“It doesn’t matter!” she cried, defiantly, but for no discernible reason except belligerence. “It doesn’t matter if you confess. It doesn’t matter if you’ve atoned and I have not. It doesn’t matter if I was the one who instigated you or if none of it was real, which I know all too well it wasn’t but choose to ignore. It doesn’t matter if you love me, or if I care more than I will ever admit. I need a villain, and that is the role I have assigned to you forever. I will never change my mind, and I have no will of my own to do so.”

“It doesn’t matter if you’re right about my true motives in love. It doesn’t matter if you’re right about the slime that comes for me and their machinations, that they are lower than I could ever force myself to believe of you. It doesn’t matter if you’re right about their base natures, which they prove again and again and I see. It doesn’t matter if you somehow still protect me from afar. I will not listen. It doesn’t matter if you’re right about any or all of it. I need a villain, and that is what you are for me. And I will sacrifice love, loyalty, and everything I claim I want to keep it that way. Because I do not want it. I want to live in a world of make believe, and you have no place in it but as the villain. Yes, I am cold and only seek advantage. That I admit.”

“I have played it too deeply. I cannot change my mind now, even if I wanted … and I don’t. Because I need a villain, and your existence excuses all my mistakes. To admit that I was wrong, to admit that I feel, is something that can never happen. I have made my own trap, and I am fine with that, though it will trap me further, though it will rob me of true joy, though it makes me my own villain. I cannot recant and never will. I will not accept the scorn for it. I will never let myself love you, or even know you again. I will never let myself feel your warm embrace upon me again, no matter the pleasure. I have let my mind be made up for me, as always, and I dare not risk the truth … ever.” 

“So go and die. It doesn’t matter if my God placed you in my path, nor whether I defy him my whole life. Just go and die so I never have to wrestle again with my conscience. Just let me forget, though it comes to me itself, chastising me in sleep. Yes, I am a coward. But better a coward than without connections. And, yes, they should understand but they do not know, and that is not real life. Real life is that you are my villain, and you must remain so forever. It doesn’t matter if you are right about anything, and the more you are the more I hate you. You are my scapegoat, my eternal excuse. I will never pay my debt to you … not in this world. I choose the lie and the creatures that come with it.”