Imagines and Preferences: Book 1

Very Best Friend | Gilbert Blythe

The beginning is based on Anne With An E, but the rest is based on the books.

Summary: You and your father just moved to Avonlea from White Sands, money is very tight for you, and the kids at school like to make fun of you. However, one day, Gilbert Blythe walks over and asks to be friends.

QOTP: Who's you favorite character?

Word Count: 8607

You moved to Avonlea from White Sands shortly before the end of that summer - you and your father. He found an older, smaller house for cheap and decided to make the move because he could make more money in Avonlea. He never told you much of the details of your finances as he didn't want to worry you, but you knew you were poor.

And when you start school, the other kids make sure of that.

The girls make fun of your dress; it's been patched a thousands times over, and it's getting too small. You don't have a bow for your hair like they do, either. (They look at Anne Shirley the same way, especially at first, but she's friends with Diana Barry, so you never speak to her for fear of the other girls.)

The boys like to make fun of you, too. Only they do it to your face, so you take the opportunity to defend yourself. They don't like that.

There's a few boys and girls who simply leave you alone, which you're grateful for, but there's one boy that's just arrived who's going to make up his mind to neither tease nor leave you be.

Anne Shirley cracked her slate over his head on his first day back.

////

"Look! It's an ugly little good for nothing girl, eating alone because she has no friends," Billy Andrews says to the other boys. You're sitting by the brook, eating your lunch. You don't reply, thinking that if you ignore them, they'll go away.

They don't.

"I know who she could be friends with!" Charlie Sloane says. "The orphan girl. They'd be quite the pair. No one would be able to tell who's uglier."

The dig at Anne bothers you, and you're tired of listening to them, anyway. "I'm sorry, but I have no idea what you're saying; I don't speak stupid."

Billy gets angry. "Think you're funny, huh?"

You look up at him and coolly reply, "At least I'm thinking at all."

He scowls. "Come on; I don't have time for this trash."

"And a good day to you, too."

As he and his friends walk away, another boy walks towards you - Gilbert Blythe. "Well, you sure told them, didn't you?" he says, looking down at you.

"Maybe I did," you reply, barely looking at him, "though my father would call it a very unchristian thing to do."

He sits down next to you, and jokingly says, "I could get the minister if you like."

You stop and look at him silently for a moment. "What do you want?"

"I'm not going to make fun of you like the other boys, if that's what you're wondering," he replies sincerely.

You quirk a brow at him. "So you're going to make fun of me in your own way, then?"

"I'm not going to make fun of you at all," he says hurriedly. "I just wanted to talk to you... see if you might like to be friends."

"Why?"

He shrugs. "Why not?"

"You already have friends, don't you?" you ask, a hint of resentment in your voice. "Those boys - they're your friends."