It starts slowly and awkwardly. We speak in timid instant messages and e-mails, but it isn�t long before we�re conversing daily again. Old habits, old desires...they die so hard.

Once the requisite catching up is over, we�re talking like there�d never been a pause. As if the past seven months were just an intermission.

And so begins Act Two.

Gretchen begs over and over for permission to call me, but I am reluctant. I am afraid of getting close to her and I'm even more scared of letting her get close to me. She tells me that she still sees me everywhere. She thinks of me when she makes decisions, ponders how I would advise her.

She says she can see how much I�ve changed over the past year. More mature or something like that.

Rough living tends to wear you down.

When I ask her what�s wrong, she starts crying. She cries and says that she knows I�m asking because I care, and not because I�m just bored. I always cared, and that�s what made me so different.

So perfect.

You spend so much time being alone that one day you don't expect anything more of it. You accept your situation and believe that there isn't anyone else out there for you, so you might as well learn to live in solitude.

In that sense, it's absolutely terrifying to deviate from your natural state.

I've been alone ever since my father died.

It was over ten years before anyone expressed anything close to the kind of attention and love he was able to give me. Ten years without so much as a passing interest in my heart. Ten years without the simple benefit of loving human contact.

Three years ago, I convinced myself that I�d finally found a person who wanted to love me. A person who could smooth over all those old wounds and help me to be human again. But I conned myself, and whatever she saw was fleeting.

My restoration project would stand incomplete, a half-finished episode of �This Old Heart�.

My fear of Gretchen is derived entirely from her unconditional love. I know that without asking, she would give anything and everything she has to me. And because of that, she represents the ultimate sin of happiness.

For me happiness inspires more guilt than anything.

Eventually my comfort level increases, as does her persistence, and we begin talking regularly on the phone. With every word, I can sense her absolute adoration and her seemingly limitless desire for me.

I am flattered. I am warmed. I am terrified.

I don�t deal with affection so well. I have trouble investing myself in things that feel good because I�m programmed to expect their end. You can never fully enjoy anything if you are anticipating its demise.

So many conversations end with her crying because she isn't next to me. So many calls are soaked in agony because I can't see a way for us to be together, and I know it's killing her. What tortures her, automatically tortures me.

It seems that she breathes only in wishes these days, and all of them are for me. I have jumped from being completely alone in the world, to being the sun of another person�s universe.

The responsibility scares the hell out of me, and I wish I could discourage her devotion, but I lack the strength. I crave the attention and devotion she seems so willing to give me, but I feel such immense responsibility.

Eventually I plan a trip back home and set aside a few hours to see her in Baltimore. Knowing that she would obsess about it endlessly if I told her in advance, I spring it on her as a last-minute surprise.

A casual no-strings plutonic date. Two friends going to a movie together. Simple, easy, and fun.

She tries to play it casually, but I can feel the waves of nervous energy flowing through the phone lines.

I pick the film, she picks the location and time. The next morning I get in my car and speed up the Baltimore-Washington Parkway to her house. Along the way, I am delayed for a short minute as all the cars ahead suddenly seize to a halt.

The two motorcycle riders who were leading the pack are now suddenly missing.

Half a motorcycle lies in the road, the fork and front wheel inexplicably missing. A rider sits on the guardrail, his helmet still on and his foot dangling by a few tendons in a pulpy mess. There is no sign of the second motorcyclist, or his bike.

Several drivers pull over and run out to offer assistance. One motorist looks over the guardrail, into the ravine below and covers his face in frozen horror.

I navigate through the debris and continue up the parkway, omens be damned.

I pull up to her house and park. I�m fifteen minutes late, but I�ve got a pretty good excuse ready.

She meets me at the door and she's even more beautiful then I remembered.