A few months ago I received an e-mail from a lovely woman named Holly; the same Holly featured in my story "Belief." After some failed attempts, we finally arranged to meet for coffee, so in the interest of full disclosure, prior to the meeting I sent her a link to the story. I wasn't sure how she would respond, but I was ultimately delighted that she understood. She remembered a few details a little differently — no surprise there, it was over twenty years ago — but she thought the gist of it was quite accurate. That was a relief, as I'm always uncertain what the subjects of my stories will think of the intersection between their life and my own. This is a part of my reasoning behind the discretion shown here on Hidden City — why expose people needlessly?

We met in a cozy little strip mall coffee shop in Broward; living room style with comfortable couches and low tables. There was a bit of awkwardness at first, but it lasted mere seconds before we fell into a wonderful conversation. We spoke about her life in the days since we broke up — her friends' attempts to get her back into dating, her wonderful marriage, the odd quirks of fate, her terrific daughter — and we talked about the relentless oddity of my own world, and my recent decision to try to find a little stability. When Holly's daughter called to check up on her mom, I spoke with her on the phone for a moment, which was funny and strange and, well, remarkably nice.

As expected, we reminisced about our time together — the fun we had, the silly and romantic times, the weird times too. Holly shared some very touching things with me, memories she has treasured that I would never have guessed she even recalled after all these years apart. And yes, we talked some about the break-up and of the heartbreak we both felt.

Mainly, though, we shared a lot of laughter. It was as if we were still in our twenties, the cute biology teacher with the goofy laugh, and the skinny bookworm with dreams as big as the sky, eating junk food and drinking sweet wine, best friends planning our futures and sharing our lives.

Before it was over our cup of coffee had lasted over three hours, moving to an IHOP before we reluctantly parted. As she prepared to drive home to her husband and daughter, we promised to get together again soon. Unlike most such promises, I think we'll keep this one. I suspect we were both thinking the same thing. The tragedy was not the pain we both suffered when our romance dissolved; fate has its way with us all, and life moves on. Our tragedy was that we let twenty years pass before finding our friendship again.