So it's been a bit, but I promise, it was all for a good reason! I started my semester, and between moving in and paperwork and just schoolwork, this has been the last thing on my to-do list, unfortunately. However, I made this chapter forever-long to make up for that! Let me know what you think!
Frigid.
Anne longed for frigid.
Because frigid would feel nearly tropical compared to the current temperature in Gil's car.
When Anne had walked across the field to the vehicle, she spotted Gil sitting in the driver's seat, casually checking his phone and pointedly not making eye contact with her.
Anne wordlessly slid into the passenger's seat, and just as silently, Gil dropped his phone into a cupholder and shifted into gear.
The progress of the past few hours dissipated, and only a frozen bitterness—like that following Gil's first botched proposal to Anne—remained.
The pair sat at awkward angles from each other; each trying to inch as far from each other as the confines of the compact car would allow.
Green road signs flashed by and Avonlea neared, but the tension grew increasingly tangible as landmarks from their beloved town materialized around corners and groves of trees.
Anne had longed for their joint reunion with Avonlea to be a joyous occasion, but it wasn't to be.
The uncomfortable pair drove into the outskirts of town without a word or a glance.
And just when it seemed the car's windows would crack from tension, Gil turned left down the Lane toward Green Gables.
Anne smiled for the first time in hours, and a sliver of sunshine warmed the war as the pale birches and vivid wildflowers flashed by.
So many hours Anne had spent loitering down the lane, with Gil trailing behind her, the two talking about everything and nothing.
With Anne doing her best to brush off that look of Gil's, that soft, guiding touch on her elbow, that glance from her eyes to her mouth.
Though those days were far away now, Anne felt a distinct loss as she passed the deserted groves and trails she and Gil once explored.
Anne shifted her eyes toward Gil: he stared straightforward intently, his knuckles white and tense.
They were just seconds from Green Gables when Anne decided to risk a chance.
"Gil, I never meant—"
A grove of trees passed by on the right, and they were suddenly pulling into Green Gables's drive way.
Anne's words choked in her throat when she saw her home and the small figures rocking in old, white chairs on the front porch.
As Dora and Davy sprinted toward the car, Anne sensed Gil's eyes shift—for the first time— off the road and onto her, burning into the side of her face, and she hesitated for a moment before turning to look back at him.
The moment their eyes connected, time and the car stopped.
But before anything could pass between them, Anne's door swung open, and Davy and Dora practically yanked her from the car and out of Gil's gaze.
Anne watched from the porch as Gil's car vanished around the corner, and she desperately wished for just a little more time alone with him.
A little more time to clear things up.
To get back on track.
To return to those memories that still lingered in Anne's mind.
"How was the trip, Anne?" Marilla asked.
Marilla, Mrs. Lynde, Davy and Dora all sat in dusty-white rocking chairs on the dusty-white porch, and Anne leaned against the railing facing her beloved family.
"Oh," Anne said, brushing imaginary crumbs off her striped shirt. "It wasn't too bad. Long, but not terrible. Gil's a good road trip partner."
"Seeing the two of you was just like old times, I'd say," said Mrs. Lynde, her eyes never leaving her knitting but her mouth smirking pointedly. "The way he lugged your bags up to your room and made polite conversation with us old ladies was quite sweet, too, you know."
"Oh, hush, Rachel," Marilla said, her eyes softening at the pained embarrassment staining her daughter's face. "How's Roy doing, dear?"
Anne smiled thankfully at her mother and started in on an update of her boyfriend, her academics, and her friends.
And for a few hours, Anne forgot about all her troubles amidst her family's antics and Marilla's homemade lemonade.
Di's rehearsal dinner was to be held at the old A.V.I.S building, and when Anne arrived—two hours early— she couldn't have been more excited or more overladen with the decorations and gifts Marilla had piled in a box.
"Anne!"
She ducked her head around her burden and saw Di rushing towards her at full speed.
Impulsively, Anne dropped her box to the ground, without a thought for breakable items, and sprinted to meet Di.
The pair hugged like it had been thirty years, and Anne's heart filled with love for Di and then constricted with a strange pain of loss.
"You know," Di began, her voice muffled. "I'm not going to disappear after the wedding. I'll always need my best friend."
"I know," Anne whispered, her secret fears calmed by Di's simple statement.
The two women bustled around the room, tying bows, clipping flowers, hanging strings of lights, and setting name cards, and all the while, they caught up with each other.
"How's Patty's Place working out?" Di asked. "I know it was such a blessing to get the house, especially for so cheap and so close to campus, but I was worried about all you girls, out on your own."
Anne laughed.
"Oh, well, we did have some trouble getting on at first. We argued a little about who should clean what and when, and whether we should use tacks on the wall or double-sided wall tape, but now, we've got it all worked out, and we're all getting along swimmingly!"
Di grinned as she dropped tea candles into the silver votives on each of the tables.
"I wish I could've lived on my own a bit," Di began, lightly. "Instead of just going straight from Orchard Slope to the house Fred bought for us, but I'm so incredibly proud of you for doing it that I almost feel as if I did it myself!"
"You're a sweet angel, Di, and Fred will never be good enough for you," Anne smiled, laying spoons beside each plate. "But I need to ask, what do we need to do for Saturday? Anything major?"
"Not that I can think of right now," Di said. "But my mind is so scattered, I can hardly remember to brush my hair! If you want to plan on staying at Orchard Slope on Friday night, that'd be wonderful! That way we can handle all the last minute details and have one last, real sleepover."
"That sounds perfect, Di," Anne said, happier than she'd been in so long.
She and Di quickly finished all the final details, and before long, the wedding party and family members started arriving for the rehearsal dinner.
Though dozens of her childhood friends enveloped Anne in comforting hugs, she couldn't quite shake the nervousness that developed when a certain curly brown head walked in.
Throughout the whole night, she skillfully avoided eye contact and conversation with Gil while still keeping track of his presence and proximity in the back of her mind and her peripheral vision.
Anne and Gil's stubborn avoidance of each other attracted the attention of most of the party, especially Di, who had once assumed a similar event would take place for the out-of-sorts pair.
But despite the tension between the maid of honor and best man, the dinner and the rehearsal went off seamlessly, and after the fact, when Anne was tossing napkins and decorations into the trashcan, she felt a hand on her shoulder.
It was Di, who wordlessly grabbed her hand and pulled her towards the ladies' room.
"Anne, what's happening between you and Gil?" Di began. "I understand that you two have a long, complicated, easily-resolvable relationship, but I want to know what all this new tension is about? And not just because it would seriously make my life easier if my maid of honor could actually talk to Fred's best man!"
Anne propped herself against the sink counter and sighed.
"I don't know, Di. Things were looking up on the way over, but then there was this tree and this moment and this look, and everything got all messed up again!"
The bride-to-be brushed her glossy black hair back from her face and raised her eyebrows in contempt.
"A tree, really?" Di laughed ruefully. "Listen, Anne, you know I love you, and a lot of other people here love you, too. And I think if you would just talk to other people and figure some things out and maybe stay away from trees, this whole thing could resolve itself, right?"
Anne smiled and released a breath she didn't know she was holding in.
"Of course you're right, Di. I'll think it over, and I'll try to smooth things out at least for this weekend. I wouldn't want to screw up your wedding with my petty issues."
"Oh, that's the least of my worries," Di laughed. "Well, maybe not the least!"
"Shut up," Anne grinned. "Do you know what I had to do to get here? I'm a blessing to your whole wedding!"
An hour later, Anne trudged up the creaky stairs at Green Gables, exhausted and anxious.
She flopped down on the pastel quilt on her childhood bed, and closed her eyes briefly.
A buzzing next to her head startled her from her half-sleep, and Anne rifled through her purse with one hand, searching for her phone.
Sorry about today, Anne. Maybe a walk down the Lane tomorrow morning? We can talk some things through?—Gil at 11:47
Anne giggled, almost deliriously, and quickly responded.
Count me in.