"Nothing's so loud, as hearing when we lie
the truth is not kind
and she said, Neither am I "
Toad the Wet Sprocket

"I asked- Are you a lady?
Perhaps, she said, I may be "
Squeeze



After all the lies, the honesty was hard to take. She was leaving, she was bored and it was over. After months of deceit I was hoping for one more lie. But I was wrong. She packed up and left.
Just like that.

She had lied about ex-boyfriends (both who they were and the whole 'ex' part). She lied about how spent her days and how she spent our money. Her nights were with me and if that was false I could not tell the difference. I wanted her to stay, even as the lies unfolded before us. There was only so much that could stay hidden and it soon spilled out as well. Maybe she was tired of wrapping things up and making creative lies. She could have hidden the phone bills from me and other stories could have been made. She did not lack for creativity.

When days went by and I realized she was not coming back I started looking around the apartment for clues. I thought perhaps she had left some evidence of the truth that I was supposed to find. A letter? One of her sketches, parts of a story she had written? All of those were scattered about our place- my place- but nothing contained the symptom, there was no clear answer.

She sent me a letter six months later with an update on her life, how things were going, what was new. It seemed very appropriate if we had been cute penpals for the previous year or so.
In retrospect, that was probably the clue I was looking for right there.