Chapter Five

I know, I know my updating skill suck...but I was sooo stuck, I had like a page of this written for a month and I just couldn't go any further so I went back and rewrote the whole flashback scene (in italics) and suddenly it was all better! So enjoy!!

"Ephram..." The silence that has wrapped around both Amy and Ephram like an old familiar blanket dissipates when Amy opens her mouth. Deep down both wanted to explain to the other why they were back in Everwood but neither wanted to be the first to start and on the surface neither of them actually wanted to talk about it. Amy sighs inwardly, "I think I should get back...Emily's asleep and she'll probably freak if I'm not there and she wakes up."

"Amy..." Ephram stops Amy in her tracks.

"Yeah Ephram?" Amy turns wearily.

"I wanted to call but..." Ephram attempts to find reasoning.

Amy nods, "I know Ephram..." She shakes her head, "I'll see you later. At work, or something..."

"Yeah," Ephram nods sadly.

"Ephram?" Amy turns around to face Ephram this time.

"Yeah Amy?"

"The things I said that night," Amy sighs, "I didn't really mean them, I was scared, I didn't know what to think or do or say."

Ephram nods, "I know. I'll see you later Amy." Once the crunching noises of Amy hiking back down the mountain get farther away Ephram takes the spot that Amy had just vacated.

"Ephram," Amy's voice startles Ephram out of the silence that envelopes him as he packs all the things that would be going with him to New York in a week.

"Amy," Ephram jumps to his feet and grins, they'd been engaged for two days and they had decided that they would tell their families tonight. "I was just about to call you, we're having dinner without parents at the Italian restaurant you like in town."

"Ephram," it's not until she says his name for a second time that Ephram realizes she's upset. "We...I..."

"What's wrong? " Ephram asks quickly.

"I-I-" Amy fumbles over her words and the words that come out of Amy's mouth are the last words in the world Ephram would have expected. "I can't marry you."

"What, did you tell your dad early and he freaked out?" Ephram asks quickly.

"N-no," Amy shakes her head.

"Are you afraid to tell your dad? Because I know he's not going to take it about as well as my fahter, and let's face it that won't be well. But our parents have always known that we wanted to get married, it shouldn't surprise our fathers too much and I think Nina and your mom already know. Nina keeps giving me these knowing looks," Ephram laughs uneasily, "and you know...it's that mother's intuition thing..."

"It's not because of them," Amy responds with a sad shake of her head. "It's because of me...or us..."

"What?" Ephram questions, this was the last thing he had been expecting.

"We're going to do different schools next year," Amy bites her lower lip.

"We both knew it would be a long engagement when I asked you and you said yes. We've talked about this we both decided that our relationship could stand the distance."

"I know...but...I can't marry you..."

"Why?" Ephram can't hide the pain in his voice.

"I don't love you," Amy looks away as she says the words. "And I only said yes because..." Amy falters she can't find an excuse as to why she told had told Ephram she would marry him in the first place.

"That's not true..." Ephram's stare is fiercely intent, "I know you, and I know that's not true. What the hell is going on Amy?"

"I don't love you," Amy yells. "And I hate you for putting me in this position and I hate you for..."

"For what?" Ephram questions his voice low and cold.

"For everything," those words are the last Amy would say to Ephram before she flees his room, leaving Ephram shocked and hurt.

Ephram hadn't understood it then, and he didn't understand it anymore ten years later. They'd been happy. Most of their relationship had been happy. Not always perfect but they'd been together and able to overcome all the obstacles that had been thrown at them. They'd both talked about it, when Ephram got his acceptance to Julliard and Amy's to Stanford, and both had decided that they were close enough for their relationship to survive a continent.

There was no denying that Ephram had been heart broken when he left for New York and when he met Sophie she had been so radically different from Amy that he'd thrown himself into a relationship with her. She was four years older and going into her first year of law school at NYU and she was fun loving and flirty and they'd gotten married a year into their relationship.

Everyone had thought they were crazy and looking back now maybe they'd been right, it had been a rocky couple of years with both of them in school. But they had stuck it out and both had gotten jobs, Sophie in a highly powerful law firm and Ephram with the symphony he had just quit and not long afterwards Sophie had found out she was pregnant with Antonia. It had all been perfect.

No, it had all seemed perfect. But now in the clear air of Everwood Ephra's head was cleare for the first time in a long time and he was able to get honest perspective on what his life had really become. Antonia and Alyssa were being raised almost round the clock by a nanny. Sophie and Ephram rarely saw each other partly because Ephram traveled and partly because Sophie was taking on caseload after caseload. Ephram hadn't been able to see how imperfect things until he had walked in on Sophie and a colleague in bed together, after having quit the symphony so that he could be home with his family.

48 hours he'd shown up in Everwood and the part that scared Ephram? He wasn't as heartbroken as he'd been after losing Amy a decade before and that scared the hell out of him. She was his first love, he wouldn't deny that to anyone but you were supposed to get over those. He kept telling himself that he should be obsessing about why his wife had been with another man and yet he couldn't but mind kept going back to obsessing about why Amy was back in Everwood after being away for just as long as he had.

But he had daughters to think about now, and the drama with Amy just wasn't something he could think about. He had to try and figure out how to tell them that he and their mommy we're getting a divorce and how they may never go back to New York City again.