renaissance [DISCONTINUED]

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

It had been four weeks and three days since Anne and Charlie broke up, four weeks of unanswered texts from Gilbert. It was also the twenty third of December, the next day was Christmas Eve and Anne was alone. Before she and Charlie broke up, Anne told Marilla and Mathew that she'd spend that year's Christmas with his family, and she didn't exactly want to bother their trip to Nova Scotia with her sadness. She spent the last few weeks only leaving her house for class — and barely did that — and maybe for groceries. Diana and Jerry often would come, Jane and Ruby started spending more time at home to keep Anne company, but soon they had to leave for their holidays, letting Anne inside their empty apartment. She was a tiny pearl, dusting inside one too big of an oyster.

In between lazy meals during her numb afternoon, her phone got an alert for a text message. It was Gilbert. There were countless texts from him that she couldn't respond, but maybe because of the upcoming Christmas spirit, she answered him that day.

Gilbert
3:07pm Any plans for Christmas this year?

You
3:07pm No. All alone this year.

Gilbert
3:08pm Me too.

You
3:08pm Okay.

"Great fucking answer, Anne." She thought.

Gilbert
3:08pm Do you want to do something? As friends?

"As friends", could she even consider that possibility?

You
3:08pm  Okay.

Gilbert
3:10pm  Yours or mine?

You
3:10pm  Mine.

Gilbert
3:11pm  Good, see you tomorrow afternoon.

Anne left it at that, it was the most awkward conversation she ever had, but somehow she had a good feeling about it. She scrolled through Gilbert's chat, seeing small messages, long paragraphs, missed calls, all unanswered due to Anne's heart, left in the great depths of despair. She knew that it wasn't right, leaving Gilbert at that with no explanations, but her feelings overtook her and she couldn't think on appropriate answers or rational ways to deal with the situation, so she just let the cold winter mornings hug her and the lazy clock sing aloud.

No words could describe what Anne was feeling, she felt her heart race but her mind was still somehow numbed, somehow away from it all, it was like her brain had grown accustomed to the misery of her emotions and was doubtful on believing something was actually going to make her happy, after a month of ever waiting for a delicate golden hand to pick her up from the floor.

Her mind stopped sauntering over the possibilities when another text alert, Gilbert again.

Gilbert
3:10pm Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Anne didn't answer that either, she just smiled at the screen, the first verse of a poem alluring to heated seasons contrasting the white world outside the window.