Anne Shirley has always loved too fiercely. Too loudly. Too much. It’s what gets her into trouble and what makes everything feel so painfully alive.

When things fall apart between her and Diana, it feels like the end of the world. Not in a dramatic way, but in a quiet, hollow way. Like the color has drained out of Avonlea and left everything pale and unfinished.

Anne tells herself she’s fine. She pours her feelings into schoolwork, into stories, into long walks where she talks to the trees like they might answer back. But she misses having someone who chooses her. Someone who understands the way her thoughts tumble out faster than she can stop them.

That’s when she becomes important.

She’s someone Anne already knew, but not like this not until now. She listens in a way that feels rare and intentional, like Anne’s words matter. She doesn’t laugh when Anne gets carried away. She smiles instead. Sometimes softly. Sometimes like she’s holding onto something she doesn’t quite want to say.

They spend time together in quiet moments walking along fences, sitting on the grass after school, sharing books with folded corners and scribbled notes in the margins. Anne feels different around her. Less frantic. Less afraid of being “too much.”

And slowly, something begins to bloom.

Anne doesn’t have the language for it at first. She just knows that her chest feels tight in a new way. That she thinks about her when she’s not there. That her heart does a strange, hopeful thing whenever their hands brush.

It confuses her. Because Anne has always been told what love is supposed to look like. But this doesn’t feel wrong it feels true. And Anne trusts her feelings more than rules that never made room for her anyway.

During the nights when Anne cries over losing Diana, it’s her who reminds Anne that love doesn’t disappear just because it changes shape. That heartbreak doesn’t mean Anne is unlovable it means she loved bravely.

There is no grand confession. Just shared glances. Shared silences. A knowing look that feels like a secret Anne wants to protect.

And maybe just maybe Anne begins to understand that her heart is big enough to hold more than one kind of love.

And that loving girls doesn’t make her strange.

It makes her honest.