The Liar
To fit in with my circle of friends, I sometimes lied. It started out small in the beginning - lying about misplacing the salt in the fridge (“Oh, Anna, you klutz”), or lying about drinking a fifth successive cup of coffee on the morning of an exam despite hating the goddamn drink (“You must’ve been under so much stress.”) There was a time I pretended to be gluten-free in front of friends that loved baking regularly for everyone, just for them to go the extra mile for me. Another time I fabricated the story of how I drove across the country after school to get away from my intimidating parents. My parents were actually pretty chill and never cared much for good grades.
“We just want you to be a good person.”
Now that I’m more than 4000 miles away from them, it’s hard carrying out the only expectation they have from me.
As I poured the scalding water for my second cup of tea, the world became so distant, turning away from me. No matter what I did to be closer to the people I cared for, I could never belong. I sometimes wondered if it was because of all the lies. Even in my most solitary moments, I questioned if the person in the room was really me or just another fabrication.
I carried the tea to my room and sat by the window. It was raining. I was suddenly reminded of what he once said on the bus ride home together.
“I just love the rain. Everything clears up, and I can finally breathe again.”
I must be the worst person in the world for him now for never reaching out again. While I did not outright lie to him, perhaps my demeanor might have given him the wrong idea. It was indeed my fault for lying to my friends in the first place. Being surrounded by friends that were in one or multiple romantic or sexual relationships, I once again felt I was cast aside. I’d never had sex. I’d never dated anyone. For a long time I believed that perhaps some of us are just meant to spend the rest of their lives reading. I never thought about my long absent dating life until I started getting questions and looks from friends.
Was it then I looked at him?
In a desperate attempt to relate to the experiences of my friends, I made up a crush. There he was, in the same bus as me, reading. I fancied anyone who read, because no one around me read. Then I saw him at the university cafeteria, and confessed, or really deceived, that the guy I liked was standing in the queue.
“Isn’t he so well-dressed? I’ve never seen a man dress so well,” I smiled in complete dishonesty.
“Don’t worry, Anna, I’ll go over and ask him to hang out with us.”
Before I could protest, my friend went over to talk to my so-called crush. I noticed the guy look at our table, his gaze lingering on me for a bit, before nodding to my friend. My friend returned to the table with all smiles, telling us to make room for my crush. I didn’t know how she persuaded him to join us, but I felt a void growing inside me. I had never before felt so lonely in the company of my friends. Each day I felt we were growing apart the more I tried to relate to them. I wondered if it was really me drifting away from myself. This void created by me now sucked me in its vortex, and I let it because perhaps this was truly where I belonged.
“What did you tell him?” I questioned my friend, who was giggling about my prospects with the guy to her partner.
“Oh, I just asked if he’d like to join us,” she smiled, “and mentioned in passing that one of my friends would like to get to know you better.”
I felt enraged and frustrated at her for doing that and at myself for fabricating this whole attraction. I had the sudden desire to leave and go home and continue the book I was currently reading. But before I could do that, the guy was standing before us. My friend told him to take the empty seat across from me. The mood momentarily shifted from being lively to subtle awkwardness with the addition of a new member to the group. In order to display my attraction and clear the stiff air, I feigned my affection by asking the guy questions to get to know him. I was just disappointed after learning that he disliked reading fiction. Nevertheless, I smiled. My friends encouraged us to hang out without them, and I felt a piercing pain in my chest.
I couldn’t complain.
After lunch, we took a walk in the city and talked at length about topics that interested him more than me. From time to time, I noticed him give me looks indicating he was thinking seriously of me. I avoided looking at him and told him it was time for me to go home. He asked if we could exchange numbers and I reluctantly gave mine. After bidding farewells at the bus stop, I felt like crying. All this felt new and strange. All this lying was leading to uncomfortable circumstances because I couldn’t find myself amongst these lies, amongst the expanding void.
Later, I never met the guy in person, only once or twice on the bus. I stalled on any meetups he suggested, making up white lies, something I was good at. My friends stopped seeking for updates when I simply lied again that I cut communication because I sensed bad vibes from him. Now that it's been more than four months since we last talked, I reflected on my impoliteness. My lies that screeched me have now inflicted pain on another person. I unintentionally misled him regarding any romantic notions, I intentionally deceived my friends to make a place for myself in their circle, I incessantly fooled myself for believing the lies I tell.
There are days I hoped I’d wake up into a different version of me, a stranger that is all the things she fabricated. But everything scared me now. I didn’t want to become a foreign entity in my own being. Maybe tomorrow I’ll hang out with my baking friends and eat a cake full of gluten in front of them and apologize.
I took a sip of my tea and turned to the page of the book I’d long left off.
