Chapter 1 :People Like You Create Monsters Like Me
New York looked prettier in winter.
Not softer.
Not kinder.
Just quieter.
The city carried cold beautifully — silver streets, pale skies, breath turning into smoke beneath expensive coats and tired eyes. Snow rested lightly on rooftops like something decorative instead of inconvenient. Even the noise sounded distant tonight.
Inside Studio 4B, the air was warm enough to make people forget the weather outside.
Vivienne Blake sat beneath white stage lights like she owned them.
Black dress.
Dark lipstick.
Leg crossed elegantly.
The host smiled too hard.
Because everyone smiled too hard around Vivienne Blake.
“You’ve become difficult to interview lately,” the woman said carefully.
Vivienne tilted her head slightly.
“Was I easier when I lied?”
A few staff members laughed nervously.
There it was.
That feeling people always got around her: like they’d accidentally walked into a conversation where she already knew their worst trait.
The host adjusted her cards.
“Your latest novel, The Girl Beneath the Ice, has been criticized for being emotionally dangerous.”
Vivienne looked almost bored.
“Dangerous to whom?”
“To vulnerable readers.”
“Interesting.” She leaned back slowly. “Nobody calls romance novels dangerous when they teach women to forgive disrespect.”
Silence.
The host forced another smile.
Online viewers were already clipping the interview.
Vivienne continued calmly, “People are comfortable watching women suffer quietly. The moment a woman becomes angry instead of sad, suddenly she’s harmful.”
The producer behind the cameras mouthed: Keep rolling.
Because controversy sold.
And Vivienne Blake sold better than anyone.
The host cleared her throat. “Your books often focus on loneliness, emotional neglect… childhood trauma. Some people believe you romanticize pain.”
Vivienne finally smiled.
It wasn’t warm.
It was the kind of smile expensive paintings would wear if they hated humans.
“I think,” she said softly, “people confuse honesty with romanticization.”
The room went still again.
Even the cameras felt quieter somehow.
Then the host asked the question everyone online had been waiting for.
“Do you believe someone completely broken can still be loved?”
Finally.
Vivienne’s eyes lifted toward the main camera.
For one second, something unreadable crossed her face. Not sadness exactly.
Something older than sadness.
Then she spoke.
“Loved?” she repeated softly.
“Yes.”
A pause.
“Understood?”
Her smile faded slightly.
“Never.”
Somewhere behind the cameras, someone stopped typing.
Vivienne folded her hands neatly on her lap.
“People don’t actually love broken women,” she continued. “They love repairing them. It makes them feel powerful.”
The host blinked slowly.
“And what if the woman doesn’t want to be repaired?” she asked.
Vivienne looked directly into the lens.
Cold. Precise. Beautiful.
“Then they call her a monster.”
—
The interview ended twelve minutes later.
By midnight, clips of it were everywhere.
THE BEAUTIFUL MONSTER STRIKES AGAIN
VIVIENNE BLAKE MOCKS LOVE IN VIRAL INTERVIEW
IS HER WRITING TOO DARK FOR YOUNG READERS?
Millions of views.
Thousands of comments.
Some worshipping her.
Some hating her.
Most doing both.
Vivienne sat alone in the backseat of her car scrolling through none of it.
The city lights reflected against the window beside her in fractured gold lines.
Her assistant, Claire, glanced back nervously.
“You’re trending again.”
“I usually am.”
“This one’s worse.”
Vivienne closed her phone without checking.
“Good.”
Claire hesitated.
“You really don’t care what people think?”
Vivienne looked outside at the frozen sidewalks.
Pedestrians walked fast in winter. Nobody lingered in cold weather. Nobody looked at each other long enough to notice loneliness.
“I cared once,” she said quietly.
Claire didn’t ask more.
People around Vivienne learned quickly: there were doors inside her you survived by not opening.
—
Across the city, inside St. Augustine Psychiatric Center, Elias Carter watched the interview replay on a television mounted high on the wall.
The break room smelled like burnt coffee and exhaustion.
One of the younger nurses laughed awkwardly. “She scares me.”
Elias didn’t answer immediately.
Vivienne Blake stared back from the television screen with terrifying composure.
Like nothing in the world could touch her.
He hated people like that.
Or maybe he hated how many broken patients worshipped her words.
“She’s intelligent,” another nurse admitted.
“No,” Elias said calmly. “She’s angry.”
The room quieted slightly.
On television, Vivienne said:
“People don’t love broken women. They love repairing them.”
Elias exhaled slowly.
“That kind of thinking is dangerous.”
A voice spoke from the doorway.
“No,” a teenage girl said softly. “It’s true.”
Elias turned.
Lily sat there in oversized hospital clothes, holding one of Vivienne Blake’s novels against her chest.
Eyes tired.
Expression small.
But for the first time in weeks…
awake.
“She saved me,” Lily whispered.
And for reasons Elias didn’t understand yet—
those three words unsettled him more than the interview itself.
—
That same night, Vivienne returned to her penthouse overlooking Manhattan.
Floor-to-ceiling windows.
White marble.
Silence expensive enough to echo.
She removed her heels near the entrance and walked barefoot across the cold floor.
No music.
No television.
No company.
Just stillness.
People imagined famous women lived loudly.
Vivienne lived like a ghost.
She poured herself water and stopped when she noticed something lying near the kitchen counter.
An envelope.
Plain white.
No stamp.
No address.
Claire must’ve brought it upstairs with the rest of the mail.
Vivienne opened it carelessly.
Then froze.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
Typed neatly in black ink.
You write endings for damaged people like you understand suffering.
Below it—
another sentence.
One that made the color drain slowly from her face.
But tell me, Vivienne—
who survived yours?
For the first time that entire day—
Vivienne Blake looked afraid.
