Undated

She almost left me more times that I care to know. I held on through desperation, through resignation, feeling only the hope that I was worth her love and she would not stray far enough to forget the way back to my arms. I felt codependent and weak. I felt fury that she was putting me through this, that she was so self-absorbed. I felt overwhelming love and compassion.

And I was right. Weeks ago, after coming the closest to our end, she realized the core of her issues and made her choice. The woman I had loved, the one I most recognized, returned. She wanted me to be a permanent part of her life again.

I want badly not to pull away, but I cannot say I don't feel this. It has been such a long struggle that I have had to subconsciously build up the structures of being single, for being without this woman I have been occupied loving for three years. Even being told that we have come out the other end, more or less, the scaffolding is still in place. I cannot order it taken down, it has to be disassembled and appropriated for other uses, gradually.

I see a girl on a social networking site and I realize for the first time that I notice her. I don't initiate further contact with her after my realization, I am not a jerk. But I don't want to notice her. I remember noticing women in my last relationship and I slightly hated myself for it. I don't want to hate myself again.

It isn't about the girl, I know. She may be specifically my type, at least from what little I allow myself to know of her, but she is more likely just someone in my proximity, someone whose leaving is not preordained. Someone who I don't have to fight to keep around.

The worst part is that Melanie is fixated on her senior project, as she should be. I cannot selfishly insist that she spend the whole of the weekend with me because I am regaining my security and trust. But I am and I don't want to spare her a moment. I would happily sit next to her in a library or lab and type, to be around her and feel her presence. She knows she can't get the work done she needs to with someone else there. She can disappear into her work, her rechecking of figures and preparation of samples.

With her around, there is no question of my priorities. Even Skyping would be sufficient, but her priorities are to science right now, until she has that diploma in her hand. After all I've gone through with her, taking a backseat to her schooling, she is insane if she thinks I won't attend her graduation.

I used to feel so secure in this relationship and I miss that. It isn't that I took her for granted - quite the opposite, I was in constant appreciation for the pull of her gravity. I do not deal well with uncertainty. I want to know where I stand in respect to her with perfect clarity. In words, if I could trust them enough, I know where I stand. But without a greater commitment, without gestures, I cannot believe them enough.

"This is the happiest I have been in months," Melanie says. I have waited so long to hear this, to know that my waiting has paid off. She had hurt and doubted, but the clouds have parted and the light of sanity has returned.

And I halfway want to cry. It has been weeks since she made her decision to stay with me and my trust in her is still building. I wanted it to be like a tide coming in, but the tide that rolls in also leaves again.

We'd had wonderful weekends together, cuddled together.

She says that I am one of the wisest people she knows, like a Zen master. I almost laugh because she is the one person who completely throws off my composure. I try to keep mindful, reacting to the peaks and eddies in her mood as I will wish I had rather than how my terror urges me to in the moment.

I can shrug off screaming delinquents but quake when her voice trembles once. No one else has ever made me run to a diner bathroom to bawl because of what I am going through with them. (Once to a car outside a Ruby Tuesday because of Emily's father's terminal cancer, to be fair, but those were less shameful tears.)

I know it is a matter of trust rebuilding, that I have to regain my footing and heal as much as she needs to sort things through.

Just because they say they're sorry, that the lesson has been learned, does not mean that forgiveness is immediate. Trust, once knocked down, especially when repeatedly thrown to the floor, cannot instantly spring up again. It needs to slowly grow, through small acts. The big ones are too easy to discount and turn from, but the constant force of love can build empires.

Thomm Quackenbush is an author and teacher in the Hudson Valley. He has published four novels in his Night's Dream series (We Shadows, Danse Macabre, Artificial Gods, and Flies to Wanton Boys). He has sold jewelry in Victorian England, confused children as a mad scientist, filed away more books than anyone has ever read, and tried to inspire the learning disabled and gifted. He is capable of crossing one eye, raising one eyebrow, and once accidentally groped a ghost. When not writing, he can be found biking, hiking the Adirondacks, grazing on snacks at art openings, and keeping a straight face when listening to people tell him they are in touch with 164 species of interstellar beings. He likes when you comment.