Advising Gilbert Blythe

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March 2014

You are cordially invited to attend the wedding of

MARCELLA WILLIAM DENVERS

and

ELIJAH MATTHEW BEHRMANN

on the Fifteen of August 2014

Hey Rids,

Do you like the wedding invitation? It's really snazzy, don't you think? Eli knows someone who's really good at all this card designing business and he offered to print us two hundred cards for half the price he usually asks for! AMAZING, right? I've sent you an invitation in advance because, well, I was too excited to keep it from you! I've made sure we've set the wedding date during the summer because I know that's the only time you'll definitely be coming home for sure.

We're having no trouble planning the wedding although Eli's mother initially was a little sulky that Eli and I won't be having a traditional Jewish wedding. I'm not a very religious person, and neither is Eli, so we didn't really see the point in cashing out loads of money for stuff we don't really believe in. But she was very pleased when I agreed to wear her old wedding gown. It's gorgeous!

I miss you, but I cannot WAIT to see you at the wedding!

Love,

Marcy xx

------------------------------------------------------------------

"Blue or Indigo?"

"Does it honestly make a difference?"

"Yes it does actually!" Ridley examines the floor-length dress before tossing it to Dee, who looks absolutely bored out of her wits. "The Indigo one is darker."

"And more expensive," Dee shoots back at her, pointing to the price tag on the dress. Ridley rolls her eyes at her friend. If there's one thing Ridley should've known better about her friend Dee, it's the fact that she utterly loathes dress shopping. Ridley's always been patient about it because she's already had her practice with Marcy as a young girl, having waited hours and hours as her sister would pick and choose between an infinite amount of dresses for things like her school prom or a new date.

"And why are you dress shopping for the wedding now, anyway?" Dee continues impatiently. "You have five whole months to find a dress. Without me," she adds darkly.

"I want to get it done and over with, Dee," Ridley patiently explains as she begins to rummage through another pile of dresses, before grabbing a light pink one out and examining it closely. "We've got exams coming up in a few months," she continues, fingering the material of the dress, "and I'm so close to finishing off my story. I don't want dress shopping to get in the way of all of that. Well, what about this one?" She points to the pink dress and Dee nods approvingly.

"Yeah, it's pretty." Dee sighs. "I have a feeling Chrissy would've been a better help than I am right now. This is just so...so dull."

Ridley laughs at her friend. Dee always manages to bring Christopher into their conversations these days - not that Ridley finds it to be a bad thing, not at all, it's actually cute-and it's good to know that after the seemingly disastrous move Dee had made on him during the Christmas party, everything is well between the two of them. The 'well' being the fact that they are now officially together.

It had taken a while, though. After an entire month of awkward eye-contact and trying as much as possible to avoid each other, Ridley, who had the unfortunate displeasure of being wedged right in the middle of their conflict, finally forced them to confess their feelings to one another and that had been that. A lot of PDA ensued, and there was a lot more cuddling too, but things were finally back to normal after that, the way Ridley had wanted it to be. Her best friends are happy and she is too.

After another agonizing hour (for Dee, at least) Ridley finally decides on a pretty white dress that comes just up to her ankles. The white dress is a little old-fashioned, but it's gorgeous, and well within her budget - it also has puffed sleeves-something Ridley knows Anne Shirley would've approved of.

Once they are done buying a few other bits and bobs, Ridley goes home while Dee journeys to a cafe where she had promised to meet up with Christopher for a lunch date. Ridley is glad that she finally has their room to herself. It's not often that Dee isn't home, and it's not as if Ridley finds her presence irritating -- it's just that it's nice to have some alone time, just by yourself, and 'alone time' is quite hard to come by when you are sharing a room with someone who prefers to stay indoors all day like you do.

As usual, Ridley spends the next two hours writing and polishing off her new chapter for 'Finding Gilbert Blythe.' It's crazy to think that her story now has had five million hits. People even make fan art out of her stories, and post a bunch of quotes all over sites like tumblr and Instagram. It's also become very hard keeping up with the amount of fan mail she gets. The mail averages to about eighty a day, but she always makes sure to answer every single one of them, no matter how long it takes.

After publishing her new chapter, she clicks on her inbox and patiently replies to her most recent e-mails. She has replied to about fifteen in the last hour and is just about to call it a day when another one pops up. Might as well answer this while we can, she thinks and she clicks on it. A message from GilBeMyMan. She frowns. Huh. That's quite familiar.

Hello, the message starts,

You probably don't remember me because the last time we talked was MONTHS ago. I still am in love with your story, by the way. And the way you ended the last chapter with a cliff-hanger? NOT COOL! Haha! But your main characters Rose and Daniel are so flawlessly imperfect. Haha, wait, does that make sense? Oh it doesn't matter! But I'm not really writing again to fangirl over your work today. I have a bit of a dilemma. Well, it isn't MY dilemma but still...you seem very experienced in the field of romance so I was wondering if you could help me out on a situation...

So, I have a friend who is really down in the dumps right now because he's crazy in love with this girl but they're both mad at each other (he wouldn't go into details about it). He really misses her but he's too stubborn to actually contact her or anything because he thinks she doesn't care about him and she'll just end up breaking his heart even more. Call me extremely nosey but I've kind of peeked at their e-mails to one another and she seems like she's really into him too, so I'm not sure why he's so worried? He's been so moody these past few months and I really don't know what to do anymore? Any advice for him?

Ridley immediately types him back a response:

To the boy who is letting his stubbornness get in the way of his happiness,

GO GET THAT GIRL!

She's a fool for not trying to pursue you herself and you're a fool for not getting the hint that she wants YOU to pursue HER!

Get to her before it's too late. Not through a text or a phone call or whatever. FACE TO FACE.

Tell her how you feel. Don't be stupid and think about the consequences before you even attempt to solve the problem. Just follow your gut instinct for once. Throw out your rationality, your logic, and follow your goddamn heart.

Just do it, you idiot.

Go.

Like, right now.

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