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WHEN WILHELMINA OPENED HER EYES SHE WAS BACK IN AVONLEA. She wasted no time and marched right up to the Blythe residence. Her eyes were raw and tired from crying so long. She could barely stand going to the Blythe household knowing the heart and soul of it was no longer on this earth. The thought made her skin ice cold. Regardless of this ice cold feeling her heart burned with such a fire. It was sorrow, grief maybe. She wasn't sure but she knew she didn't want the feeling to stay.
The first step to getting rid of this feeling was apologizing to Gilbert. She wasn't sure what she had done wrong but she knew that didn't matter and she wasn't so full of herself to not want to apologize regardless. Her feet touched the steps of what she now would call Gilbert Blythes home and not Gilbert and Johns home. She lifted her fist to knock but stopped it in its tracks. The curtains were open the very least bit but it was enough to see every piece of furniture was hiding under white sheets.
No Wilhelmina thought to herself. No he couldn't be gone. She shook the handle to try and open. Locked. She ran around to the back door and tried that one as well but it was locked too. Wilhelmina wasted no time and ran toward Green Gables. Surely Anne or Marilla would have the answers.
Running through the snow Wilmas eyes pricked full of tears. The cold mixed with the speed she was running practically fused her tears to her eyelashes making her vision blurry but she kept running. Gilbert wouldn't have left without telling her. They were friends—they were friends, right?
Her thoughts spun into a frenzy as she ran, snow was now caked into her converse making her ankles numb, but she didn't stop. Not until Green Gables was in sight. She could just make out the house between all the blur. She ran straight through the gate and just barely reached the porch when her feet finally gave out under her and she fell into the snow.
She laid there in that snow, hands gripping the earth, pulse trembling along with the rest of her body. She laid there and she thought of Gilbert. How she hated him sometimes, and loved him others. How she couldn't imagine living in a world where he wasn't there. Even if it meant she was yelling at him every five seconds, or explaining to him pictures she took on her phone. She just wanted Gilbert. She wanted him home.
"Mister Cuthbert!" Wilma could hear the farm boy—who's name she would learn to be Jerry—yelling for green gables as he ran to her side.
"You're Wilhelmina, Anne talks about you" Jerry said and he held me up so I wasn't fully laying in the snow. "I'm sure she will be glad you are here, could you try and keep your eyes open for me?" He asked politely.
Wilma didn't speak but if she could she would tell the boy he had great bedside manner. She nodded simply and looked up to the sky. It was bright, really bright. It reminded her of the very first time she opened her eyes in Avonlea. She wondered how different her life would be if she had never came here in the first place.
"Oh Wilma!" Marilla ran out from the kitchen and appeared next to the girl rather quickly for a woman of her age.
"Jerry help me get her inside before she catches her death." Jerry didn't protest as he helped her into green gables.
Marilla sat her upright in a chair in the kitchen and threw a fleece blanket over her shoulders. She placed a warm bucket of water at her feet to keep her warm. She poured the rest of the hot water from the kettle and made her some hot tea. Wilmas eyes that seemed to never be dry these days watered up again. This time she cried silently.
John Blythe had done the exact same for her the first time they met. Marilla got on one knee so that she'd be eye level with the girl and wiped her tears away gently. "I know child, I miss him too." She gave a sad smile.
"When my mother died I used to tell Matthew that the hurt we feel when we lose someone is just a reminder that the love we felt was real." Marilla said softly to the girl.
Wilmas eyes shot up to hers. She could see a look she didn't recognize. One she later would diagnose as regret. She couldn't exactly place it—why the woman reminded her so much of herself.
"Gilbert is gone isn't he." Wilma finally built up the courage to ask.
Marilla turned her eyes to the floor and nodded. "He needs time to breathe Wilma. Time to learn how to explore life without his father." Marilla told her.
Wilhelmina could feel the familiar fuzzy feeling of herself waking up. She made direct eye contact with Marilla. Eye contact that could convey all the fear she held inside her body. "Is this the end?" Wilma asked shakily.
Marilla didn't exactly know what she meant. If she was referring to her and Gilbert or her and Avonlea. Or maybe even both. So she said the only thing she could think of that made sense.
"I believe this is only the beginning."
A/N: NO THIS IS NOT THE END !!! I will be uploading several more chapters and won't stop until this story is finished. There will be a time jump though so prepare for that! I have the rest of this story planned out and I'm hoping I won't be on any more six month long hiatuses. Thank you all for reading!
