Brett and Garrett reunite and fall in love

Brett Bohlinger and Garrett Taylor reunite after a string of brief, seemingly disconnected encounters, and recognition turns the near-misses into the beginning of a romance. Their meeting links Brett’s work and personal life to the stranger she remembers as the Burberry man; a later declaration and kiss make explicit that each has been carrying an attraction the other did not know about.

Recognition Across Earlier Encounters

The reunion begins with Garrett greeting Austin, who looks up at him and then breaks into a grin. When he turns to Brett, his expression moves from confusion to quiet recognition. He remembers her as the woman he used to run into: he once spilled coffee on her coat outside her apartment building, and he saw her while jogging. He also recalls seeing her at Chicago station, where she had missed her train, and shakes his head as if embarrassed by the memory. The encounters have accumulated for him too, but he does not assume Brett remembers them.

Brett does remember. Her heart beats in her temples, and she is tempted to confess that she had wanted to catch his train, but answers only, “I remember.” When Garrett asks if she does, she confirms it. This exchange holds back the explanation that will later give the missed train its romantic significance: for now, the two are testing whether they share the same memory of what might otherwise seem like coincidence.

Garrett introduces himself by name, offering Brett his hand. She recognizes him as Dr. Taylor, the psychiatrist, and the professional identity brings the separate impressions together. He is also the Burberry man: not the old man Brett had apparently imagined, but a man in his forties with brown eyes flecked with gold, a slightly crooked nose, and a visible scar along his jaw. The revelation produces a physical rush—Brett laughs and takes his hand—before she gives him her own name. Garrett’s eyes widen when he realizes who she is.

The Missed Call and the Unfinished Sentence

Garrett tells Brett that he has thought about her often and wanted to call, but his explanation trails off. His unfinished sentence preserves an uncertainty rather than resolving it: the earlier encounters have mattered to him, yet he has not acted on that feeling. The reunion therefore turns on recognition and a possibility that has remained open, not on a relationship already established between them.

The later encounter at Brett’s mother’s house makes that possibility unmistakable. Garrett runs toward Brett, laughing, and raises his umbrella to shelter her, drawing close enough for her to see a fresh shaving nick on his chin. He holds out weatherworn flowers and says he canceled his plans—not merely postponed them or taken a rain check, but canceled them permanently. The flowers and umbrella make his arrival concrete; his words make the choice behind it explicit.

Garrett explains that he will not let another meeting pass them by. He has missed the funny teacher he laughed with and came to know by telephone, and he wants to tell her now that he had a huge crush on the beautiful girl he saw on the El, at the apartment building, and on the jogging path. The confession joins two strands of Brett’s life: the teacher Garrett knows through their conversations and the woman he had noticed during their chance encounters. His account does not erase the missed opportunities; it gives them a shared meaning.

The Choice to Meet, and to Stay

Garrett tells Brett that the two impressions of her merged when he met her that day, and that he came to her house because he could not bear the thought of waking to find his train had left while the woman of his dreams remained on the platform. The train image returns with its meaning reversed. Earlier, Brett had concealed that she wanted to catch his train; now she steps into his arms and tells him, “It was you I was hoping to catch,” not the train. Her answer confirms that the longing he has described is mutual.

Garrett lifts her chin and kisses her, long and slowly. When he tells her, “Consider me caught,” the phrase answers her confession and closes the train motif with a playful promise of presence. Their attraction has moved from remembered glances and missed chances into a direct, reciprocal choice: he has canceled his plans to come to her, and she has finally told him what she had wanted from the beginning.

They climb the steps to her mother’s house together, Brett holding the flowers in one hand and Garrett’s hand in the other beneath his black umbrella. At the door, Brett looks up at the sky as lightning cuts through the clouds. She recalls that her mother would have patted her hand and told her there would be another sky. That memory gives the scene a note of absence alongside its romantic fulfillment: Brett enters the house with Garrett, carrying both the new relationship and the language of comfort associated with her mother.