Dr. Barlow was watering some potted plants on the porch when he saw Leah drive in with her red convertible. He quickly finished his watering as she stepped out of her car holding the medium-sized box. "Hi Leah. So how did it go? I'm sure it wasn't as bad as you thought it would be... right?"

"Hi Doc. I don't know if 'bad' is the exact word to describe tonight. It was... intense. Remember how you told me to try to understand Ethan's perspective and try to be open to the reasons he left...?" She got to the stop of the steps of the porch and sat down on the ledge beside him.

"Yeah... Why do you ask?" He gave her a suspicious glance as he watched a smirk grow from the corners of her lips.

"Well... you know what? I should have listened to your advice more. I ended up losing my cool and I got angry and... sort of yelled at him." He looked at her with an 'old really?' expression as he leaned closer to hear the end of the story. "I began to blame him for hurting me and I accused him of not caring because he never visited me, phoned me, or even sent me a letter. And boy was I wrong!"

"What do you mean? What happened after you yelled at him?"

"Well... he ran inside and came out and gave me this..." She opened the box that she had been holding and showed him the contents. His eyes widened in response as he was surprised to see all the letters. He quickly nodded and pointed towards the door, signalling for her to go inside and read them by herself. She nodded back as she began to walk towards the door to the house.

As she arrived to the door of her room, she was surprised to see Max sleeping on her bed. She had been waiting up for her but had evidently fallen asleep in the process. Leah pulled her blanket over her friend, trying not to wake her up. She then took a seat by the window and turned on a small lamp as she wrapped herself in a blanket and began to read the letters.

To my dearest Leah,

It has been one month since I've last seen the gentle
curves of your smooth and warm face. My heart aches each moment
my mind wanders to the angelic image of you. I have tried to
busy myself with the work on the farm but nothing is easing the
throbbing of my heart. I regret leaving you the way I did but I
knew I had to... I know it must be hard to believe that now but
you will understand in time. We come from two very different
worlds and I could not devastate my family and bring the same
shame my brother had... it would break my family and I cannot let
that happen. You must understand... I didn't do it for me... I did
it for us. We would be spending more time fighting for our
relationship rather than actually having one. I hope you will
one day understand why I did what I did. I hope you are well
and you will one day find another person who deserves a
wonderful and loving girl like you. I wish you the best and I
will truly never forget you...

With Love Always,
Your Ethan

Tears began to roll down from the ends of her long black eyelashes as she finished reading the first letter from Ethan. She looked up into the night sky that was blanketed by darkness that glimmered with the twinkling of the many stars. She reminisced about the night she sat with Ethan on the large boulder years ago, in the forest near his farm where his father had cut down the Christmas tree... The same year she first gazed into the depths of his blue eyes. She remembered sitting with him watching the night drift by as she felt heat radiate him his body and warm her own. She spent the latter of the night reading the other letters as one teardrop after the other slowly trickled down the top of her cheeks. She didn't realize she had fallen asleep until she opened her eyes to the soft rays of the rising sun of the horizon. She watched in tranquility, the arrival of the new morning, which brought along the beginnings of a new day. She watched in blissful silence as the dark night sky merged into the warm palette of the morning sun.
Maxine slowly opened her tiresome eyes and yawned as she tried to wake the rest of her body. "Leah... when did you come in? I was waiting for you but I obviously fell asleep."

"Oh, mornin' Max. You seemed so peaceful so I didn't want to wake you up. Come sit beside me. The sun is rising... must be around 5:30 in the morning." She smiled as Max walked over and sat beside her by the window. The two girls watched in tranquil silence as the morning was born.

A few moments after the sun was fully risen in the high morning, blue sky, Maxine was the first to speak. "So... what happened exactly last night?"

Leah did not know to put her thoughts and feelings into words and simply showed her friend the box of letters and gave her a gentle smile. Maxine's eyes suddenly jolted open as she scanned all the letters from Ethan and was left in disbelief and shock. "Whoa..."

Leah laughed at her reaction as she said, "Whoa is right! I was pretty shocked too. I never knew he tried to write to me so many times... I was surprised...." She had not realized that she was on his mind this frequently and was very amazed but this.

"This is good, isn't it? You know now that he's still in love with you! Why aren't you jumping up and down for joy? I would be! Shouldn't this be good news for you? Why do you seem so... down?" She was only sixteen years old and although Leah found love at her age, she wasn't able to relate to Leah on the matter of love. Sure, she's had a few boyfriends here and there but she had never experience this profound and ineffable love that Leah and Ethan share.

"Yeah... I know he still loves me. But... I don't know. Something about it is... how would you say... off?" She was glad and happy now that she knew Ethan had not forgotten her but she began to develop a new perspective on some things and her thoughts and feelings began to entwine in confusion.

"Off?! How? He just said he still loves you in black and white!" Max grabbed a few of the letters and began to wave them in front of her face. "This is telling you plain and simple that he still thinks about you... how are things "off"? I don't get it!"

"It's hard to explain. I don't even have a good grip on it now. It's still all jumbled up in my mind." It was true though; her mind was in swirls of confusion and uncertainty. She was unsure of what she should do or shouldn't do.

She let out a deep sigh as she tried to calm herself down as she tried to ne understanding and a good listener and a good friend to Leah. "Alright. How about you try to explain to me... or just tell me all your different thoughts and maybe we'll be able to piece everything together and make some sense out of it!"

She hesitated as she said, "I don't know... it's complicated." She was unsure if her friend would understand where her thoughts were coming from because she had not experience the powers of first loves. She, herself, was only sixteen when she met Ethan and found her first, possibly only, love but Max, she was still young and hasn't experienced the world as much as she has.

"Oh come one! Just give me a try. What's the worst thing that could happen?" She smiled convincingly as Leah gave into her innocent and kind smile.

"Alright. Where do I start? Errr..." So much has happened since I first saw Ethan after all this time, she thought.

"Okay. Why don't you tell me what happened at dinner last night? We can start there." She nodded and retold the events of last night as they both sat by the window of Leah's bedroom.

Max seemed very interested in her bump-in with Martha Dewberry after Leah finished retelling her night with the Longacres. "Wait... you left the house with loads of time to get to the farm but you were still late?! How long did you talk to Martha for? I thought you just bumped into each other. What did you two talk about?"

"We had quite a talk. She seemed a bit different. The summer I stayed in Nappanee, she didn't seem welcoming but she was still polite with her manners. But this time she still wasn't welcoming or very friendly but her manners were more or less still there but... I don't know... she acted different. She seemed very content with something... always giving me this satisfied smile." She was never great friends with the infamous Martha, then again she was the one who took Ethan from her at the time, so that was surprising. She never had anything against Martha but there was definitely a wall of discomfort and awkwardness between them.

"Well of course! She probably thinks she's won! Boy is she wrong!" She began to amuse herself in the irony of Martha as she pictured her finding out she really doesn't have anything to feel content and satisfied about.

"Won what? We're not running a marathon here!"

"Winning Ethan! Come on, get with it Leah! If you never came into the big picture, she'd probably be happily married to Ethan with two kids with another one on the way! But no... that didn't happen because Ethan was with you! And after you two took your "break" she thought she had won when Ethan returned back to his farm and they would become the happy couple. But obviously she needs to get her facts straight because you're not going anywhere!" Maxine became energized with the news and was happy for her friend and she was glad Leah would be reunited with Ethan after four years of being apart.

"What do you mean I'm not going anywhere? I'm only staying here until your dad is done his work or when I have to go back to school. I'm staying here for now... not permanently..."

"But everything has fallen into place PERFECTLY!" She found herself in disbelief but Leah's lack of enthusiasm and eagerness. She had more zest and she wasn't the only in love! That doesn't seem to be right, she thought.

"No it hasn't. Things have become more complicated! Look Max, I appreciate your energy towards this whole thing but not everything is laid out in black and white. Some things can be very complicated, especially when it comes to love."

Oh great, she just had to bring up the one thing I wouldn't be able to relate to... love. She's so confusing sometimes, she thought. "How are things complicated now? Ethan has obviously made it clear that he still thinks about you day and night. Isn't that what you want?"

"Yeah... that's probably the only uncomplicated thing. So he still seems to love me. There are other things that you have to consider..."

"Hmm... okay then. What are these other things then?" She tried to sound as open-minded and understanding as she could but it was obvious that Leah was much older and more mature on this subject.

"Like... Martha. That means I've taken Ethan away from her again! And she's a nice girl and she has strong feelings for him and she shouldn't be hurt again."

"Hmm... alright. I agree to that point. What else?" Leah did have a good point. A girl shouldn't be hurt in such an awful way, let alone hurt twice.

"Then there's his father. Mr. Longacre isn't exactly the most hospital and welcoming man! He feels very strong about his Amish background and he intends to ensure the survival of his group. He wouldn't let Ethan just walk away from the Amish ways just like that! I've told you what happened when Ethan's older brother, Eli left. Ethan is very close to his family and he wouldn't be able to hurt them and bring the same shame again."

"Well... I'm sure he'd be accepting if he knew his son was unhappy with his life without you. Come on, who's going to deprive their own kid happiness!" She found the ways of the Amish very confusing and outdated.

"It's hard to understand when you come from the English world. The ways of the Amish are very different from us. They may seem weird to us but it's their traditions and beliefs, we shouldn't judge them for being brought up to believe that." She was surprised to find herself defending the ways of the Amish people, something that she always was against because it was the main reason that separated her from Ethan.

Maxine sighed as she realized that her friend was right in saying that things are not as simple as she first thought they were. "Well... anything else?"

"I guess one more thing. It's been four years since I've seen him. And a lot of things can happen in four years. I have my own life. I'm in college and I'm going to become a nurse. And he's engaged, about to be baptized, where he'll become an adult and practice the ways of the Amish, and he'll eventually be married. He just seems so set on his own path. We're both set on our own paths... in different worlds." She amazed herself more and more as she spoke about her and Ethan. If it was four years ago, she'd be agreeing with Maxine and this conversation wouldn't be happening. Wow, I must have matured a lot, she thought.

Maxine sighed and knew that Leah's thoughts made perfect sense. "So... you're not going to anything then, right?"

She thought about it for a moment or two and spoke. "I guess not then. I still care about him and I'm glad he still cares about me but we're grown up a lot in these four years and we've set our own paths and it's time close this chapter of our lives and open a new one... with our own different paths..." She continued to surprise herself with her maturity on the entire situation.

"So this is what real love is. To give it up for love." She found this amazing and touching to see real love at work in front of her own face.

"Yeah, I guess so. Now, I know why he left me. He wanted me to live up to my potential and become a nurse and help others, something he wouldn't be able to give me if we stayed together. I guess in a way, we said goodbye because we loved each other so much. I didn't realize it would take me this long to realize that. Now I sort of regret yelling at him last night." Love, isn't it grand?

They both sat in silence, trying to absorb everything that has risen to the surface from their conversation. They both tried to process everything that had juts happened, both were in astonishment.

After a few minutes of quietness, Max broke the silence by asking, "So... what are you going to do? You're not going to go back to Indianapolis are you? Because I won't be able to survive in this town without you! Please stay!" She smiled persuasively.

She laughed at her friend's expression and shook her head. "No... I'm not going to go back to Indianapolis. I'm going to stay here. Don't worry! " She smiled and pondered about the first part of Max's question. What was she going to do? Talk to him about it? Completely ignore him? Write him a letter? "Hmmm... about Ethan. I don't know. That's a good question. For sure, I'm going to go talk to him. But I'm still unsure of what I'm going to say to him. I guess I'll know when I go talk to him, right?"

She nodded in response as she said, "What a morning!" They both laughed as they both stood up to get ready for breakfast.