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The Scottish countryside passes her in a hazy blur that she doesn’t have the motivation to clear. Instead, she loses herself in the thoughts that she has fought for so long to not let consume her.
If there’s one thing she knows, it’s that she hates her.
Hate is something she understands. Hate, and anger, and betrayal. The only things she truly knows.
She never used to be like this. Never used to cry. Never used to have her heart skip a beat at a name, a smell, a sight.
Ever since Rome, she knows that she’s not been the same. If she was to look more carefully, she’d find that things changed as soon as she entered that Parisian apartment, her champagne in sweet, sticky shatters of glass. Anyway, there’s only one person to blame.
If it wasn’t for her, she wouldn’t be in this mess. She’d be perfectly happy if a little bored. Okay, a lot bored, but that’s not the point. She’s not really sure what the point is anymore.
Konstantin comments on her quietness as they cross the non-existent border to England. She shrugs, sighs deeply. He doesn’t question her, instead starts off-loading his worries onto her. She’s not certain of when their relationship shifted to the point in which he can trust her with his daughter dilemmas, or how he is stressed, or how he’s too old to stay mixed up in all this or even how he is running in no clear direction, with no end near. She pretends to listen, it’s better than the silence of the roads and the constant tick-ticking of her mind.
She wonders why he thinks she would care now that he might never reach Cuba after all. It’s not like she’s naïve enough to believe that he would have sent for her anyway. The almost-fatherly figure of the Russian man next to her is just that-almost. He doesn’t want her, not really. Neither does anyone.
Her heart clenches uncontrollably as Konstantin continues to talk about his family. It’s painful enough to cause her to wince, although thankfully he doesn’t notice. She’s learned a lot about pain over the last few years. The prison file that she figures Eve probably knows better than herself could suggest that she was the harbourer of pain. She wishes that was the truth. Absentmindedly, she rubs the wound on her arm, and it stings beautifully.
The fresher reminder of her own mortality is picked up by Konstantin.
“What happened to your arm?” he asks, and the concern on his face could have been enough to convince her that he might care.
“Nothing.” She says immediately.
“That doesn’t look like nothing to me. It’s not like you to be injured like this.”
"I said nothing. I am fine Konstantin. Get back to driving, we’re late already.”
The finality in her tone causes him to raise an eyebrow, but alas he remains quiet.
He drives them through a town, and although they don’t stop, Villanelle can’t help but people watch as they speed past. There’s a woman with wild brown curls, her heart skips a beat.
It’s not her. Her clothes are too bright, too fitted. She’s taller than Eve, and judging by the wide smile on her face, happier too. She curses herself for seeing her everywhere she goes.
She hates her. Hates how her warped version of a moral compass, her endless contradictions have changed her own behaviour. Hates how she’s stuck in a never ending-loop of thoughts, beginning and ending with her. Hates how she’s somehow become attached to someone, but that she’s brought her to the point in which she has no control.
And then she’s sitting on a train (she’s spent too long on these over the past few months) leaving behind the person she thought was the closest thing to family that she has left. The empty carriage stares at her as she settles in the seat and she waits patiently for the train to depart. She doesn’t cry, not this time, though it has been a more regular occurrence over the past months. Briefly, she wonders if it’s possible to no longer have any tears left.
But then the whole world stops.
She’s just like she remembered. Rushed off her feet, frantic and frenzied in her movements. Her hair is as wild as the night sky on a stormy night, and when she looks up, Villanelle finds herself looking directly into her eyes. Brown eyes had always been fascinating to Villanelle, but Eve’s are something else entirely. Their dark, almost black colour shines under the harsh lighting of the station, and she watches as they widen and their eyes meet.
Eve runs towards her and it causes her to stop in her tracks. Despite the stabbing of betrayal in her stomach that churns, her arms move, ready to push her to stand. It’s useless. The train is leaving, and Villanelle can’t help but wish that it had occurred two minutes earlier or later. She’s not sure it matters which one.
She fiddles with her phone for a while. The heaviness of it is bulky, and she longs to just throw it. She doesn’t, the train is busier now and she is no longer in the mood for the attention that her outfit commands. The last thing she needs is to give the bored passengers something more to stare at. As much as she has underestimated Eve in the past, she knows for certain that she won’t have changed her number.
A faint smile flickers across her face at a distant memory. A kitchen. Wet clothes, soaking hair. A muttered passcode. One. Two. Three. Four.
She sighs, dialling the number that she knows by heart. After Rome, she’d try so hard to forget it, but it never worked. Villanelle wasn’t aware of how much she had missed her voice until she hears her hesitant hello. Closing her eyes for a moment, she wills herself to focus on her speech.
“We have to stop running into each other like that. It’s not good for both of us.”
She hangs up before the older woman can reply.
It’s toxic. This cat and mouse game has gone on far too long already, although Villanelle knows she’d play it forever if it keeps Eve in her life.
Eve phones her back seventeen more times. At the eighteenth, Villanelle puts her out of her misery and answers. The hotel bed, despite being luxurious, is too firm and she shifts to try and find some comfort in the harsh mattress.
“Eve. I can’t keep doing this much longer.”
At the woman’s silence, she continues.
“I know better than anyone what it’s like not to be wanted. So this time, if you’re chasing me…” She pauses, trying to find the words.
The silence hangs thick and heavy between them.
“I know,” Eve replies, and Villanelle almost sighs in relief.
“We can’t go on like this. You need to stop confusing me.”
Eve laughs down the phone. It’s a pleasant sound, brash in its defiance but a pleasant sound nether less. “I know. I was confused myself.”
“But what about now? Are you still confused?” She asks immediately.
Villanelle hears a sharp intake of breath at the question. “No.” Eve answers finally. “Can I see you again?”
This time it’s Villanelle’s turn to be scared. They haven’t done this before, asking the other’s permission before taking what they wish. Villanelle is proud. They’ve come so far since Rome.
“Yes. I would like that.”
“Good.”
“We need to talk Eve, properly.” She says, cringing as she hears the faint traces of desperation in her voice.
“I know. We can do that, I promise.”
“Okay. I’ll send you an address.”
“I’ll see you soon.”
Villanelle smiles slightly, hanging up the phone. This is what it is like to feel wanted.
//
Less than twenty-four hours later, Eve walks through London’s streets, quickly entering an area of the city that is unfamiliar. The old Eve may have been slightly unsettled, but her present version is unbothered. Her mind is occupied by the same thing, the same person it always is- Villanelle.
The person on the phone sounded so different from the Villanelle Eve had been familiar with. Vulnerability in her tone spoke more than her restricted sentences, her accent was stronger than she had remembered, and her words ached with tiredness and a new honesty. Her heart pangs thoughtfully at her observation.
Villanelle’s words from the previous evening run rings around her mind, making her almost dizzy. “I know better than anyone what it’s like not to be wanted. So this time, if you’re chasing me…”
She dwells on them more than she wants to admit. What could have happened in the past few weeks to turn Villanelle into this?
Unsettled, she picks up her pace. The one person Eve had thought to be untouchable is now very much in reach. She pushes past her worries, her memories of Paris, of Rome of that bus and everything that comes along with them with a new-found fury. Unconsciously, her feet carry her to the entrance of the ballroom. Briefly, she ponders why Villanelle would choose this as their place of reconciliation before she decides she’d probably rather not find out.
Her hand pauses on the door handle, tracing it hesitantly for a moment. Hurriedly, her heart beats, uncomfortable in her chest. It’s been months since she’s felt fear. She pushes down the handle, willingly stepping into the room.
Almost immediately, her eyes fall on Villanelle. She has her hair down and is facing in the opposite direction, but Eve can recognise her in less than a heartbeat. Unsteadily, she steps towards the younger woman, increasingly aware of the fact that she’s so unsure of what happens next. She’s been the cat and the mouse more times than she’d care to count, but now she is neither. They’re equal. Nerves rise higher and higher as she inches closer and closer.
She swallows, hard. “Hi.”