Looking around, I tired to figure out why it was that I decided to come. It seemed silly of me, really to come to Charity's wedding, considering how Ethan and I had left things. Especially with how I still cried myself to sleep many nights when the loneliness became too much and I wasn't sure how much more I could take. It had been almost a year since I had received his letter, and three since we said our good-byes
It still was hard for me to understand how much we had loved each other and how little we had to show for it. I had met Ethan when I was sixteen and I was twenty years old now but if I lived to be a hundred I was certain that I would never love anyone the way that I had loved Ethan Longacre. I still woke up in the middle of the night, seeing his blue eyes and blond hair and that gentle smile. I still could feel the way that his arms felt around me and taste his kisses. I could still recite every word of that letter that he had written me, the one that I had never responded to because it broke my heart every time I looked at that letter.
Leah,
I hope that all is well with you. Life around the farm has been busy, we are getting ready to start planting. The days are getting warmer and longer and it reminds me how much I love life here on the farm. Charity is doing well and I know that she still thinks of you often - as do I. Her and Jonah are seeing each other still and I think that he will ask for her hand very soon. I know that she is excited.
Maybe it is inappropriate for me to be writing to you but I cannot help myself. I think of you often and I remember your smile and how perfect you felt in my arms. I miss you, Leah. And it does not matter to me that it has been two years since I saw you last. You are still the most beautiful girl in the world to me and I still love you very much.
I do not know where this leaves us but I know that if you were to give me one more chance with you, I would leave the Amish community to be with you. I know that my family would disapprove but none of that matters, Leah. It only matters that I am with you. I will be waiting for your answer.
With Love,
Ethan
I never wrote him back. I guess that I knew that in the end, he would feel out of place and that eventually he would grow to resent me for taking him away from his family and his life. I didn't want him to be an outcast by his family. I wanted more for him. As for me, Ethan was the one for me. He was the only one that I could ever imagine loving. But I couldn't do that to him, I couldn't ask that of him.
So I tucked his letter away like I tucked all of his others away and I tried my best to not think of him until I got the letter from Charity, inviting me to her wedding. I remember making that promise to her and I couldn't break it, even after years of silence. I knew that she had waited a long time for Jonah and I understood why she would want me there. So I went for her and put the biggest punishment on myself that I had ever faced.
Everything was fine for a little while. I got there early and saw Charity and told her that she looked beautiful and she did. She was still dressed plain, in a white dress and no make-up. I think it was her vibrant happiness that made her even more beautiful.
"I must go." She said to me and kissed my cheek. "But I will see you after."
I nodded and smiled, turning around and then I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. My breath came out with a whumpf that left me breathless as I looked up into the blue eyes that I hadn't seen in three years. "Ethan." I said and he looked down at me, for the first time, with cold blue eyes.
"Leah." He said and I was a little surprised by how detached he sounded.
It was then that I noticed the little brunette on his arm and a second later that I realized her protruding belly. She was pregnant. Ethan was married. I studied the brunette and realized that I knew her. Martha Dewberry, Ethan's girlfriend before me. I guess that she had won him after all. After standing by and waiting for five years, she finally got him.
"You remember, Martha, don't you, Leah?" He said as he put his arm around his wife and I wondered for a second if he did that just to hurt me, to watch me suffer for not answering him back, for leaving him hanging for so long. But it didn't really look like he had waited to long after sending me that letter. Martha had to be five or six months along.
"Yes, of course." I said, turning to look at her. I knew that I should say something nice but I couldn't find it in me right at that moment. I knew that I had let him go, I knew that I had practically shoved him at her by not answering him but it had been less than a year ago and she was already standing in front of me, so proudly pregnant and so happy with Ethan. Her Ethan, the only boy that I had ever loved.
"So, um," I said, clearing my throat. "When did you two get married?"
"About seven months ago," Martha answered. "Right, Ethan?"
"Yes." He said, not taking his steady blue eyed gaze off of me. "That's right."
"Well," I said, blinking rapidly to keep the tears out of my eyes. "Congratulations. When are you due, Martha?"
"We are thinking early December." She answered, smiling sweetly.
"That's great." I said, tucking a strand of my long brown hair behind my ear. "I'd better go find a seat. It was nice seeing the both of you."
"And you as well." Martha said, smiling, tucking her arm further in with Ethan's as he just stared at me, not saying anything.
It was later, much later, as I was talking to Charity and watching Ethan across the yard with his new wife. "I guess I always knew those two would get married." I said to Charity, my gaze on Ethan.
"I wasn't so sure." She said, looking at her brother. "I always thought that it would be the two of you. I was prepared to loose him after he sent you that letter last year."
"He told you about that?" I looked at her, startled.
"Yes, of course." She said to me, with big honest blue eyes. "But then he never heard from you and everyone was pressuring him to settle down and get married. So he took Martha once he was convinced that you didn't love him anymore."
"It was never that I didn't love him. I love him just as much as I do now as I did then, it's just that I know how much he loves the farming and everything here. I couldn't take that away from him. I was scared what we would turn into if I took him from his family. So I guess I handed her over to him."
"Charity." I was surprised by the voice behind me, even more so when I turned and saw that it was Ethan. "Could I please have a word with Leah?"
"Yes, of course." Charity gave me a kiss and a hug. "Keep in touch." She said to me before turning away.
"I was just leaving." I said to Ethan and I tried to turn away from him but he grabbed my arm. "Yes?" I said to him.
"It was very good to see you again, Leah." It was so hard to be around Ethan and not fall into pieces. It was hard to feel his hand on my arm, stare into those big blue eyes and remember that he wasn't mine anymore. That he had married someone else and that we would never be together. It was still hard even though it was the realization that I woke up to every single morning. "You are as pretty as I remember."
I tore my eyes from his gaze. "What do you want, Ethan?"
"I want to know why you didn't write me back." His voice sounded troubled. "I've gone through it so many times, I've relived every memory of ours over and over again in my head it still doesn't make sense to me. We loved each other. You said you loved me. So why wouldn't you let me come back to you, Leah. I'm trying to be a good husband and I'll try my best to be a good father but I just can't get these questions out of my head, Leah. Did you not love me?"
"Of course I loved you!" My eyes filled with tears and I wondered how many times I had cried over this very thing. "I love you still, every bit as much as I did back then. I wanted a life with you, Ethan."
"Then why didn't you say yes?" The hurt and confusion in his eyes was almost too much for me to bear.
"Because I couldn't take you away from all of this, Ethan!" I swiped at my tears. "I know how much you loved your family and how much you love farming. I couldn't be the reason that no one talked about you anymore, the reason your name was never brought up. I couldn't bring that pain to your family and most of all to you. You left me once, I couldn't go through that again."
"Oh Leah." He said as he bowed his head. "I am married to a woman that I do not love and the only one that I do love, I can never be with."
I bowed my head as well, allowing my tears to flow freely. "Sometimes I wish that I could go and change the past and I wish that I could find some way to bring us together again but I know that I can't. It doesn't mean that we didn't love each other, it just means that it wasn't meant to be."
He brought his hands to my face, wiping away my tears as he had done so many times before. "Be happy, Leah Lewis-Hall. But, please, don't forget me."
"You too, Ethan Longacre. You won't see me again but know that wherever I am, I'm loving you. I swear."
He smiled at me, running his fingers through my hair. He kissed my forehead before stepping back. "If I could change the past, I would do anything to bring us together again."
But since we both knew that was impossible, I got into my car and drove away from him for the second, and last time in my life.