Finding the Beauty

     The GBE2 prompt for week #53 is to  take a line from a book and write a new story starting with that line.  For my book I chose Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery, which will always be my favorite story of all time.   Other than the first sentence, this story will be purely a figment of my imagination.

     Anne's beauty-loving eyes lingered on it all, taking everything greedily in; she had looked on so many unlovely places in her life, poor child; but this was as lovely as anything she had ever dreamed.  Leaning on her elbows with her nose against the window pane of the second story bedroom she looked longingly at the fully in-bloom cherry tree, so full you could barely see the branches.  She wondered if it smelled as beautiful as it looked.  Over to the left she saw a flower bed with its sunshine yellow daylillies, deep purple irises and blushing pink peonies standing regally in the daylight.  She had never seen such green grass before and tried to imagine what it would feel like under her bare feet.  Suddenly, looking beyond the yard into the meadow, her breath caught in her throat.  Could it really be or was this just another figment of her vivid imagination?    But no, this was real.  It was just as she had pictured in her mind.  Running through the meadow was a babbling brook...a brook where she could wade, or just sit on the edge with her feet splashing in the water.  Had she finally died and gone to heaven; could this paradise really be hers; or would reality set in and disappoint her once again?

     Anne had known more than her fair share of disappointment in her young years.  At only 7, she had dealt with more tragedy than most adults could handle.  When Anne was 4 years old, she and her parents were in a horrible car accident that had changed the course of her life forever.  Both parents were killed instantly.  Anne's fragile little body was left broken and mangled with life barely hanging by a prayer.   She was hospitalized for nearly a year with multiple surgeries to repair broken limbs and her mangled face.  The once beautiful, vibrant little girl was now unrecognizable.  Even at her young age the hideous scars made her cry when she looked in the mirror.    Over the 2 years since her initial release from the hospital she had been back for 3 more surgeries to continue the reconstruction of her face.    Anne was once again a beautiful little girl to anyone who saw her, although, when she looked in the mirror all she could see were the ugly scars that haunted her.

     As difficult as it was to deal with her health problems, that wasn't the biggest change in Anne's life.  She no longer had a stable home where she was surrounded by people who loved her.  After the death of her parents, she had no living relatives to take over her care.  She became a ward of the state and was passed around from foster home to foster home.  At first many of them mistreated her, laughing at her because of her deformed face.  Each time she returned to the hospital she would be sent to a new home upon being released.  They never got any better.  She never had a room of her own but had to share with other foster children, many of whom were bullies and abusive.  With each move she withdrew further into herself.  She began dreaming of beautiful things and soon her only means of survival was her imagination.  Instead of crying herself to sleep she would imagine a beautiful home in the country with people who would love her and a life full of friends.  She always imagined a babbling brook where she could play on hot days and a big yard where she could fly a kite and run with her new puppy.  

     Now, here she was.  Looking out a window at the very scene she had imagined so many times.  Then slowly turning around she took a good look at the beautiful bedroom where she had just slept.  It was everything a girl her age could dream of.  White furniture with a soft, thick, comforter on the bed, with pink and purple flowers and pillow shams that match.   And the carpet!  Even in her wildest imagination  she had never felt anything so soft. 

     A tear slipped down Anne's cheek as she suddenly snapped to attention.   All the disappointments of the last 3 years came flooding back and she knew she couldn't get too attached.  After all, how could a nice couple like the Ginghams want to adopt an ugly little girl like her?  Little did she know, she was exactly the beautiful little girl they had always dreamed of.