I want you to know
I’m a mirrorball
I’ll show you every version of yourself tonight
The older couple beside them continues to sway, the smiles on their faces content, like they’ve been dancing all their lives. They probably have been, and the thought makes Villanelle’s heart clench inside her chest.
“Do you want to be like that?” she asks, leaning into Eve’s body even more, until their breasts push up against each other, until they’re breathing the same air.
She pictures family portraits, a house on the beach. She pictures Eve’s hair splayed out beneath her on satin sheets. She pictures lazy Sunday mornings with nothing pressing them to get out of bed.
Is this really what Eve wants? A life so broken and messy and dangerous? Villanelle, she asked for that life. She’s had so many chances to reform and change, and she hasn’t done any of that. But Eve still has a chance; she can leave and start a new life away from the trail of chaos Villanelle has laid out for them to walk on.
“Not anymore.”
Eve’s words break her from her inner turmoil. She sounds so certain of her words, but a tiny voice inside Villanelle’s head brings her insecurities to the surface, and she has to make sure she means them.
“Why not?” she demands, but gently, because this moment is too delicate for a harsh tongue.
Eve pulls away and scoffs lightly. “We’d never make it that long,” she says. “We’d consume each other before we got old.”
Villanelle feels a soft gust of air leave her body as Eve falls forward again, burrowing her head in her suit-cladded shoulder. She allows herself to close her eyes for a moment and sink into an embrace that she’s craved her entire life.
“That sounds kind of nice,” she says, and she doesn’t have to elaborate because she already knows Eve thinks the same.
They dance for a while longer, their hands clasped together tightly. Eve feels like a balloon, one that could float away any second if she loosens her grasp. So she holds on for her life, counting the heartbeats she can feel hammered against her chest. She can’t tell if they’re hers or Eve’s- all she knows is that they’re both alive, dancing together.
“I’ve killed so many people, Eve,” she whispers, and her voice breaks just a tiny bit, her breath hitches just a tiny bit, as she waits for Eve to pull away from her. She knows she deserves it, she deserves it a lot, but the inevitable doesn’t seem to happen. Instead, she’s just being pulled closer, closer, closer.
“I know,” Eve sighs.
At that, Villanelle smiles, and she tries not to sob as she watches the older couple roam around the floor.
She knows that they can’t do that. But for a single second, she hopes that they’ll find something better.
I’ll get you out on the floor
shimmering beautiful
And when I break
it’s in a million pieces.