My Perpetrator Shows Her Face
MARY KATE
It’s been two days since I discovered the videos, and I haven’t been able to sleep.
I haven’t been to class. I’ve ignored all calls and messages from friends because my reality is too brutal, too painful, at the moment.
But now, we’re coming to the culmination.
My heart pounds at a thousand miles an hour as I stare out the mansion’s window.
The afternoon light is white and flat, the sky behind the windows blued out and hard as a screen.
It’s just me and the clock and the ache in my legs from pacing, nothing else moving in the entire front parlor.
I walk the perimeter, past the double-height windows and the echoing marble, my bare feet whispering on the stone.
The hem of my sweater is balled tight in my fists, sleeves shoved up so I can keep digging nails into my palm.
The only sound is the grandfather clock by the door: tick, tick, tick, every second slamming down like a gavel. I wish I could kill it, but I’m afraid of what the silence would reveal. The cold here has a kind of personality—clinical, omniscient, always watching.
Across the room, Kent is a study in negative space. He stands with his arms crossed over his massive chest and his jaw locked, framed by the vacant hearth. He doesn’t speak, but his attention burns—follows me like a sniper’s dot, always a step ahead of where I’ll be next.
I turn at the edge of the rug and walk back, trying to pretend I don’t feel him tracking my every move.
“You’re wearing a hole in the floor, sweetheart,” he says at last, voice low and dry.
I stop, halfway between him and the clock. “I need to keep moving or I’ll explode,” I say, and my voice sounds like it’s coming from the bottom of a well.
He unfolds his arms and closes the distance, slow but steady, until he’s a foot away. His hand comes up, soft on my cheek, thumb tracing the orbit of my eye.
“You haven’t slept,” he murmurs.
“Neither have you.”
He doesn’t deny it.
For a minute, we just stand there, two statues trying to remember how to be human. The clock ticks. His thumb moves to my lips, pausing at the corner where I bite whenever I’m nervous. I want him to kiss me, but I’m also afraid. What if she shows up and sees us? What if… what if … what if?
He senses this, as always, and his mouth brushes mine with all the gentleness of a secret. The kiss is slow, deliberate, more anchor than hunger. His hands cup my face, and I let him hold me up.
When he pulls back, I look up at him, trying to find some shape for the question that’s been eating me alive.
“Are you really—” I start, but the words run away, afraid of their own sound. I try again, jaw trembling. “Are you really on my side, Kent? No matter what?”
His eyes don’t blink. The blue is colder than glacier, but I know that color now—it’s not cruelty, it’s clarity.
“Yes,” he says, and it is an oath, not an answer. “Completely. There’s nothing in this world that would ever make me leave you, Mary Kate. I told you that. You’re mine.”
I want to believe him, but something inside still quivers, a little animal refusing to come out of its burrow.
“You’re not just saying that?” I whisper. “You’re not going to wake up tomorrow and think I’m—”
He stops me with a finger, gentle on my lips. “No. You’re my life. If the world burns down around us, I’ll make a new world for you.”
The way he says it makes me think he could, actually, and I swallow back a sob.
I press my face into his chest and breathe him in—cologne, coffee, the metallic tang of anxiety, sweat, and under all of it, the stubborn warmth I’ve always needed. He holds me there, and the clock ticks out three more seconds before the next storm hits.
First: the click of high heels on the front steps. Then a rattle as she inserts her old key, a slide, and the deadbolt rolls open. The door swings inward, and Jeannine Ashton materializes in the entryway, trailing a rollerboard suitcase and a long shadow.
She stands there for a second, blinking in the brightness, a trench coat knotted around her waist and a pair of sunglasses perched at the crown of her hair like she’s late for a photoshoot.
The coat is beige and too light for the temperature; her cheeks are wind-burned, and her mouth is chapped at the corners.
Her hair is pulled back in a neat little bun, a couple of blonde strands breaking free and sticking to her jaw.
The look on her face is half-exhaustion, half-performance, but even with the puffy eyes and the pale skin, she’s still beautiful—fine bones, surgical nose, the kind of smile you pay extra for.
She sees me and immediately rushes over, rollerboard forgotten by the door.
My mom envelops me in a perfumed hug that smells like the duty-free aisle at an airport, plus a hint of burned coffee and dry shampoo.
Her arms are stiff around my back, and when she kisses my cheek, her lips feel thin and papery.
“Oh, honey, I got your message and came as soon as I could. I couldn’t believe what I was reading.” She pulls back, searching my face for tears. “Are you okay? You must be traumatized. Who would do this? Who would make such disgusting videos of my baby?”
The word “baby” is a poison dart. I try to keep my face blank, but I can feel the bile rushing up my throat.
“Thanks for coming,” I manage, voice flat as printer paper. “Sorry it’s because of such bad news.”
Jeannine steps back and appraises me again. For a second, there’s real softness in her expression, but then she clicks back into business mode.
She rounds on Kent, who’s lurking by the fireplace, and gives him a look sharp enough to slice bread.
“Is there a reason you’re just standing there?” she says. “You let this happen, Kent. You promised me you’d protect her, and now look—her life is ruined. She’ll never get a job, never get married, never have a normal life—”
“That’s enough,” Kent says, the words dropping like bricks.
She raises an eyebrow, mouth curling in surprise. “Excuse me? My daughter’s been victimized, and you’re saying ‘that’s enough’? I’m sorry, but I’m the parent here—”
He doesn’t flinch. “That’s enough fake concern. We know all about it, Jeannine.”
I feel the air in the room snap tight, like a violin string ready to break.
Jeannine lets out a brittle laugh. “You think this is about me? You think I want to be here, in this mausoleum, cleaning up after your mess? You were supposed to protect my daughter, and now look what’s happened!”
Kent steps forward, eyes flat and blue and bottomless. “We know who posted the videos. We know where the account originated. It came from your apartment. In San Jose.”
The silence is a bomb. Jeannine’s face goes through three changes in two seconds—shock, then a quick scrim of calculation, then a watery smile.
“You’re insane,” she says, softly, almost sad. “Someone must have hacked my WiFi. It’s a shitty building, the super is always messing with the routers. Or maybe it was the last tenant, she was a little freak. Maybe she left spyware behind. But me? Why would I ever—”
Kent holds up his hand, not even interested in the answer. “Nate Remington traced it, Jeannine. He’s a world-class penetration tester and a sociopathic genius. He found your device name. He found your email. He found your entire browser history. You’re the one who created those deepfakes.”
Jeannine’s mask is slipping now. Her hands go to her hips, fingers curled so tight the knuckles go white.
“You’re going to believe some nerd in Silicon Valley over your own wife?” she spits.
“We’re not married anymore,” Kent says, in a tone so flat it could be a death certificate.
She snorts, but it’s a dead sound.
“Mary Kate,” she says, wheeling on me again. “I am so, so sorry. This is all his fault. He’s been obsessed with you since you were sixteen, and he wants to keep you for himself. He’s probably doing this to isolate you, to make sure you never go anywhere. Don’t you see? This is how abusers work—”
Kent actually smiles, and it’s terrifying. “You’re making shit up,” he says. “As usual.”
The mask comes off all the way then. Jeannine’s face goes red, her eyes glassy with fury.
“You two are sick,” she hisses, her voice climbing an octave.
“Fucking sick. You think I don’t know what’s happening here?
You think I didn’t see you, Kent, watching her every minute of every day?
You think I didn’t hear the moans through the walls?
You’re a predator, and she’s just—she’s just a dumb slut who doesn’t know any better. ”
My ears ring. The words hit like ice water down my back.
“We never did anything while you were here,” I say in a low voice. “What are you even talking about?”
Clearly, my mom’s spewing lies and doesn’t care who she hurts. I try again, but she cuts me off as she turns to Kent.
“You could have just divorced me,” Jeannine says, now almost crying. “You could have just let me walk away. But no—you had to ruin me. You had to take everything. The house, the car, the friends. You even turned my own daughter against me.”
He shakes his head.
“I took nothing from you that we didn’t agree to beforehand. In fact, you walked away with a lot of support, which was part of the deal. We agreed that after the divorce, I’d provide you with generous alimony for life—which I’ve been paying and more. So you’re the one who’s reneging on the deal.”
I can’t take it anymore.
“But even without the deal, I don’t get it,” I ask, my voice so soft I hardly recognize it. “Why would you do this, Mom? Why would you want everyone to see me like that? You were supposed to protect me.”
She turns, and for a split second, I see the real her—tired, scared, old.
But then it’s gone. She bares her teeth.
“Because I hate you!” she hisses. “You’ve always been a little whore, Mary Kate. The way you dressed, the way you flirted with every man who looked your way. The way you ruined every relationship I ever had.”
I stare at her, genuinely shocked.