Never Lie

by Freida McFadden

As I said, everybody lies.

Liars fidget. The tone of their voice or speech patterns changes. Liars offer too much information, babbling on with excessive detail to convince themselves or others of what they are saying.

It’s so amazing sharing my life with him. Except for the one big secret he doesn’t know about yet.

Something terrible has happened in this house. “Oh crap,” Ethan says.

I squint through the fogged windshield at the house. Now that I’m looking closer, I can see a single light glowing in one of the upstairs windows. That’s odd. If a real estate agent were showing a house, wouldn’t she turn the lights on downstairs? But the entire first floor of the house is dark. There’s only that one light upstairs.

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.

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.

“Also, thank you for taking the portrait down again. It was really freaking me out.” “Again?” “Right.” I watch as he scrapes the partially cooked egg off the frying pan. “I assume you took it down again this morning.”

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