The thing about Love is that she is everywhere and nowhere all at once.

Don’t get me wrong I

am so glad that my friends are in relationships and get to be happy with another person. I am
happy that they are happy. And I am so glad that they get to have cute valentine’s day dates
together, but I hate Love. Love sucks. I want to kill Love. Love is worse than Karma and Karma
is known for being a bitch.

I am Loathing and I am on the murder path for Love.

The thing about Love is that everybody loves her. Obviously. Sadness thinks that she’ll fix
everything for her. Anger gets to take endorphins from her. And what do I get? Absolute bullshit
loneliness. I am alone sitting here loathing Love. Yes, I know that’s my name what other word
am I supposed to use. I hate her. I. Loathe. Her.

So here is my plan:
1. Figure out how to be cool. At least cool enough so Love would take interest in me.
2. Become friends with Love.
3. Let Love love me.
4. Learn Love’s secrets of her trade. What makes people love and how can I ruin it?
5. Ruin it.

The thing about this plan however is that Love is basically untouchable. I don’t know how to get
in good with her and get her to trust me. I need to talk to Deceit and Honesty, my favorite set of
twins.

“How well do you know Love?” I asked Honesty. I already knew the answer.

“She’s my best friend. I love Love. She’s great,” said Honesty.

Honesty and Love have been best friends since the beginning. We all plopped down from —
actually, we don’t know where — and Honesty and Love were inseparable from that moment on.
Not even Deceit could tear Honesty away from Love. Their bond was cold and taut.
Unbreakable.

Deceit on the other hand was my best friend. Thick as thieves, is the phrase I think I hear the
most often. I don’t know what I would do without her.

“Deceit, what do you know? I just really am fascinated by her” I said while winking. I needed
Deceit to know that nothing was going to tear us apart. She was my one and only. My rotten
soldier and confidante.

“Oh god. Not much. Honesty sees her the most. I know that she’s really nice and lovely.”
This is why Deceit is my best friend. She just gets me.

Hatred was both of our better halves. He was funny and witty. He could make us laugh by just
showing up out of nowhere. My favorite memory of Hatred is when he walked into a bar and
then as if divine intervention had been brought down from heaven punches started being thrown
and hair started getting pulled.

God, Hatred is so great. Truly admirable the work he does for society.

Our threesome is truly what gets me through my day to day. I don’t think I would have had the
idea to kill Love without them. So, after me and Deceit unsuccessfully talked to Honesty we
headed over to Hatred’s lair.

His lair was red and dark, almost sensual, but it is not to be confused with Lust’s house. Which
in every sense of the words, is a sex dungeon. I mean truly a sex dungeon. You walk into the
front room and there are ropes and knots and chains everywhere, just waiting for you to ask
about them. Which when you inevitable do, will set Lust into motion showing you around his
collection of sex paraphernalia. If you’re truly a lucky person, he’ll tie you up.

I am not that lucky. But that’s beyond the point.

I headed off to the best costumer I know to get help with the persona I am going to need to put
on to kill Love, Apathy. They were smart and knew just what I would need to fake this new
persona.

“I need help,” I said bursting into her store front. “I don’t know how to become friends with
Love. I need her to like me.”

“Why? What’s the point of that? Babes, don’t you already have friends?”

They point to Deceit and Hatred standing next to me.

“Yes. And they know what I’m doing, but I need your help. Please?”

“At this point I don’t care. I just want you to leave. I have things to attend to.”

The store front was spotless. Not a clothing piece out of place and all the accessories you could
think of were lined up straight. The floors looked freshly waxed and the glass windows freshly
wiped down.
“What things? It’s spotless in here. What could you possibly need to do now?” I point around to
the store; it tings back at me with a sparkle.

“I have to pay my bills, Loathing. I have behind the scenes stuff to work on in my office,” She
points to closed door behind the counter that looks eerily fake. “I really don’t have time to help
you with this little foolish game you’re trying to play. Go bother Jealousy, I think she’s in today
at her store.”

Jealousy ran the best makeup store in town. It was called Midnight. The store is dark and has
everything you could ever need to do a full face of makeup and more. Her selling point was Why
get revenge when you can make them jealous. It worked though everyone in our town was lining
up on opening day asking Jealousy for advice on their ex and what to do to make them jealous.
She never gave them a straight answer.

We walked into the store slightly defeated from the interaction we had with Apathy and went
straight for some low-level worker.

“Where is Jealousy?” Hatred asked.

“Uh uh uhhhh”

“Uh, is not an answer dip,” Hatred started to sound scary in his advances.” Where is she? Is she
here?”

I grabbed him by the arm, and he looked at me.

“Hatred, stop. You’re scaring them,” I said quietly in his ear. “I’m kind of sorry for his actions,
he can’t really help it. It’s one of those days haha.” I try to play it off, but the worker was starting
to slowly retreat already.

“Great. Hatred you scared them off. Now we have to go actually look for her.”

Hatred looked embarrassed. He didn’t mean to get so worked up but sometimes his emotion
takes over and he can’t stop himself from getting aggressive. He yanked his arm away from me
and stormed out of the store.

“Okay, we have to go after him, yeah?” Deceit said. Unsure of what to actually do. She doesn’t
handle emotions well. Especially when they aren’t her own. So, it was my job to now chase him.

I ran out of the store chasing after him.

“HATRED! HATRED STOP WALKING AWAY FROM ME.” I loathe yelling but at this point
it seemed necessary. Hatred was tall and was gifted with incredibly long legs.

“What Loathing? What could you possibly want from me right now?” He was so angry. This
wasn’t the Hatred I knew. He had changed. He was filled to the brim with this emotion.

“Well, first, I want you to stop walking away from me so I can catch my breath.”

He stopped.

“What is wrong Hatred? Why are you acting so… so hateful?”

He stared at me like I was an idiot. He looked like he wanted to say something but couldn’t quite
come to the conclusion on whether or not to speak.

“Say something dammit!” I was yelling. I meant it.

“Love isn’t that bad Loathing! Love is good!” His glare was something I don’t think I had ever
seen before in an emotion. He looked dumbfounded. He was looking at me like he didn’t think
he needed to use his words.

“Oh, like you know about Love,” I screamed back. “You’ve never even dated anyone. You don’t
hang out with anyone besides Deceit and me. You don’t go places except to cause bar fights.
You’re quiet in every conversation and then when something doesn’t end like you wanted it to
you storm off. You’re so hateful all the time!”

“MY NAME IS HATRED. IT IS QUITE LITERALLY MY THING.”

There was silence between us. Hatred started to speak again,

“You are the most clueless person I know. You think you know everything? Have you ever
noticed how I only want to hang out with you? You are the emotion I want to be around the
most? I hate you.”

“What the fuck do you- “

Hatred lunged toward me and kissed me. It was deep and passionate and raw. I would like it to
be noted that I have never been kissed so well in my entire life. It was all encompassing.
Everything around us disappeared and it was just us in that moment. Infinite. Nothing could
break us apart.
He stopped kissing me.

“Do you get it now? I love you. You are trying to kill Love, but Love is what makes me feel this
way towards you. And I don’t want to be without this feeling. I really like it. It’s better than
hatred. I hate you with all my heart, but I love you more I think.”

I stared up at him. I had never considered how I felt about him until this moment. He had always
just been a part of our trio. Hatred, Deceit, and Loathing. The perfect trio. The perfect evil little
group. But now, now he was Hatred, a tall, dark shaggy haired boy whose gaunt features made
him just that much more attractive, and he was inches from my face telling me he loved me.

“I think… I think I love you too.” I couldn’t quite put into words the feelings I felt for him. I
don’t think the emotions and words exist to describe it.

“You are truly awful.” He kissed me again. This one was shorter, but it felt more meaningful.

“You’re the one who said they loved me. You got yourself into this mess. Good luck getting out
because I’m not cleaning it up.”

“Oh, shut up, you know I mean it in the best way possible.”

“I loathe you.” I leaned up and kissed him again. I pushed myself into the kiss. I wanted this one
to last forever. I never wanted to be free of his lips.

He pulled away.

“So, can we agree to not kill Love? I kind of like this feeling.”

“Oh my god. I loathe you.”

“And I hate you.”