5
<
That one sentence shut down everyone
around us.
Mark and the teacher paused.
After sharing a look, Mark turned to me,
bewildered,
“What are you talking about? Our daughter’s
dead! Do you think we’re putting on a show
for you?”
“There’s evidence and witnesses. Are you
really trying to deny what you did?”
Hearing that, the crowd grew angry again,
and started glaring at me.
The internet was back to screaming at me,
calling me names.
<
I didn’t bother talking to them. I just grabbed
the evidence that my secretary had gathered
and showed it to everyone, right there on live
stream.
There were photos of Mark and the teacher
being intimate.
There were chat logs, showing how they were
constantly in contact.
And there were also records of Mark sending
the teacher large sums of money.
I looked at Mark and said, “You two have
been sleeping together behind my back. You
even arranged for her to get a job at the
school, didn’t you?”
Last time, I had been so caught up in Mark’s
<
act of being sweet, that I had never
suspected him.
But thinking back, everything had been weird,
but I’d tried to ignore it.
Like, Mark was always so eager to drop off and pick up our daughter.
Sometimes he’d go early or come home late.
He was always gone for a long time.
And when he got home, I could always smell the teacher’s gardenia perfume on him.
But since they always seemed so innocent, I had never thought much about it.
Looking back, it was obvious that they had
<
The cameras zoomed in on Mark, capturing
the fear in his eyes.
The crowd was suddenly changing their tune.
“Oh my god, look at his face, he really was
sleeping with the teacher!”
“I knew it, he’s such a jerk!”
“He’s been planning this whole thing, keeping
his mistress at school so that he can see her
every time he picks up and drops off his kid.”
“This is proof that you can’t trust any men.”
The people who were watching me started to
look at Mark with disgust.
But Mark didn’t seem worried. He
<
straightened up, saying, “So what if those
things are true?”
“It’s not like you didn’t push me to it?”
“You’re always acting like a mean person, I
was just trying to find some peace! Is that
wrong?”
“But whatever I do, doesn’t mean you had to
kill our daughter!”
The teacher agreed,
“Yeah, you’re the one who can’t act right,
you’re trying to distract us by talking about
us!”
“Do you think that you can just wash away
the fact that you beat your child and killed
<
They were blaming me again.
The crowd, and the internet, were turning on
me again, screaming and cursing me again.
But I was prepared. I took out my phone.
“Then, let’s all see what happened. And see
how my daughter actually died?”
