“YOU HAVE 34 NEW MESSAGES”

“Hey!”

Vivian?

“…you’ve reached Viv’s phone! Leave a message!”

*beep*

Vivian. Please pick up my calls. It’s been over a week now.

Please. I need you.

I talk for hours each week about making the world a better place. I tell the public that I want it to be better for everyone in it, and they hold me up on their pedestal like some kind of saint. And yes, I feel like I am the lone good man in a pit of vipers when I look around me at the political gatherings on both sides of the pond, but you know just as well as I do that I’m lying to them.

I tell them that everything I do is all for them, but Viv, everything I do – everything I’ve ever done – it’s all for you. And that’s what I told Blackveil this past week when she brought your questions to me. I told her from the heart. From the moment I saw you I knew I was supposed to be there for you. After everything you have been through it felt right that I was by your side, lifting you from the depths of your despair.

I want you to see heights you could never have dreamed of Viv, because you deserve it. But I can’t show you the heights just yet, because now I need help. I’m so low. I’m deep, deep in the abyss, and it’s through no fault of my own. And I can’t do it any more. Knowing you believe these… fascist feminists… over your own husband is tearing me inside out.

The podium has always felt like a second home to me, but now it’s a stark reminder that I am all alone in this world, with everyone looking up at me, faces frozen in time with looks of disgust, pity, disbelief. The podium has become my gallows, and these fabrications are the noose around my neck, Viv. Can’t you see me? Can’t you look deep inside and know me? Truly know me?

And if you don’t know me like I thought you did, then there is only one thing left to do. I have to win, or die trying. The Butcher has granted me the chance to beat the truth out of that vicious femi-Nazi completely legally, and so that’s what I’ll have to do. By the end of the week you’ll either be facing up to the fact that I was framed and you believed it, or that’ll be the end of it all.

And if, even then, you can’t see through to my soul, I just want to warn you of one thing. No good can come of Blackveil. The Sisterhood is a toxic cauldron of repulsiveness, and Blackveil stands stirring it, chanting “Double, double toil and trouble” on the sidelines.

I just wish that you could see that if you listen to her this only ends one way.

I don’t see you as the Lady Macbeth type, Viv.

But I’m sure you’ll be the death of me.

I love you. Always.