After breakfast, we get into the car, and Vlad drives me home so I can change into something much more comfortable. The dress is getting to me; it really is a bit too tight, digging into my skin and leaving red marks that look like shackles. I prefer looser styles, which is what I put on, enjoying the way the soft fabric envelops my body, granting it long-awaited freedom. The weather is wonderful; the gentle sun warms the air, filled with the scents of blooming trees and heated asphalt, and one can afford to wear a light dress made of flowing fabric and open sandals, feeling the soft breeze on one's ankles.

Once dressed, I run straight to the guy, who is already standing there with a bouquet of daisies, waiting for me patiently while leaning against the car. His face lights up with a smile when he sees me, and warm sparkles flash in his eyes — so genuine that, for a moment, I want to believe in them.

"They are so beautiful," I say, taking them and involuntarily smiling at their simple, sweet charm, this sun in miniature that he holds in his hands.

I reach out and, standing on tiptoe, give Vlad a brief hug, feeling his body warmth for a fleeting moment and the persistent, familiar scent of his cologne mixed with the freshness of the morning.

"No, you are the one who is very beautiful," he replies, complimenting me, and his gaze — soft and admiring — makes me forget my role for a second, catching me off guard with his sincerity.

"I hope you, as a true romantic, didn't tear them out of a flowerbed?" I ask, feigning suspicion as I inspect the white petals, on which drops of dew are still glistening.

"No, I noticed a flower kiosk nearby, and I bought them there. Should I show you the receipt?" He pretends to reach into his pocket, and I cannot hold back a chuckle that escapes easily and spontaneously, as if we really were just a couple in love.

"No, I believe you. Especially since they have packaging; you clearly didn't find that in the glove compartment," I joke, running my fingers over the cellophane wrapper, feeling its cold rustle.

"It's difficult even to give you flowers, Rose," the guy complains about me again with exaggerated grief, and that makes me laugh even more. His feigned despair is amusing, theatrical, and cute.

"Maybe one day I will become simpler and more understandable for you."

"I am already praying to all the gods that this moment comes soon, otherwise I'm not sure about my nervous system and whether it can hold out much longer," he replies with a wide smile, opening the car door for me with emphasized gallantry so I can get in. His movements are fluid and confident, honed by practice.

"Guys have become so fragile these days: it's been a couple of months since we met, and they can't handle it already," I parry, gracefully settling into the seat and laying the bouquet on my lap, where it lies like white, silent testimony to this strange game.

Vlad, still laughing, closes the door and gets into the driver's seat. We drive to the city center, where there are many cafes. Vlad chooses one with an outdoor terrace entwined with greenery, where we can sit outside in peace, enjoying the fresh air instead of a stuffy establishment. I approve of his choice and am all for it. We order ice cream, and once the order arrives, we start eating it. A spoonful of the cold, sweet dessert is incredibly welcome under the gentle sun; it melts in my mouth, bringing a fleeting pleasure that seems capable of melting any bitterness.

"How did you decide to become a womanizer?" I ask the question that had been troubling me even before I met him.

How do guys generally decide to keep changing women incessantly? What compels them to do this? Do they really enjoy hurting us? Personally, I don't understand the reasons why one would want to be a womanizer and why not stop doing it. Fine, one can date different women, and I don't mind that, but to sleep with a new one almost every day — that is too much for me. I could never do that. The thought of such ease and emptiness makes me shudder.

"Um..." he is embarrassed, the spoon in his hand freezes, and I am afraid that there will be a reaction similar to the question about his parents — a withdrawal into himself and silence, that wall I wanted so much to break down but now fear seeing again.

"If it's personal, don't answer; I won't dig into your soul again," I hasten to say, trying to close the topic that I seemed to have opened too hastily, frightened both by his reaction and by my own true motives.

"No, I can," he agrees after a pause, setting the cup aside. "Stas and I left the orphanage and decided to go to a club, and that was where I first slept with a girl."

"Did you like it?" I ask for some reason and immediately regret it, as this is too personal a question even for me. I feel my face burning, and my heart starts beating somewhere in my throat.

"Not exactly, because I was very worried and nervous most of the time, but I really liked the end, and I wanted more."

He says this somewhat detached, looking somewhere to the side, as if remembering that confused youth who was looking in someone else's arms for confirmation that he existed, that he was needed.

"And then?" I ask quietly, wanting to know the continuation of his beginning of a stormy life as a "woman-lover," to put it mildly, while at the same time feeling a bitter aftertaste in my mouth.

"Then I started sleeping with girls on a regular basis," Heartbreaker shrugs his shoulders, as if it were the most natural course of events, an inevitable path he had stepped onto and from which he had not turned back.

"Haven't you gotten tired of it after all these years?" I don't understand him.

How can one not be satiated by this endless succession? How can one not feel the chilling emptiness behind this infinite kaleidoscope of faces and bodies?

"Actually, no. It's interesting, like a game."

A game. I hate this word in relation to girls who get led on and think it's all for real, while they are merely being played with. This word falls between us like a stone, dividing everything into "before" and "after." In his eyes, I don't see malice, only a habitual, hard-won detachment — a defensive armor he has perhaps been wearing for years. But for me, it sounds like a verdict. A verdict for him and a justification for my entire plan. Inside, everything turns cold; the blood drains from my face, leaving only icy composure, but I maintain a light, interested smile, as if his words were merely a curious observation.

A game, you say? Well, let's see who turns out to be the stronger player in this game. And whose heart will break first when the pieces are set and it is not just victory, but a soul, at stake.

"Am I just a game to you? Are my feelings nothing more than an unnecessary element of your toy in the game?" I ask with resentment in my voice, and these words echo the pain not only of my own but, it seems, of all those girls whose hearts he broke with such lighthearted carefreeness. My fingers involuntarily clench the edge of the table, and I feel a treacherous tremor rising to my throat.

"You are no longer a game to me; everything between us is for real now," he draws a clear line between the past and the present, his gaze firm and direct, as if he is trying to convince not only me but himself as well.

However, his past has not gone away and will not go away until he stops acting this way, a cold and rational inner voice whispers. Words are just words, beautiful bubbles that pop at the first encounter with reality.

"I keep thinking about your exes and how relationships with you ended for them," I confess, looking at the melting scoop of ice cream in my cup, which is turning into a sweet, pathetic puddle. I imagine their faces — confused, tear-filled, distorted by the pain of the betrayal they brought upon themselves by believing in a mirage.

"Why do you need them?" he genuinely, almost childishly, doesn't understand my feelings regarding his games and his exes.

For him, they are closed chapters not worth remembering, dusty volumes tucked away on the furthest shelf.

"Here I am, with you, and things will be different for us," he assures me, but his words hang in the air as a flimsy promise, devoid of a foundation.

I don't believe him. The outcome is already determined, but Vlad thinks he knows it. For him, it will be a surprise — a cold, honed thought gives me strength, like a sip of strong liquor. He always dumps girls, but this time I will dump him, and what's more, I will put him in his place, for this will be revenge for all the girls and for everything he did to them. This thought burns inside me like a glowing coal.

"Don't you regret playing with them and their feelings?" I ask with a last, faint hope that there is at least a drop of remorse in his soul, at least a shadow of a conscience that would make him truly look at the consequences of his actions.

"If I'm being honest, no, I don't regret anything."

His answer, calm and deliberate, shocks me with its airless emptiness. In his eyes, there is not a shadow of doubt or a spark of understanding. Heartbreaker doesn't care about them. Us. We were just episodes, pages that could be turned without regret.

"Why?" I exhale, feeling the ground slip from under my feet and the room start to float slowly before my eyes.

"I never deceived anyone and never confessed my feelings to anyone. Yes, there are many womanizers who swear love to their partners, but I can't do that."

"Why?" I repeat my question again, almost in a whisper, trying to get to the core, to that crack through which one could glimpse something human.

"Because I can't play with feelings. Yes, I can say what a beautiful girl she is and that I like her, but no more. Everything else is too much for me, and I cannot lie about love."

That's true, I acknowledge to myself with bitterness, and this realization is more bitter than wormwood. After all, my sister herself told me that he never showed his feelings to her, only an interest in sex. Also, when she confessed her love to him, he said that he felt nothing for her and that there would be nothing serious between them. He also added that he didn't want anything from her except intimacy and wouldn't give her anything more himself. Honest, but very cruel, in my opinion. Yes, he tells the truth to his partners, but by continuing the relationship with them, he involuntarily gives them hope that he will change with them and, perhaps, love them.

Although, let's be honest, the girls themselves make all this up and try to "fix the bad boy," even though he himself doesn't want anything from the girl except for her to spread her legs. We ourselves, in essence, blur the truth and paint over it an image of a poor, unhappy guy who just needs help and will be perfect with us.

The truth is that you can't fix anyone if the person themselves is not trying to improve and do something about it. Everything else is self-deception and merely an illusion created by us, the girls, in an attempt to love someone who should neither be loved nor saved. In such a case, one should save the girl from the guy, not the girl save the guy. This thought burns me with shame.

"Thank you for your honest answers, as they are important to me," I thank him sincerely, and my voice sounds with weary resignation. There is a perverse value in this monstrous frankness, a bitter medicine that opens an abscess.

"You're welcome, but I really didn't lie to you, or to them either. If you take everything that was between us before this, I didn't promise you anything and didn't swear to love you forever. Girls go to bed with me either at the first meeting or in the first week of the relationship, even though I only nudge them slightly toward it. You, however, if you don't want to sleep with me, despite having been in my bed more than once, still haven't slept with me. Tell me, did I ever force you to do anything in terms of intimacy?"

Heartbreaker is right again. And if those girls hadn't wanted to, Vlad wouldn't have slept with them, just as he hasn't slept with me so far. It doesn't absolve him of guilt, but the girls' behavior wasn't perfect either. It is an unpleasant, bitter realization that forces one to reconsider the entire picture, to see in them not only victims and a tyrant, but also voluntary accomplices.

"No," I quietly admit, and this word sounds like a verdict on my own righteousness.

"See? And I behave toward girls more or less the same way. If I forced girls to sleep with me, we would have slept together a long time ago."

He is right again, and I know it. However, it hurts me to admit that some girls behave too vulgarly and loosely and aren't against guys like Heartbreaker having intimate relations with them. This thought evokes disgust mixed with a feeling of shame for my own gender.

But at the same time, burning anger toward the guys wells up. Are they any better? They are far from angels who became accidental victims of female promiscuity. Heartbreaker himself and his kind create this demand. They willingly take advantage of availability, encourage this filth, soothe their bloated egos with another trophy, and then hypocritically grimace while pontificating about how modern girls have gone to the dogs. There are no innocents in this game.

On the other hand — my sister. I once secretly took her phone, started digging through the photos, and found a photo of Anastasia with Vlad. I was shocked. She behaved in these photos and videos very... I don't even know what word to choose, as I didn't want to insult my sister with low words. There were many photos of them dancing, kissing, and even having sex. It was clear that, for the most part, it was she who was filming it, and very rarely — him. Her smiles were wide open, her gaze — triumphant and moist with desire. There wasn't a hint of coercion in her eyes, only the intoxicating delight of possessing such a man.

Could I really be so wrong about my sister, and was Vlad not that bad? He didn't hit her or force her to do anything, and she said as much herself. He also didn't want a real relationship and told her himself that there was only sex between them and nothing more. What did she expect from him? Love and a wedding a year later? Pfft, he's incapable of that, and we all know it. Could I blame him for not living up to expectations he never set? I don't even know...

My belief in my revenge is beginning to fade, like a campfire doused by a sudden rain, and I don't understand what I actually want anymore. The revenge plan, once so clear and distinct, now seems shaky and unjust, built on half-truths and my own projections. And deep down, under the layers of resentment and anger, something new, frightening, and incomprehensible has stirred — doubt not only in him but in myself, in my motives, and in the truth I was so fiercely defending. And this inner upheaval is more frightening than any of his frankness.