'So how did you two meet?' Anthony asks when Daniel gets back to the table.
Samantha smiles. 'At university. I was working in the library to pay off some of my student loan and I always saw Daniel in there, hunched over his medical books. He shared a room, so he came to the library to study.'
Anthony turns to Daniel, his eyebrows raised.
'You read medicine?' he asks. 'I always thought you were going to study English. Wasn't it your brother who was going to be a doctor?'
Daniel nods once.
'I changed my mind,' he says. 'I studied medicine.'
'For four years,' Samantha adds. 'Which was lucky for me, because it was in my final year that I started noticing him more. You came in at the same time every day in that year, do you remember? Nine in the morning till one, then half an hour for lunch, then back again until the library closed at nine.'
'You always had a lot of self-discipline,' Anthony laughs.
'Even at school?' Samantha asks.
'You wouldn't believe it,' says Anthony. 'I've never seen someone with such a strict routine. He always had his homework in on time, he was never late for anything. His bed was the only one in the dormitory that was made first thing in the morning. Everyone else looked so shabby in comparison.'
'He's the same now,' Samantha says, speaking as if Daniel is not present. 'He makes me feel guilty for all the mess I leave around in the house.'
'I do not,' Daniel says. 'I never say anything.'
Samantha smiles, rests her hand on his knee. 'I know, darling, but sometimes silence speaks volumes.' She turns back to Anthony. 'Anyway, so I started noticing him more and more and I was thinking to myself, 'He's very handsome, must be very intelligent.' She grins. 'I looked at his library account to see what kinds of books he was reading. It was mainly medical stuff, journals and that sort of thing. But there were some of the classics, too, and I love reading, so I knew we had something in common from the beginning.
'You never told me that,' Daniel says.
'You never asked. Besides, I've got to have some secrets, haven't I? Anyway, it wasn't for a while that we started talking. You were always really quiet when you came to the counter, weren't you?'
'It was a library,' says Daniel.
'Oh, you know what I mean,' Samantha shakes her head. 'In the end, it was me that broke the ice, and for ages we just used to talk about the weather, about exams, things like that. That's when I realised he was going to be graduating that year, and so I thought to myself, 'If you don't do something soon, Samantha, he'll be gone,' but I'm a bit old-fashioned in some ways I suppose, and I wanted him to ask me out.'
'And did he?'
Samantha laughs. 'No. I ended up slipping a note into one of the books he borrowed.'
'Romantic.'
'I like to think so. I wrote, 'I think we would get on very well. If you would like to join me for coffee tomorrow, I will be in the cafe at twelve o'clock.'
'So that was the start of a fine romance?'
Samantha looks to Daniel, then back at Anthony and shakes her head.
'He didn't come,' she says. 'I was gutted.'
'I'm sure Anthony doesn't need to hear all of this,' says Daniel.
For every word that Samantha speaks, he feels his privacy being shattered. He doesn't want Anthony to hear this story; he doesn't want him to hear anything about his life now.
'No, no,' Anthony says, leaning forward. 'I'm interested. I always like this kind of thing.'
'So anyway,' Samantha continues. 'I went into the library the next day and there he was. When he left, I asked him, 'Did you get my note?' And he said, 'Yes. Thank you. I'm sorry I couldn't come. I was revising. I've an exam tomorrow.' I asked if he wanted to meet for a coffee after his exam and he said that sounded good, could I meet him outside of the [exam room] at four o'clock? And I did. The rest, as they say, is history. We were married within a year, weren't we? Everyone thought we were rushing things, but when it feels right, you don't want to wait, do you?'
'No,' says Anthony. He looks to Daniel. 'You only get one chance with some things.'
Daniel glances at his watch.
'I really think we should get going now,' he says to Samantha.
'Alright, alright,' she says as she stands up. She turns to Anthony. 'I know it's short notice, but what are you doing tonight?'
Daniel freezes. 'I'm sure he has plans.'
'No, I'm not really doing anything. Saturday night TV, maybe a takeaway.'
'Well, would you like to come over for dinner?' Samantha asks.
'Are you sure?'
'It would be a pleasure,' says Samantha. 'Wouldn't it, Daniel.'
Daniel nods quickly. 'But if you can't make it, we understand. Like Samantha says, it's short notice.'
'I'd love to,' Anthony says. 'Do I need to bring anything?'
'No, no,' Samantha says as she searches in her handbag for a pen to write down their address. 'Just yourself.'

Later, Daniel and Samantha step onto the tube and sit opposite one another in an empty carriage. There are McDonald wrappers and packaging on the floor and someone has scrawled 'Fuck You' over one of the adverts for international call cards.
Samantha folds her cardigan in her lap and crosses her legs.
'Well, Anthony was lovely,' she says. 'I can't believe you hadn't seen each other for so long.'
'And I can't believe you asked him to dinner.'
'What do you mean?'
'You've only just met him.'
'He's an old friend of yours.'
''Old' being the operative word.'
'Well, you weren't about to make an effort, were you?'
'Why would I? Like you said, I haven't seen him for twenty years.'
Samantha shakes her head. 'Honestly, Daniel, sometimes I wonder if there's a sociable bone in your body.'
'I just have nothing to say to him now. I doubt we've got anything in common anymore.'
'How would you know? You didn't ask him one question. You were just giving one word answers, 'Yes, no, maybe.' He was being so friendly to you and you were-, well you were rude if you ask me.'
'He probably didn't notice. You were friendly enough for both of us.'
'So you're jealous?' Samantha says, widening her eyes. 'That's what this is about, is it? Your jealous because I was being friendly?'
The tube slows down, the doors open and a Japanese couple step into the carriage. They sit beside Daniel, all smiles, cameras hanging around their necks.
'Of course I'm not jealous,' Daniel whispers. 'Don't be so ridiculous.'
'So what's the problem? He's going to be living just around the corner. You heard him, he doesn't know anyone in the area. It'll be nice for him to get to know us, to be introduced to Tom and Janine, too.'
'I just wish you'd checked with me first.'
'Since when have I needed your permission to do anything?'
'I'm not saying you needed permission, I'm just-,'
'Then what are you saying, Daniel,' Samantha asks, swinging her foot back and forth. 'What are you saying? That we should have just ignored him?'
'Not ignored him, but-,'
'Just overlooked the fact that he's moved into the area where we live?' Samantha lets out a sigh. 'I don't know what you're so worried about, you know? I'm sure he's not about to spill stories about you in school. And how bad can they be, anyway?'
'I'm not worried.'
'Because, as you said to me earlier, the past is the past. It doesn't matter anymore.'
'I just said, I'm not worried.'
They carry on the journey in silence and, when he's not looking, Samantha tries to read Daniel's expression.
Sliding her wedding ring up and down her finger, she remembers the reunion she went to last year, how she'd come face to face with Katrina Dorney for the first time in eighteen years.
For the week leading up to the reunion, Samantha had recalled various incidents in classrooms and corridors, even heard Katrina's voice in her sleep.
'You think you're too good for the estate,' Katrina would shout in her face in the school corridors, classrooms and playground. 'Keen beanpole bitch. You can get the grades, but you won't get a boyfriend. Adam said you're frigid, that you wouldn't even kiss him. Stupid bitch. You think you're so good, but you're shit. Everyone knows you're shit. You think you're better than everyone else 'cos you read books, but you're the one who lives in a shitty council estate. You're the one whose own dad walked out on you. I've seen your mum. She's a fucking mess, an alcoholic mess. That's in your genes. That's going to be you, you know that don't you? You might get the grades, but you'll turn out just like her.'
At the time, the bullying felt constant, relentless. Everyday she'd come into school and try to stay out of Katrina's way. She'd not drink anything all day to avoid having to go to the girls toilet and be confronted coming out of a cubicle; she'd sit in the library with her head in a book, even in the summer when everyone else was on the field and the ice cream van was parked in the playground. But wherever she was, she would be found and another torrent of abuse would begin.
For a while, her studying suffered, but every evening when she came home to her mother in their two bedroom council flat, she knew that she had to keep going, that she had to pass her exams or this could become her life: a single mother drinking to drown the hate for a man no longer around, wishing she'd done something, everything, differently; resenting the two girls she brought into the world.
When the reunion finally came around and Daniel dropped Samantha at the restaurant, she'd walked to the doors with her heart in her throat. What if it was all going to happen again? She'd asked herself. What if, when she walked to the bar, the shouting, the taunts, the insults were thrown at her once more?
But of course, when she walked in, she was met by women, smiling women, a million miles from the cruel girls of her school years. And she hadn't even recognised Katrina Dorney until she looked down at her name badge.
'Hi Samantha,' Katrina had said, her voice still nasally, her breath still stale with cigarettes. 'Look at you. You look amazing.'
'Thank you,' she'd replied. 'What are you doing nowadays?'
They'd started to talk about how Katrina had gone on to become a speech therapist, Samantha a literary agent, how expensive it was to buy a house nowadays, and how can anyone afford to get onto the property ladder?
'By the way,' Katrina said as conversation ran dry. 'I'm sorry for being such a bitch at school. I really am. I've made a few apologies already this evening, and I know I owe you one.'
This took Samantha by surprise, and she blushed, looking around to make sure no one was listening.
'That's okay,' she said. 'It's a long time ago now, isn't it?'
'It's no excuse, but I had a lot of stuff to deal with at the time.'
'You don't need to explain.'
'Maybe not. I just wanted to say that I'm sorry. I cringe when I think about what I was like back then.'
'People change, Katrina,' Samantha said. 'Honestly, please, don't worry. It's all in the past. I'm sure everyone's put all that behind them now, myself included.'
Perhaps, Samantha thinks as the tube shudders along, this is what Daniel meant earlier about people not wanting to be remembered for the person they were in the past. It's no surprise someone like Katrina wanted to shake the [memory] of what she was like from her classmates memory. But what is it that Daniel is trying to hide? She wonders. What part of himself does Anthony reminds him of?
Daniel listens to the couple beside him, their foreign words an audible blur that he can't understand. But at least there's sound, at least he isn't left to focus on the silence between he and Samantha. He looks at his wife sitting opposite him. She's turned in her seat, facing the direction in which they're travelling, her arms folded across her chest. She has no idea, he thinks. She has no idea of a whole part of his life. And if she knew, what would she say?
He thinks about meeting Anthony Gray earlier. He'd imagined the situation many times before, of course he had. He'd imagined bumping into him in a bar, a restaurant, here on the tube. He'd imagined passing him on an escalator in a department store, meeting his gaze in a library, bumping into him in a supermarket. He'd imagined 101 different scenarios, but in each, he, Daniel, had always imagined himself alone. He had never once imagined Samantha to be with him.
But what happened with Anthony is all in the past now, and that's where it should stay. Some things are better left forgotten. And this, this is definitely forgotten. Of course it is. He's married, he's happy, and any of those feelings he thought he had have long since died. They haven't surfaced since, have they? No, not once. Never. He's married, his wife is pregnant, and he has everything he wants. He has everything that some men will never have.
When the train comes to a stop, Daniel and Samantha stand up simultaneously and walk towards the doors that slide open.
As they step onto the empty platform, Daniel wraps his hand around Samantha's waist.
'I'm sorry,' he says.
'What for?'
'Everything.'
'I don't understand you sometimes, Daniel. I really don't.'
'I know.'
'What's going on?'
'Nothing.'
'Honestly?'
'I swear.' He looks in her eyes as the train slides past them, leaving them alone in the station. 'I love you, you know that, don't you?'
'I know. And I love you. I just don't understand-,'
'I love you more than anything. More I love myself.'
'Don't say that.'
'But it's true.'
'But don't say it.'
Daniel leans forward, takes Samantha in his arms and kisses her, feels her hair in his fingers, smells the faint trace of her perfume. In his arms he is holding a woman with whom he's spent [however many years] with. All of this is familiar, all of this is known and loved.