Never Lie

by Freida McFadden

My mother always said not to leave the house in shoes you can’t walk a mile in.

Even as I nod my head in agreement with him, I get another wave of that sick feeling. Something terrible has happened in this house.

I turn to Ethan, about to point this out, but he’s distracted by something. A gigantic portrait of a woman hanging over the mantel. He is staring up at it, a strangely dark look on his face.

His pale eyelashes flutter. He seems surprised that I’m suddenly standing next to him, as if he had forgotten I was here. “Oh. Uh, nothing. I just… Who do you think that is?”

Ethan flashes me a withering smile. Something about the painting has disturbed him, and he doesn’t seem like he wants to talk about it.

There’s an entire shelf containing books with the exact same title. The Anatomy of Fear.

He rips his eyes away from the portrait and joins me by the bookcase. He looks over my shoulder at the photograph on the back of the book. “Adrienne Hale,” he reads off the back cover. “Isn’t she that shrink who got murdered?”

How are you? The three most useless words in the universe of communication. Nobody who asks that question wants to know the answer. And nobody who answers ever tells the truth.

just hope he feels the same way about me after he finds out about my revelation. I feel ill every time I think about it. But I can’t keep it from him much longer.

Human beings don’t deal well with rejection. Back when our ancestors were hunters and gatherers, being ostracized from a tribe was akin to a death sentence. For that reason, rejection is experienced by human beings as being incredibly painful. Studies using functional MRI have shown the same areas of the brain become activated both during rejection and during real physical pain.

narcissistic personality disorder—the characteristics of this diagnosis include a long-term pattern of exaggerated feelings of self-importance, cravings for admiration, and impaired empathy.

He didn’t have many girlfriends before me and doesn’t have many friends. Some of my friends warned me it’s a red flag, but I’m glad he didn’t have a gazillion girlfriends before me or a best buddy to compete with. I always dreamed of being best friends with my husband.

That last one made no sense at all—it must be some sort of crazy pregnancy hormone paranoia. Yes, I’m worried Ethan won’t be thrilled about my news, and yes, he has a temper. But he would never hurt me. I know that for a fact.

Also, there was something creepy about his voice. I can’t put my finger on it. Something creepy and also familiar.

A psychological study demonstrated that cheating or breaking rules results in an unexpectedly good mood afterward. As well as a brief sense of freedom from all rules. So perhaps we should all bend the rules sometimes.

His sun-streaked blond hair is slightly disheveled, and he has a smirk on his lips. EJ is handsome—that is undeniable, although he’s on the shorter side, which gives him a bit of a Napoleon complex.

I’m impressed he figured it out, having never been here before.

I

believe that any human being is capable of terrible things if you push them hard enough.