Work (It) Out

Chapter 1

Eve only had classes Monday mornings, Wednesday at noon, and Friday evenings. She despised the Monday classes. She liked her students, or at least she said that she did, but she could barely wake up that early in the morning. How did the students do it? Eve never understood. 

She was walking to Imperial College London when she got a text from Elena, her graduate teaching assistant. However, outside the classroom, she was her best friend. It was uncommon for a professor and teaching assistant to be friends, let alone best friends, but they worked oddly well. Elena was very smart and would help Eve by facilitating the student’s discussions (which happened on Tuesdays and Thursdays). She would let Eve know what students were struggling with and then the brunette would incorporate those into her next lecture. Let’s just say, they made a good team and the students loved them.

Elena : i set up ur powerpoint and got u a croissant & coffee. but u owe me ;)

The brunette sighed. She was the best assistant she could ask for. However, it did worry her about what she could ‘owe’ the other woman. She was… a lot more outgoing than Eve. The brunette had been more unreserved when she was at Uni, but it had backfired on her. She’d lost one of her best friends because of it. She wasn’t dead, or Eve didn’t think she was, but she hadn’t seen or heard from her in 8 years.

So, Eve had become more introverted when it came to her social life. She liked it, her assistant didn’t. 

Elena would always badger her to go out or to do something that the brunette found crazy and reckless. She’d always say no, claiming she had work to do. Which was a dumb excuse, if I’m being honest. Elena was her assistant, she obviously knew what work the professor had and didn’t have. Still, she knew she couldn’t force Eve to go out. She’d wait until Eve actually wanted to go somewhere with her.

She walked down the hall and into her office, where she grabbed papers for today’s lecture, took off her grey raincoat, and set it on the coat hanger. Eve was walking down the hall, well actually it was more of a jog, to the lecture room. She was late. She clambered in, meeting the eyes of 50 undergraduate students… and Elena.

“Morning, everyone,” Eve panted, walking over to the desk, dropping her bag and taking the coffee from her assistant’s hand, “I heard from Elena that you had some trouble with some parts of the last lecture. So, today we’ll be focusing on the social factors that lead to criminal behavior.” She started up the PowerPoint, quickly looking down at her notes.

“Let’s pay attention this time!” Her assistant chimed, sitting on one of the chairs in the front, receiving a few laughs from some of the students.

“Now, who can tell me why parental behaviors play a strong role in shaping a child's risk of later involvement in criminality?” 

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The class ended with only a few questions. Hopefully, the students understood the PowerPoint this time. Eve didn’t want to go through it again. 

She and Elena were on their way back from the cafeteria to the teacher’s lounge for lunch. Usually, teaching assistants wouldn’t be allowed in there, but Elena was very well-liked. None of the other professors minded her being in there. Actually, they wanted her there. She was bubbly, made funny jokes, and was genuinely very smart. Good company. 

“Eve, wanna go to this new spin class with me?” She asked as she stuffed the rest of her sandwich into her mouth, “It’s supposed to be really good.”

“Spin class?” The brunette had her glasses on, reading a few of her student’s most recent papers. She didn’t look up at her assistant. “Why would I want to do that?”

“Because it’s a good workout. I saw you when you came into class this morning, you were panting after a short jog down the hall,” She snickered, “And it’s a new gym by here. We should see what it’s like.”

“Okay, 1,” She took off her glasses and looked across the couch to her assistant, “I was not panting, I was just… breathing heavily. You know, because your heart is pumping faster and needs more oxygen. And, 2, why do we need to go to a new gym?” She set the papers down on the coffee table in front of her and started to finish her salad.

“You were panting. And why not? It could be the most amazing gym ever, and you never know, maybe we could meet people there,” She started to mumble, knowing Eve didn’t want to hear this, “Maybe you could meet someone there.”

“Elena...”

Eve had just gone through a divorce. Or well, was going through a divorce. Her and Niko had been separated for quite some time now but when it came to divorce in the UK… it was taking some time to become official. 

The professor told her assistant about it when it happened. She and Niko had a fight and he yelled ‘I want a divorce!’ And that was that. She didn’t like thinking about the details or what had led up to that fight. It wasn’t necessary. 

However, Elena did let her stay at her place for a few weeks before she found an apartment. It was very small but very close to the University. It was fine. 

But, Eve didn’t want to meet anyone new. She wasn’t over Niko. But, she wasn’t not over him. Either way, it was just too soon. And, who would she even meet? She refused to think of any other professors that way. She didn’t even like most of them as friends. 

Her only friend, that was a professor, was Bill. He was one of the best English professors in London. They had gotten close as they both joined the Imperial teaching staff at about the same time. He had a very different class schedule to her, but they saw each other outside of work very often. He, his wife, and his daughter lived close to the University as well. He knew about Eve’s divorce and he was not pressuring her to meet anyone new. So, in Eve’s book, he was a very good friend right now.

“I know you said you don’t want to meet anyone knew or you’re not ready to or whatever,” Elena sat forward, “But it might be nice. You know… help you forget about him?”

“I do not want to meet anyone new. Okay?” Eve got up, took her papers, and left. She wasn’t actually mad at Elena, but she didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Leaving the room was just easiest.

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“Oh. My. God. Eve!” Her assistant ran up to her as she walked into the lecture hall. It was time for her Wednesday class.

“Morning, or well,” Eve checked the time on her phone, “Afternoon. What’s got you all,” she gestured toward the woman who was bouncing up and down, “Like this?”

“That spin class! I went yesterday and oh my god, it was amazing. The gym itself was like… pretty. Which is weird, right? But the class was so good. And,” She leaned in toward Eve as the professor sat in her desk chair (they were both early), “The teacher of the class was really hot.” 

“Did you just go to see hot guys that teach spin classes with their shirts off?” The brunette smirked, knowing Elena’s usual antics.

“Well, the teacher was a woman. But,” She grinned, looking into the distance as if to imagine it, “There were a lot of hot guys there, now that you mention it.”

“Oh, well that’s just great.”

“You really should come, Eve. Even if you don’t meet anyone there, it might be nice to blow off some steam. Also, you owe me.” She winked, the brunette should’ve known when Elena said ‘you owe me’, she meant it. 

But to be fair, Eve had been stressed lately. Carolyn Martens, the dean of the University, had been putting her under a lot of pressure. She said she wanted to promote Eve to head of Psychology, but this meant Carolyn was watching her a bit too closely. The brunette didn’t like that. Obviously, she wanted the promotion, she’d get more time off and more time to focus on research, but it was stressful to be in direct competition with some of her colleagues.

“Okay maybe, when’s the next class?” She asked, as a few students started to trickle into the room.

“Tonight. At 5,” Elena beamed, “I could buy you dinner afterward?” She really wanted her friend to come to this class for absolutely no specific reason.

“Fine. What’s the gym called?” Eve opened her calendar app. Don’t judge her, she liked to know what she had in advance and note down any new plans. 

“V’s gym, it’s not too far from here.”

“Okay, fine. But now… time for class.” Eve stood up, looking at the students who were all starting to sit down and open their laptops.

“So who wants to summarize what we covered on Monday for the rest of the class?” The professor asked the room.

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Villanelle loved to exercise. She hadn’t always. Her love for it started when she dropped out of University. It was… a rough time for her. And exercise, running especially, always calmed her down. She dropped out during her first year because of a girl. Yes, a girl. A girl who completely shattered her heart. The blonde didn’t like it when other people as this much of an effect on her. So much so that she literally dropped out of University and moved to Paris. Yes, it was that bad. The worst part of it was, it wasn’t even a breakup. They had never dated. Still, the heartbreak was just as bad. It was worse than Anna, someone she didn’t even think of anymore.

Russia was so far behind her. She moved to London at the end of her sophomore year of high school, leaving Anna and Moscow as fast as she could. When Anna ‘broke up’ with her, she couldn’t stay there anymore. She couldn’t look at that woman every day, learning French or English or whatever language she took up to see her. It was too hard. Also, her father was an asshole. So, when she heard that Konstantin was moving to London with his daughter, she joined them. Konstantin was her savior, not that she’d ever tell him that. He was her father’s ex-best friend and she considered this man more of a father to her than her own. 

When she completed high school in London, mostly through online classes, she applied and got accepted to Imperial College London. That’s where she met her. She couldn’t even say her name. It would get her to…feel things. It was weird for someone to have this much power over her emotions. It’d never happened before, not even with Anna. Sure, she thought she was heartbroken when Anna broke up with her, but she was 16-years-old. If anyone had broken up with her, she would’ve been emotional. Retrospectively, she knew it wasn’t an actual heartbreak.

Over the past couple of years, she had learned to not care about anyone else. Other than Konstantin and Irina. She didn’t let anyone else in. When she wanted something, she made them think they were getting to know her, and then once she got what she wanted, she’d never speak to them again. She never saw a problem with this.

So, when Villanelle met her during her first year at Uni, the blonde didn’t expect it to feel anything. However, she did. She fell for her… hard. This woman was much older than her as the blonde was only 17 when she started at Imperial. Yes, she was young, but she was too smart for her own good and sped through her online classes to get her diploma. Imperial was very impressed with her.

The woman she met was currently getting her Ph.D. to become a professor. Villanelle admired that profession, she respected those who would spend time shaping the minds of University students, as they were the ones that were actually about to be sent off into the real world. 

But, once everything happened, she didn’t respect her anymore. She hated her. She never wanted to see her again. So, she left Imperial, she left London. She went to Paris, the City of Love. She even changed her name. She wanted to be someone else.

Konstantin didn’t mind. Obviously, he cared, but he understood what was happening with the blonde. While she didn’t tell him everything, he trusted her. Konstantin and Irina would visit her from time to time and he’d send Villanelle money when she needed it because he trusted her. She sometimes made stupid decisions, but he trusted her, regardless. The blonde was like a second daughter to him. 

Villanelle had hoped she’d meet someone in Paris that would help her forget about her. She didn’t. She met plenty of women, she slept with plenty of women. None made her forget about that woman from London. 

That’s when she discovered exercise. I mean, she knew about the concept of course, but she was never heavily interested. But when she starting running around Paris, sweating, panting, building endurance, she immediately felt better. She didn’t understand why. Granted, she then researched it. She found out about endorphins and how they were released during exercise. 

Stress and pain were the two most common factors leading to the release of endorphins. She had stress and she had emotional pain. That was the same as physical pain, right? Endorphins interacted with the opiate receptors in our brains to reduce our perception of pain and act similarly to drugs such as morphine and codeine. 

Endorphins were literally a drug. And she was hooked. She started exercising for most of the day. Strength training, cardio, aerobic, anaerobic, all of it. Every type of exercise you could think of, she did it. Eventually, she even landed a job at a gym. It wasn’t as exciting as she thought it’d be since she had to help others with their workouts and not her own. But, she still got to be in the environment she loved.

As you can probably guess, she became very fit. As you do when you exercise 24/7. And as she got older, she got the attention of even more women (and men). So, she entertained them (the women, not the men). She even dated a few of them for short periods of time. Until she got bored. None of them really kept her interest for more than a few months. 

8 years went by. And after many discussions, she returned to London. She wasn’t bored of Paris, but she’d done pretty much everything there was to do. And she missed Konstantin. They only saw each other in person a few times a year, and she knew she’d feel better if she was back to living in the same city as him. She missed Irina, too. Even though they fought like they were actually siblings, they loved each other like actual siblings too. She was starting high school and the blonde wanted to be there for her. She knew how shitty high school was. Irina would need her.

When she returned, she told Konstantin about her dream. To open her own gym. She didn’t want to have a boss and she didn’t want to do any low-grade work. Not that anyone did, but Villanelle was very adamant about not doing it. The older man loved this idea. The blonde had no idea what his job involved, as he was oddly secretive about it, but he was very good with business. 

So, he helped her open up V’s gym. And in the first week, it did extraordinarily well. Konstantin was kind of a genius when it came to this stuff. He found a small two-floor building, one floor being the gym and the top being Villanelle’s apartment. She literally lived at her job. 

It was in central London, in an area where there were plenty of Uni students and business people. All needing a gym, all not wanting to go far to get to one. So V’s gym was perfect. Not too far from their work so they could come whenever they were free. Villanelle was actually happy for the first time in her whole life. Everything in Russia was shitty, everything in London had been shitty, but now here she was. Her own boss, on her own schedule, doing what she loved every day.

And after 8 years, she pretty much forgot about the woman she had met in London. Once in awhile, she’d see dark curls that were similar to hers and she’d float back into her mind momentarily. But that was it. She didn’t feel any emotions about her anymore. 

Except when she saw her in one of her spin classes, her heart stopped. It was those same curls, that same laugh, that same everything. It was Eve. And all those emotions from 8 years ago came flooding back.