I miss the obscure history and science that's way over my head, too.
I hope you're safe and warm, and I want you home soon because I will be seeing you as soon as possible.
* * *
To: Nick Acevedo
From: Erin Walsh
Date: December 27
Subject: Confession
My confession: I fucking miss you, too.
But I keep thinking that I can't give you what you want. I can't give youanything. Seriously. What kind of relationship is this? We're like pen pals who've seen each other naked, and you're a nice guy. The nicest. But you're stuck with me, and I'm on a goddamn ship headed for the North Pole, and I'll be there for months.
You deserve so much more than someone who can't get on the same continent as you more than once a year.
* * *
To: Erin Walsh
From: Nick Acevedo
Date: December 27
Subject: Confession
We're going to blame that last message on the cold. Or sea sickness. Or something relating to magnetic north and shifting poles and God knows what else.
Before you come back and tell me it's not some Arctic shit making you crazy, let me tell you this: you can't shake me off that easy. I'll buy some snowshoes, hike my ass up to the North Pole, and carry you home if I have to, but you're not done with me yet.
Answer me this: who do you think about when you touch yourself?
* * *
To: Nick Acevedo
From: Erin Walsh
Date: January 4
Subject: No confessions here
After the American Revolution, the colonists started drafting their own laws, there was one that showed up in the constitutions of nine of the thirteen original colonies—although I've always wondered what was wrong with the other four—and was a tenet of the common law at the time. It's known asnemo tenetur, which translates tono one is obliged. The colonists were pretty fired up about this notion.
It was a direct and proportional response to the British courts of equity that dated back to the late 1400s. Colonists took issue with the courts' inquisitorial approach. The burden of proof didn't lie with the courts, as it does now.
Come to think of it, the inquisitorial approach does have a home in this age. Yeah, it's now known as enhanced interrogation. Hmm…funny how these things come full circle.
Today,nemo teneturis known as the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution and I am invoking it. There are a lot of things I'll do to myself, but self-incrimination is not one of them, thank you kindly.
* * *
To: Erin Walsh
From: Nick Acevedo
