Remembering You

Chapter 1

Of all pains, the greatest pain,

Is to love, and to love in vain.

George Granville

Through woods and meadows he dashed, leaving nothing behind but the thundering sound Max's hooves caused on the earthy ground.

He hadn't intended to leave anything else behind him anyhow. He wanted nothing but to vanish and forget. He just wanted to be faster than this pain inside of him and finally get rid of it. If only the wind would steal all his aching feelings and memories and desires.

If only.

Gilbert wished there was a way out of this trap. But how could he escape a trap sitting inside of himself? In the middle of his heart. Should he just tear it out and rip it in pieces?

He would, if Anne Shirley wouldn't have already finished this task in sublime execution. She certainly knew how to not leave one single piece of his heart unharmed. Moreover she achieved to shatter it in squillions tiny shreds to make sure he would never compose it again.

This wound would bleed inside of him eternally.

Harshly he clacked the reins once more as a furious tear escaped his hazel eyes. Maybe, if he only tried hard enough he could outpace his pain. Maybe there was a way he could win this race against his heart.

Maybe? Whom was he fooling?

Gilbert Blythe certainly hadn't cried many times in his twenty-three years on this world.

He had still been a little boy when he wept in his father's arms after his so dear and warm grandmother had passed away.

For the first time in his life learning what it meant to lose someone you love.

He had shed angry and forlorn tears when his only four year old horse became fatally ill and the doctor had to shoot it to end its pain. It had been his very first own pony.

It was then that Gilbert had learned that life sometimes simply didn't make sense at all. That it wasn't as fair as he used to think. This so dearly loved animal, his best friend, had been far too young for something as irreversible as death. It should have jumped over bushes and streams, not over clouds unreachable far away in heaven.

And now, more than ten years later, Gilbert was forced to understand what it meant to love someone so much that he lost himself the very second he had lost her.

He wished he could simply hate her. He wished he could simply forget Anne Shirley.

But she wouldn't let him do so. Her image appeared in his mind over and over again. The more he tried to fight against it, the more vivid became it inside of him.

Her sparkling green eyes, golden sprinkles dancing inside of them.

How beautiful she had looked today in church. Far more beautiful than anyone should be allowed to.

Her sea-green dress underlined every single curve of her oh so well-shaped body. Its colour letting her auburn hair shine in hundreds shades of red. One lovelier than the other.

The sun had seemed to find pleasure in tormenting his soul as it illuminated every single freckle on her fair skin.

Shouldn't church be a place of peace? Where one should find his ease of mind?

Instead all Gilbert had found was the painful realization that this wouldn't end just because he wanted to. This wasn't something he could achieve as he did with the Queens medal. This was something he was completely at the mercy of.

He was at the mercy of love. No, he was at the mercy of one Anne Shirley.

Had he planned to fall in love? Certainly not.

Which fourteen year old body dreamed of falling in love and finding their soul mates and spending the rest of their lives together?

Fourteen year old boys wanted to run barefoot through the meadows, searching rain worms to use them later as bait when they went fishing and lost track of time.

That's just what fourteen year old boys were supposed to do.

But Anne Shirley had to enter his life and suddenly she was the protagonist of his story instead of him. Suddenly it was her who decided when Gilbert should be happy and when deeply grieved.

Why did he have to tease her anyway? Why couldn't he have kept his mouth closed just this one single time? Then she wouldn't have broken that slate over his head. Then he wouldn't have fallen in love with her in a blink of an eye, before he could even process what was happening.

Then he wouldn't have proposed to her mere weeks ago and she wouldn't have shattered his heart and dreams.

Then nothing of all this would have happened.

Then he would just be Gilbert Blythe, keeper of his own life.

Not Gilbert Blythe, fading shadow of Anne Shirley's memory.

Oh how he wished some curtain would exist. Some curtain behind which his world would be whole again. And make sense. And be free of this aching pain.

Gilbert shook his head and wiped the defiant tear away with the back of his hand.

He had been so sure.

No, that's not even true. He hadn't been sure at all. He knew his Anne. Maybe even better than she knew herself. He knew how complicated and tortuous she could be.

But his heart, yes his heart hadn't left one single doubt. Why should he love someone so deeply who wouldn't be meant for him? What sense would that make?

And why would she blush under his gaze and shyly look away time after time, if he was nothing but a friend to her? And why would he have dreamed of her so many nights? Of her and how it would feel to kiss those tempting rosy lips?

His heart had been sure. Sureness had been its death.

He had to get a hold of himself. Certainly one could live quite comfortable without a heart!

All he needed was time. And as much distance between them as he could get. And both he would get. In only two days he would leave Avonlea to commence his work for the Daily News Office. That would keep his mind off her for certain.

Gilbert felt a knot in his stomach. He remembered how he used to imagine their farewell as betrothed… How she wouldn't want him to leave… How he would kiss her one last time…

The thought of leaving her tortured him.

But he had to.

He had done everything he could within his power… and now he had to let go of Anne Shirley.

He had to forget her or his heart would never mend.

Suddenly Max let out a loud terrified neigh and reared up. Gilbert lost hold of his alarmed horse and fell.

The last thing he perceived was a light brown spot out of the corner of his eyes - dashing by.

The last thing he felt was a stinging pain in back and head.

The last thing he thought was 'Anne'.

Then the world around him went black.

AN: There it is - The beginning of a new story. I hope you will follow Anne and Gil along their way and cobble it with inspiring reviews, dear readers :)