Chapter Text
A few months ago, Anne would have considered herself nervous at the prospect of starting university, but walking into her new room for the first time, she instantly knew that this was where she was meant to be. She ran over to the window, delighted at the expanse of grassland she could see through it. Casting her gaze out over a magnificently large lake with short reeds softening the boarders, she vowed she would never succumb to a city life.
“Are you going to help or not?” Jerry’s voice interrupted her musings and she turned to find him placing the first of her, many, cardboard boxes on her new bed. He let his hands rest on top and raised his eyebrows to her in a way that only he could. Anne only allowed him the pleasure of seeing her roll her eyes in return. “I’ll take that as a yes then,” Jerry sighed as he moved to back out of the room and into the corridor behind him. “If Matthew and Marilla only knew what sort of girl they raised.”
Just as he turned to make his grand exit, the door across the hallway opened and a small girl seemed to try to run directly through him. Anne could only stand in shock as she watched the girl slip, her mouse brown hair flying up as if it were attached to a piece of string. Despite his initial shock, Jerry managed to reach out his arms, still turning, and stop her from falling to the floor. The girl let out a large ‘humph’ as Jerry’s muscular arms grasped onto her elbows, but she made no further protest as he helped her stand.
From Anne’s perspective, their height difference only made the situation more comical, as though Jerry were a giant who had plucked a child out of thin air. She could see from the girl’s face though that the situation was anything but comical; Anne felt as if she were invading a private moment between the girl’s eyes and Jerry’s face just by standing a few feet away.
“You’re a boy!” The girl’s exclamation came as a surprise. Realising what she had just said, she cast her eyes to the ground and began to fiddle with the hem of her pink summer dress. “Sorry, I mean, I thought we were in an all girl’s flat.”
Seeing that Jerry still hadn’t recovered from his surprised expression, Anne decided that this was the best moment to step in. “Don’t worry,” she stepped as far as her doorframe, but decided to go no further, “Jerry’s not in this flat, I am.” She paused noticing the confused expression on the girl’s face. “I’m Anne, this is my cousin, Jerry. He’s helping me move in.”
Anne could see the moment the realisation as it came to the girl, her face bloomed and eyebrows raised as if she was into severe over-acting. “Anne, of course!” Suddenly, the girl sprung towards her and Anne felt a pair of delicate, yet surprisingly strong, arms wrap her in a hug. The girl’s face buried deep in her shoulder, Anne could see that Jerry had apparently recovered from his earlier shock and quickly motioned to his cousin that he would go and get more boxes.
A few seconds after his disappearance, the girl released Anne and stepped back. “I’m Ruby.” At that moment, it clicked to Anne who the girl was, but before she could get a word in edgeways, Ruby was back talking again. “I recognise you from the group chat, it’s easy to distinguish you from the others because of the colour of your hair, of course. Mine’s so plain and boring in comparison, and I guess the other girls are too, well, Josie has these wonderful curls, and Tillie’s is so dark and lustrous, but you get what I mean. We’re all just unpacking now, so I’m sure you’ll see what I mean in a bit. You’re the last one here but, oh, I’m just so glad you’re finally here.”
Anne had assumed her pause was only to catch her breath before starting to talk again, but when she was left staring down at the girl’s vibrant expression, she figured she had been allocated her time to talk. “It’s wonderful to finally meet you too, Ruby.”
*
Anne didn’t intend for anyone to see her when she walked back into the flat after waving off Matthew, Marilla and Jerry. As she wiped the tears away from her cheeks, she could only thank her decision earlier to not wear any make-up due to all the heavy lifting involved in the day. Unfortunately for Anne’s hopes, at that moment two of her new flatmates were making their way into the kitchen and immediately noticed her tears.
Before she knew what was happening, Anne was being swept into the kitchen, the arm of one girl wrapped around her shoulders and the arm of another around her waist. She was gently guided towards the sofas and when the comforting arms turned into a hug, she didn’t complain.
“Let it all out now,” one of the girl’s soothed.
“We’ve all been through it today, sister,” the other cooed.
As the heaves settled and the tears dried, Anne allowed herself to pull away from the hugs of the girls. “I’m sorry,” she said with a small laugh, “that’s not the best way to introduce myself.”
“It’s nothing Jane didn’t do earlier,” the dark-haired girl to her left laughed, earning a small hit on the knee from the girl on her right. “I’m Tillie, you’re Anne, right?”
“Yep,” Anne nodded meekly, “the girl from the group chat with the ginger hair.” Tillie raised her eyebrows at the statement, silently asking for an explanation. “Ruby said that’s how she recognised me.”
Tillie’s only response was a shallow roll of her eyes. “That girl,” the curly-haired girl to her right sighed. “I’m Jane by-the-way.” She extended out a hand, which Anne took to shake, despite the concept being weird to her. “Sorry, I’m trying to get into the business mindset, you know. It needs to make up for me doing nothing all summer.” She let out a small laugh. “What degree do you do Anne?”
“English Lit.,” Anne said with a smile, glad to be distracted from thinking about home.
“Ooh good!” Tillie exclaimed, releasing her arm from Anne’s shoulder and bringing her hands together in an almost devious clap. “Another humanities; we outnumber Josie four to one now!”
At Anne’s confusion, Jane remarked, “Josie bet that Tillie would be the only humanities student in the flat earlier. That’s two coffee’s she owes us.”
Tillie raised her hand to high-five Jane over the top of Anne’s head. “Listen,” Tillie turned to Anne after her celebration, “we’re all going to head down to the Fresher’s fair in a bit, you should come.”
*
Anne wasn’t expecting the fair to be as busy as it was, but before she could marvel at the number of stalls laid out in the gigantic hall in front of her, she was swept up in a crowd of students that seemed almost as giant as Jerry and was steadily carried away from her new flatmates. It was at times like this that Anne wished she would stand out for her red hair, at least so much as people would notice her rather than ploughing forward unaware that they were taking a girl with them who had wanted to go in the opposite direction.
Just before the group reached the exit, Anne managed to squirm out sideways and found herself standing in a much emptier section of the hall. She felt her phone buzz in her pocket and pulled it out to see a text from Tillie; instead of trying to find her in the huge hall, they would meet at The Nook, not just because Josie owed them coffees Anne was certain, and head back together after that.
Anne quickly sent a reply before sliding her phone back into the back pocket of her jeans and seeing where she had ended up. There was a line of five stalls to her right, all facing the brick wall that marked the edge of the room. Only two still had their blue cloths on, the others having seemingly decided to pack up for the day, leaving bare tables and no sign of the societies they were there to represent. The one closest to her was still open, but seeing that it was for Ultimate Frisbee, Anne decided to walk past; sport already wasn’t her thing and she didn’t see a plastic disk helping.
Further down, there was a dark-haired boy talking to a blonde woman sitting behind the clothed table. Anne stepped closer to the stall and saw that it was for the Creative Writing Society. Thanking her lucky stars that the crowd of people had carried her towards this stall, she made a beeline for it.
A few paces away, the dark-haired boy turned away from the stall with a barely audible “Thank you,” and a leaflet in hand. As they crossed paths, Anne registered the fine specimen before her, but was too focused on the possibilities of the society to truly appreciate him. She failed to notice how the boy’s gaze followed her and his deep exhale as he realised where she was headed.