Wayne,

If you're reading this letter, then you know I've transferred. I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier. It would've made things hard, for both of us. I'm sorry I left. I know I've failed as your partner. But you've got to understand that it isn't about you, it's about me. It's about self preservation, and it's about being able to be alive. You know better than anyone else just how cold and dead it was in Tennessee, even if the weather was good and everyone was bouncing around. Things are dead there, on the inside where it can't be fixed. And I stuck it out for you, as best as I could.

I loved you, Wayne. We clicked the second I saw you. You've always been so easy to talk to, like I've known you all along even though we just met, and I know you felt the same. You understood me like nobody else did. I appreciate that. For a city boy, you take to country girls awfully well. But that's the problem, isn't it? I took to you right away, and you took to me, but you never let me in. I let you in my heart, Wayne, but you never let anyone into yours. You locked yourself down, devoted yourself to work. I know you've got your heart in the right place. I know you never meant nothing by it. Yet somehow you lost me, your parents, your friends. Nobody could reach you.

You're still frozen, even though it's spring. You're still cold and distant. You're too good to break and too determined to budge. I have faith in you. I know you'll beat the Sheriff and get everything back on track. But I won't be there to see it.

Wayne, they made my life hell. They took away my friends. Nobody will talk to me, from Justine May to Rae Ann. Even my oldest friends won't give me the time of day to save my life. What the sam hill did you think that did to me? I was all alone except for you. I felt so alone, as on my own as a trailer during a hurricane. You were supposed to be there for me. You weren't. You never were. In the middle of it all, you wouldn't stop looking for answers nobody wanted. And I tried hard as heck to be there for you. I loved you. I never connected so strongly to someone in my life, so even when everyone stopped talking to me like I was jinxed, I was there for you. I had your back. Then they took away my favorite classes, and I saw you just didn't understand.

You don't get it, do you? You don't understand what art and poetry mean to a girl like me. You're so cold from all the yelling and screaming coming at you that you don't know what expression means. Those classes were the world to me, the grits to my breakfast and the sauce to my cracklin. Without them, my days were off. Yet you just didn't get it. I know you tried. I know you wanted to. Maybe you wanted to love me, too, the way that the wind loves hats: you reached for me and just couldn't hold on. I tried so hard to tell you everything that I was going through, truly I did. But it was no use. You were too far gone.

I hope you know I loved you while it lasted. I loved our mornings sharing gravy and biscuits in the cafeteria, our evenings spent watching lightning bugs and talking about everything and nothing. I loved it when you'd run around being amazed at things like snake grass and crickets, because then I got to be the expert. I loved sitting back and letting you talk, listening to your sweet city boy voice. And underneath it all I'm sure you're sweet as can be, gentle and loving and all those things this hard town likes to rob from people. This is a factory town, where everyone's mama and pop either works in a factory, a mine or bar. Everybody was a fighter or a singer or a dreamer. Then you came in and you were alive, like the river or the wind, full of everything I was missing. I loved you, when you were you. Except now you're not the Wayne I first met, the Wayne I loved when it was still fall.

I don't know if you're gonna be okay. I hope so, as I could neverly rightly hate you. I just can't stay on a sinking ship anymore. Three patrollers have gone down this year. Good people, gentle people, smart people. I've seen the spiral into depression and the empty way they shuffle about, like zombies. I don't want to die inside, Wayne. I don't want to become another victim of the system, down in the dumps and hopeless, fighting battles I can't win. Maybe you're strong enough to keep this up forever. Maybe I'm too weak to on the Saftey Patrol. I'm a country girl, Wayne. I go to mini marts where the cashiers ask about my momma and I make my own clothes from fabric stores where the managers know my name and whether I like cotton or cotton poplin. I'm not cut out to leave. I ain't doing it because I hate you, or the patrol, or even the Sheriff. I'm doing it because I need to save myself.

I need to keep myself alive, alive like you used to be, dreamy and happy and always fighting the good fight. It's breaking my heart to leave here, to leave everyone in your hands, but I know you can do it. I know you can take the Sheriff down someday, make the world as right as you want it to be. And I'll praise you to heaven when you do. You can do anything. You took a poor little thief like me and made me into a good girl. God knows you deserved a better partner. You still do. But for everything you've done for me, I can't try anymore for you. I want to live, Wayne. Not just be alive but actually, truly live. I'll leave the big fights to you, since you're determined to the death to fight them. You can take on the big baddies and never give it up no matter what the odds. I loved you for it.

Loved. Don't love you anymore, I reckon. Not since I've seen how far gone you are. I worry about you sometimes. You think no one sees why you wear long sleeves even in summer and never go swimming no more? I'm not dumb, Wayne. You say your partner is coming for break? Well, I'll pray to God he snaps you out of this. I'm really afraid for you. Even if I'm not in love with you, it doesn't mean I don't care about you. You'll always be special to me, no matter what. If you ever need me, you know you can call me up anytime. Just talk to my parents. I'm here for you. I just don't feel for you anymore, knowing you can't feel anything back. You're like a brother to me, though, and you always will be.

If you ever get it all together, Wayne, maybe one day you can look me up. Go to the one room schoolhouse off of Lake Yankee and ask for Tracey Marie. I'll be there, and I'll listen. That's all that I can do now. Maybe it was all I could ever do.

Sincerely and truly,

Emily