2114 words

Note: This piece was written nearly 10 years ago for an Anne of Green Gables fanfiction contest. I did not create any of these characters — that honor goes to the wonderful imagination of Lucy Maud Montgomery — I merely borrowed them to indulge my own storytelling, because I love Anne and her happy world so much.

Incidentally, this story did win the contest.

:)

Finally it was summer. Anne could feel it at her very core. Each one of her senses delighted in some pleasure that was tied completely and exclusively to summer. Her eyes feasted on the sight of lilies in full bloom, and her pretty nose reveled in their exquisite fragrance. The warmth of the sun danced on her skin. Her ears strained to hear the robin’s tune as it wafted out from the Haunted Wood. Her tongue felt giddy when Marilla allowed her to sample ice cream at select church functions. At times, these combined joys overwhelmed Anne with such a great sense of summer that she feared she might die — happily — right then and there.

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400 words (of approx. 2,000 words total)

Laurie, I have to tell you something. I should have done this a long time ago. But I didn’t, and I don’t have any excuses. I hope you will forgive me.

I hope I can forgive myself.

* * *

Your mother was seventeen when she got her first boyfriend. Danny Spence. He was eighteen, also a senior, and he had a habit of answering every question in class correctly, albeit under his breath. Kate-your mother-had known of Danny for years, through mutual courses and friends, but mostly they’d stayed on the periphery of one another’s lives, faint blips in the outer ring of radar that weren’t really worth worrying about.

Then one day he showed up dead center.

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2420 words

You’ve come to New York City to get away. You heard about the Gates, and the fact that they’re being taken down in two days, and you think, Why not? Why not go to Central Park, take a look at these Gates, and escape this hell for the weekend? It sounds like a good plan, so you set out to make it happen. It’s the first thing you’ve been able to make yourself do in quite a while.

A few of your classmates were planning to drive up to New York anyway, so you catch a ride with them. Your university is several hours away from the City, and you spend the entire ride curled up in the backseat silently writing letters to a certain someone, letters that you’ll never send. This makes you sad, but you can’t stop. There’s too much to say, too much to feel, and you cannot keep it all in. It doesn’t help that every song on the radio reminds you of him.

When you finally arrive in the City, it is dark, and going to see the Gates doesn’t make sense. You decide to wait for morning. So now you have the whole night to kill, because it’s late, but it isn’t that late. You take the subway to Times Square, where there will surely be something going on, something to occupy your mind.

And there is. Unfortunately, it isn’t what you expected.

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344 words

Today you have been with me. I have seen your face, heard your voice, felt your touch. Yes, though you are far, in body and in spirit, today you have been with me.

When I woke this morning, I didn’t really wake. I lay in bed in that precarious state of half-sleep, and my mind drifted. My mind drifted, and it found you. You, lying next to me. You, with your arm around my waist. You, breathing on my neck. When I woke this morning, I was not alone. You were there with me.

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