Becoming Anne Again

Chapter Sixty-One

A/N Hello, my loves! Thanks for sticking with me through all of this. I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Predictably, Beauty and the Beast had been canceled, and school had closed down for the week as the school board raced to insure that every bad apple on the staff was purged. This proved to be fatal to some teachers, because all of a sudden, teachers who looked too long at a girl or who accidently bumped into a child, staff members who were too grumpy, too angry, too anything, were promptly let go. This was far worse for tenured teachers, but in the world of Mr. Phillip's and the men and women Anne knew so intimately, it was worth it to ensure the safety of the students.

It was just as well for Anne, Diana, and Gilbert, who found that they couldn't possibly imagine going back to school any time soon. Anne couldn't walk the hallways without thinking about Mr. Phillips over Prissy, and Diana thought she would vomit if she as much as stepped into Mr. Webster's room, where the specter of Anne would still be, waiting, blood pouring from her left arm, pulse weak and bordering on nonexistent. If Anne and Diana had been kindred sisters before, they became soulmates that day, bound so closely together that to sever the tie would be to cut a part of themselves off. And in between crying and pleading with God in the waiting room, even Diana and Gilbert formed an unlikely bond.

And so this was how the three of them sat on the beach, dressed in coats and armed with blankets, thermoses with hot chocolate in their hands and Mrs. Lynde's cookies in a basket beside them. Given the horror they had all faced, they didn't need to talk. They just stared listlessly at the water, content to just dwell in normalcy, even if it felt that the universe had betrayed them, lulling them into a false sense of security before ripping it out from under them.

"Have you talked to Charlie?" Anne asked, still not dragging her eyes away from the ocean, quietly sipping the sweetness of her hot chocolate.

"Not really," Diana replied. "I don't know what to tell him."

"I know the feeling," Anne whispered, looking over at Diana. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Diana smiled wryly, and Gilbert found himself leaning forward just to feel included. "That seems strange. Barely anything happened to me."

Anne sharply breathed in, and her free hand shot out to rest on Diana's thigh. "Don't say that! Of course you're traumatized." She paused, furrowing her eyebrows and biting her lip. "Most soldier with PTSD have never seen combat."

"Really? Where'd you hear that?"

"I don't remember," Anne admitted, shrugging her shoulders. "It was just something I read after my first diagnosis."

Diana knew what that meant. But Gilbert didn't, not completely. "From...before?" He said, his voice quiet.

Anne froze. She didn't know what to say. Yet, Gilbert knew a sliver of her life now. She would no longer be just Anne, like she had wanted. She would be Anne who almost got murdered. But then, when she thought back to the story she had spent the night feverishly writing, with the scenes of Cordelia the peasant girl, facing mountains and traumas and coming out on the other side—she realized she didn't have to let trauma define her. And she wouldn't let Gilbert define her like that either. She grit her teeth, and looking at him full on. "Yeah. From before." She paused. For all of her resolve, she hadn't completely thought the logistics through. "Remember, when we were eating lunch, how I said I didn't want to talk about it?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you sure you want to listen?"

"Yes," he replied, nodding his head. He would have said yes even if he knew what she was going to say, but still, it was fair to say he had no idea. He knew Anne had almost gotten murdered, his own father had died, but yet he was young enough not to realize the full cruelty and brokenness of the universe. But in time, he would.