Chapter 50 - The End

It is summer now and school is over for Xander, but even so he still goes to Bluewater everyday as he is still together with Irene. The first days of the summer holidays, they spend on the beach.



But then weather changes and gets a bit unpredictable.



Instead they start visiting the gym every other day. Xander likes to work out, but he would prefer to go for a jog instead. He is getting very tired of always being in the city.



And even if he likes ice cream, he is tired of hanging out in cafes - he is longing to spend more time outdoors again. In fact he is getting a little tired of the relationship to Irene too, even if he doesn’t really want to admit it. He still finds her very attractive, but even if she is a very smart person they don’t have that much in common so their conversations tend to stay on the surface.To him it seems that they have started to repeat things they’ve said a lot of times before. They are moving in circles, not going anywhere.



As for shopping – sigh! – he is very, very tired of that.



So one day he tells Irene that he has things that he needs to do at home and stays in Riverblossom Hills. He intends to go fishing, but drops by the country store first to get a new fishing line. There he bumps into Daisy. What a coincidence, but a happy one. They haven’t seen each other in months and he is surprised how glad he is to see her. She seems equally glad to see him. There is no trace of the bad atmosphere that was between them last time they met, but at the same time it seems like no time at all has passed. They pick up where they left things – before it all went bad that is. At the same time they both have changed a lot. Has Daisy always been this pretty? He can’t remember being this aware of her body before either. He has to force himself to keep looking her into the eyes, even though he does not find their conversation one bit boring - quite the opposite: he is savouring it. He has forgotten how funny Daisy is and how easy he finds it to talk to her, how much there is to talk about. In fact he could have gone on talking to her for the rest of the day, but Daisy is expected at home with things her mother has sent her to buy and Xander – well he was supposed to go fishing, wasn’t he.



But somehow he has lost interest for fishing right now, so instead he goes home again and spends the rest of his day in his room in deep thoughts. Something has happened to him, something has changed. He can’t stop thinking of Daisy. But he has never thought about her this way before.



The moment he wakes up the following morning, Daisy is on his mind again, and he has a feeling that he has been dreaming about her as well. He decides to go and see her and takes his bike to the Greenman farm as soon as he has had breakfast. The Greenmans always get up early, they will be outside working already. It is a pleasure to ride a bike again, use his legs instead of the car. If he is honest he is also reluctant about taking the sports car when he goes to see Daisy. A fancy car is totally unimportant to her – instead she might find it a bit ridiculous.
Sure enough he finds Daisy and her sisters working in the kitchen garden, and when he sees Daisy his heart takes a leap and then starts beating much faster. No doubt about it: he sees her with different eyes now. As much as he wants to be her friend again, that isn’t enough anymore. But how does she feel? He has no idea. She behaves quite natural and treats him as she has always treated him.



But never the less, he can’t go on seeing Irene. His feelings have changed completely. It is break up time again. It doesn’t get easier with time, but at least he has learned a lot since the first time he had to do it. When Irene asks him if he has met anyone else, he is honest to her and tells her that he has fallen in love with a childhood friend, “But she doesn’t know about it yet.”
“So you break up with me for the sake of that peasant girl with the pointed ears! And you don’t even know if she feels something for you?! You’re insulting me!!” Irene exclaims.
Even if he still feels bad about hurting Irene’s feelings, he feels a little less guilty about it when she talks that way about Daisy. Peasant girl with pointed ears! That’s an insult for sure. He gets quite angry with Irene, but he manages not to show that. She is upset, he mustn’t take everything she says that seriously. But he feels relieved when they are done talking and Irene wants to say good bye.



So now he is back where he began, with old habits and old friends, it feels a little bit like closing a circle. But a lot has changed, and a lot still is uncertain: how do you go from friendship to something else? He sees Daisy almost every day again and spends a lot of time on the farm, but he still has no clue if her feelings have changed too. If they haven’t, he still wants to be friends with her, and he is very afraid that he will destroy their friendship if he tells her. So he says nothing, and everything stays the way it has been.



It is nice to spend so much time at the farm again, he feels just as welcome as he did before. Daisy’s family treats him as one of them and he often stays for dinner. And slowly the relation between him and Daisy really starts to change. He catches her looking at him when she thinks that he is not aware of her looking – and there is something in her eyes that makes him tingle inside. There is a new tension between them, a sense of anticipation in the air. One evening he decides to put everything on one card, it may make or break, and tells Daisy that there is something he wants to talk to her about.
“Let’s go outside, it is kind of private?”



Once outside he starts to feel real nervous, but then he realizes that Daisy is standing very close to him, much closer than she usually does, and when she asks him:
“What was it you wanted to say?” her voice trembles a little, and that makes him sure this is the right thing to do, so he reaches out and touches her face.



As soon as they touch, they seem to get connected and suddenly there is no need to say anything at all. There is no doubt about them feeling the same way about each other.



As much as Cleo loves Christian, she has been reluctant to tie the knot. There is a time for everything and Cleo’s career has come first this far. Christian longs to start a family and has repeatedly proposed to her, but marriage has not been on her schedule - until now. Finally she has told him yes.
“I don’t want a white wedding and neither does Christian, so we’re getting married at Jacob’s barn instead. We’ll have a big party though and invite everyone we know. You are all very welcome this Saturday!” Cleo tells her aunt Catherine. It is short notice, but Catherine of course tells Cleo that they most certainly will be there.
“Nothing could make me miss your wedding!”





Not long after the wedding, Cleo and Christian are delighted to reveal to their friends, that they soon are going to be parents too.



Soon afterwards Catherine has the pleasure of attending yet another wedding, this time in the chapel, when Jacob and Marianne become husband and wife.



As Leod has no children or any other close relatives, he has decided to make Jacob his heir and leave the farm to him. In fact he has decided to move in with Lillian in her cottage and let Jacob the farm to Jacob already now, as Jacob now has a wife that wants to work together with him. Leod is happy that someone will continue to work the land and cherish what he himself has built, and that the farm soon will house a family again.



At the O’Mackey’s Keith comes to visit and Jules is happy and proud to introduce him to her parents as her boyfriend. She is even happier as he gets along with them so well from the start.



That makes it a lot easier when Keith is lucky enough to get the first job he applies for at an architectural office in Bluewater, because everything happens so fast that he hasn’t had a chance to get an apartment, so he has to move in with her at her parent’s. Jules also gets a position as an intern at the hospital in Bluewater soon after her graduation, but she works nights and Keith works days, so sadly enough they don’t get to see much of each other. They are hoping that Jules can change her work hours soon, because this makes it a lot harder to plan for their mutual future, but they are planning to move in together as soon as they can find an apartment of their own.



When Jules starts working at the hospital she gets to see Brenda again as she has also got a position as an intern there. They lost touch for a while after graduation and now Brenda has shocking news: she is not going to marry Ralph after all. She has broken her engagement to him, and instead she has moved in with Andy!! Of all people!! Oddly enough they seem to be very happy together.



Morty is both surprised and disappointed that Xander has broken up with Irene for Daisy’s sake. No offence to the Greenman girl, she seems to be nice enough, but he can’t understand why Xander prefers her instead of the sophisticated daughter of his friend, the successful businessman. Wealth and social position are both things that are very important to Morty. But he is nice to Daisy anyway, and that is what matters to Xander. In fact Morty has other things on his mind right now. His daughter Sandra has started to work with him, something that makes him both proud and delighted.



And Xander’s stepmother Michelle is heavily pregnant and about to give birth any day now. Xander is relieved that his father will be otherwise occupied for a while and hopefully won’t pay much attention to him ...



... because he most certainly won’t be very happy when Xander tells him that he will not go to college this fall. Xander has decided that a life with Daisy is what he wants, and as Daisy is committed to farming, that will be his life too. He doesn’t know the first thing about farming, but Daisy does ...



... so he plans to buy the uninhabited Limestone Cottage, that lies next to the Greenman farm, for part of the money he inherited from Betty and start to work the land together with Daisy.

But that is another story.