How I Learned To Lie

Last year was my first time staying at a sleepaway camp. I stayed there for a month, so long that by the end I couldn't picture my parents' faces. It was a standard summer camp with all the generic outdoor activities attributed to one, the kind with boating lessons on a glimmering emerald lake, various outdoor sports requiring minimal effort, half-finished friendship bracelets on every water bottle. It was my first year going to one, though at fourteen it was perhaps long overdue.

There were five other girls in the cabin, but only one of them was memorable enough to make it into the stories I told my school friends.That girl was one of the most extraordinary people I’ve ever met- Aine Bennis. Aine had perfectly straight brown hair that barely grazed her shoulders, the kind of eyes I wanted to gauge out and keep for myself, and surprisingly muscular arms from years of swimming. Despite this, her face was perfectly round and soft, dotted with freckles. Aine also had the most incredible life any person has ever had.

Every meal time, she would grace me with her stories. As I inhaled crustless sandwiches and orange slices, Aine would tell me the tale of her unusual childhood, where she travelled in the circus with her older sister, who worked as a lion tamer. Aine eventually gained her own job at the circus when she discovered she could perfectly guess a person's height and weight just by looking at them. (She demonstrated this out on me and was only a couple pounds off.) Aine ended up leaving the circus after her sister was killed by one of the lions, and was taken in by a mountain man who taught her how to hunt deer and train huskies.

She'd tell me about her hikes through Europe, her time working for the mafia, her Obie Award nomination, and then finish off with a casual, “and that was all before my seventh birthday.” She was always perfectly humble about it, like everyone had a life like that.

I had never wanted to be someone as much as I wanted to be like Aine Bennis. Her endless string of stories made her the constant center of attention, she could shift any conversation in her favor and nobody would complain. There was no way to change the subject once she began, either, there wasn’t a single story I could tell that would match hers.

***

It only took me until Wednesday of the first week to begin lying. I was homesick, exhausted from two restless nights on a lumpy mattress, and incredibly jealous of this girl and her amazing life.

That breakfast, when Aine began one of her tales, about battling crocodiles, I cut in, “Wait, that reminds me of a really funny story!”

The other Cabin 5 girls glanced at each other, then gave me the side eye, as they always did when someone tried to interrupt Aine. All of them were forgettable, cookie cutter people, with bland faces you couldn’t pick out of a crowd and vaguely judgemental personalities.

“Sorry to interrupt,” I said, “but your story just reminded me of the time my hand was bitten off by an alligator.”

Their heads snapped to face me, “You WHAT?” For the first time I experienced the sweet wonders of shock value.

It was so easy to lie, it almost scared me. I explained, coming up with the story on the spot, how at Disney World I had been attacked by a small alligator that jumped up at me from a pool at the water park. It had ripped off my hand, but luckily it wasn’t too badly chewed up, and it was able to be reattached to my arm almost unscathed. I showed off a small cat scratch I had on my wrist, and for the rest of lunch pretended to occasionally lose the use of my hand due to the nerves being damaged.

I got so much attention, it was wonderful beyond belief. The next day I told the story of how I had been about to win my prestigious private school’s science competition. I had written up a thirty page essay on quantum physics, I said, but my sister had ripped it into pieces in a jealous rage before I was able to present it. There were no other copies, and I was kicked out of school. When I was asked for details I teared up and said it was “painful to recall.” Two of the Cabin 5 girls bought me ice creams, another bought me a Rice Crispy Treat and apologized for being cheap.

I was on Cloud Nine, floating in my wonderland of attention and pity. But a few days later I noticed, Aine was no longer talking as much at our lunch table. She shot me unreadable glances across the cabin, and she seemed much more reserved, even miserable. I realized she must know I was lying. Of course she did, with all her worldly experience!

After that I was less overjoyed about my newfound popularity, but I still managed to mostly enjoy it while at camp. However, as soon as I got home, I was wrecked from the guilt. How could I have taken support away from a girl with such a horrible past, all for my own selfish whims? I resolved to apologize if I ever saw her again, and to never lie a single time for the rest of my life.

***

Two weeks ago, I saw her at a Broadway show on tour. Her hair was shorter and curlier, and her style had changed quite a bit since last summer, but I recognized her immediately. I debated whether or not to acknowledge her, but decided to greet her at intermission.

She was one step ahead of me, walking up to me as soon as the first act ended, “Hey, Luna!”

“Uh, it’s actually Aiden now…”

“Oh, sorry,” she looked me up and down, as if only just now taking in my short hair and baggy t-shirt, “I just wanted to apologize. You know, for what happened at camp.”

“What do you mean?”

“I ignored you for half the session!” she said, emphatic earnestness in her tone, “I just felt so awful after you told those stories!”I cringe, “I know, I shouldn’t have tried to talk over-”

“I mean to think that I was lying to try to make my life seem more interesting, and then you had actually had those experiences! Like, I hadn’t realized what I was doing would actually-”

“Wait, you were lying?” I started to smile.

She laughed nervously, “Yeah, I thought you knew that. I mean you’d have to see the gaps in all my stories, considering-”

“I was lying too!” I grinned, “I felt bad that you were getting all the attention so I made up stories that I thought would be better then yours!”

“You did!” She started to smile too. Before long, we were jumping up and down like little girls, holding our hands together and giggling and shouting over each other. There was nothing that could have made us happier then finding another liar.

***

I think about that day often, as well as my time at camp, and wonder what it was that made both of us so blatantly lie about our pasts. Was it simply a way to garner attention and praise? Or was it easier to talk about having my hand sewn back on then to express that when I look in the mirror I feel like a collage of ripped up pages that don’t belong together? Was it easier to lament losing my essay to a jealous sister then to acknowledge the years of believing I was gifted crumbling into dust before my eyes as soon as I reached high school? Was it simply a childish power grab or a cry for help?

Either way, that’s the story of how I learned to lie.