i.
They've been paired up for an english assignment. It's dreadful and means she's supposed to be talking to him, but she's far too stubborn for that.
Anne still hates him and he's still awful and whenever he looks at her she has the strong urge to dye her hair raven black. Despite the absolutely horrid outcome of her first attempt at dyeing it.
Not to mention that the assignment is about poetry. Poetry! He just has to ruin everything good and beautiful in life.
So while he reads the first poem aloud, soft enough not to disturb the other partnerships, Anne flips to the next poem in the packet, skimming the text and wallowing in metaphors. She tunes out his voice as much as possible, ignoring the way rhymes slip from his tongue and similes color the world. She pours her energy into absorbing the next poem, taking in its written glory, breathing in the stardust it sings of and breathing out its painted sunset sky.
"I love you."
Her gaze flies to Gilbert, but his eyes are still on the page. He's not confessing to her, he's reading a poem.
"I'll whisper it into the night air
But you'll never hear.
I'll sing it to the stars, to the galaxies,
To the empty space between the planets."
It doesn't explain why Anne's heart leapt to her throat, why her pulse is racing, but she knows how to explain it.
"You carry the universe in your mind,
I carry nothing by my heart in my hands.
It's an unfair exchange, a meager organ for hundreds of worlds,
A singular emotion for thousands of stories."
It's really quite simple.
"I stand below, a mere mortal beside your greatness."
Shock.
"You will be immortalized in the stars
In the sky
In your eyes
In my heart"
Gilbert had raised his voice slightly at that line. The line. It had startled her. And when someone is startled, their heartbeat increases, sending more blood to various body parts. A simple adrenaline rush, the fight or flight response.
"Maybe next time I'll say it louder,
Not too loud,
Just loud enough
For the wind to catch the words
And whisk them off.
And maybe
Maybe that wind will carry them past your eyes."
He glances up at her, catching her eye with the last line. Anne rolls her eyes and looks back down at her paper. It's all too easy to lose herself in the rhythm of the poems as her heartbeat steadies.
ii.
She's not going to laugh. She's not going to laugh.
Anne Shirley is very mature and serious and she is not going to laugh.
It's just very hard with Gilbert sitting in the lake, dripping wet. His hair in his eyes, and his clothes soaked through. Glaring at her as she stands on the bridge.
She covers her mouth with a hand. She's trying very hard. Very hard.
A snort slips through.
At that point, all hope is lost and she lets herself laugh. Laugh, laugh, laugh, clutching her stomach and then looking at him and laughing again.
Gilbert gets to his feet and groans, dripping and pushing wet hair from his face. "I love you," he deadpans. "I love you so much right now." The glare he gives her is made pathetic by the wet flop of his hair. "This is entirely your fault."
