know that you were happy, that you were working on your goal to become a doctor."

"I am."

"But then I wanted to see you for my own sake." she added recklessly. "Because I missed you- I missed you more than anything in the whole world, and even if you were not speaking to me, at least I still had that."

Gilbert stood, dumbfounded. "Anne, I- I'm sorry. I didn't think you cared."

"And bravo for me." She said flatly, bringing a reluctant smile to his mouth. She sat in front of the fire, cross legged as she used to do in the old days. She stretched her shoulders and arms out, and gave him the merest glance when he sat beside her.

"What a mess." he muttered rubbing his eyes wearily.

"What about Christine?" she said in an impersonal voice.

Gilbert narrowed his eyes. "What about her?"

"You've been with her since the beginning of the year." she answered, not looking at him. "She is- very beautiful."

"Oh yes, very beautiful." He said in a bored voice. "Look, I don't know why you are bringing her up."

"Remember I have had to watch you form an attachment too." She said in a brittle voice. "When you proposed I lost you- and then I had to see another- person, replace me. And it had to be someone who outclasses me on every level."

Gilbert threw his hands up angrily. "Why should it even matter? You didn't want me!" he almost shouted. "And how long was it until Roy showed up? Don't you think that hurt me to see how easily I was replaced?"

Anne turned on him then. "He never replaced you. You- you took yourself away- you wouldn't listen to me, you kept pushing- you never even gave me a choice-" she said, her voice breaking.

Gilbert slammed his fist onto the ground, and she shrank back, startled. Compressing his lips to try and control himself, his voice shook. "Don't you think I know that?" he said tightly. "You think I haven't regretted that every moment since that day? Look, we went from two people who traversed every secret and hidden place in Avonlea, who shared everything, to you being afraid to be alone with me. That started long before I proposed. And you kept pushing me away-"

"Gilbert, I was scared-"

"What do you think I was? I was losing you and I panicked. You will never know how much I regret speaking. I took a gamble, and I lost what little of you I had." He then laughed mirthlessly. "Of course Roy would still have come- and I still would have failed."

Anne sat up then, her eyes scorching. "Gilbert, when did I ever go looking for someone else when we were together?" she stormed. "When I had your friendship I had everything I wanted. I wasn't looking for anyone else. And you act as if I never cared- I told you then, that there was no one I cared about more. But my friendship wasn't enough for you and so I lost everything."

Gilbert's head fell on outstretched arms, and there was a brief silence.

"So did I." He said, defeated.

Anne sat back down, exhausted. "Roy- just happened. I didn't plan it, and I was- lonely." She finished.

Gilbert picked up a shard of wood from beside him, and deliberately broke it into pieces. "Me too. I suppose that's where Christine came in." he said slowly.

To Anne's utter shock, he reached up to the nearby desk then, and took a chunk of wedding cake off the slate. He looked at her, quirking an eyebrow.

"Sorry, I'm hungry." he said. "Shouting really takes it out of a fellow." He then offered some to Anne, who broke off a small piece with a wry smile.

Gilbert's face became fixed. "Does he actually make you happy?" Anne looked up, her eyes wide.

"I don't know what you mean."

"Whenever I've seen you, at classes or at social events, all I notice is how calm and composed you look. All the time. You don't laugh, you don't show any expression at all. That's not the Anne Shirley I knew."

"Maybe that is me now." She said, her voice thin.

He sighed dejectedly, pushing his fingers through his hair. "Does he ever make you laugh? Has he- ever seen you get angry? Or does he know what you're like when something crushes you?" he asked.

"He doesn't need to see those things." She said, desperately. "Gilbert, you don't need to concern yourself-"

He suddenly looked at her for a long minute, his eyes suspicious.

"Anne, tell me you told him about your childhood." he said quietly. Her silence was all the answer he needed. "Roy doesn't know anything, does he?"

She closed her eyes, beaten.

"Anne-" he said horrified, his voice cracking under the strain.

"You don't understand, Gilbert," she said wildly. "You come from a family. You are a Blythe, you have a name to carry, a history to confer on someone. I have nothing. I have my own accomplishments, and that is all. I carry eleven years of shame and misery, that is what I have to give. It counted against me even here in Avonlea, if you remember. Don't you understand that it still does, anywhere I go?"

His eyes were blazing. "Is this him?" he said, angrier than she had ever seen him. "Is this how he makes you see yourself? To make you think that because your childhood was stolen from you, that you are worth less? You never used to doubt yourself, you never used to think it mattered. Anne, if this is what he makes you think, he's not worth you." He said savagely.

"Gil, I don't tell anyone about that side of my life!" she said brokenly, and then he turned to her, his voice low and intense.

"You told me."

"Because I trusted you." She whispered.

He looked into her distressed eyes for a long moment, and then turned away, his heart breaking. "Anne, you deserve better than that. Don't you get it? Don't you see that you make people come alive just by being yourself? Look how you brought Matthew and Marilla to life. Everywhere you go you bring out the best in people- you are the gift. If he doesn't understand that, then he doesn't really love you." He said bluntly. "And I don't think you love him either."

Anne let out a choked cry. "And maybe it's not for me to say." He said sarcastically. "But I've loved you for half my life, so I want to know that you will be happy. Maybe it's not my call, but at this point I don't care whether it is or not." He stood up again, and paced across the floor.

"If you really loved each other, I should have been able to feel it." He said, his voice passionate. "It should be tangible, palpable, and make everyone in the room uncomfortable- but it's not. Oh, I believed it at first, I really thought it was there and it nearly killed me. But I don't buy it now. You know who did have that? You and me." Anne looked up at him, speechless.

"Everyone talking about us, walking on tiptoes and giving us a wide berth because it made them so uncomfortable. You know that it happened. And I think that's what scared you more than anything." He said to her, straight.

She shrank into herself, her hands on aching temples. "Gilbert, you shouldn't be saying this." she begged him.

"Well, this is the only chance I'll have." He said calmly. "Someone needs to tell you the truth. And if you remember correctly, that's one of the things I always did for you." He walked to the window, and looked out into the blackness. "You deserve better than this, Anne."

Anne let out a cry of frustration. "Gilbert, how do you know what love is even supposed to look like? How do you know that there is only one way that works, and that all the rest don't?"

He rounded on her fiercely. "Anne, if you could choose right now, between what we had, and what you have now with him, what would you choose?" His eyes looked into hers unflinchingly, and he saw the answer on her face before she lifted her face and spoke shakily.

"You know what I would choose. But you took that choice away from me."

"And doesn't that tell you something?" he demanded.

"Gilbert, you were my friend-" she imploringly.

"No." he said, with a strange gleam in his eye. "I don't buy it. What we had wasn't friendship. If it was, we could let each other go; and clearly neither of us can. This is love."

Her voice was pleading, and his heart broke at her words. "It can't be. Love can't hurt this much, Gilbert."

Gilbert faced her, almost as if preparing to leave- it was this that made her suddenly afraid. Whatever anguish had shown itself in this room, something told her that if he walked out into the night that a worse pain would hit her with the force of a hurricane- and she wouldn't be able to survive it.

"No." he said quietly. "No. You can tell yourself anything you like, you can convince yourself the sky is orange, if you want. But you are not going to lie to yourself anymore about what I feel."

She looked up at him, terror showing in her eyes. He folded his arms, and began to speak.

"I said I loved you when I asked you to marry me. And I meant it. And I didn't just mean I didn't want someone else taking my place, or that I was settling for my dear old friend." He said, slightly bitterly. "If you can't see what I feel for you, then Anne, you are blind. The whole world has been able to except you."

Anne was still, her fists clenched under her. He knelt down in front of her, and his eyes bore into hers.

"Anne, I have loved you since I met you. I loved you for standing up to me, for breaking that wretched slate over my head. I loved how stubbornly you fought to learn, how you made me push to keep up with you. How you made the two of us make up the ground that we had both lost academically. How when you forgave me, you invited me right into your heart- you gave me a friendship that was the sweetest thing I have ever known. How you believed in me even when I didn't, you made me laugh and you made me keep hoping in the future." He stopped, his throat closing over.

Anne reached to touch him, pulling up just short of his arm. "You did that for me too, Gil." She whispered brokenly.

"Anne, I said your friendship wasn't enough for me." He said, tortured. "But it wasn't because I found it lacking. It's because we're not just friends, and we're not just kindred spirits. There's something between us that is deeper, you have to know that. You belonged in my heart, and I had to tell you how much I loved you." Anne saw with a shock the tears in his eyes, and started to feel something in her begin to crumble.

"I wanted to give you everything I am. He might be able to give you more, but you won't be his the same way you are mine." Anne felt a sob trying to break in her throat, the raw passion in his tone cutting through her like a knife. "I wanted to love you so completely that you would never hurt from your past again. That you and I would belong to each other for all time; that we would walk together every day of our lives."

Gilbert's voice began to tremble now, as he looked up into the grey-green eyes he loved. "I wanted to make love to you. I wanted to see your body grow with our child. I wanted to wake beside you each morning; for you to be the one I came home to every night. I wanted our hearts and lives to be so entwined that nothing and no one could ever come between us again." He took a shaking breath. "You are everything to me, Anne. No matter what happens, you cannot ever say that you mean less than that to me."

Anne was trembling from head to foot by now. She watched him get to his feet slowly, and turn from her, putting his hands up to cover his face. Every step he took away from her physically hurt, and she instinctively rose to close the gap between them. Not sure what she would say or do, only knowing that she could not endure any more distance from him.

He eventually turned to face her; and she looked at his pale, haggard face in the firelight. She stood there in a maelstrom of emotion: fear, confusion and compassion whirling around her. Her breath coming fast, she looked into his eyes and saw his innermost heart laid bare before her; for the first time she truly saw Gilbert Blythe. How dear he was to her- how beloved, but how hurt and vulnerable he was. Something yearning took over her- a need to touch him, to comfort. Hardly knowing what she was doing, with tears running down her face, she placed tentative hands on Gilbert's face and pressed her lips to his softly.

The two of them stood frozen in that moment. His breath came fast now, and he waited for her to pull away- when she didn't, when he could still feel her breath on his skin and her soft hands on his face, he slowly put his hands on her waist, and drew her to him wonderingly. He pushed the hair back from her forehead gently, and looked into her eyes. He read the confusion there, the anguish and something warmer than either of those things. Gilbert bent his head, somehow knowing that if this was all about to be snatched away from him, that this moment belonged only to the two of them. As his mouth touched hers again, a soft moan left her throat and he gathered her to himself hungrily. His lips moved to her hair and her cheeks and her face, and when he claimed her mouth again Anne's arms came around his neck, pulling him closer to her still. Her body pressed against his, her hand on the back of his head. Their kisses were breathless and fierce, and Gilbert's heart was attempting to beat out of his chest at her closeness. Finally having to accept that this was real, he made himself pull away from her slightly, still holding her close.

"Anne- what's happening?" he breathed.

Shivering, she looked at him. "I'm not sure."

"Do you want it to stop?" he asked, and she shook her head against him vehemently. He chuckled, but his uncertainty made him release her gently. "You know how much I want this, Anne." he said, his voice husky with emotion. "But I- I won't survive you walking away a second time." He sat down in front of the small stove, breathing heavily, and his heads in his hands.

Anne dropped to her knees before him, and reached for his cheek with one hand. He closed his eyes at her touch and she broke into a small sob. "Neither will I." She said her voice quivering. When he opened his eyes she was looking into his in bewilderment. "You- love me."

He tried to catch his breath again. "This is only just occurring to you now?" he said, one eyebrow nearly shooting to his hairline.

"But- but- you really love me." Anne said, completely stunned.

She read the exhaustion in his face, but there was a light in his hazel eyes that she hadn't seen in a long time.

"I really love you." He answered, his voice soft.

Anne looked at him wonderingly, and in the silence Gilbert carefully took both of her hands in his. He made himself ask the only question that mattered.

"Do you love me?" he asked slowly.