There’s never ever just one lie.

That’s why it’s best to keep it simple—gives you a better chance of tracking all the threads, keeping them spinning, and hopefully not propagating too many more.

It’s hard work keeping all those lies in the air. Imagine juggling a thousand torches that are all tied together with fine thread. Or running the world’s most complicated machine with cogs on wheels on cogs on wheels on cogs.

Even the best liars, even the ones with the longest memories, the best eye for detail and the big picture, even they get caught eventually. Maybe not in all their lies, but in one or two or more. That’s the way it is.

I hate when that happens. When people figure out that what you were saying wasn’t true and your elaborate construction crumbles.

The lies stop spinning, there’s no lubrication, gears grind on gears. That’s the moment when Sarah stared at me after I laughed, and said, “You’re a girl.”

That moment could have lasted a week. A month. A year.

I was ashamed and angry and hating being caught and already spinning more lies to explain it all away.

But it was also a relief. It’s always a relief.

Because the air is clear, now—at last—I can tell the truth. From this moment on everything will be true. A life lived true with no rotten foundations. Trust. Understanding. Everything shiny and new.

Except I can’t, not ever. Because my truth is so unbelievable— lies will always be easier.

Spin, spin, spin.

I have been through the moment of being found out a hundred times, a thousand times, maybe even a million. I’m only seventeen, but I’ve already seen that look of shock—she lied to me—so many times I have lost count.

It never gets any better.

Yet that’s not the worst danger of being a liar. Oh no. Much worse than discovery, than their sense of betrayal, is when you start to believe your own lies.

When it all blurs together.

You lose track of what’s real and what’s not. You start to feel as if you make the world with your words. Your lies get stranger and weirder and denser, get bigger than words, turn into worlds, become real.

You feel powerful, invincible.

“Oh sure,” you say, completely believing it. “My family’s an old family. Going way way way back. We work curse magic. Me, I can make your hand wither on your arm. I could turn you into a cat.”

Once you start to believe you stop being compulsive and morph into pathological.

It happens a lot after something terrible has happened. The brain cracks, can’t accept the truth, and makes its own. Invents a bigger and better world that explains the bad thing, makes it possible to keep living. When the world you’re seeing doesn’t line up with the world that is—you can wind up doing things—terrible things—without knowing it.

Not good.

Because that’s when they lock you up and there’s no coming back because you’re already locked up: inside your own head. Where you’re tall and strong and fast and magic and the ruler of all you survey.

I have never gone that far.

But there are moments. Tiny ones when I’m not entirely clear whether it happened or I made it up. Those moments scare me much more than getting caught. I’ve been caught. I know what that’s like. I’ve never gone crazy. I don’t want to know what that’s like.

Weaving lies is one thing; having them weave you is another.

That’s why I’m writing this. To keep me from going over the edge. I don’t want to be a liar anymore. I want to tell my stories true.

But I haven’t so far. Not entirely. I’ve tried. I’ve really, really tried. I’ve tried harder than I ever have. But, well, there’s so much and it’s so hard.

I slipped a little. Just a little.

I’ll make it up to you, though.

From now on it’s nothing but the truth.

Truly.