A chance encounter

It had to happen some time. I knew it would. It was always just a question of when.

For nearly eighteen months I've played the situation through in my head: what would I say? How would I react? What would it feel like?

In the event, it happened entirely unexpectedly; a chance encounter. I'd turned the wrong way out of the supermarket to go and see what had happened to cause the police to cordon off part of the main road.

There was a split second when I recognised the person walking towards me. I stopped walking. Stood still in the middle of the pavement, staring for a couple of seconds while my head told me who I was about to bump into. He glanced at me. Did a double take, then he stopped too.

"Hello."
"Hello."
"Long time no see."
"Yes, yes it is. How are you?"

We did the British thing: the pleasantries. We acknowledged the awkwardness of the situation, the weirdness, the shock of seeing each other after so long. And then,

"Do you...do you want to get a drink or something?" he said.

And so it was that this evening - a normal Wednesday night - I found myself in a pub, talking for the first time since it ended, to the boy who broke my heart.