Blood on my Hands

by sxblx

This is not a test. This is your emergency broadcast system. At the sound of the siren all crime - including murder - will be legal for twelve hours. All emergency services will be suspended for twelve hours. Weapons of class four and lower are permitted. Government officials ranking ten have been granted with immunity to all Purging activates. We thank you for your participation.

1. Think About All the Good The Purge Does

Every time I look at him these days I see it. I see the intense blood lust lingering somewhere in his eyes and I swear everyone else can see it too. It's lit up like a Broadway sign. So prominent. So there. I swear to God that they can see it in my thin smile, or the way I grip onto his arm a little too desperately when he makes a joke about something that I wasn't really bothering to listen to but somehow knew the meaning behind anyway. I still refer to them as inside jokes, but it still stings.

I don't know how we got to this point, honestly. The awkward silences at breakfast when I was stirring my hundredth spoonful of sugar into my coffee, or even just the bitter tracking of the stupid relationship at three in the morning while he's sleeping his troubles away like nothing's wrong. Nothing at all. Like the stupid fucking way he does - completely oblivious to the rapidly growing enemies he makes.

See, the kicker here is that in the beginning he was the novelty. Oh yeah, I met the weirdest boy today. All buff shoulders and pointy elbows and weird nicknacks and hobbies. I took him out for tea and he told me, "Just so you know I really only date girls who like to Purge." And that's really when I should've backed out, but then he took me back to his apartment and showed me his collection of swords and weird little things he had collected throughout his life. And then he took me to his computer and showed me some of the most beautiful pictures I had ever seen. After that he took the most beautiful picture of me I had ever seen, and I tackled him onto his bed with about a million pillows on it and after that I don't remember. But he isn't necessarily relationship material, and I can't have that. Oh no. I can't fucking have that.

I've known a lot of strange people in my life. Some even so strange I prefer not to talk about them. But I don't think I've ever know a man stranger than him. His strangeness runs bone deep. But there's sometimes when I catch him standing in the dust speckled sunlight, wracking with sobs over some old photograph that he refuses to get rid of and in those moments I'm afraid I'm in love. But I know I can't be.

I've spent a long time trying to get that feeling back, but the timer is about to hit zero.

You see, in two hours the annual Purge begins.

And I'm rather tired of him.