Let Me In ( Anne with an E fanfic)

Chapter 48

 https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0TYiscmlZ0ejlOC8ZtTpgy?si=xB8YMIYiQHuAwax8o_3PBw.

After the long talk with Anne on Sunday, Gilbert felt much calmer, focused and confident. At least, as he told Fred on Monday morning, he felt they were getting somewhere and they would be much more focused and clear on what they wanted. It was good. They still had issues to work on, but they were going to manage.

They also chatted over breakfast about when they could expect Ella. She had the habit of optimistically thinking she was going to spend days (or weeks) at her mother and grandma's place in Sudbury, only to become increasingly exasperated and cut her visit short and appear back in Hamilton without notice. And this one had been already long, by what Gilbert remembered. He wanted to fix things with Anne and go back home, but if he was honest with himself, he also wanted to at least say hi to Ella. Not that they didn't talk often either way. He continued eating her sugary cereal as Fred rolled his eyes in something that had become a running joke over the years as he had some granola, and eventually they went together to the hospital as they used to do while in their residences, when they still lived together.

Dr. Yang was busy that day, but they agreed to talk on Tuesday, and so the day was quiet and without any surprises. He went out for lunch with Fred as he exchanged occasional texts with Anne. In a tacit agreement, they had decided to ignore what he deemed in his head The Big Topics, and were talking about their day, Anne sending him photos of Cole's latest project, her walk around Cole and Roy's temporal neighborhood and how she was baking cookies for them. The other things they could discuss in person, once he went to Toronto in the afternoon.

As he had done the previous day, he texted her when he was downstairs and waited patiently for her to come down, with a better idea of what to expect than he had had the previous day, but still some slight anxiety. He waited close to the door of the building, and she arrived soon enough. That afternoon she was smiling, although he also saw some worry in her eyes.

"How are you, Anne-girl?" he asked, smiling softly as she got to where he was standing. She gave him a quick kiss and he held her hand.

"Good," she said. They exchanged a few comments about their days as they started to walk, he told her about the appointment he had set with Yang the following day. In relief, both felt how the attitude they had had the previous day was unchanged and they were still in problem-solving mode. He was thinking about how to introduce back some of the topics they still had to discuss when she veered into that direction. "So... I wanted to talk to you about my writing."

"Ok..." he said, not really knowing what to expect.

"It's nothing like I said on Saturday, Gil. I'm really sorry about talking before thinking, it's... not conducive to anything good and my words were out of place and hurtful," she said. He nodded, not wanting to say anything. "The thing is... I don't know how to do this. Or if I'm just pretending to write... and I'll realize down the road I made a huge mistake. It's not that I don't want to write, because I do, but it's such a gamble, and then... I can be just a failure in that as well."

"Anne, you're hardly a failure in anything you set your mind to," Gilbert said, frowning.

"I'm just afraid of... letting me down," she confessed, looking at the floor. Gilbert looked at her. She continued, her voice low. "Letting you down. Everyone else. I can have been writing something really worthless and pretending to be a writer, and then what? What if at some point I am convinced I'm doing it but it's just shit what I'm writing? Or what if maybe it isn't, but I just feel like I'm not doing anything and I feel like it's worthless?" she asked him. He didn't reply immediately and they walked in silence for a moment.