Always assuming the worst
but your going on nonetheless
and there's nothing to cushion your heart
lead full

Nikolas

She had no idea what it was like in here.

Emily. My wife. The woman I love. The woman I've loved in lifetimes before and will love for lifetimes to come. The one who saves my life, and who lifts me up, and keeps my heart and soul. No matter how much I love her, she doesn't know what it's like here. And she's under enough pressure right now. She doesn't need me leaning on her anymore than I already do.

If it weren't for her, I would have given up long ago. Succumbed to the prison life and let go of any hope of ever getting out. But outside the grey endless walls, on the other side of the misery and the cells, there was a life waiting for me.

Emily.

She's what gets me up in the morning. She's the reason that I eat what's put in front of me and do my chores like a good little inmate. I don't care about the beatings anymore. I sit through them, knowing that one day, after it's done, I'll be with Emily again.

I read and re-read her letters every night. Every single one of them. Keeping true to her promise, she writes me every day. I know every curve in her y's. I know the way her i's slant to the right, and her t's point upwards.

She's the only one keeping me alive.

So once everyone's asleep, I trace the outline of her I love you and without moving a muscle, I finally allow myself to cry.

Emily

He had no idea what was going on out here.

I had to be strong. I couldn't allow myself to fall, to crash, to come undone right now. No matter how badly I was hurting, he was hurting a hundred times worse. He was everything to me, and when he hurt, I hurt too. The most important thing to me was his happiness. I could put my own wants on the backburner for that. Just ask any woman who's ever been in love. She'll tell you that she would do the exact same thing, because when you love someone the way I love him, nothing else matters.

I hated keeping a secret from him. I hated it with all my heart. There was a part of me that was ready to just pick up the phone and spill my guts. The part of me that needed him more than anything else, the part that needed him just to hold me when I cried, if I could cry.

Instead, I tried to be the strong one and fell apart.

The guilt of not only keeping this from him, but of not being the strong one. When he needed me, I couldn't be there for him. I couldn't give him what he wanted. Instead, I pushed him away, and I hurt him more.

And in that moment, I hated Connor Bishop more than anything else.

Letters from further away
keep pulling me close to home
and I know that you hope for
longer good-byes
embracing for forever
and falling in your eyes

Nikolas

Maybe it was my imagination, but Emily seemed to keep getting more distant from me.

It wasn't something that happened progressively. Maybe it was, but I was too wrapped up in my own shit to notice it. But all of a sudden, after Connor was killed, she was gone from me.

Her letters were different, and he voice wasn't the same. Mostly, her eyes, her beautiful eyes that I could always count on to light up when I saw her, weren't lighting up anymore. Instead, they looked so sad.

And I was the one who made her sad.

I kept hurting her, more and more, but I couldn't bring myself to let her go and let her be happy. Whenever another letter came, everything around me fell away, and I was back home, in bed beside her. Things got harder, and I started feeling less, but just when I was ready to slip, Emily pulled me back.

Saying goodbye to her after our visits was the hardest part of all. I wanted to cry, and scream, and die, since I knew I wouldn't be seeing her soon enough. I tried to hold her tighter, longer, making it last forever.

And I had finally gone too far, where I was pushing her away. And she proved that point when she went and did push me away.

I was the weight on her. I was causing her to sink. I was slowly killing her spirit, her lovingness, her tenderness.

Her.

Emily

I felt like a bigger fraud every night when I sat down to write my letter to Nikolas.

In a certain light, it could all have been very romantic. Me, sitting by candlelight, handwriting love letter to my love so far away. I could be like one of those women in the war, with curls and dresses and an antique desk, gazing lovingly at a picture of my love in his uniform, hoping that he would be returning to me as soon as he could.

Then again, back then, women who betrayed their husbands and who were raped by a man they thought was safe were cast out of society, weren't they?

I wrote him of hope and promise. The possibility of Lucky waking up, him being cleared, us being together once again. I wrote of love, our love, and our passion. A passion that I feared I was too damaged to ever feel again.

Still, I wrote to him, carefully on my perfect stationary with my perfect handwriting. If everything around me was perfect, would he be able to forget that I was this messed up?

Continually failing these trials
but you stand by me nonetheless
and you won't let me sink
though I'm begging you

Nikolas

Maybe it was time to let go.

Time to let her go, to be free. To let her be happy and be loved. To let her have a normal life and to let her have someone to wake up beside each morning and to make love to each night. To let her make those eyes she made at me, full of complete love and trust and adoration.

"I want you to be happy," I whispered.

She looked up, her eyes brimming with tears. Tears that I had caused. "I want to be with you," she returned. "No one else is going to make me happy."

"Em," I managed before choking on my words. "You deserve better."

She broke down sobbing. When she looked up, she looked me straight in the eye. "No, I don't."

I walked closer to her and put my hand to her cheek, gently lifting her head. "You're an angel. I don't know how I ended up lucky enough to have you, but you should be with someone who can give you the life you deserve."

She shook her head furiously. "Why don't you get it Nikolas?"

"Get what?"

"I don't deserve anything."

"You deserve the world."

"No," she corrected, her whole body tensing. "I got what I deserved." She pulled away and in two strides was across the room, her hand to her mouth, her shoulders shaking. I knew she was crying again. It was my fault. Again.

I got what I deserved.

Those words echoed though my head, over and over. What I deserved. What I deserved. I had heard that before. Someone had said it before. I knew it. What I deserved.

Elizabeth.

Emily

Everything had fallen apart. I had broken down, fallen down, pulled him with me. I had hurt him, and he wanted out. I wanted him to be out too. He didn't deserve to have this dumped on him. Not when he had to deal with so much else. Not ever. He deserved so much more.

Suddenly, he was behind me. Slowly, softly. His hand was on my shoulder, and his face in my hair.

"Em," he whispered tenderly.

I didn't move my hands from my face, but turned around. He wrapped his arms around me, and didn't flinch when I tried to push him away, yelling that I didn't deserve him. He didn't flinch when I pounded on his chest.

"I'm sorry," I managed into his shoulder.

"Em," he whispered again. "Did. . . did Connor?"

"Time's up," a guard snapped from somewhere in the room. I looked up, and saw a menacing looking man standing in the middle of the room. We gently pulled away from each other.

Nicholas didn't put up a fight as the guard pulled is arms out and slapped the handcuffs on. His face remained stunned. I stood there, equally stunned. As I watched him go, I snapped out of my daze and chased after him.

"Wait!" I shouted. The guard stopped and turned.

"I love you," I told Nikolas softly.

He kissed the top of my head, my lips, and then rested his forehead against mine. "I love you too."

And without another word, they rounded the corner, and they were gone.

"Living in Your Letters" by Dashboard Confessional. All feedback is greatly appreciated!