An Academy for Liars

by Alexis Henderson

They were the kind of people who mistook greatness for its shadow. As long as they were in the presence of brilliance, they too were brilliant by proxy. Lennon knew this about them because she was once the same—struck dumb with awe and utterly convinced that Wyatt’s presence alone was enough to elevate her above the murk of her own mediocrity.

to prove herself precocious and smart and worthy enough to be the recipient of his love—that she’d made the grave error of mistaking the want of closeness for closeness itself.

intervention was exactly what she wanted. A sign, a symbol, the grasping hand of some meddling but benevolent god who would reach down through a break in the clouds and shake her senseless, until she was forced to believe—really and truly—that her life had meaning and that she was destined for something more than mediocrity.

“He will never love you the way you want to be loved. And if you stay, he will love you even less, until one day you mean nothing to him.”

“Persuasion is the ability to project one’s own will onto a being, object, or entity,”

“There will always be someone who will use the power they have to hurt those who don’t deserve it. That’s why it’s important that people like you become competent enough to stand between them and those they’d otherwise harm. To let your scruples get in the way of that vital work is cowardice.

“There’s a saying on campus: Good lies are rewarded with belief. Great lies are rewarded with conviction. In my experience, persuasion is a great lie, well told.”

Every one of us harbors a facet of ourselves that wants, desperately, to destroy us. A part of us that longs for our own annihilation. It tells you to jump when you stand beside a tall drop-off. It makes you want to put a knife through your own hand when you’re chopping vegetables for dinner. It is hungry and it is corrosive, and it will come for your soul and your sanity. Which is why all of us must work actively against it, or else it will succeed.”