Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 82883 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82883 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
He smooths my hair back, finger-combing it behind my ear. “You should. It’s a good expose, sweetheart. They quoted you by name—‘the bravest girl at Century College.’ They put you right at the front. You and the other girls who have been targeted by deepfakes.” He pauses, lets the weight of it hang there. “You’re clean, baby. Everyone knows those videos aren’t of you. Your name’s as white as snow, and reputation untarnished.”
It’s like a balloon deflating in my chest, slow and soft and final. I exhale for what feels like the first time since the world ended because I avoided campus for months, ashamed by what had happened to me. Of course, it wasn’t my fault, but still. How can I explain to an entire campus that my image had been illegally used? By my own mom too?
But then, the reporter from the Daily Century called, saying they were going to do an expose on this new usage of deepfakes to hurt and victimize women. I didn’t want to talk to her at first, but Kent convinced me to, and the result was the long-form article in last week’s paper. Everyone now knows that it was never me in those videos, and in fact, there’s talk of legislation going through that will criminalize deepfake behavior.
“I’m glad that’s over,” I say in a soft voice. The tension in my shoulders goes slack, and suddenly the cap is too heavy on my head. I take it off and place it on the staircase.
Kent nods, running his hands through my golden locks. “You did it,” he says again, but this time it’s softer, less alpha-male and more… whatever it is you call a man who’s let himself be domesticated, if only for one person.
We stand there, a loving tableau at the base of the staircase, the whole house a cathedral of silence around us. I look at the runner on the stairs, the fresh lilies I arranged in the foyer vase this morning, the way the late sunlight spills honey across the floor. It should feel like an ending, but instead it feels like we’re paused on the verge of something too new and too good to name.
He leans against the banister, folding his arms, and his gaze goes sideways for a second—off me, off the room, somewhere far away. “I’m sorry your mother wasn’t here,” he says. It’s so unexpected, I flinch. “Although Jeannine doesn’t deserve to see you walk, seeing what she put you through.”
I watch the way his jaw tightens, the hard cut of it under his skin. For a moment I remember everything: my mom’s screaming, the handcuffs, the final click of the door as the police took her away. The emails I still haven’t read, the messages she sent that I keep in a folder labeled “Open Maybe Someday.”
I let the silence do its thing, fill up the foyer with invisible ghosts.
“It’s okay,” I say at last, even though it isn’t. “I don’t know that I’ll ever be okay with what happened, and I don’t know that she’ll recover either. My mom’s obviously off her rocker because who creates deepfake nudes of your own daughter? But maybe, years from now, things will be different.” I turn my engagement ring on my left hand, the diamond flashing in the late light. “I’d like to believe that.”
Kent looks at my hands, the way my fingers toy with the ring, and then up at my face. “If you ever want to let her back in, I’ll support you, sweetheart. Whatever you decide. But if you want Jeannine gone forever, I’m fine with that too.”
His voice is a little hoarse at the edges. He means it.
I nod, slow, letting the words soak in. “Thank you,” I say in a soft voice.
He reaches for me again, but this time it’s not to pull me in—it’s to steady me, just a hand at my elbow, a tiny anchor in the endless air.
For a second, I want to burrow my face in his chest and stay there until the recent events are just a story we tell other people. Instead, I let the moment pass, and pull away with a small, private smile.
We stand, side by side, both facing the staircase.
I try for a new topic, lighter and more playful. “Did you see Kayleigh at the graduation reception? She looked different.” I leave out the rest: thinner, wired, eyes a little too bright.
Kent smirks. “Yeah, I noticed. She ran up and hugged you like you were about to be shot to the moon.”
“She’s obsessed with someone new,” I say. “It’s all she’s talked about for weeks. Except—” I lower my voice, even though there’s no one else here to overhear. “Okay, maybe he’s not exactly a new guy. It’s her stepbrother. Her mom just got re-married, and Kayleigh is obsessed with this dude.”