13. Chapter 13 (1/2)

chapter xiii

dear diary,

july is finally here and nothing can stop me now, not even the overprotective eyes of susan baker, to go outside and climb the trees to read books. yes, i do exactly that! even right in this moment i sit on the white lady and write in this journal of mine while feeling how the summer

eeze encourages the leaves to dance.

i have some wonderful news to tell and that is that my baby sister (who will always be a baby to me no matter how old she is) is pregnant again and will have her new baby in early fe

uary 1925, isn't that exciting? i am very happy for her and ken, he's literally jumping up and down and he thinks that it's going to be a girl again! as if he could know it better than rilla! my sister thinks that she will have a boy and i will put more turst into what she thinks and not my

other-in-law does.

the news of the new "ford baby"

ightened up my summer holidays as i'm not very well on the inside, unfortunately. it's all because of this strange situation i am in with carl. i know that he loves me, and i sometimes have this fear, when i talk with him, that he knows that i know, which is even more terrifying than just simply knowing that he's in love with me. i try to make as much excuses as i can not to meet up with him, not to go for our usual walks across the rainbow valley or our small picnics under the tree lovers. i simply can't stand looking in his face knowing that he, carl meredith, loves me.

but this whole situation hurts me incredibly, because i want to go for those walks and make those picnincs with him but i can't, my heart and mind won't let me do it. i don't want our friendship to fall apart and that's why we do meet up but just not as frequently as we used to (the very thought

eaks something inside me and this wound can't heal properly, however hard i try).

una agrees with my decision but i can always see in her eyes this small, tiny even, drop of disappointment (una would never show whether or not she's disappointed in someone) that i can't even try to love carl. i can't and i have a good reason for that. in the last week of june, so almost two weeks ago, robert asked me to be his sweetheart again, through his beautiful letter sent along with wonderfully beautiful boquet of roses. and i answered him with one simple word, "yes".

i haven't seen rob since this horrible and heart

eaking day in january, i didn't even have the chance to say goodbye to him before he left for ottawa. i thought that maybe i could live without him, without his personality around me, without his presence, but when i received this letter in april… it was as if i opened an entirely new book and loved it after reading just the first sentence.

and it must be said that i've never experienced anything more romantic than this correspondence we have since april. actually, i think i got to know him better through those letters than i did while he was sitting right next to me in rainbow valley last year. maybe that's because we had this kind of correspondence (but not in any way romantic) after the war before even robert came to glen.

i'm just very confused at times because i'm really scared that robert will propose to me again but this time i'm not afraid to say "yes", i'm just scared of the marriage itself. it's such a responsibility! and you have to be sure that the man you marry is "the one and only" or otherwise the married life will be entirely misarable. i talked with my parents about it and my mother said that she knows how i feel and that i shouldn't be scared if i think that my answer to robert's proposal would be "yes". however my father thinks that i should "take it easy and think about it properly before giving an answer to robert at all". i agree with both of my parents and that doesn't make my situation any better.

see? that's why i miss carl, i would just tell him about my fears and he would give his advice and then wink at me and just by that i would feel more relaxed and calm (not entirely but at least in some ways). i can't tell una about my fears, even though she's my bosom friend, as she wants me and carl to be sweethearts and not "just" friends. i can't tell nan either, even though she's my twin, as she will say that i have to say "yes" to robert and that i should stop being a silly goose. rilla would say just the same, and if i would

ing the subject to susan she would probably turn red and say that she is no expert on love affairs and that i should leave her alone with her cooking.

so my situation with both robert and carl is quite frightening and it really does keep my mind busy. however i really don't like this kind of 'busy'.

well, i think that that's enough for today, mother said that today we'll make strawberry sponge cake (with susan of course) and we shall all go with the visit to rilla's, she has been crying since last week (for every reason you can possibly think of) and so she asked us, the "three muskeeters of knitting" (and that's mother, susan and i) to help her knit new baby clothes as well as to help her with knitting a new dress for little leslie.

yours,

di blythe

"thank you for driving me home, shirley. i just hope that i won't get soaked by just walking across the road to get home." di chuckled a bit when she looked out of the window of shirley's car.

shirley smiled at her calmly "i don't think you ever did mind getting a little bit soaked." he said and grinned at her knowingly.

di laughed again and patted his cheek "no, but i do mind when it's the middle of august and the rain should be forbidden till at least october." she said and it was shirley's turn to chuckle.

"i'll see you tomorrow, won't i?" he asked her when she was getting ready to jump out of the car.

"of course, una and i will try out mary vance's new recipe for a "lemon chicken" and so i must come and see the result of our cooking." di replied and kissed shirley's cheek.

"and i shall taste it." he added and after di smiled at him, she exited the car and quickly ran under the verandah's roof, not noticing that there was already someone else standing under the verandah's roof and was waiting for her to come home, this someone whom she hadn't seen in almost a nine months' time.

"diana?" a low, hopeful voice filled di's head like a scent of perfumes and she turned her head to the place where the voice was coming from.

"robert!" she exclaimed and jumped on her sweetheart's neck with a happy smile spreading across her face "what in heaven's name are you doing on my verandah?" she asked him joyfully when she put her hands on his flushed cheeks.

before robert answered, he bent down to kiss her and di thought that it couldn't feel more right to feel robert's kiss on her lips. suddenly all of the fears and doubts about which di was writng about in her journal and talked over with her parents disappeared entirely and were replaced with romance and pure definition of happiness.

when robert pulled away and put his arms around her waist, he kissed her forehead once again, his own eyes sparkling with joy "i thought that a week away from work and ottawa would do me good." he answered her with a

ight smile "i wouldn't choose any other place to go for vacation than the town where my diana of the rainbow valley lives."