The Guardian - Life & Style • Feb. 11, 2026, 8 a.m.

I was quite spoiled and he could be a little dour. But on that terrible day, when he was just two blocks away when the South Tower exploded, I realised he was all I wanted I met Chris in the college bar in 1997.

I was part of a group of visiting American students visiting the University of Oxford – we kept ourselves to ourselves in the first few weeks of term – and he leaned over from the next table to talk to me. I saw his one-dimpled smile and the cocky way he tipped his chair back on two legs and I thought: “Uh-oh, here’s trouble.” Despite the fact that I was only at Oxford for one term, we quickly became a couple – and stayed together.

When he finished university and started working in London, I returned to North Carolina to finish my English degree. We visited each other when we could.

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