The Last Time I Lied

by Riley Sager

I paint the girls in the same order. Vivian first. Then Natalie. Allison is last, even though she was first to leave the cabin and therefore technically the first to disappear.

The coverage was brutal. Articles about how Lake Midnight was an unsafe place for a summer camp, especially considering that her husband had drowned there the year before Camp Nightingale opened. Claims that the camp was understaffed and unsupervised.

I was the last person to see them alive. I could have stopped them from doing whatever the hell it was they had planned to do. Or I could have told Franny or a counselor as soon as they left. Instead, I went back to sleep. Now I still sometimes hear Vivian’s parting words in my dreams. You’re too young for this, Em.

For fifteen years, I’ve waited for a clue. Just some small thing hinting at what happened to them. Now I have a chance to go back there and look for myself. Likely the last chance I’ll get to try to find some answers. If I turn that down, I worry it will just become another thing to regret.”

One theory about the girls’ disappearance is that they walked to the main road and hitched a ride. To Canada. To New England. To unmarked graves when they climbed into the cab of a deranged trucker.

The only trace of the girls anyone ever found was a sweatshirt. Vivian’s sweatshirt, to be precise.

But here’s the weird part. Vivian wasn’t wearing the sweatshirt when I saw her leave the cabin.

Filling that void were darker theories. Ones found in the deepest corners of Reddit and conspiracy websites. Rumors swirl that the girls had been murdered by a savage madman who lived in the woods. That they had been abducted—either by humans or aliens, depending on which website you read. That something even more mystically sinister happened to them. Witches. Werewolves. Spontaneous cellular disintegration.

Although their eventual fate remains a mystery, I’m certain that what happened to those girls is all my fault.

Yes, boys can break your heart and betray you, but not in the same stinging way girls can.

Now all I need is to somehow find a way to forgive myself.

“The story is that there was a village here,” she says. “Before the lake was made. Some will say it was full of deaf people. I heard it was a leper colony.”

What none of them understand is that the point of the game isn’t to fool others with a lie. The goal is to trick them by telling the truth.

Consider it a talisman, she said as she clasped it around my wrist. Never underestimate the power of positive thinking. If you ever experience another hallucination, I want you to touch this bracelet and tell yourself that what you’re seeing isn’t real, that it has no power over you, that you’re stronger than everyone realizes.

Omnes vulnerant; ultima necat. I remember the phrase from high school Latin class, although not because I excelled at the language. In fact, I was terrible at it. I remember only because it sent a chill through me when I first learned what it meant. All hours wound; the last one kills.

“Everything is a game, Em. Whether you know it or not. Which means that sometimes a lie is more than just a lie. Sometimes it’s the only way to win.”

Above all, I’m scared that if I keep digging, I might not like what I’ll find.

“Theories don’t matter,” Franny says. “It’s no good dwelling on what happened. What’s done is done. Besides, I don’t like being reminded of how much that disappearance cost me in so many ways.”

I’m certain that he’d say he regrets watching them closely. I think he’d say that he wished he hadn’t looked so much.”

That sounds like the Vivian I knew. A master at seduction. It didn’t matter if you were the camp groundskeeper or a thirteen-year-old girl. She knew exactly what kind of attention you needed before you even knew it yourself.

Then it dawns on me. She’s not real. She has no power over me. I’m stronger than everyone realizes.

Strong enough to understand that Vivian isn’t a ghost haunting me. Nor is she a hallucination. She’s me. A fragment of my distressed brain trying to help me figure out what’s happening.