Did I ruin your life?
Chapter 10
Elena led Eve to the same bar. Dina’s bar. As they approached the entrance, the professor gave her a look.
“Oh my god, I texted Dina, she’s not working today.” Elena rolled her eyes as she walked into the bar.
They went in, sat down at a booth, and ordered drinks (Elena paid). Eve was nervous. Her assistant said Dina wasn’t here but the professor couldn't help but think of the what-ifs. What if she picked up another shift or came early for the night shift? Eve didn’t want to face her. Sure, their last interaction hadn’t been bad, but it was awkward. At least it was for Eve.
She kissed the woman to piss another woman off. Dina was kind, sweet, pretty much everything that Eve wanted in a partner. She was a woman, but the professor had never been one for labels. Still, she wasn’t the type of person to incite jealousy, she never cared about that stuff. But, that's what she did to Dina and Villanelle, isn’t it? She wanted to get a reaction from the blonde and she used her ex-student to do that. She exploited her. Eve never thought she would exploit anyone, she was a criminology professor, not a criminal. She felt awful about what she did to Dina. She deserved better.
While she thought of Dina, the brunette also thought about Villanelle. What shewas doing, why she was doing it, who she was doing. The fact that Nadia was flirting with Villanelle today… That made Eve feel a lot of things. Things she didn’t want to admit she still felt. Maybe they never went away. Maybe they were just pushed down, further and further until Eve couldn’t actively feel them anymore. And maybe now, they were all coming back up.
“You’re acting weird.” Elena looked at Eve, dead in the eye.
“No, I’m not.” The professor’s leg was bouncing and she was fidgeting with her glass. She was acting weird.
“Is it about Dina? I told you, she’s not here.”
“No no, it’s not her. Well, it is. But it isn’t. I don’t know.” She sighed, putting her head in her hands.
“She talked to me about you, you know,” Elena smirked into her drink. Devil.
Eve shot back up, giving her assistant a look.
“She likes you. But, she doesn’t wanna be second place, ‘know what I mean?”
“Second place? What? Why would she think that?” Eve tried to play dumb. She hadn’t told Elena exactly what Dina had said to her at the bar, but Dina knew about Villanelle… at least a little bit. I mean, she and Eve did yell at each other while they were at her bar.
“Come off it, I’m talking about Villanelle. You literally ran after her while you were snogging Dina.” Elena started to laugh. Eve didn’t find it funny.
“I just- I saw her pass and I…” Eve sighed, she didn’t know why she ran after her. She knew why she kissed Dina so she assumed it was all to get a reaction from Villanelle. Maybe get some revenge. Something.
“I wanted to piss her off.” The professor admitted.
“And kissing Dina in front of her did that?” Elena gave her a very questioning look.
“Well, I thought it might. When she left she-” Eve stopped herself. She’d never told Elena what had happened. What the blonde had said to her.
“She what? Come on, Eve! The curiosity is killing me. Please tell me what happened between you two! I wanna know!” Her assistant practically begged, she even banged on the wooden table.
Eve took down the two shots that were sitting in front of her, knowing she’d need the liquid courage. Then she began. The memories of that night started flowing back to her.
It was several months after they had kissed. It was exam season. Well, the end of exam season. Oksana had just finished her last final and met Eve for dinner. They frequently went out to eat, they’d been to the cinema, and even watched movies in Oksana’s dorm. Oksana had only been to Eve’s house once. The brunette didn’t want the blonde around her husband. Church and State, kind of thing. Oksana didn’t question it, however, she thought about it a lot. They weren’t having an affair, were they? They kissed once, then never talked about it again. Sure, they flirted from time to time, or at least Oksana thought they were flirting, but it never went any further.
“Hey, how was your exam?” The brunette said as the blonde sat across from her. It wasn’t a fancy place, but it was theirs. It was a café right on campus, near enough to Oksana’s dorm, the school, and Eve’s house. “What was it, geology?”
“Close, history.” She smirked at her and the table. Eve had already bought their food. She knew the blonde’s order by heart. Double cheeseburger and fries. And a chocolate milkshake, of course.
“Right, sorry.” Eve shook her head.
She’d had a lot going on lately. Niko fights had been more frequent, Uni was getting harder as she was getting close to graduating, and her feelings for Oksana were getting more confusing. She loved spending time with the other woman, enough so that she rather spend time with her than her own husband. Another reason for the Niko fights. Almost all of her free time was spent with Oksana or studying and not with Niko. He didn’t like that.
Eve was confused, to say the least. She should want to spend time with her husband, she should want to tear his clothes off, she should want to run home to him as soon as possible but… she didn’t want any of those things. Her mind was constantly elsewhere… it was constantly on Oksana.
They ate pretty quickly, both of them hungry from their long days. They were walking around now, going nowhere in particular. Eve knew they were close to her house but she wasn’t necessarily leading them there.
“You okay? You seem… distant.” The blonde continued to walk, all while staring at Eve.
“Sorry, I don’t mean to be. I just…” Eve sighed, she knew she could talk to Oksana about anything but talking about her feelings toward Niko felt off-limits. They’d kissed and even though they agreed to forget it happened, it still felt wrong to talk about her husband. When she mentioned him in passing, she could feel the blonde stiffen. However, when Eve and Niko had a fight, she was always there for her. She always comforted her. The brunette was beyond thankful. She had no idea what she’d do without her. “It’s Niko. I don’t know, I just feel weird when I’m around him, I don’t know why.”
“Weird?” Oksana asked. Eve couldn’t help but smile, she still had ketchup and mustard around her lips. Could she reach out and wipe it? Would the blonde back away?
“Yeah weird. Uncomfortable maybe?” Eve decided to reach out, turning her body and rubbing off the sauce from the blonde’s lips with her thumb, Oksana’s heart may have skipped a beat, “Whenever I’m around him, I don’t really feel… anything.”
“I feel things when I’m with you,” Oksana said, becoming more confident in speaking about her feelings for Eve. She hadn’t suppressed her feelings but she hadn’t spoken about them so openly. Especially not to Eve. She saw how the brunette reacted after their kiss and she wasn’t going to risk her leaving. She wouldn’t be able to handle it.
“I feel things when I’m with you, too.” Eve smiled, it was nice to hear someone say that. It should be her husband, but she did feel things around Oksana. She couldn’t lie to her. They were too close.
“Why don’t you leave him?” The blonde looked ahead now, not wanting to look at Eve’s face when she asked this.
“Leave him?” They arrived at the brunette’s house, the lights were on. Niko was home. “I love him.”
“No, you don’t.” Oksana basically laughed, “You just said you didn’t feel anything around him. You feel things around me, not him.”
“That’s not…” Eve shook her head, stopping at the front steps.
“That’s not right? Really Eve? You do not love him. You love me.” She was looking right into the brunette’s eyes, standing under the porchlight.
“No, I don’t. Not like that, Oksana.” Eve whispered, continuing to shake her head. She wouldn’t say it any louder, it was hard enough to deny it. Those stupid hazel eyes.
“Eve, you’re mine.” The blonde took a step forward, trying to wrap her arms around the brunette, but Eve stepped back. “And I am yours. Do you not understand that?”
“Oksana, I can’t, okay? Yes, there’s obviously something here,” She gestured between them, “But I can’t act on it. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“It wouldn’t be fair to who? Him?” Oksana looked at the door, “Think about yourself for once. You always think of everyone else’s needs before your own, but what do you want? Who do you want, Eve?” She started to lean closer, closing the distance between them on the brunette’s small stoop.
“I want you, obviously.” She did feel some weight lift off her shoulder when she said this, but, as she said, it wasn’t that simple.
“Obvious to who?” Oksana smirked, Eve gave her a look.
“I spend all my time with you. I think about you all the time. Of course, I want you. I always have, but it’s not that simple.”
“Why not? I want you, you want me.” Oksana huffed. Villanelle had matured quite a bit in the last 8 years now. She knew it was more complicated. It doesn’t mean she liked that part of relationships, but she wasn’t as naive as Oksana had been.
“Because I have a life! I have a house, a husband, a future career!”
“You can still have all those things! Not a husband, but the rest, you can have!” They were slightly yelling now. Hopefully, Niko was upstairs and wouldn’t hear them.
“Oksana, it’s just really complicated.” Eve put her head in her hands, exhausted. She didn’t think the night was going to go this way. Could she go back like two hours?
Complicated. That stupid word.
“I see,” Oksana pursed her lips, she felt her heart breaking in her chest and Eve slipping away from her, “Do you care about me, Eve? Do I matter to you?”
“Of course you do. Don’t be silly.”
“Would you care if I was gone?” The brunette’s eyes perked up then, staring into hazel.
“Oksana, yes. Yes, I would care.” She put her hands on the blonde’s sides. Just to reassure her.
“But you do not love me?” Oksana always had a hard time with love. She never really knew what it meant or how it felt. Her parents never showed it to her. Konstantin had, but that was a different kind of love. The love she had for Eve… there were no words to explain it.
“I…” The brunette sighed, “I don’t know.” She had to tell the truth. She didn’t know if she loved Oksana, she didn’t know if she loved Niko. She thought she did, but the blonde had made her question a lot.
“You don’t know,” Oksana stepped down a couple of steps, looking up at the night sky, “You don’t know a lot of things.”
“What?”
“You don’t know if you love me, you don’t know if you love him, you don’t know how you feel about me at all, really. You don’t know if you love women--”
“Oksana, stop it.” Eve had enough by that point. She was confused but she didn’t need to be ridiculed for it. By someone she trusts so much, nonetheless.
“I am just trying to understand, Eve!” The blonde waved her arms around, turning back to look up at the brunette. “Why can’t you love me like I love you?”
“I don’t know, Oksana! I don’t fucking know. I wish I did! I wish I knew how I felt about you, about Niko, about everything so I wouldn’t have to be yelling at you on my front porch!”
“Did I ruin your life? Do you wish you never met me?” Oksana felt tears on her cheek. She didn’t want to bring attention to them by wiping them away but her vision was getting blurring because of them. She wiped them quickly, hoping the brunette wouldn’t notice. If she did, she didn’t say anything. Eve knew better.
“Oh god, I don’t know…” Eve sighed. The blonde didn’t ruin her life, if anything, she had made it better. But she did complicate it. Regardless, Eve can’t picture her life without her.
“Well, I will make it easy for you, then. I’ll leave.” The blonde turned and walked down the rest of the stairs. She was angry now. Sad, yes, but furious. Eve couldn’t just admit she felt the same. She couldn’t admit that she wanted her in her life? The blonde figured the only way to make herself feel better was to leave before Eve got the chance to.
“What? What do you mean leave?” The brunette started to follow but only got halfway down the short staircase. Was Oksana serious, or was she just being dramatic? She had the tendency for theatrics but she looked dead-serious.
“I will leave. You will never have to see me again. I will never make you feel like you do now ever again.” She started to step back, tears still in her eyes. Didn’t she just wipe them away?
“Don’t be like this, okay? Don’t leave. Please.”
“Why not? I’ve obviously confused everything for you, I fucked up everything. I always do, eventually.”
“Stop that. Don’t do that.”
“I can’t do this anymore, Eve. I can’t do this stupid game with you,” She ran her hands through her hair, trying to calm herself but it wasn’t working. She was furious, “You have no idea what you make me feel. And I know you feel the same. But you will never admit that. I can’t continue to be around you, my heart hurts, Eve. It hurts.” Do you ever have those moments so filled with sadness that your emotional pain becomes physical?
“But... I don’t want you to leave.” Eve was crying now. Oksana had been the majority of her life for almost a year. She meant so much. She wasn’t actually leaving, was she?
“You know I have to, Eve.” The blonde turned, looking at the brunette once more before continuing down the street. It hurt even more because the brunette did know she had to leave. This conversation, along with whatever had led up to it, was way too strong for both of them to be so intertwined in each other’s lives any longer.
“Oksana! Please!” She heard Eve yell after her. She let the tears flow as she picked up her pace into the London night. She booked a flight for Paris as soon as she got back to her dorm. She was in France the next day.
She got a new phone and deleted Eve’s number. She knew it off by heart so it didn’t really matter how many new phones or numbers she got. Regardless, she never called or texted the brunette again.