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Somewhere along the line we had grown. I couldn't say when this phenomenal development had happened but looking into his eyes I could see how life had changed him. We weren't the children we had been, so many years ago: fighting for the life we should have been given and hoping for even more than that.

I think part of me was glad I hardly knew that face: though it had once been so familiar to me. In growing we had both become very strong and we had achieved so many things: things that as kids, we would spend hours of the day and night talking about and wishing for. But he wasn't the boy I remembered anymore and it tore at my heart to realise that I probably wasn't the girl he remembered either. We had changed so much. And so much had changed.

In the heartbeat that our eyes met, all the years that we had been apart flashed in front of me and I felt all the emotion of the struggles and celebrations I had experienced. In his eyes I saw my emotions echoed and knew he felt the same. I knew then, that we should have shared those moments together. If we had been at each others side, things would be very different now and I would know the man that stood before me and he would know this woman standing before him.

It was so odd to realise that I couldn't have those moments back. I don't know what notion I had been deluding myself with but it hit me like a tonne of bricks as I comprehended that I had lost something. To spend those moments alone I had deprived myself of the joy even the hard times should have brought. What on earth had ever made me think I could do everything alone? Or should? That I was the only person who could be trusted? I had trusted him implicitly' once.

I held Daniel's gaze and smiled: hoping this simple gesture would convey the myriad of emotions I was feeling and wanted to share with him. The corners of his lips curled up into a half smile as he returned my effort and I crumbled in the warmth that it invoked. I wanted to fall into his arms and never leave them. For him to hold me and to tell me that things would be okay now. He would protect me.

In the millisecond that it took me to decide I would go over to confront him; he turned away and returned to his conversation with the two other delegates standing in front him. My heart broke.