"So excuse me, darlin',

while my heart explodes.

I'm in the cage I've chosen

'cause it feels like home."

- Needtobreathe, "Disaster Road"

Arthur wasted no time in contacting Mary; he left a note in the drop the next day. When she failed to meet him that evening at their oak tree, he tried to chalk it up to her inability to get away. He left notes in the drop each day for the next few days, becoming anxious. When he went to leave a note on the fourth day, every one of his recent notes fell out into his hand.

Anger, confusion, frustration, and fear flooded him all at once. He both dreaded and hoped that perhaps she was terribly ill or injured, rather than what his rational mind was telling him. He could feel her slipping away from him.

He immediately mounted his horse and set off for her family's ranch. When he got there, Mary's father immediately came out of the door, preventing him from accessing the front porch or going any further.

"What in the hell are you doing here?" her father slurred. It was immediately clear he'd been drinking, and too much this time.

"I've gotta see her," Arthur said.

"You've got some nerve! You just take yourself off my land, before I take you off," her father grumbled.

"Please—" Arthur began, thinking he'd need to try to communicate how desperate he was without explaining that he hadn't seen or heard from Mary in over two days, which was highly unusual, but just then Mary stepped through the front door.

"Arthur?" she said.

"Mary," he sighed when he saw her.

Her father stumbled back inside.

Arthur continued, "I thought you might be hurt or—"

"You shouldn't be here," she said quietly but firmly.

The similarity of her words to her father's caught him off guard, and his brows knitted together as he looked at her with confused, pleading eyes.

She blinked and frowned, but held his gaze. When she spoke again, her voice was slightly shaky. "Please. Leave."

Arthur's jaw fell as he studied her, trying to understand. Mary mouthed the words at the drop and nodded to him.

Right then her father came stomping through the front door with his shotgun in hand. Arthur raised his open hands.

"You get the hell off my property!" her father shouted. He leveled his stare at him. "If I ever see you back here, I'll blow your goddamn head clean away! See if I don't!"

Arthur clenched his jaw and slowly backed away.

"I'm sorry I've been hard to pin down," she said to Arthur when they were standing alone in the woods. "You deserve answers."

"You betchyer daddy's shot glass I do," he said. "Mary, you let me worry the most horrible things!"

"I know! I'm so sorry! It's just…daddy's been so volatile lately, and...with your admission the other day, I've been…thinking."

"Oh yeah? What about? You know that never got anyone any good," he said, trying to lighten the mood. But the look in her eyes told him his efforts hadn't changed anything. Or everything had changed. For once, he couldn't tell what she was thinking by her eyes. He needed her to open her damn mouth. He felt his stomach go queasy. "Mary, you're scarin' me here."

"Arthur..." she groaned. "I haven't been able to stop thinking about this."

"About what, damnit! Out with it!"

"About us! About you and me! About how this is possibly going to work!"

It was exactly what he didn't want to hear. "Wha…what are you saying? You sayin' you don't wanna marry me no more?"

"I'm saying…" She looked like she was about to vomit. "Ugh, I'm sayin'… I had no idea you could commit such heinous and brutal atrocities, Arthur! I didn't realize you had it in you. I knew you to be a kind man, a good man."

"And what if I'm not the man you thought I was? What if I'm not a good man? What of your love then? Is it truly strong and steadfast? Or is it flimsy, rather?"

"It's not that simple, Arthur!"

"And it's not that difficult, is it? To be as good as you? I'm not you, Mary."

She frowned. "Stop mocking me, Arthur. I never claimed to be high and mighty. And it wouldn't take much for you to change."

"It does when you've lived the way I have, for as long as I have."

"But don't you see? You already have a good heart. You just have influences in your life that are taking you down a wrong path, a cold and malicious path. All I'm asking is that you choose right. And I'll be here when you do, but not before."

He was stunned. "You can't ask me to give up everything I know, the people who raised me, my family."

"I can, and I am," she said sternly.

He waved his hands in exasperation. "Can we—" he sighed, shaking his head. "Look, can we just go back to where we started? Please?"

"Arthur," she sighed. "I wish I could go back and un-learn what I know, but I can't. We're here. You'll always be my friend. I know you've wanted marriage as much as I do. But marriage is not just fanciful feelings and making love," she said. "It's walking through life together, through the good and the bad, the rough and the joyful seasons. It's committing yourself to one another, wholly and completely."

"I know that," he said indignantly. "I want everything you just said and more. I never planned on this. I never planned on marryin' anybody. But then you came along, Mary, and you—you just… This is a good thing, Mary. This is good love. This is the kind of thing that only happens to a person once in their lifetime. I've been around long enough to recognize it when I see it."

"Oh, Arthur. We just…we never gave a thought to how this would work."

"Slow down. Now, hear me out. Holding your hand when you're ill," he said taking her hand and looking into her eyes, "protecting and providing for someone who loves me just as much as I love her, a chance to grow old together, a chance to watch our children and grandchildren grow. For me, that only works with you." His desperation began to show as he gestured firmly with his hands. "That only happens, in my life, with you. Do you understand? Don't take that away from me."

"But you want both, and it doesn't work that way, Arthur."

"Well, you want everything to fit in a nice, neat box, and it don't work that way neither."

She sighed. "You can't live the way you do and have a family." She looked at him as he looked away. "How are we going to sustain a marriage while we only see each other once every several days, if that? How are we going to raise children if most of the time you're off god knows where, doing god knows what? Coming back to them after having your hands in some poor innocent's blood? I won't have it, Arthur."

"Well, obviously you'd come live on the road with me," he said.

She froze. "That's where you're wrong," she said firmly. "I will never support your way of life. I will never take part in what you do."

"Come on, Mary, you won't have to," he said. "There's women in the gang who don't hurt people; they just steal a little here and there to support themselves." He eyed her as he said quietly, "You've already done that once, I believe." He lifted his chin and peered down at her. His voice became distant and heavy as he said, "I won't hold it against you."

The cool breeziness of his words flew like a mist down her back. How quickly he had forgotten the reason she'd done it. She was beginning to see how callous and unforgiving Arthur could be.

"You're missing my point," she said. "Everything I've said is to say that I cannot be the wife to…" She caught sight of his clenching jaw. "I cannot stand by while you ruin, destroy, and take lives. Much less be your wife while you do it. I refuse."

"Oh, you and your precious morals, Mary! Ain't everything in the world so black and white! Ain't a pretty truth, but it's the truth, just as sure as I'm standing here! From the first moment I can remember, I've been doing what it takes to survive. Ain't had the milk of mother's kindness to guide me! Or maybe it'd be better for everyone if I never had been born! 'S that what you'd prefer?"

"No, no! Of course not, Arthur! Don't make me out to be a villain! I never said such a thing!" She stepped closer and gently took his face in her hands. "Your life is very, very precious to me, Arthur. That will never change."

She searched his eyes, looking for some semblance of the sorrow she felt, rather than his fiery anger. She looked down and shut her eyes tight, trying to even her breathing, but it was no use. She'd have to say it through the tears. She looked back up at him, and her lips trembled as she said slowly, "Oh, Arthur. You're forcing me to choose between the heartbreak of living with what might've been, and the heartbreak of a murdering husband." Her tears came in unrelenting torrents now. "With such choices, what decision do you expect me to make?" She sniffed and shook her head, taking a step back from him and letting her hands fall to her sides. "I think it would be best for us both if…if our engagement were quietly forgotten."

"No," he whispered through a ragged breath, balling his fist. "No, see, I can't just do that. I can't forget."

"Arthur, please!" she cried. "This is not easy for me. As long as I live, I will love you, Arthur." She reached out a hand to him. "That's what hurts most—"

"Don't," he snapped, "touch me. Don't you touch me."

She blinked, and her eyes went wide at the frightening realization of just how wounded and angry he was. He looked away and shook his head; and she watched as he seethed, his jaw clenching. When he turned back to her, he had a thicker rim of tears at the bottom of his eyes than she'd ever seen on him.

"I would've given myself to you," he said. "Totally and completely. But that's just it, ain't it?" He shook his head. "I'm not enough." He took a step back. "And I never will be. Will I?"