We Were Liars

by E. Lockhart

One day I looked at Gat, lying in the Clairmont hammock with a book, and he seemed, well, like he was mine. Like he was my particular person.

Every time Gat said these things, so casual and truthful, so oblivious—my veins opened. My wrists split. I bled down my palms. I went light-headed. I’d stagger from the table or collapse in quiet shameful agony, hoping no one in the family would notice. Especially not Mummy. Gat almost always saw, though. When blood dripped on my bare feet or poured over the book I was reading, he was kind. He wrapped my wrists in soft white gauze and asked me questions about what had happened. He asked about Dad and about Gran—as if talking about something could make it better. As if wounds needed attention.

Someone once wrote that a novel should deliver a series of small astonishments. I get the same thing spending an hour with you.

I never asked her anything again. There’s a lot I don’t understand, but this way she stays pretty sober.

Now, let me ask you this. Who killed the girls? The dragon? Or their father?

He is contemplation and enthusiasm. Ambition and strong coffee.

“I’m so glad I got the chance.”

“Do not accept an evil you can change.”

If you want to live where people are not afraid of mice, you must give up living in palaces.

Now, at the breakfast table, watching him eat my toast, “Don’t take no for an answer” seemed like the attitude of a privileged guy who didn’t care who got hurt, so long as his wife had the cute statues she wanted to display in her summerhouses.

I kissed Gat before he went down to the basement. “See you in a better world,” he said to me, and I laughed.

It is good to be loved, even though it will not last. It is good to know that once upon a time, there was Gat and me.