Anne with an e- a new version of the story

Chapter 86 - Losses and Damages

GILBERT

She was there again, in his dreams. The blonde strands dancing before her eyes as the breeze brushed past her in a gentle caress. The crystalline laughter filling the air with its musicality, the blue eyes shining like stars on a moonlit night. Anne reached out and held his hand, while Gilbert pulled her closer, kissing each fingertip as if they were something sacred, and should be revered for their delicacy and softness. Then his hands were on her waist, their faces so close, their gazes merging into a thousand words that didn't need to be spoken, because they were spoken by their hearts with every beat, every pulse pumped by their blood, and spreading through their bodies, mixing with emotions that were difficult to describe, only possible to feel because they were too intense.

Gilbert felt Anne's fingers glide over his face in a touch as soft as butterfly wings moving through the air, and he closed his eyes at the sweetness of that familiar caress, so often repeated in his time-warped memories.

Her voice reached his ears like magic, turning everything around him into an incandescent glow as she said "I love you". He opened his eyes only to see her smile again as if she had told him the biggest and best secret of all. Her lips attracted him like a magnet, irresistible and so tempting, he tilted his face forward, almost touching her mouth with his own, but a distant clap of thunder rang out and a strong wind tore Anne from his arms, carrying her far out of reach, and as he shouted her name Gilbert woke up, and realized that outside the rain was falling like an incessant waterfall, touching the earth with its fury, shaking the trees in such a way that it seemed as if it was going to tear them from their roots, leaving nothing left along the way.

Gilbert put his hand to his chest, feeling his heart still pounding from the dream he'd had. This happened more often than he would have liked, and although Anne's illusory presence in his imagination made him happy, it also hurt him because it made him realize how much he was in love with her, and he could never have her the way he wanted. Her dreams were living proof that no matter how much he loved her, she didn't belong to him.

However, there was one thing that always puzzled him when he woke up from these brief interludes with her. Why did he always have the feeling that he had already experienced everything? Why did the kisses he never got to exchange with her in his dreams seem so familiar to him? Why was every touch of hers on his skin like such a familiar song? And why, when she whispered that she loved him, did he almost remember where he had heard it once before?

So many thoughts and questions were driving him crazy. He wanted to understand the messages his memory was sending him, but all Gilbert felt inside was that anxiety that made him long for something he couldn't identify.

He got up, went to the bathroom and splashed some water on his face in an attempt to clear his head. Then he returned to the bedroom, feeling the coldness of the floor beneath his bare feet. He sat on the bed, listening to the rain continue to fall outside, feeling that his soul was also bathed in a storm that had no end. He wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn't come, so he lay down again, feeling terribly alone. How he wished Anne were there, lying next to him with her head resting on his chest, but she would most likely be asleep in other arms at that moment, and at that thought, Gilbert felt a sharp pain hit him, causing him to curl up in bed.

He simply couldn't imagine Anne in arms other than his own, it was too hard to think of another man touching her and kissing her as he wanted to, but couldn't, because he respected her commitment to the other person too much.

Gilbert couldn't believe that she was indifferent to him either, because every time he had approached her and touched her in some way she hadn't repelled him, it was as if the same force that attracted him to her was pulling her towards him without her having the strength to stop it. He so wished that the "I love you" that he had heard Anne say in his dreams had some truth to it, but he sadly suspected that it was just something produced by his imagination that loved to make a fool of him, and as much as he could feel that there was something between him and Anne that was impossible to deny, her love still belonged to her fiancé, and if he wanted to win her over he would have to use his own weapons, but the question was: was he willing to fight for Anne? Was it worth wearing himself out over something he didn't know the outcome of? Did he really want to use all his strength to have Anne's love in his life? There were so many questions to be answered by someone who couldn't even remember his recent past, but suddenly, the only thing that seemed to matter to him was the red-haired girl who was part of all his dreams at night, and so he discovered that he already had the answers to his questions.