▷ Scary love - The Neighbourhood

«Nobody's ever cared for me as much as you do»

___

January 3rd, 2019

MARILLA CUTHBERT enjoys the fact that Anne is happy and energetic for a change. The woman believes this switch in her daughter's mood has to do with Charlie's visit on Christmas. What she doesn't know is that the red-haired girl secretly loves being back to school after Christmas break. She's even left the house quite earlier than usual — Diana will have to drive Jerry to school today.

She enjoys her ride alone. Don't get her wrong, she adores her brother — but he never stops talking! Never! So right now, blasting one of her new favorite songs in her car, enjoying her own company, seems almost therapeutical.

Her classes don't start until half an hour or so, so the girl takes this free time to scribble something down in her notebook sitting in an empty hall. That's she hears footsteps approaching. When a pair of black converse enter her field of view, she doesnt need to look up to know it's him. There's just something in the way he walks, the way is shoes hit the floor he's walking on, that's familiar to her somehow.

"Hey" the girl says, lifting her eyes now so that they can meet his. She hasn't seen him over these two weeks; she has been busy doing plans with Charlie and the girls, but oh, she has missed him, especially their daily texting and usual banter in school. So when she sees him again, black converse, his usual pair of jeans and a zip hoodie that reveals a Beatles t-shirt underneath, she smiles warmly to him.

Gilbert Blythe.

"Shirley, hi" he says, playing with his car jeys. His voice is a mixture of nasal and raspy so she assumes he must have gotten a cold during the holidays. "Long time no see"

"Yeah" she nods. "Want to sit here?" she says, tapping the free spot in the floor right next to her.

"Sure" he replies. And although there's enough space, he sits pretty close to her. The girl puts her notebook aside, expecting a conversation to start, but it takes a few minutes until he finally speaks. "Are you sad now that Charlie has left again?"

"I'm fine, why do you ask?" she bats her eyes in curiosity and turns her head to her right to look at him.

Curious ocean-blue eyes meet hazel.

She instantly looks away.

"Just making sure that you were okay"

"I'm alright, thanks for asking though" she says. "And thanks for the text. On Christmas Eve"

"Anytime" he wears a crooked smile that she can't see because she's not looking at him right now. "We should hang out some time"

"What?"

That's when she looks at him.

"Hang out. To... catch up and everything" he says awkwardly.

"Aren't we hanging out already?" she lets out a nervous chuckle that worries him a bit. Maybe he's been too straight forward. But isn't that what friends do? Hang out? Jerry and him hang out all the time.

"I mean outside school" he says with a calmer tone now. "If you want to, of course"

"Yeah, yeah, why not?"

The conversation fades away. Gilbert looks at her from the corner of his eye. She is looking at the row of lockers in front of them. She's wearing a black turtle neck that she's definitely worn before and a grey skirt that seems new along with her black knee socks. He likes how the outfit looks so good on her, but pointing that out might seem a bit... weird. He decides to move his eyes to her hair. Her hair. He notices now that it's gotten longer over the holidays and, since it's been so long since the last time he saw her, its shade of red seems brighter than ever and it gets wavier towards the end...

Maybe I should stop staring before she notices and accuses me of being a creep, he thinks.

"Shirley?" he blurts out, trying to think about any topic to talk about. School, Jerry, music, Christmas, Charlie — well, no, not Charlie, books, food.

"Yes?" she looks at him now.

Your hair looks pretty today.

"Why do you like old bands so much?" is the first thing that his brain can come up with.

She furrows her eyebrows, not knowing where his curiosity is coming from. "My father" she replies, anyway. "He loved all of them"

"Do you remember much of them, your parents?" Crap, Blythe, THAT topic? Seriously? "Sorry, stupid question, I shouldn't have asked" he excuses himself, not wanting to upset her. She is in a genuine and surprising good mood after the holidays and he doesn't want to ruin it.

"It's alright, I actually like to talk about them and you're the only one that's asked... everyone else thinks is a sensitive topic or some shit like that"

"Yeah, I know what you mean" he admits.

"You do?" She's been wanting to ask him about this since Billy Andrews's party. Something in the way he listened attentively to her story and her childhood trauma made it seem like he truly understood her, as if he'd lived something similar.

"Well, yes" he says after clearing his throat. "My father is dealing with chemo and everybody looks at me as the poor boy who had to move in for proper medical treatments"

She already knew is father was sick — the girls told her, but it's different now. He has just opened up to her and she wasn't expecting that since she's always thought of him as a very private person. "I'm sorry, Gilbert" she places her right hand on the boy's shoulder. "Thank you for sharing that with me"

"Nobody in Avonlea understands me" he sighs, leaning his head against the white brick wall behind him and thinking how lucky he is to have met someone like Anne. His eyes travel to the floor to the ceiling.

"And I do?" she says. Her hand has still not moved from his shoulder and is now rubbing circles over the fabric of his hoodie, wanting to comfort him, although he doesn't even seem sad or upset.

"Yes, kinda" his eyes go back to her.

"Kinda?"

You'd understand way more that you think you do, he wants to tell her. But he chooses to joke around and let things between them be less intense. It's not the time or the place to get sentimental. Maybe, in another time, he could tell her all about his own personal shit, but again, it's not the right time. "Well, you're an old soul like me" he says, grinning like a fool.

That foolish smile makes Anne move her hand to clench it into a fist and punch his arm lightly. She genuinely laughs and she looks at him now, differently, as if something had clicked.

"You know, Blythe?" she says. "You're a pain in the ass yet you're actually pretty cool"

"That's such a compliment coming from you" he joins her in her laughter.

"Yeah I know" she admits, knowing that she was too harsh with him at the beginning, when they first met. She regrets that now. But that was months ago, and now they're friends. As Gilbert himself pointed out, they have so much potential to be the best of friends.

"You're not too bad yourself, Shirley" he says, biting his bottom lip to bite back the widest of smiles.

They go back to silence, but there's something different about it now. There's nothing awkward about it, they just gaze at each other without even realizing it until the rushed steps of a very nervous Diana Barry interrupts them.

"Anne Anne Anne Anne ANNE SHIRLEY-CUTHBERT"

"What the hell, Di?" Anne snaps out of her staring competition with Gilbert Blythe with blushed cheeks. She looks up to her friend, who is standing in front of Gilbert and her.

"I need to sit down" Diana does sit down, and Gilbert, understanding that this is going to be followed by a girl talk, aims to leave. He stands up, grabbing his backpack. "Gil, you stay here" the raven-haired girl takes his hand and pulls him back to the floor again, making him sit next to her.

"Me, why?"

"I need guy counselling" she says, aggitatedly.

"Okay...?" Anne and Gilbert share a confused look because of their friend's apparent excitement.

"So... I ran into Fred Wright two weeks ago..."

"REALLY?" Anne yells. "And you tell me NOW?"

Gilbert just watches the scene with raised eyebrows.

"Yes. And he just followed me on Instagram"

"He did? Son of a bitch! He didn't follow me"

Gilbert chuckles, seeing Anne so annoyed and cursing never fails to make him laugh. He still doesn't comment anything about the apparently extraordinary event of Fred Wright following Diana on Instagram.

"BEST PART: HE DM ME, LOOK"

Diana places the blinding phone screen right in Anne's face, who groans and lets out a comment about how annoyingly high Diana's phone's brightness is.

freddie.w
hey, anne's cute friend, right?

dibarry
the one and only diana barry

freddie.w
yea, it had to be u
so sad we couldnt talk more last time I saw you

dibarry
tragic
would've liked to get to know you better

freddie.w
well that's easy to change
meet me for coffee? today?

dibarry
i don't even know you that much

freddie.w
but u want 2

"Oh god, he's such a flirt" Anne exclaims as she hits Gilbert's arm — apparently it's become a habit for her to hit Gilbert's arm whenever she has the chance. "He could even beat Blythe here!"

"I'm not a flirt" he complains.

"Yes, you are, you flirt all the time" she rolls her eyes at him making him roll his eyes back at her — a competition of which one of the two can be more stubborn. For a few seconds they seem to forget that Diana's still there. Until she stands up from the floor and speaks again.

"Well, what do I say?"

"Say yes!" Both turn their faces back at her and speak at the same time, same amount of excitement in their voices.

Diana looks at them both, exaggerating a scared look on her face. "You two are almost the same person, it's scary" she says, before typing back an answer.

dibarry
Queen's café, 4pm

"Diana Barry has a date, damn" Anne says, raising her eyebrows and leaning her head on the boy's shoulder. "Isn't she the cutest, Gilbert?" she bats her eyes dramatically.

Anne is never this comfortable around other people, but Gilbert feels magnetic somehow — almost as if she was drawn to him. She mentally wonders if she's crossing a physical limit doing stuff like this, but then she remembers how he's just a friend and friends do things like this all the time.

What makes her lose it is the fact that the boy's next move is to lean his head on top of hers.

"Shut up, weirdo" Diana sticks her tongue out.

"Good luck with the date, Di" Gilbert gives her a thumbs up accompanied by a blinding smile. "And tell Fred to hang out with us some time"

"I will" Diana smiles as she ruffles his curly hair, making the boy frown a bit. "Thanks, Gil"

And with that and a settled date, the girl leaves, her boots knocking against the floor's tiles and Gilbert and Anne are left alone again.

"So" Gilbert clears his throat once Diana's out of the scene. "What have you been listening to lately?"

Her head is still leaned on his shoulder, and her vibrant, soft hair is brushing against his cheek.

"I've been listening to The Neighbourhood all Christmas break" she tells him.

"Not a big fan of them — too mainstream"

"You're an idiot" she looks up to him — he suddenly misses the contact of her hair against his skin and her head on his shoulder. "Give me your earphones"

He obeys — he wouldn't want to make her mad, considering her bad temper. She opens the YouTube App and music starts playing. Both listen quietly.

Your love is therapy
No drug can give me clarity
As much as you do, ooh (as you do, baby)
Yeah, I need you here (I need you here)
Your love is scaring me (no one)
No one has ever cared for me (ooh, baby)
As much as you do

"That was actually kinda cool" he says after the song's over, taking off his earphone.

"I know right?! Jerry got me their latest album for Christmas" she says with excitement. There's a certain sparkle in her eye when she talks about the music she likes that makes something in Gilbert's stomach move awkwardly. He likes to think those are definitely not butterflies. "It's called Hard To Imagine The Neighbourhood Ever Changing"

"An easy title to remember, that's for sure" he says ironically.

"Anyway, you should give it a listen" she suggests before standing up. "We should head to class"

Their first class is English, and is also one of the classes they have together. They walk the school corridors side by side, as the best of friends.

Right before they can take their sits in class, he says "By the way, your hair looks nice today"

___

That day, Gilbert Blythe doesn't do much. He gets home from school right in time to have lunch with his father and the nurse they hired to take care of the man and he plays Call of Duty with Jerry, as an usual Monday afternoon.

It's 7 p.m. when he realizes he should revise for next week's History test. He definitely should. But then something pops in his mind.

Hard To Imagine The Neighbourhood Ever Changing.

The boy lays in bed, opens Spotify and connects his phone to his room's speaker. "Let's give this a listen" he mutters. His room is dark, there's just a dim light coming from the dusky evening outside, a lilac color entering through the window.

He listens to the full album, track by track. He knows now that the song Anne played that morning is no. 4, "Scary love". It will now turn into a song that will always remind him of her. He doesn't know yet, but this album will always remind him of the redhead.

Always.

There's a song, though, that he has to play twice to process his thoughts. It's no. 19.

I'm not the same way that I was before
I got goosebumps all over me
When you're around, hard for me to breathe
Come on, baby, don't you do that anymore
It's not like the days have never felt so short
My nerves, they give me a sign
Tell me I'm not fine
You've got me nervous to speak

"Holy crap" he whispers into the silence of the darkening room when the music fades out. Wide eyed, he gets up from his bed, running a hand through his dark curls. He doesn't have time to properly freak out when his phone buzzes with an incoming text.

Of course, it has to be her.

AnnE
listen to the album!!!!

Gilbert Blythe
i will

"I will" seems like a better answer than "I already did and it's a great album because it reminds me of you and the immense crush I have on you and I don't know how I'm going to get over it"

"Holy crap" he says again, standing in the middle of his room, with just the company of his thoughts and his new feelings.

___

A/N - HELLOOOOOOO that was chapter 7! It's not one of my fav chapters but I needed to write it for Diana and Fred's date and also to develop Gil's crush on Anne

Tbh, I relate to Gilbert a lot bc songs always help me realize if I do or do not have a crush on someone. Also, I do recommend you to listen to the Neighbourhood' album, ITS GREAT I SWEAR.

Don't forget to vote and comment, I love reading feedback and what you think of this story so far (:

Ily