The dimples were still there.
For several seconds, I simply stared.
Fifty years disappeared and remained at the same time.
He looked older, of course.
So did I.
That should have made the moment easier.
It didn’t.
I felt suddenly aware of every unanswered question I had carried since I was 29.
Thomas looked at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read.
Then he smiled again.
And somehow, that was enough to make me go.
So I drove more than 1,000 miles to see him.
People my age are often warned against long drives.
I understood why.
My back complained.
My knees stiffened whenever I stopped for gas. I drank too much coffee and argued with myself every hundred miles.
This was foolish.
This was reckless.
This was 50 years too late.
But I kept driving.
I wasn’t expecting romance.
At least, that’s what I told myself.
I wanted answers.
That evening, we walked through the city until midnight, laughing about how old we’d gotten.
Thomas moved more carefully than he once had, and I wasn’t exactly racing down sidewalks either.
We made jokes about aching joints.
We stopped more often than either of us wanted to admit.
Still, walking beside him felt strangely natural.
