Chapter 6 - Mark's True Face
On Thursday evening, the inevitable happened.
I was walking out of the grocery store near my new apartment, carrying a paper bag with fresh sourdough, cheese, and a bottle of pinot noir, when a figure lunged out from behind the concrete pillar of the parking garage.
“Grace!”
I stepped back instinctively, setting the groceries on the hood of a nearby car and slipping my hand into my coat pocket, where my fingers closed around the canister of pepper spray Sarah had forced me to carry.
It was Mark.
He looked unrecognizable. The tailored suits, the slicked-back hair, the polished smile that had once convinced me he was a gentleman—all of it had disintegrated.
He was wearing wrinkled grey sweatpants, an oversized hoodie with grease stains on the pocket, and three days of patchy, uneven stubble. His eyes were wild, bloodshot, and sunken deep into dark purple hollows. He smelled of stale cigarettes and cheap bourbon.
“Mark,” I said, keeping my voice cold and loud enough for the parking attendant sixty feet away to hear. “Stay right there. Don’t take another step toward me.”
He stopped, raising both hands in a pleading, trembling gesture.
“Grace, please… just listen to me for two minutes. That’s all I’m asking. Two minutes!”
“You have forty seconds before I empty an entire can of mace into your eyes and call the police,” I replied. “Start talking.”
He fell to his knees on the oil-stained concrete of the parking garage.
A grown, thirty-one-year-old man, sobbing on his knees between a Honda Civic and a concrete pillar.
“Grace, I made a mistake! A horrible, catastrophic mistake!” he cried, tears streaming down his grimy cheeks. “Lily tricked me! You know what she’s like! She kept cornering me, Grace! She told me you didn't love me! She told me you were cold, that you were only marrying me because of my resume, that you talked down about me behind my back!”
I didn't answer. I just watched him.
“She seduced me!” he babied, his voice climbing into a pathetic whine. “She came to my hotel room in Lake Tahoe when she knew you were asleep! She wouldn't leave! I was weak, Grace, I was so stupid, but it was *her*! She’s a sociopath! She orchestrated the whole thing because she couldn't stand the idea of you being happy!”
“Is that why you gave her sixteen thousand dollars in jewelry bought on your corporate card, Mark?” I asked, my voice cutting through his theatrical performance like a scalpel. “Did she hold a gun to your head while you signed the receipt at Tiffany’s?”
Mark’s sobs hitched. He wiped his nose on the sleeve of his dirty hoodie.
“I… I was trying to buy her silence!” he stammered, his eyes darting frantically across the floor. “She was threatening to tell you! She said if I didn't buy her things, she’d crash the wedding and tell everyone! I was trying to protect you, Grace! Everything I did was to protect *us*!”
I let out a soft, dry laugh that made him flinch.
“You’re pathetic, Mark.”
He blinked, stunned that his manufactured tears hadn't produced the usual comforting reaction he was used to getting from women.
“Grace, look at me!” he pleaded, trying to reach for my shoe.
“Do not touch me,” I snapped, taking a full step back.
He pulled his hand back as if he’d been burned.
“Mark, I read your messages,” I said, leaning down slightly so he could see the utter lack of emotion in my eyes. “I read what you wrote to her about using my credit score to buy the Oakridge property. I read how you called me a ‘bridge’ to your real estate portfolio. I saw the pictures of the two of you laughing at the restaurant where you proposed to me.”
The pathetic, sniffling facade cracked.
For a fraction of a second, the mask dropped entirely, revealing the ugly, venomous monster lurking beneath.
His jaw tightened. His eyes narrowed into slits of pure, boiling malice. He slowly stood up from the concrete, brushing the grit off his knees.
“You think you’re so smart, don't you?” he spat, his voice dropping into a harsh, vicious hiss. “You think you’ve won? Look at yourself! You’re twenty-eight years old, your family hates you, your husband doesn't want you, and you’re living in a shoebox on the north side while the whole city laughs at you!”
“Nobody is laughing at me, Mark,” I said calmly. “They’re laughing at the associate director who got fired for stealing corporate funds to impress a girl who flunked community college twice.”
Mark’s face turned purple. He took half a step forward, his fists clenching at his sides. “You ruined my life! I had everything lined up! The Oakridge project would have made me two million dollars! You ruined it over a few text messages and some hotel rooms! You petty, frigid bitch—”
*BZZZZZZT.*
I didn't wait for him to finish the sentence.
I pulled the pepper spray from my pocket and unleashed a continuous, hissing stream of orange oleoresin capsicum directly across his eyes, nose, and open mouth.
Mark let out a strangled, gurgling shriek that echoed off the concrete ceiling like a slaughtered pig. He clamped both hands to his face, stumbling backward, tripping over his own sweatpants, and crashing violently against the side panel of a parked SUV.
“Aaargh! My eyes! God, my eyes!” he screamed, thrashing on the ground, rolling in the dirt and oil.
The parking attendant came running down the lane, flashlight bouncing against the asphalt. “Hey! What’s going on over there?!”
“This man violated a no-contact order and attempted to assault me,” I called out clearly, holding up my phone. “I’ve already dialed 911.”
I picked up my bag of groceries from the hood of the car.
I looked down at Mark, who was dry-heaving, snot and orange foam bubbling from his nose as he clawed at his burning eyelids.
“Goodbye, Mark,” I said.
May you like
I turned and walked toward the exit, my stride smooth, even, and entirely unbothered.
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