Chapter 20: Blood

Tyler is digging himself into a deeper hole.

Tyler.


Maybe it was just the injury,


maybe I didn’t want to remember the

blood.

No, I definitely didn’t want to remember the blood. The

relation

of pain. To connect the memory with the present time. As if they were in the same

family tree,

group, category. I wouldn’t allow it. I worked too hard to try and forget the

association

of the two terms. How they were so similar they were basically

relatives.

Who would want to remember their past memory as a

murderer?

Who would want to remember all the pain they inflicted, all the

breaking;

a family portrait, a granted, delicate life. Destroying

bonds

destroying happiness and peace. Destroying innocent people who I’d never dream of harming.

 

Especially myself.

 


Ashley had started to get up,

 

when I reached up and grabbed her
wrist. "You go to private school,
you guys are so uptight, why

would you be hunting?" I didn’t grab
it roughly, but gently. In a lingering
 matter so that she’d sit back down.

 

I stared past her confused face as she looked
down at our connection, conflicted. I saw
my sweater on a nearby chair, a

set of keys hanging out the pockets.
Emily had slipped them into my hands
when we reburied the body. No one had

the motivation or the sympathy to dig
Mr. Miller back up and cover him back
up for a few stupid, rusted keys.

 

I desperately wished we hadn’t been
so insensitive to the utilitarian object.
I snapped my head back as I sensed

her studying my face, presumably
about to stare in the same direction
as me. "How’d you know I go to

private school?" I bit my tongue
and I felt the blood begin to
flood my mouth. I swallowed

it back and thought hard, yet
short of my response. "I saw
the class picture on the fireplace."

I nodded towards the empty
rocky sill above the soot filled
hole. She smiled sadly, nodding.

"My brother and I took the day
off." Okay, so the avoiding the
truth gig was off. What was I

getting myself into? I moved
myself closer to her, drawn to
her sadness, I placed my hand

on hers. "So what film is it?"
Her eyes filled with worry
and finally I saw happiness,
 
genuine happiness, not
knowing she was touching
hands with the cold blooded

killer who had recently taken
all her happiness away.

 


 

We watched the movie in silence,

 

she slowly wormed her way in under my right arm,
nestling her red hair into my chest.

 

I liked the warmth that came with her closeness,
 the security, the wash of lust. I guess

 

that’s why I decided I’d take what I shouldn’t have
had. Like a piece of fudge after getting

 

a filling, or ice cream on a diet. Except it wasn’t that
minuscule, not at all. The consequences

 

could never be the same in those scenarios vs mine.
Maybe if I had known that I would’ve

 

stopped. But then again I was never good at stopping,
even when I knew it was the right thing

 

to do. The thing I was good at though, was acting.
Acting like everything was okay when it wasn't,


and now acting like I had nothing to do with
the ending of Johnathon Miller's life.