It was cold on the roof of our New York high rise. We were alone.
"I think, I think there's this narrative," he said, pulling out a box of smokes. "There's this idea that victims are good people. That anyone who's ever had anything bad to them had a spotless record and saved homeless puppies in their free time. Or some shit. And they all go on to overcome their trauma and start that small business and change the world."
He bit down on a cigarette, shielded it from the wind, and flicked his lighter a few times.
"Fuckin bullshit."
He took a deep, long drag, held it for a few seconds, and the blew it out, looking at the sunset.
"As if being behind on your child support payments magically makes you immune to terrible things. Bad people are victims all the time, and many of them continue to be shit human beings after the fact. You wanna get away with rape? Call her a whore. People do it all the time. Cops shoot some fucker and he's a thug and a criminal. After all, whores, thugs, and criminals - they aren't victims. It doesn't fit the narrative."
He took another puff, this one shorter.
"And criminals, the fuckers who do this shit? They're bad people, or fuckin," he coughed up the cigarette smoke, "fuckin they're supposed to be."
He flicked some of the ash on to the ground. "Pedophiles don't actually have mustaches. They aren't all catholic priests. You can spend your whole life avoiding guys with tattoos and drug problems and still get knocked the fuck out. And if you honestly can't believe that I wouldn't take what I want, just think about every other criminal who's ever lived. They all had wives who trusted them too."
He pulled his cigarette out of his mouth, and let it slip out of fingers, over the edge and off the roof, like he was too lazy to stop it from falling down.
"Plenty of people who commit heinous, evil acts, were otherwise decent human beings. Were it not for that one thing, that one blip, the whole world would see them as model members of society. And victims? They're shit human beings more times than not. Most people who get kicked are already down. That's how you get away with it. You target people who were never going to see justice anyway."
He pulled out his box of cigarettes again, and started whacking it to get another.
"Life is not a movie. You do not get better. Your life is ruined from here on and you cannot recover. And every night you lie awake tortured by the memories I'm gonna be sleeping like a baby."
The wind blew out his lighter.
"I'm gonna get away with it. I have that power. Because I'm a good person. I'm a hard working self-taught dreamer who goes to church every Sunday. Good people like me don't get arrested. Good people like me don't rape. And you? You're a piece of shit. Nobody cared about you before and nobody--"
I shot him. His body toppled over the side of the high rise and smashed into the concrete.
Guilty. I plea guilty, your honor. I confess.