It has been a while. Life can be like that. After having a particular low couple of days, I sat down with my notebook and wrote this in about 15 minutes. Remembering that sometimes in life, things aren't always in a steady line. Life is an iceberg, shallow at the top but the bulk of it, is a deep ocean. Gil is thinking of the past and considering when he had the courage to dream, to hope and more importantly to fight for what he knows is meant to be.

Life in Three Acts

People never ask how you are when you are smiling. It is just assumed that you are happy, content, and full of the love that fills the air with hope.

But it is all a mask – an act that as performers of life, we all pretend is real.

A performance that is both exhilarating and exhausting.

Nights are the worst. That's when he feels the emptiness the most. Tonight, was no different.

The dim light of the house on Edgerston Lane flickered wildly like it was wanting attention. It had been a long day and now night with the mundanity of house calls that were far removed from what might be called emergencies.

"Doctor, my throat hurts when I am talking."

"Doctor, my husband thinks I have nerves. That's why he is never home."

"Doctor, my baby has a rash, and I am afraid."

A smile, an assurance in gentle, low tones and eye contact was the best medicine he could offered. Gilbert didn't feel any of the comfort he clearly gave to others.

He longed for advice. The kind of advice Anne used to freely supply back when they were young. He remembered the day of Miss Lavender's spring wedding, as he sat next to Anne, secretly so nervous and so afraid that he was going to shout out how he loved her and wanted so desperately for her to promise to be his forever. Alas, he lost the courage as he fell under the influence of her smell – part rose water and part lilies. Her red hair had appeared almost a dark auburn in the sun and it shun with the intensity of the ambers in a wild fire.

She was mesmerising.

"Imagine, Anne," he started to say. "What it would feel like to find love after thinking you were never going to find it?" he questioned, trying to breath as he looked at the three freckles he could see. He loved her freckles.

Anne smirk, never looking at him. Perhaps knowing that if she looked into his eyes, even for a moment, it would mean a detour of her life that she didn't want to entertain. She couldn't be his wife as much as she always pictured Gilbert by the mantel piece in her future home, struggling to find a comfortable position by the hearty fire. She wanted to teach and to travel. Even though she knew he wanted to be a doctor. It would be doubtful if she agreed to be his own.

Anne spoke carefully and with precision.

"Gilbert," she enunciated carefully. "There is no such thing as never. Only not right now."

In response, he placed his hand just a short distance from touching her left hand. A moment later he felt his skin grating against her own. It by instinct that he should've removed it at once but he just wanted to be in this moment, and he noticed for the first time, that she did not flinch.

"Gil-bbb-ert," she moaned.

His heart fluttering, briefly entertaining the thought that perhaps this might be it. The thoughts floated around him. That she would ask if they could go somewhere private and she would tell me that she felt the same. He wasn't prepared for that. He hadn't even asked for her hand from Miss Cuthbert and he had no ring. Hell, he had no money.

"Yes, Anne," he lulled out of his crooked mouth as his legs started to spasm.

"I think maybe there is only one day. That's what Miss Lavender had was a hope of one day," Anne said with a confidence, nodding her head as if she was trying to convince yourself that Gil's questions were anything to do with the beautiful wedding they were attending.

It then his eyes dropped looking at the chair in front of them, as he tried to internal every hope he felt.

While there had been much happiness that day, there was also sadness. The reality that love was a barrier that was too high, one that sometimes even he did not have the courage to try and break down for fear it would collapse into a million pieces. He resigned himself to the idea that Anne and he would only be able to debate and go for walks down their lane, visit their tree christened by fairies and picnic at the Lake of Shining Waters for a while longer. It was inevitable that some stupid fool would eventually come her way and she would forget all the care, kindness and compassion and fall for the superficial of romanticism.

There was someone though. Someone who always knew how he felt. Someone who knew the pain of love unfulfilled. – Marilla Cuthbert.

Over the years of friendship with Anne, after she had never forgiven him for his childish and immature way to seek her attention, Marilla always seemed to know how badly he wanted to announce his true feelings to Anne.

It was particular day when he and Anne were home during the summer after their first year at Redmond, that Marilla had informed Gilbert as he entered the doorway at Green Gables that Anne had suddenly taken to her bed. Marilla and Rachel had been waiting for the ageing doctor to visit but clearly he had been held up perhaps at a long birth or maybe he was just taking one of his 'naps' with his much younger nurse.

"Gilbert, I am worried," Marilla said, her voice breaking as she continued.

Gilbert quickly put his coat on the rack near the door and rushed over to Marilla, now with stress devloping around his forehead.

"I wish," she stopped suddenly mid-sentence, fearing that the tears might follow if she continued.

Gilbert looked at her, anxious for the rest.

"You wish what, Miss Cuthbert?"

"I guess I wish that Matthew was still here."

He smiled, remembering the gentle way Matthew would comfort Anne.

"He will always be in your heart. He never can leave your heart. When you love someone…well, that is forever."

Marilla smiled and for the first time, Gilbert saw a remanent of the girl she clearly had been. The sweet and reserved girl his father once courted. That is before the quarrel over a silly misunderstanding that ruined two futures together.

"Miss Cuthbert," he paused to consider his words and what they might mean. Would Marilla shout at Gilbert and banish him from ever stepping foot in Green Gables ever again?

"Would you permit me to see Anne?"

Marilla was taken back by such a request. An improper one of that.

"Let me explain. You see, it is my intention to seek a career in medicine and I would like to work on my bedside manner. I promise I won't spread this to anyone," he spoke with a furious beat with each syllable firing out of his mouth like pellets.

Gilbert knew such a request would be a scandal if known.

Marilla considered the prospect and considered her words. She liked Gilbert very much; his softness and the way he always respected Anne, even when she was impossibly infuriating.

"Well, Anne might be not accepting of such a grand gesture, but I don't see why not," she articulated with a glee that was foreign to the untrained eye.

Marilla loved Anne pretending that her own heart didn't beat when she saw Gilbert. She once toppled down the stairs when he called on her unexpectedly, so eager to share some gossip she heard about Charlie Sloane. As Anne landed almost at Gilbert's feet, she looked at him and just took in his smile. No words were needed as he offered her his hand and they laughed. She knew Anne was always safe with the young Blythe.

Now that young man just wanted Anne to see him as a man. As he looked at Marilla, he said the only thing, he felt sounded appropriate.

"Of course, that's what chums are for," he cheered.

"Chums?," she sprouted.

She laughed with a chesty echo as she placed her hand on his shoulder.

"Gilbert, you and I both know that you love Anne far deeper than as a chum."

A sudden fear came over the young student. How would he hide this? Should he deny it? Would she keep it a secret if he did admit it?

"What…"

He felt the anxiety boiling over him.

Gil…keep it together…you can do this.

"GILBERT!" she shouted. "Come on, I might be old but I am not blind," she spoke before she considered the irony of her words.

"Well, I am going blind but I am no fool."

Marilla felt that she had the wisdom that only came with a lifetime observing others happiness.

"You always have loved her, haven't you?"

Gilbert first shook his head as he looked down at his feet. Then nodded.

"That obvious, huh?"

"Only to me…and half the village."

They both laughed.

He almost was glad that Anne was sick to spend this time with Marilla, and he finally felt the validity that he was worthy. Worthy of Anne's love and perhaps Marilla's too.

"I don't think Anne will reciprocate."

As she walked over to the oak banister, she sighed.

"Anne doesn't know her heart yet," Marilla said with a soft kindness.

Gilbert adjusted his stance as he leaned towards her wanting to believe in her words.

"She needs time to understand how beautiful love can be, if she only would look around her and forget those ideas in those damn books. She relies on you,"

Marilla chuckled as he thought of how Anne would be furious if she ever suggested that she consider courting Gilbert.

"Well, her room is the right one at the top of the stairs."

As he took each step closer to Anne, a feeling of hope filled his heart. At that moment he was feeling bold so he turned around slightly facing the railing, just above where Marilla was standing at the landing of the stairs.

"What if I spent the rest of my life alone, wondering what could've been?" He asked, not sure if he could deal with the answer.

Marilla thought about his words. And then of the words she would say in reply.

"Then you will keep with you the joy you once felt. The quicken beat of your heart when you knew they were near, when they loved you," she reassured him.

He never did cure Anne that day. In fact, she kicked him out almost immediately, screaming something about virtue and privacy. Gilbert spent the rest of the afternoon having tea with Marilla when the doctor finally arrived.

Gilbert felt victory that day, not only of the electricity powering through his veins as his eyes followed the scarlet colour of her cheeks as she got mad but of the friendship of an old woman who hoped things between the young chums would turn out differently than it has between his father and her.

Gilbert knew Marilla's words to him be true. That Marilla was right.

To feel. To feel. To feel.

Afterwards, he thought that perhaps that was the part of pain through love that made it all worth it.

Now as a married man trying to find redemption in the brutality of the night. He had the hope, the memory and the trust of the most fearless yet forgiving woman he had known.

His mother-in-law.

Sitting at his desk, looking at a picture of he and Anne on their wedding day, he carefully opened his top right drawer and removed a white sheet of paper. The fountain pen stucking in the black ink. He paused as he wrote:

"Dear Marilla,

I think I need the hope once more. I will be coming to Avonlea next month on the 9th. I must see you. Tell no one of this visit. Not even Anne. It is imperative that she doesn't know.

Your son-in-law

Gilbert"

Finally, after months of despair and doubt, Dr Gilbert Blythe knew exactly what to do.

He was going to start the final act.