Some things are worth the wait

Another one of my Writers' Circle exercises.  I wasn't sure where to go with this prompt, and opted for a bit of romance...

As the underground train jerked into movement, Louise looked around.  She loved people watching on the underground.  There were so many interesting people and all of them had their heads down, studiously ignoring all the other passengers and making absolutely sure not to make eye contact.  She would guess who they might be and where they were going.  Her eye passed over some professional types on their way home from the office with their eyes glued to their kindle or book and alighted on a group of teenagers talking loudly about their plans for the evening and their friends.  After shamelessly listening in to their conversation for a few minutes they got off and headed for the cinema.  Her eyes wandered through the carriage to the busker, he’d finished his tune on the clarinet, and was moving among the other passengers rattling a few coins in a cup.  Hang on a minute… Her attention fixed on the man who had just dropped a couple of coins into the busker’s cup.  Did she know him?  Her eyes fixed on him and she tried to place the face.  In the six years she had lived in London and travelled the tube she had never yet come across somebody she actually  knew, but several times had almost thought she had.  Once, early on, she’d been convinced that she saw her husband, and then remembered that Derek had moved to Spain with Philippa.  It had never been a happy marriage, just a quick fix because she’d got pregnant. Once Ed had grown up and left home, Derek told her that he had fallen in love with their next door neighbour and she had let him go with few regrets and gone to London where she could more easily pursue a career that had been on hold throughout her marriage.  

photo from The Evening Standard

This man on the train was handsome in a Judge-John-Deed way, his grey hair suiting his brown eyes.  The busker had said something funny at that end of the carriage and the eyes crinkled into a smile.  She glanced at her reflection in the train window.  Her own face showed a few wrinkles, and grey roots were visible in her blonde bob.  She couldn’t shake the feeling that she recognised him from somewhere and kept glancing at him thoughtfully until she reached her stop. 

“Louise?” the deep voice carried down the platform from behind her.  She turned.  It was the man she’d been trying to place so she did know him, but still couldn’t quite place where.

He came towards her, a half smile playing on his lips and dancing in his eyes.  “Well of all the people to run into.”

“I know I know you,” Louise began to confess,

“But you don’t know where from,” he finished with a gleeful smile.  “Think back 34 years.  You promised you’d love me forever.”  Colour drained from Louise’s face and then flushed back deepest crimson.

“Tom! I can’t believe I didn’t recognise you.”  She was grinning broadly now.  “I was watching you on the train.  I thought I knew you from somewhere but couldn’t be sure.”  She certainly knew him now.  She and Tom had declared undying love for one another aged 18.  They had almost got engaged but both sets of parents had stepped in and told them they were too young.  They went their separate ways to University and while they tried to maintain a long-distance relationship, they were young and had drifted apart.  Tom’s parents had moved away too, so they didn’t even meet in the holidays.  Over the years Louise had sometimes thought of Tom and wondered where he had ended up and what had happened to him.

They caught up over coffee.  Tom was a lawyer, as he always dreamed he would be, and had married and had three daughters.  Louise was saddened to hear that his wife had died of cancer five years earlier.  She told him about Ed, and about Derek and Philippa.  They arranged to meet the next day and headed home.  The next day’s meeting turned into another date set, and then another and another.  Three months later as they exchanged vows in a registry office, Tom and Louise looked at one another with a smile and both said together, “Some things are worth the wait.”

What would you write about with the prompt, "Some things are worth the wait?"