Lies like Scars

Everyone knows when you lie you get a scar. It's always been that way, a way for your body to fight back, tell you you're not being morally good. It's painful as an unseen force digs into your skin and scratches you slowly, sometimes its deep, sometimes its shallow. When it's deep you bleed, and I was covered in bloody scars ranging from small to large. It can be a small lie or a huge lie, but the bigger the lie, the bigger the scar. I'd met a lot of people with several small scars littered throughout their body because sometimes it's impossible not to get away from a situation without stretching the truth. With that being said, I don't know how I got here, hooked up in a sterile white hospital bed to a clutter of beeping machines and dripping saline bags. All I know is it started with a small white lie and pair of vibrantly green eyes. Those eyes had hypnotized me, made me believe anything was possible and led me to the edge of my sanity. I would kill for those eyes, die for those eyes. Those eyes were attached to a man, a man who had no scars. A man who seemed to have never lied in his life. That was, until you got him undressed, that was when I saw the biggest scar I'd ever seen in my entire life. It was a nasty, deep, ugly thing starting on his heart and stretching down to his toes on the side of his body. He was a dangerous man, but again, I was hypnotized.

I was trapped in his embrace, his smoldering gaze with no hope of escape, but I didn't really want to go. Now, in this hospital bed, he was nowhere to be seen. What had happened to him? What had happened to me? I racked my brain for the cause of all this when I was interrupted by the nurse walking in with a tray of food. When she reached the bed, she tried to avert her gaze, but I saw it there before she did. The judgement in her expression was clear, I couldn't be trusted, I couldn't blame her but it still hurt being looked at like that when all my life I'd only ever had a few meager scars.

"Your lunch ma'am." The nurse said, pulling the tray up next to me.

I nodded at her. "Thank you." She left the room abruptly, avoiding looking at me further. I stabbed the sad piece of broccoli on my tray and brought it to my mouth, it was rubbery.

A flash of a memory came to me as I sat there.

"C'mon darling, just roll the body to me, I'll take care of it." He said. His jaw tightened as I struggled to justify what we had done. My phone was in my pocket, I could call the cops, but the look he gave me was wild, unhinged, yet distorted. There was love there and I was addicted like a hummingbird to sugar water. I rolled the body over to him and he hacked it to pieces, splattering me with blood. I fought back a scream as he took the pieces and threw them in separate directions off the cliff.

I shuddered violently as I came back to myself. How had he gotten me to help him kill somebody?

I thought back to when my best friend asked me if I liked him, and then winced as I remembered the scar that cut across my face, giving me away. I lost myself that day, it started with that one little lie. I'd done something bad, but no one seemed to know, so was it actually bad? I struggled with my thoughts, fighting to find out what I thought was right. But I shouldn't be here by myself, I thought he loved me, but I guess I was wrong, as I was in this room completely alone.

"You're sure you won't be home late?" My mom asked, giving me the "mom look." I agreed and held back a tear as a new scar scrawled itself across my back. She nodded. "Ok, and you won't be with that boy right? There's something not right about him."

Again, I nodded, agreeing with her and got another cut on my ankle.

I lied because I loved him, I told myself. Justifying his behavior to myself as I thought about all the terrible things I'd seen him do, and all the terrible things I'd done myself. He had only lied once in his entire life, I had spent the first few months trying to figure out what it was, because whatever it was had been bad. Bad enough to almost kill him. I thought back to the time he had told me what it was and nearly choked on my rubbery broccoli. That's right. He'd lied to the police about where he hid when he saw his dad kill his mom. I nearly vomited as I realized how far I'd fallen, what I'd done to keep him in my life.

I flicked the tv on in the room. It was on channel four. The news. I was greeted with the sight of his handsome face with his strong jaw and hauntingly green eyes. That's right. He had jumped off the cliff after we'd discarded of the body and I tried to jump after him.

A knock sounded on my door and a cop in a blue uniform entered the room with a few other officers. He had a pair of handcuffs and I smiled to myself as I realized I might be joining my love soon. The click of the handcuffs echoed in my brain on a loop while I sat in the cell. I had gone without a struggle, what use was it to struggle when they already knew you were bad. I could never dissuade them, no one would ever trust anything I said again, especially once they laid eyes on the large scar just over my heart that matched his.