Chapter Text
“Remains to be seen.”
In the years that followed Bash and Mary’s wedding day, she wondered over and over if she had truly believed that day that she would ever have a romance at all, much less a tragical one. Anne supposed in the end her first romance hadn’t really been tragical, so much as it had threatened to turn her entire life into a tragedy. Her second romance was of a kind that she truly hadn’t been able to imagine on that long ago day when she had still been a girl, but she would not begin to understand the wonder of that love until a day long after the first romance almost destroyed her.
Her cryptic words to Gilbert flashed back to her as she faced Roy, heart nearly pounding out of her chest as he advanced on her.
“I told you I didn’t want Blythe taking you back. How can I trust another man to be your escort?” he demanded.
“And I told you that it was fine. Gilbert’s not the type to make any inappropriate advances and you already know that Marilla wants me to have an escort on the train. I don’t even like it, but I will respect her wishes!” She didn’t know why this was so difficult. Gilbert was going to the exact same place and they had known each other for years.
“Then don’t go!”
Now Anne was incredulous. “You want me to miss the last weekend I can spend at home until graduation, because I would have to sit next to Gilbert Blythe on the train?”
“It’s what’s proper!” His voice remained low so that her boarding house mistress wouldn’t overhear and intervene, but the fury was unmistakable. It was hard to think with him looming over her, face hovering close to hers. She closed her eyes briefly, thoughts whirring. She had tried everything to explain to him, to convince him that Gilbert and the other boys from Avonlea could be trusted to be her escort home from Queen’s, to no avail. She had tried to find others to bring her home instead and suggested that Roy himself could come to meet Marilla and Matthew. Nothing had worked, and now they were here, and she was facing the prospect that she wouldn’t be able to go home at all.
A tiny voice finally broke through the fog of his relentless nagging. You told yourself you would only love a man who adored you. Is this really adoration? He used to adore her completely, but it was impossible to picture that man right now. She had tried so hard to tamp down her famous temper, to see things from his perspective, to question how she might have avoided the problem. But in that moment, she really couldn’t let this go any further. Plenty of her friends who had beaus still interacted with male friends and classmates without hearing constant complaining, and of course she and Gilbert had never behaved inappropriately during the course of this courtship for a second. She was getting quite tired of Roy unsubtly implying otherwise.
She took a deep breath to steel her nerves. “I want to go home,” she started, her voice breaking as she realized just how desperately she wanted to be with Marilla right now and not in this conversation. “Being in public with a neighbor is fine, and I am tired of you acting like I have ever done anything to make you question my actions around other men. It’s also incredibly insulting to Gilbert, who would never behave like that.”
“Oh, and I’m sure you’re very concerned about an insult to GILBERT!” he finally hissed, punching the wall a few inches from her ear. She slid along the wall as far away from him as she could, trying to hide the shakes she felt radiating through her body. He had never done something like that before. Why was no one coming? She focused her eyes on a spot on the floor, trying to work through what exactly she could do to get out of this. Would he grab her if she ran?
His voice was quieter now. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have gotten so out of control. It’s just – the way I feel about you and the thought of you with another man…I couldn’t help it I felt so scared just imagining you leaving me.”
His words barely registered. In her head instead she heard a voice she hadn’t remembered in a decade, saying words he would repeat every month or two – “I just love you so much, I couldn’t help it. You know it kills me to see you hurt. It’ll never happen again.” Those empty words didn’t stop coming until a work accident stopped Mrs. Thomas’ husband from walking this earth. Anne might not have realized before what Roy could be, but she knew good and well that those words meant absolutely nothing.
“We should talk about this later,” she said slowly, hoping she could find a way to stop this for now so she could decide how best to end their relationship when he wasn’t so volatile. “I think we both need a break.”
Roy started to respond when a knock on the front door interrupted him. She watched his face slip back into its usual genial smile, almost more terrifying than the anger. He could turn on and off that mask in an instant. He moved to answer the door himself, and Anne felt faint when she saw the figure on the other side. It was Gilbert, here to escort her to the train station. He was early, but he had finished an errand nearby and thought it would be simplest to wait for Anne in the boarding house parlor. She was overwhelmed with relief, knowing that Roy would have to give up for now, but it took only one look at him to know that whatever happened at their next meeting would not be pretty.
Anne carefully trained her face so as not to betray her roiling emotions, but Gilbert was a good friend after all and knew immediately that something was very, very wrong. “Sorry I’m early – I hope I’m not interrupting.” He stepped through the door and tried to put himself between Gardner and Anne as subtly as possible.
“Not at all,” Roy said, his voice clipped. “We can finish our discussion later.” Anne couldn’t stop herself from trembling slightly. She vowed she would never, ever find herself alone in a room with him again. Gilbert didn’t miss that reaction either. “Anne, have a lovely weekend. Could you please give me my hat?”
She slowly carried it over to him, Gilbert watching their every move as if coiled to spring. Roy leaned over to whisper in her ear, as though about to give his lover one last sweet goodbye.
“I wonder what the students will think of Blythe if they find out he seduced you.” The threat was unmistakable.
“We will discuss this Monday,” she choked out. Finally, blessedly, he left. Anne breathed slowly for a moment and tried to decide how to keep this from Gilbert so that he wouldn’t be any more entangled in this mess than she feared he already was. It was too late. Gilbert was by her side in a flash.
“What is going on?” he asked urgently, voice full of concern and eyes so gentle that Anne couldn’t hold in her terror any longer. As she put her face to her hands and felt the tears stream down, Gilbert pulled her into a fierce hug.
But of course, that awful day wasn't how her first romance began...