Reformed Villain’s Ex: Don’t Love Me, It’s Futile

Chapter 2 — Viral Snakes and Quiet Wars

The anonymous photo had sat in my inbox like a hot coal I wasn’t sure whether to toss or pocket. It was small, grainy — the kind of thing a bored paparazzo and a bored algorithm make after midnight — but the caption underneath had teeth: *We know more than you think.*

I stared at it until my retinas threatened to unionize. Damien and Lila were in a frame that suggested chemistry and pretension: laughing, angled just so, the kind of smile that has PR credits. But behind them, blurred and almost apologetic, was a third face I didn’t recognize. Whoever sent it wanted me to be nervous. That was the only plausible explanation for breakfast tortillas and an anonymous email at ten in the morning.

My hand hovered over my phone like a detective in a cliché. There are three kinds of people in this industry: the ones who feed you fear, the ones who monetize it, and the rare idiots who manage both. Whoever had sent me this wanted a reaction. I decided to give them something better: a diversion.

By noon, while the production team fussed over camera angles and a caterer tried to convince us that quinoa could be classy when strewn by a stylist, I posted a short clip on my account. It was unpolished: me, hair wild, singing Rowan’s bedtime lullaby while making tea. Cute, human, selective.

The clip worked the way a snarky tweet does when timed with precision. The comment section melted. *She’s softer than we thought,* read one. *Wait, is she human?* read another. People like their conspiracies with a side of tenderness — it makes them feel superior and compassionate at once. I had accidentally invented an emotional tapas menu.

Mason loved the traction. He appeared like a caffeine-fueled prophet with a clipboard. “This is what we want,” he declared, as if we were discovering fire. “Authenticity, humanity, snackable tension.” Producers are always hungry for good adjectives. They live off them.

The real bait, of course, was drama. Week two’s challenge was called “The Gauntlet,” which was show-speak for: run across some unsteady planks, grab a flag, and don’t cry because the audience will judge your waterworks harshly. It also involved a team exercise in public humiliation disguised as bonding. The producers were wise enough to mix competitiveness with mild danger — the internet loves that.

Carrie Langford strutted onto the set like she’d been given the role of everyone’s emotionally available princess. Picture-perfect hair, a smile calibrated to maintain plausible deniability for anything nasty she might do later. She was The Kind of Girl who looks like sunlight and then pricks your hand with a Pinterest pin. She glanced at me and gave a little sympathetic waggle of her head that said, If I had to compete with a snake-catcher, I’d bring flowers too. I wanted to give her a bouquet of reality.

We were split into teams. I was tactical — not because I’d planned my rise to fame with a cookie sheet and charts, but because in my old life I’d spent hours in marketing meetings where everyone believed in controlled vulnerability. Real vulnerability, I’d learned, happens off-camera. On camera, vulnerability is a tactic.

The gauntlet began in a blur of mud and squeals. I took a running leap, sensation sharp and satisfying as popcorn. The planks swayed. Someone slipped. The cameraman yelled “Close-up!” like a prayer.

Then the moment happened. A plank snapped under Carrie’s foot — tragic timing, poor stage carpentry, whatever you’d like to blame. Carrie, being unfailingly dramatic, performed a slow-motion, air-of-innocence tumble that might have earned her an Oscar were it not for the exceedingly unfortunate detail that she’d landed in a strategically placed mud patch.

Now: most people would have squealed, glared, or called a lawyer. Carrie, however, did something cruelly efficient: she flopped dramatically, let the cameras drink of her shock, then looked straight into the lens and said, with syrupy innocence: “I just hope no one thinks I’m trying too hard.”

I could have let the moment become a meme in her favor. Instead, I considered my arsenal: sarcasm, practicality, and a deep, abiding love for narrative c*****e. I walked up, smacked mud off her boot with the nonchalance of someone swiping a crumb from their table, and offered a hand up.

“Try not to make a habit of theatrics,” I said, loud enough that the microphones might wrap it in a soundbite. “People who overdo catastrophe often have the least interesting souls.”

She blinked slowly, like a porcelain doll being read bad news. The audience roared. Producers clapped silently in the control tent because they knew what viral cruelty looked like before anyone had the decency to feel guilty about it.

There are roast lines that make you laugh and roast lines that land like an unexpected tax bill. That one fell into the latter category and it wrote its own headline later that night. I didn’t mean to be cruel — I’d just noticed a pattern and called it out. If sarcasm were currency, I’d be a billionaire.

The clip of me helping Carrie and then dropping the soft jab made its rounds. Fans who liked me for my defiance ate it up. Fans who thought I was an unfair villain fumed. Everyone, however, loved a good, slightly mean comeback dressed as civic responsibility.

Between takes, Mason cornered me in the production’s trailer. “You handled that perfectly,” he said, eyes glittering with numbers. “You’re not just surviving the show — you’re rewriting what people think of a woman like you.”

“Women like me,” I corrected him, because accuracy in branding matters. “It’s not a group subscription.”

He laughed like I’d bribed him with a better stock tip. “You’ll get offers after this. Kollective wants to sign you for a segment. We could spin this into a guest spot, maybe a speaking tour. There’s a lot of appetite for a villain who learns to be human.”

The industry has a language of voraciousness disguised as praise. I nodded politely and filed the comment under *Potential Revenue — Consider*.

By the time rain threatened the mud again, production set up a late-night livestream teaser for our episode. They wanted to capture raw morale and pre-episode nerves. It’s funny how the people with the power to amplify you are also the people who will happily sell the footage to the highest gossip bidder when the scandal comes.

Damien called during the livestream prep. I considered not picking up, but a show runs on unpredictability and petty curiosity. I answered, and his voice was a low, clinical fog on the line.

“Stop using the child as a performance piece,” he said. Always practical. Always dry. He didn’t scold the producers; he scolded me because I was the variable he could reach.

“I’m not using him as a performance piece,” I said. “I’m using the world as a stage. There’s a difference. One pays for therapy, the other pays for optics.”

He sighed the sigh of a man whose spreadsheets had acquired feelings. “You’re charming when you’re petty.”

I exhaled, a small, sardonic puff. “You’re charming when you’re efficient,” I said. “You and efficiency are very close. Are you two exclusive?”

There was a pause long enough to make both of our phone batteries feel awkward. “This isn’t a joke,” he said finally.

“Nothing worthwhile is,” I replied. “Also — PSA — Phoebe liked my last lullaby post. That’s public knowledge.”

We both hung up with a kind of contractual frustration. The kind where nothing is legally binding but emotions are smugly leased.

The livestream teased a lot and revealed very little. I made sure to be charmingly evasive. On camera, authenticity is like seasoning — too little and you’re bland, too much and you ruin the dish. I aimed for a spice that made people ask for the recipe.

After the show wrapped, the producer announced a surprise: a guest judge from a high-profile media outlet would be cutting footage and giving instant reactions. Great. Nothing sharpens a day like a critic with a mic.

The guest arrived: a woman who resembled a tabloid queen and moved with confidence that suggested she dictated morning radio style. She watched our clipped performances and then pivoted to me with the delicate ferocity of a woman with an agenda.

“You’re doing something interesting,” she said into the camera, smile clinical. “You can be abrasive and… likable. That’s a dangerous combo.”

She was right, and I felt a tiny, uninvited thrill. Recognition is an addictive nutrient, especially when it comes with the possibility of conversion: villain to star.

Then the screen behind the control tent flickered. We all assumed it was the usual technical hiccup. Instead, a fresh image rolled onto the monitor: the anonymous photo from my inbox, blown up and framed like an accusation on display.

A hush fell. Not the reverent kind. The kind that smells like someone who knows a storm is coming and realizes they forgot to close their windows.

The guest judge held the mic and smiled in a way that suggested she was enjoying the scent of trouble. “Interesting,” she said again, slower this time. “Care to comment?”

The room turned to me like a court turning to a witness who could ignite the next headline. I was aware of my phone ticking in my pocket like a small, anxious metronome.

“Interesting is a polite word for scandal,” I said to the camera, voice carefully neutral. “But we live in a world that loves scandal. Are we surprised?”

Someone in the control tent peered over and muttered, “Who sent it?” The answer on everyone’s face was the same: we didn’t know, and hadn’t had time to monetize that mystery yet.

Suddenly Damien’s voice came through on the tent’s phone line — he’d been pulled in. He’d seen the blown-up photo and, apparently, decided to show up in person. He arrived like an executive storm, coat still damp, eyes narrowed into something more private than anger: plotting.

He didn’t shout. Damien doesn’t yell—he recalibrates. He walked into frame, straightened his tie, and looked directly into the camera as if questioning our collective competence.

“Someone is playing a game,” he said slowly. “And someone is using our family to score points.”

The guest judge nodded, delighted. The cameras loved a man in charge, and control is the single most seductive costume.

“I don’t know who sent it,” I said into the mic, because truth is a funny thing: sometimes it’s the only thing you can weaponize.

Damien stared at me like he was reading a confidential report written in a language he thought he understood and then realized the margins held a ransom note.

“Then we’ll find out,” he said. “Because whoever does this will regret it.”

The control room hummed with a dangerous electricity, like the air before a summer storm. Lives can be measured by pixels now, and someone had just thrown a stone.

The guest judge smiled, tapped a folder, and said: “We actually traced the source.” The screen went black for dramatic effect, and the control room brigades leaned forward like wolves. My phone buzzed wildly with a text from an unrecognized number: *Tonight. Midnight. Rooftop. Bring Rowan.*