[A/N--Okay, I am WAY proud of this chapter. I think it will make this story go out with a bang. I'd like to thank all of you SO much for reviewing! You have no idea how much it means to me. Really. Unfortunately, I don't know if I'll be doing Fan Fiction for a while, besides one-chapter little ficlets. I have a new obsession, too: FictionPress.com. I'll be uploading some original fiction there soon, so look for me under the same name: Elle Mira. It's just like ff.net, but much bigger.

So anyway, the story continues. . . .

--Elle]

She was sitting on the bench buried deep in scenic Colorado Mountains, looking down at the charming little settlement that lay nestled beneath her. She breathed in and out slowly and filled her nostrils with the smell of pine trees as she took in the beauteous view and wildlife and tried to forget her troubles.

A bird chirped nearby and awakened her from her blank stare. Suddenly all of her worries flooded into her mind somehow in one word.

Ephram.

A day had passed since she had last seen him, and supposedly he had left for New York that morning.

Her hands clenched into fists as she remembered his last words to her: "It might slip my mind. . . ." Stubborn Ephram, she thought spitefully. Opinionated, headstrong, and totally lovable.

"Ephram," she whispered to no one in particular, shaking her head.

And now Colin was gone from her, although, she told herself quickly, their love had already been fading. He had been gone long ago. A day ago she had had "two guys," as Delia had so childishly put it, and now she had no one. She had nothing but memories of a new and exciting love and the love that still resonated in her heart that she knew she could never have.

She felt lonely.

And then she thought of all the times she had left Ephram alone and felt her love for him only grow. She looked up at the sapphire-blue sky and the diamonds that twinkled in it. She wondered if, a few thousand miles away, Ephram was watching the same stars. She wondered if he was thinking of her. Or if he had thought of her. Or if he had read the letter. She knew that all of these hopes were irretrievable. But like an addict needed his drugs, she needed her Ephram, and the closer she got to him the more she needed of him, even if it was only through thinking about him. It was a relief after all the denial she had gone through, all the times she had tried to assure herself that she did not have feelings for her best friend. All the times she had tried to assure herself that he wasn't even her best friend.

She thought of earlier that day, how she had tried to be her usual lively self but how, for the first time since Colin's earliest brain surgery, she broke down. Without Ephram, she felt like half of a person. She'd never been that dependent on anyone before.

Desperate for something, she went up to the mountains again at about eight o'clock that evening. Her father had stopped her at the door, saying nothing but, "Amy. Don't do this to yourself."

She had looked at the expression on his face and realized that he thought she was still unstable about Colin's recovery. But he didn't know. He didn't know that it was the recovery of her and Ephram, united, that she wanted and needed to aid.

Out of pity, Harold had let her go, and for reasons she could not explain she sat down on the bench and waited, hoping for a beam to come from one of the stars that twinkled cheerily above and zap Ephram to her side. She could have laughed at her self for such a silly notion, but she didn't. It would be a long time before she laughed again, she assumed.

So she waited, but nothing came.

She said loudly, although she had no intention of going anywhere, "What am I doing here. . . ."

A voice behind her said, "I was just asking myself the same question."

She knew that voice. She turned her head slowly, as to not let the speaker get away before this fantasy ended. But there he was. Immersed in moonlight, Ephram Brown.

"It was like something just called me up here," he said thoughtfully. He turned and looked up at the dark sky. She thought she would remember that profile of Ephram standing against a backdrop of stars until the day she died.

She whispered his name. "Ephram." His face grew serious as he said beside her. She muttered something so softly it was nearly indecipherable, "Why are you. . . . "

"Why am I here?" he finished for her. "Because I couldn't go." So fixedly staring into each other's eyes, they hardly noticed when his strong hand met her delicate one and in a mutual motion they clasped them together. "You've always been so far away, Amy. You've always made me feel like it was hopeless for me to even try to win you over." His voice cracked with emotion.

"Ephram, I don't deserve you. It took me a while to realize that and finally work up the courage to go against what my friends thought. I know I've hurt you so many times. It doesn't make much sense, but it's just my strange way of telling you what I feel for you."

He had never seen her speak this openly about him. "When you gave me the letter . . . I thought you would just want to be my friend again and go back to the way it was before." A smile crept over his face. "I read it at the airport. My dad wasn't too happy when I told him we would have to take the long drive back home. Driving for hours at a time, it seems, isn't exactly his forte. But . . . he understood."

"You didn't want to go to New York." It was a statement, a slow realization.

"No," he told her.

"Why?"

"Because you're here."

Her perfect brown eyes widened. Amy knew that took a lot for him to admit such a thing after all she had put him through. She blurted out, smiling and no longer fighting the inevitable, "I love you."

She started to lean forward like she had the day before, except now she was perfectly aware of what she was doing. But this time, it was shared movement, because Ephram was the one to push forward and meet her soft lips with his own. She rested her hands on his neck, knowing that he was finally hers and knowing that she was complete.

But in a few seconds, both of them broke off the kiss abruptly and leaned on each other.

For a breeze had gone through them, giving off something that neither of them had felt in what seemed like an eternity.

It felt . . . warm. Well, not entirely warm . . . but it was a beginning.

And Ephram smiled. In the back of his mind, he believed it was his mother.

The zephyr merrily swept through them once more, breathing through Amy's golden hair, giving the two lovebirds a taste of a Colorado summer that would begin in a month or so, that would be short but wonderful, to come after the long cold winter that still had not ended. The breeze then shot up to the treetops and played in a bed of flowers, it hovered over the mountains and then came plunging back down again.

When it met the lovers once more, they were kissing again. But then it was gone and the mountains were silent.

--Fin--