Chapter 1
It’s all bullshit. Honesty, they said. Honesty, you said.
“How can I be honest when I’m being a different person?”
“Aren’t you always a different person?”
“Aren’t you?” I counter. “At least I’m good at playing someone else.”
“Not that good, obviously.”
All the running thoughts and smart banters have stopped. I don’t like how you said it. It was like I wasn’t good enough to be sitting in front of you right now.
Honesty, you said.
But are you really ready to see Oksana deep inside this beautiful casket, Eve? All this time, you are trying to solve this enigma called Villanelle. You wanted Villanelle to be that broken girl you would be willing to save. But would Oksana be enough for you? Would Oksana be as interesting as Villanelle? Would you be disappointed to see the girl who castrated a man for her so-called-love?
I know how it feels to finally have what you always wanted, just to be disappointed a minute later because you then realize that you don’t want it. And I don’t want you to be disappointed. I don’t want to see the pity on your face, the look that says, “Oh, another girl with a sad backstory who just needs some love.” I know that was what you wished I had been when we first met.
I don’t want to be your typical psychopath. I want to be the one psychopath who makes you interesting. Just like a mole on your face or a scar on your lips—not all people can see it, but it stays with your forever, following you wherever you go. Not all people can appreciate it, but you learn to love it because it’s a part of yourself.
That way, this thing that we have, would be reciprocal. Because I hated it when you were out of my sight. Did you hate it when I was out of your sight?
“Don’t speak to me like that, Eve,” I say. And so I lie, just like how I always do. “I like you, but I don’t like you that much.”
Now you are surprised.
“Don’t forget. The only thing that makes you interesting is me.” Also a lie.
But I can see how much you try to keep your face cold.
“We’ll try again in the morning,” you give me another chance.
***
Hey, Eve.
“I have real trouble telling the truth.”
You know that.
“I don’t really understand the concept, but… someone told me it was important, so here goes.”
Listen to me carefully. Eve, meet the one and only Oksana Astankova.
“Most of the time, most days, I feel nothing. I don’t feel anything.”
She’s still a psychopath.
“It is so boring. I wake up and I think, ‘Again? Really? I have to do this again?’ And what I really don’t understand is how come everybody else isn’t screaming with boredom too? Trying to find ways of making myself feel something.”
One way, or another, then another…
“More and more and more, but it doesn’t make any difference. No matter what I do, I don’t feel anything.”
But have you ever tried it, Eve, desperately trying to make yourself feel anything?
“I hurt myself, it doesn’t hurt.”
I’m not the one who’s lying here. It’s them! They lie about how pain can be a short escape. No, there’s no such short escape.
“I… I buy what I want, I don’t want it.”
That’s why I find it more interesting to buy things for someone else.
“I do what I like, I don’t… I don’t like it.”
Can you imagine being me? Can you imagine being Oksana Astankova, the bright girl with a history of violence? Oksana Astankova, the girl who died in the prison? She is nothing without Villanelle. No one would ever want to see Oksana Astankova, the average psychopath with a dark past.
“I’m just so bored.”
I know you’re there, Eve. I want you to look me in the eyes and tell me what you think about Oksana. I want you to look her in the eyes and give her your fucking honesty about how messed up her—our mind is.
Hey, Eve. It’s all bullshit, isn’t it? Really, who are we without the different persons we put on every day?
