A meeting of the hearts

Hi, it's so nice to meet you!" Amanda choked out with burning hot cheeks and a beaming smile. 

Austin eagerly snatched her

hand and returned the greeting. “My pleasure.” He said with a wink. And a

shiver shot down her spine.

Amanda excused herself holding up her empty glass and her bestie, Mary trailed behind.

Amanda promptly went to the bar and immediately gulped down her order.

“What are you doing? He’s gorgeous. You don’t get to meet a smoke show like that every day. We’re not in college anymore you know?” 

Amanda snorted, laughing and coughing a little while she drank. 

“No shit, Mary. The dating life in my thirties has been drier than Arizona in July.” 

To that they clinked glasses and shared a laugh. 

“You know you’ve met before, right?” Mary continued undeterred. “Back at KU, actually.” 

Amanda looked quizzically at Mary, as if struggling to remember. 

Mary playfully pushes her shoulder, as if that will jog her memory. “The night of That Delta Gamma party. You remember! The night that Thomas Jensen drank a full bottle of Tequila Rose and went streaking down Broadway!” 

Amanda feigned disbelief,  while trying to hide an undeniable smirk, her left dimple giving it all away.

Mary is already way buzzed and talking much louder than necessary. She doesn’t notice and continues.

“How could you not remember this?! I mean, we all were pretty wasted, but that was the night…” Mary erupts in laughter. “Sk, Sk, Skeeter stole Dean Walter’s dog and changed his collar to say H, H, H, Hugh Heffner! Bahaha”  

Amanda bursts out with laughter, despite her attempts to remain nonchalant. 

But she remembered. She remembered every feeling, every emotion, every single word he had said to her that night. That was the night she fell in love, and he? Well, he had a girlfriend, and was only visiting his cousin. He had to go back home, to Charlotte, had to finish school and he couldn’t throw it all away, for what? A Girl? One night? One amazing conversation? One perfect kiss? 

That night Mary had gone home with the latest flavor of the month, and had only met Austin in passing, it’s actually amazing she had remembered him at all. In fact, the only reason that she had was that the flavor just happened to be Austin’s cousin Mark. They had breakfast the next day Mary told me later. 

And Amanda? She was heartbroken. Only a Sophomore at the time, she was young and green, but dating had never come easy for her. She was cynical and tough and assumed most guys her age were full of shit and only wanted one thing. And she was right mostly. But Austin. He was different. He was special. In a way that she had never forgotten. They clicked, meshed, connected, and it was so much more than physical. They chatted for hours and never lost interest, or ran out of topics. They agreed on their values, politics and religion, fought about football teams and poked fun of each other’s favorite bands. They teased mercilessly about everything under the sun. It was a match made in heaven. They spent all night talking together, on the balcony, by the pool, they walked Greek row and the campus together, and laughed at all the scenes unfolding in front of them. Held hands and watched the sunrise down by the pier. But nothing, nothing equaled that perfect kiss. 

He walked her to her door that morning and they had a goodbye that she was sure would last their lifetime. 

He lived 3 states away and had a different life planned out than she did. And she? She had no real plan. She was floundering in school and ended up going to study abroad the next semester out of sheer boredom. And he was in medical school. Serious and smart.

She eventually finished college, got married and had the babies. Things were good for a while, well, just okay if she was being honest, but things with Roy had just never equaled up to what she had felt that day. 

He tried to catch her eyes from across the room. What an idiot he’d been. She looked more beautiful than even he’d remembered. More mature, and somehow more soft and lovely. He admired the sparkle in her eye as she laughed with her friend. He scanned her face, remembering there was something unique. Ah! There it is, a lonely left side dimple that gave away her emotions. He smiled uninhibitedly and then guarded himself realizing how strange he must look, and how obvious it would be. You didn’t need to have glasses to see what was going on there. He stole glances and tried to remain coy. He had thought about her every day since that one. He had even gone back to see her once, a month or two later, but she wasn’t there. Abroad. Having an adventure and never thinking of him and what a moron he had been. He didn’t even call her. And Mark was no help. He didn’t want to talk to “what’s her name” anymore, and that was that. 

He did it too. He “moved on.” He never did settle down, but instead devoted himself to his work, and he became a prodigy in his field. He was impressive, he worked out and was certainly attractive, but married to his work. Brain surgery. A demanding wife to be sure. 

Amanda was an imaging equipment sales representative. She gave speeches and put on medical conferences, and one of the best and most handsomely paid in the industry. But it didn’t buy happiness. Jimmy Choo’s, yes. Happiness? Champagne brunches, Gucci Onesies and all the family vacations they could go on. But it couldn’t buy fidelity or eternal love. 

She left Roy three years ago, and put all her energy, love and passion into her career, twin boys and making sure they had the best life that she could give them. She found so much love and fulfillment in both. 

But, oh man, that spark! It was so long ago, she forgot that it even was real. 

She stepped outside the hotel bar for a breath of fresh air. She needed to regroup. She had a keynote earlier in the day and was trying to keep her composure. These were her industry peers. This was the Medical Imaging and Diagnosis Summit and she needed to be on tonight. She could not get distracted. She would not let this de-rail her. She was one promotion away from being CEO of this fortune 500 company and at the very top of her game… and he didn’t say anything. 

“Did he even recognize me?” Ugh. She chided herself for being reduced to worrying about a man’s opinion of her. A man she hadn’t seen for 20 years, she didn’t even know if he recognized her. Did she mean anything to him? She used to think of him daily. From time to time in her marriage, she wondered if she had searched for him, how different her life might be. Mostly she had shooed those feeling away, but every now and then she would dwell and dream and imagine the love she could have felt and given. Had he done the same? She had seen him once in passing on the streets of Chicago, and never again.

She heard a rocks crunch on the ground behind her. Amanda dried her eyes, did all she could to calm her nerves and slowly turn.

Austin took her hands in his. “Amanda.”

“Yes?” She whispered in reply, barely audible and nearly breathless. 

He examined her hands, no traces of a ring.

“I’ve thought about you every day for the past twenty years. I was such a fool for letting you close the door that night, for leaving.

I’ve been in love with you for twenty years Amanda.”

She leaned in slowly, looking up at him through her lashes. She could feel her chest rising with each breath as she closed the gap between her mouth and his. He smiled as his eyes darted from her soft pink lips to her sparkling green eyes. He reached up with one hand brushed her auburn hair from her check, grazed his finger over her left dimple. It landed on the nape of her neck, and he pulled her close. 

It was a kiss 20 years in the making.

“Wow, what a summit!” She replied.