My Fairy Queen Anne

a simple complication (miscommunications lead to fallouts)

My lovely Gil,

With every passing day, my heart grows more lonesome. How ever shall I go on? Today is November 24th. I cannot see you until December 22nd. Still, 28 days -- 2 or 3 letters more -- remain till I can be wrapped up in your arms for two brief weeks before we part again.

Needless to say, I miss you terribly, my love.

I noticed something in your last letter. We've been skirting around the topic for ages now and though this long distance situation isn't ideal, I think it's time for us to have a conversation about what's next. 

You said 'when we're married' and talk of houses and down payments together. We've always referenced our future together like a given. And though I don't know you to be one to make offhand remarks without sincerity, after having a conversation with Ruby, Tillie, and Josie (they are the only ones as of present with suitors), I have come to the conclusion that we can't make such offhand remarks about the subject unless we really and truly mean it. Do you really and truly mean it, my Gilbert? Could we have a future together? Not just one for the next month or year or four years, but a forever future? 

If I am to be completely honest, I really hope you do mean it. Not any time soon, of course, but I want to solidify that one day, you will ask me that fateful question.

When I say that one day I want to make you mine forever and always, have several children, and grow old side by side, I mean it.

I'm baring my heart out to you, Gilbert. It would mean the world if you wouldn't break it.

Of course I will be careful around that wretched Roy. You should've seen what he did yesterday. He intercepted me in the halls between English and Geometry and presented me with a bouquet of violets and said he was 'very sorry' if his words 'managed to hurt my feelings somehow' and wanted to 'put aside our petty political differences', as if he was contending that we disagreed on the premier's haircut rather than a pillar of women's rights! I threw the bouquet right back at him and marched out of the place. You could be the most emaciated boy in the world and I wouldn't want to be with Royal. I pity the person who does.

If you think you're the only "man smitten", think again. Maybe yours was secret, and you were suave in your affections, but I was a nervous ball of butterflies around you, Gilbert. Think of our interactions, how stilted my end was simply because of how much I hated that I really liked (loved) you! The 'eyes' incident? The 'reproduction' question? Goodness, even our first meeting! You spent half an hour chasing me to the schoolhouse. You made me absolutely insane even then with your apple nonsense, maybe for a different reason than now, and you still loved me from the beginning. I still ask myself how that was so to this day.

I'm positively enthralled that you'll try and make it to Aunt Jo's soiree! It is my favorite part of year and I can't wait to dance with you and only you (though I might have one for Diana and Josie and Cole) all through the night and if we are unnoticed enough, perhaps be lulled asleep by your embrace. Funnily enough, Ruby was just telling me the other day that I would be 'an absolute vision in olive.' Perhaps I will try on a darker shade of green. It may be time for a night of shopping!

I'll keep this on the shorter side to allow you to properly respond to the heavier sentiments above.

Plus que ma propre vie (Diana said that's 'more than my own life' in French, did you know that? That's how much I love you),

Anne

____________________

Finally, after five days worth of catching up on work and intense projects before the holidays, Gilbert had gotten time to write back to Anne. He had never waited so long before, but he couldn't spare a moment. He'd wake at the crack of dawn and study, go to classes until four, study and do his homework, and fall asleep right as his head hit the pillow after eating, unable to keep his eyes open for even a moment. Midterms had just passed and finals were coming up in a month, so he was nothing if not a faithful scholar.