Not just the notebook—but the moment. The chance. It had all hinged on those few seconds after I slid the little blue notebook across the cold concrete floor. A silent offering. A test. It was a long shot, I knew, but I had to try something. Anything.

There was the smallest flicker of trust, or… something like it, in her eyes as she looked from the notebook to me. I’d been half-expecting her to erupt. To launch herself at me, screaming. To claw at my face, spit venomous words, call me the monster I’d become in her nightmares.

But she didn’t.

She nodded. A slow, almost imperceptible movement, but a nod nonetheless. My breath caught in my throat.

I watched her fingers close around the pen I’d offered with the notebook. Her hand trembled a little, a fragile bird caught in a storm. For a second, a terrifying second, I thought she might use it on me. Turn the instrument of communication into a weapon of defiance.

But she didn’t. She just sat there—quiet, exhausted, the fight drained from her—and held onto it like it was a talisman. Like she was seriously thinking. Like she was actually considering what I’d asked her to do.

God, it was progress. Monumental progress. A tiny seed planted in barren ground.

I didn’t smile until I was halfway up the stairs, out of her line of sight. I didn’t trust myself to react in front of her. My face felt stretched, tight with suppressed emotion. I couldn’t risk spooking her again, not after yesterday’s… outburst. She was fragile. Like a deer stuck in a wire fence—panicked, eyes wide with terror, potentially dangerous if cornered—but breathtakingly beautiful in that stillness. In that pain.

I shut the heavy basement door, the metallic clang echoing in the stairwell. I locked it gently, as quietly as possible, and leaned against the cold, damp wall, letting out a shaky breath. My heart was pounding, hammering against my ribs, but not with fear. This was something else. This was hope. Real, tangible hope you could almost taste. A crack in the wall between us, a sliver of light in the suffocating darkness.

She was starting to see. To understand. To remember.

I went to the table by the window in my sparsely furnished room—my little “study,” as I liked to think of it, though it was hardly impressive—and opened the book I’d been religiously taking notes in. It was dog-eared and underlined to hell, pages falling out, the spine cracked from constant use. Rebuilding Broken Trust: A Guide to Connection and Compassion. Chapter Seven: “Small Openings.”

I underlined that part again with unnecessary force. Three times.

When your partner shows a willingness to engage, no matter how small—listen. Support. Never overreact. The words swam before my eyes, a mantra to repeat.

I was trying. I was. I was giving this everything I had.

This wasn’t about punishment. It never was, no matter how it might have seemed to her. The thought of her believing that twisted my gut.

It was about us. About fixing what had been broken. About getting back to the place we were supposed to be.

I ran my fingers over the Polaroids stacked neatly beside the book. Each one a stolen moment, a glimpse of her life before everything. Most were of her walking home from work, smiling at nothing in particular, laughing on the phone with a friend. Before everything. Before the city stole her and slowly, subtly, changed her. Turned her into someone cold and forgetful. Someone who looked through me like I wasn’t even there.

But today… today she saw me. I know she did. I saw it in her eyes, a flicker of recognition, a spark of something real.

Maybe she just needed a nudge. Time. Quiet. A safe space away from all the noise, the pressures, the lies and the distractions that had come between us.

She was writing now, I imagined. Maybe a letter, pouring out her anger and confusion. Maybe a memory, dredging up the good times from the depths of her mind. Something honest, at least. Raw and unfiltered. That’s all I’d ever wanted. Honesty. Connection. A return to the intimacy we’d lost.

I imagined her curled over the pages, her brow furrowed in concentration, remembering the way I used to wait for her outside science class after school. The way I gave her my favorite hoodie that day she got caught in the sudden summer rain, even though I was freezing myself. She smiled then. A genuine, unforced smile that lit up her whole face. She did. I remembered the crinkle around her eyes.

I held onto that smile like a lifeline, a reminder of what we had, what we could have again.

I moved to the small monitor tucked behind the bookshelf, half-hidden from view. It wasn’t much—just a little old security camera I’d rigged in the basement corner. Not for spying, I told myself. Just for safety. To make sure she didn’t hurt herself. Or try something… irrational. Something desperate.

I turned the screen on, my heart pounding again, this time with a knot of anxiety in my stomach. Half-afraid I’d see her tearing the notebook to shreds, her face contorted with rage. Half-afraid I’d ruined everything.

But no—there she was. Sitting on the edge of the narrow cot, head bowed, her long dark hair falling around her face like a curtain. Her hand was moving, the pen scratching against the paper in a rhythmic, almost soothing sound.

Writing. Actually writing.

I pressed a hand over my mouth to stifle the sound that threatened to escape. A laugh, bubbling up from the depths of my chest. I almost laughed, but I caught myself just in time. I couldn’t afford to make any noise.

It was working. It was actually working. My experiment wasn't failing.

She was starting to remember. Starting to soften. The ice around her heart was beginning to melt, drop by drop.

That meant I could plan the next step. The next careful, calculated move in this delicate dance.

Not yet. Not all at once. Baby steps. One at a time. But soon—soon I’d let her out of the basement. Just for a little while. Just to prove I trusted her too. To show her that this wasn't a prison, but a sanctuary.

That’s how you rebuild something real. Something lasting.

Brick by brick.

She would forgive me eventually. I knew it in my heart. I had to believe it.

After all, I forgave her.