Hopes and Fears

twenty // a chance for a better life

"Why should the family you were born into, the place you grew up, the ideas people set upon you, decide your future? Shouldn't you let your dreams guide your path?"

Exams were approaching like a speeding train, taking the students of Avonlea into their future and far away from the beloved haunts and treasured memories of their childhood town.

The students crammed study sessions every day, panicking about forgetting the facts and dates that infuriatingly evaded their brain. Miss Stacey held study groups to keep everyone motivated. The sun blazed outside their windows, scorching the grass and simmering Avonlea in a haze as families reaped their harvest from the fields and their oldest children wiled away their time preparing for the exam. Anne and her friends holed away in their rooms with piles of books and papers while the world seemed to slow for Diana.

The days dragged for Diana who wandered the countryside lanes with a heavy heart. Every turn held such nostalgia and was awash with memories. The 'haunted wood', the story shack, the 'white way of delight'. Diana couldn't escape the truth that all her friends were moving on from Avonlea soon, and progressing onwards into a new chapter of their lives.

What was she doing? Attending a Finishing School in another country.

Diana had been told since she was little that she would go to Paris, to be 'finished'. It was her future since she could remember, yet as the day approached it didn't feel -- right. Why should her friends get the chance at higher education and she shouldn't? Just because of her class, her status, the reputation of her family... It was all stupid in her opinion now. It didn't make sense. Since she became friends with Anne everything she'd taken to be simply 'the way of things' was challenged or tipped on its head. Life had so many possibilities when you challenged the status quo...

The day before exams, Diana made her way up Rulle Hill to enjoy the afternoon sun and the view one last time. Three days from then she'd be on a ship crossing the sea to Europe and she wouldn't see Avonlea in a long time. Diana had had an argument with her parents about college before she'd left for her walk. The anger surged through her veins hotly, fuelling her steep upward walk. As she climbed the hill, Diana felt angry tears in her eyes. It was so frustrating, to have so much more than all her friends yet they had the most important thing of all - freedom. She'd give every penny of her wealth to not have to worry about reputation and how she should behave or what she should do.

The rebellious streak Anne had unknowingly drawn out of Diana was growing every day. It made Diana snap at her parents when she disagreed with them and argue against their archaic opinions, it made her run out for a walk when she should be doing needlework. It had been the reason Diana was drawn to Anne in the first place and had enabled her to defend Anne when she needed it and even to change her point of view when Anne questioned things that had been the standard for Diana.

Reaching the top of the hill breathless and fuming, Diana fell to her knees to recover. She felt satisfaction upon noticing the grass stains in her skirts. She dug her fingers into the ground and pulled up handfuls of dirt, warm and dry. The earth was hardened by sun and crumbled between her hands. Overwhelmed by a disgust at everything to do with her family and upbringing Diana pressed the dirt into the expensive lace embroidery on her skirts, rubbing the earth into the delicate fabric. She hoped it would stain.

Diana looked out around her, the view endless in its expanse that seemed to engulf her in it's magnitude. Avonlea didn't seem small from up here, yet it seemed so familiar all the same, every acre of patchwork fields, each of the silver twisting streams, the families of flurrying birds in the trees and sky, even the busy carts traversing the winding lanes.