Butterflies~~ Shirbert

Chapter twenty-three: Anything could happen

"Mathew may I help on the farm today?"

Anne asked as she commenced clearing the breakfast table.

Mathew opened his mouth to sound his agreement when Marilla interrupted him

"Anne! you may not!"

Anne turned to marilla, her eyebrows furrowed in frustration.

this was not the first time they have, had this argument.

"Marilla I don't understand why it is so shameful for a women to do a "man's work"?

Anne said flexing two of her fingers to make air quotation marks.

"Why ever is it even a mans work in the first place, whats so different about females that makes us so dainty that we can't do manual labor."

Anne's voice had raised in frustration, her arms flailing about.

Gilbert had seen anne like this before. He watched her as he rinsed dishes. with a admirable, intrigued expression, he thought of what Anne said. He sometimes felt as if they were the only two people who saw the world in a way in which displayed more than the social constructs and customs.

In that moment a passage from one of his favorite books filled his mind's eye.

"Whatever our souls are made out of, his and mine are the same."

He looked more intently at the way anne looked, the way she spoke with such passionate fluency.

He had never understood that quote entirely, he was fond of it as it reminded him of something his father would say of his mother.

But now, as the boy looked at the girl.

He understood exactly, what Emily Bronte meant.

Why did he understand it? He didn't quite know. All he knew was that this image of what Anne voiced was exactly what he had thought all his life.

He wanted to butt into the conversation. To say something that would inform Anne that he agreed entirely with her point of view. He felt it was important that she knew.

Growing up Gilbert always wondered why their way of living was as it is. Why must everything be assigned to either a girl or boy, and what puzzled him most of all was how inexplicable it was considered if one disobeyed that custom.

But he kept his mouth shut. He never spoke his thoughts out loud, He wasn't courageous or bold enough to. But Anne was. She said what she belived with so much confidence it inspired and encouraged him. He aspired to be more like her. After everything that she had been through in her life she was still as she was. Encouraging, caring, empathetic, understanding. She was truly a god send in his eyes. It infuriated him to think of how such an extraordinary person as anne was delt these painful cards. A imperfectly-perfect girl, is left screaming from past demons chasing her in the middle of the night with no one checking on her.

His heart felt as if it physically hurt. The sympathy and fact that he couldn't stop her pain caused a throbbing of pain in his head. The irrepressible urge he felt to take away her struggles coursed through his body leaving him breathless.

He forced himself to look away. He forced himself to think of how he could help her instead of regretting how he couldn't have stopped anything from happing to her in the first place.

-

"Anne that's not the way of things and you know it."

Marilla said firmly in a tone that made anne walk away in frustration.