If someone had asked Anne as to when her gait had turned into this feverish flight, she could not have answered.
She didn't even fully realise she'd been running until she stumbled on a stone under her feet and almost hit the ground in result – but even then, she did not stop.
She couldn't.
She wanted to run, needed to run. She needed to flee, to sprint into the forest, regardless of the warmth of the day and the dust on the road, and by this vent at least some of the anger that was now raging inside her. It wasn't even about finding the necessary solitude and protection the woods gave but about the very exercise that suddenly seemed to be the only way to keep her wounded self from going crazy at once.
So she did run, faster and faster, her irregular, uncertain steps thudding against the hard sand of the road. Her free hand was pressed to her head to secure her hat from falling, while the other clasped the books in a tight embrace, pressing them against her chest as she scurried along the bushes, no longer able to pay any mind to the people she'd left behind or the impression she could have made on them.
She had tried to guard herself at first, and what's more, she was quite sure she had succeeded. When she had left the classroom, she'd made sure that her step would be nothing but dignified, brisk with confidence while restrained with composure, a perfect step for a perfectly normal situation. She'd had no desire to make a scene again; she couldn't have given in to her emotions this time.
She could not have let Gilbert Blythe see how much his words had disturbed her.
And yet, all of this had disappeared from her thoughts as soon as she'd crossed the threshold of the school, immediately leaving her vulnerable soul to her own insecurities and all the demons she could not yet fight. She had felt her legs shake and her hands tremble, while the first tears had begun to fall from her lashes, sliding down her cheeks; and she had known there was no use wiping them away.
Instead, she had done the only thing left for her to do.
She'd run.
She had as if her own life had depended on it, for the first time in her young life blind and deaf to the world around her, indifferent to all pureness and beauty she had marvelled upon this very morning. The sun shone on her, playing on her auburn locks and she did not see it; the friendly wind she'd learnt to know and love so well tried to whisper into her ear, but she was racing too fast to hear. All she saw and heard and felt were Ruby's scowl and Gilbert's words... and the memories both of those had eventually summoned.
Witch, witch, witch.
Even if the word was harsh and untrue and not what either of her friends had meant, it hit far too close to home for her to just ignore it. How could she? How, when she had already felt so plain and weak, so strange and different, so undesirable? But what was worse, what argument did she have to contradict those thoughts? She was nothing more than an orphan, a freak, an abomination with too many dreams and too many words, and nobody in their right mind could possibly think of her differently.
We're sick of you, you and your stupid stories.
She stumbled on another stone, wavered but caught her balance and rushed ahead; her face met with the fresh sprigs of a very young tree and she paid it no mind. Tears flew down her cheeks freely now and she still didn't care to wipe them away.
Maybe the girls at the orphanage had been right, after all, and the best anyone could ever feel for her was pity. Maybe that was why the Cuthberts had taken her in or why Diana had agreed to be her bosom friend (hadn't Anne have to ask her to become one?) or why Ruby had seemingly changed her mind about associating with her.
After all, she had nothing else to offer. No looks, no manners, no wisdom. She had some gifts, she supposed, but no sane person would ever truly approve of those.
No one will ever want you.
She was not what the world wanted to see, and her poor, plain looks were nothing but a perfect reflection of her inner worth.
Maybe Gilbert had been right to mock it.
She stopped abruptly and looked around, her hand leaving her hat and pressing against her mouth instead. It was as if the thought had come from some strange, external source instead of her own troubled mind, and now she had been trying to discern it, while half-consciously realising it was indeed she who had voiced it, and feeling ashamed for ever allowing such blunder.
"What am I saying?" she asked herself, leaning against a thick, old tree behind her. "What nonsense is this? He has no right to mock it, no one has. And to tell that Marilla and Matthew don't care! And Diana? Well, that's slander, no less!"
She let out a sigh and a groan, suddenly feeling weaker than she had for a very long time. Her lips were still trembling and her eyes were still fogged with tears, and as she had ended her flight, she realised how much it had exhausted her. All she wanted was to let her knees buckle under her weight – to curl up against the old tree – to hide and disappear, never to be found again.
She was on the ground before she knew it.
"Why do I even care?" she asked herself severely. "He's just a silly boy with no respect to other people's feelings or too little brain to know that he may be wounding them. So, he's either reckless or cruel – and neither of those two types of people deserve to have their judgment valued."
Truly, when she had hit Gilbert with that slate, she'd thought it was too much.
Now she thought it might have been too little.
And still, there was a part of her that knew she would have been wrong to repeat any such action this day, and not only because it would have ruined the frail reputation she had so carefully built. A soft, quiet voice whispering that she had no right to hold any grudge against the boy who had wanted nothing more than to save them both from scolding for not paying enough attention to the assignment at hand.
The boy she had almost learnt to call her friend.
"Would a friend do anything like this?" she answered the voice, with a hint of vexation and hurt. "If the slate accident wasn't enough, shouldn't my own words be? There were so many other ways to catch my attention – how could he use my pitiful looks for it when he knows how much I hate them?"
Because he did know. Their talks were rare and accidental, but not unwelcome, and if only the time allowed they lasted long enough for Anne to share her sourness on some or other of her physical features, depending on what the conversation touched upon or what had happened right before it. She hadn't yet realised that the reason why she did that was the attentive, honest attitude Gilbert always assumed when she was near. She didn't know that it was his company that made her feel so at ease, so safe, to the point where she was ready to talk about at least some of her insecurities, without the fear of being scolded or laughed at, ridiculed for caring too much for her outer beauty while he silently agreed that there was much to improve.
He had never made her feel ridiculous.
He had never made her feel plain.
But then there was a matter much more important than either of this. It was a subject too painful to be brought up carelessly, especially with someone she had barely started considering a friend, even if that someone was wise and caring, and understood more that could be expected at first.
The Asylum.
No, not just that. It was her past in general that she found so difficult to talk about, not only to her not-quite-not-yet friends, but even to the kindest and closest of souls around her, the true Kindred Spirits that she was sure she could call by this name. She couldn't talk about it to Matthew for fear she would upset him; she could not do that to Marilla for fear that her outer reaction would be too cool to bear. Even Diana, her dear, beloved Diana was out of the question, as she had lived too good and happy a life to imagine or comprehend the horror Anne had had to go through for so many years.
Gilbert was the first person whom she considered right for sharing her heavy burden with.
They had never spoken of it openly, the subject still being too difficult for her to mention. And she didn't want to share it with him yet – all she needed was this quiet certainty that one day, she would be able to do it and that he would understand when she did. Besides, she had slipped too many times for him not to realise the seriousness of it, even if he was not to hear any details of it yet.
Contrary to her previous words, Anne realised better than anyone how smart Gilbert truly was. She also suspected that had it been any other day, she would have got over his comment with nothing more than a roll of her eyes and a sigh, perhaps emphasised by a not so subtle stroke on the back of his head. She would have whined and he would have laughed, and they would have forgotten about it before any of them had left their seat.
Unfortunately, it was not any other day. It was this one, the day of nightmares and dread, of memories that were not to be repressed.
She realised with dismay that she could not talk about those memories to him after all.
And yet, this realisation, however sad and disappointing, was soon overshadowed by another, one that made her hug her legs and bite her lip at the wave of anxiety that had suddenly come over her.
In some ways, in some very important ways, Gilbert understood her like nobody else.
He could hurt her like nobody else.
She would not let him hurt her again.
"Not in this life," she announced boldly.
Anne jumped to her feet in an instant, wiping away the last drops of tears, leaning over the books she had put away earlier. She took a few deep breaths, and straightened her hat – the last thing she needed right now was for Marilla to take notice of the state she was in. She looked around, for the first time sincerely interested in determining her location and gasped, seeing that she was almost at the edge of the woods, with only a few dozens yards from the border of Green Gables farm.
Her dearest home was close and whatever conclusions she might have come to, she was not going to let them affect the happiness the mere thought of having a home gave. With a home like Green Gables she was sure she could face anything.
Even if it would still hurt to do it.