[ WP ] `` And that was the first of the three lies ... ''

`` I love you,'' she said to me in a soft whisper. That was the first of the three lies she would tell me that night. ``... I promise,'' she added, in an attempt to sound convincing. My gaze had been settled blankly on a dark patch of ceiling. The bedroom was pitch black with the only illumination emanating from the alarm clock. I spun to face away from her, silent, emotions whirling in my head like a tornado of confusion. 
 
 `` I know,'' I muttered mostly to placate her, but I knew this would not be the end of it. She reached up her hand to place on my arm. The warmth of her touch, previously so comforting, felt tainted. Instinctively I had retreated from this contact, but immediately I knew this was a mistake. 
 
 She sat up swiftly. `` Is that really still bothering you so much?'' Her voice was indignant, and her tone quite elevated from the whispers she had been employing prior. `` I told you, I do n't care about what you've done. You should forgive yourself, too, and quit letting your self-prescribed penance become a burden on those who care for you.'' There was another brief moment of quiet, and she let out a sigh of exasperation. `` I just... I do n't know what to do.'' That was the second of the three lies. She leaned over me in the blackness of the bed, placing a hand on each side of my silhouette. I could feel her weight shifting around, and when it had stopped, she was whispering once more. `` Wo n't you answer me?'' 
 
 I could n't find the words. I knew, deep down, that her desire to stay with me was not her own; she believed even deep down that it was, but she was not aware enough to understand that obligation is not the foundation of a lasting relationship. We had built our lives around each other for so many years, and out of some desperation I had let my good fortune blind me to what I truly yearned for. Having her around had helped me alleviate my sense of worthlessness, but in recent days I had found that outside affirmation was only a crutch that I could not rely on forever. I had to seek comfort in my own actions, and know that what I was doing was what *I* wanted; I had followed through with these urges, and some of them had been, as she put it,'morally questionable.' 
 
 When the minutes passed and I had failed to answer her, she climbed out of the bed. I could hear the faint rustling sounds of her getting dressed, but I made no move to stop her. She made her way to the bedroom door, but paused before she could grasp the handle. It was as though leaving now would signify something awful that had been brewing in the back of her mind, like a wild animal she was hiding in the broom closet that would claw and scratch and howl until it could no longer be ignored. She eventually grasped the handle and pulled the door open ever so slightly. With a brief glance and a crack in her voice that sounded as though she was suppressing a sob, I could make out the words ``... be back shortly.'' 
 
 The next morning as I gazed in horror at the wreckage that had been her car, mangled and sundered in the accident that had occurred the night before, my brain tore itself apart. All the emotions I had been feeling up to this point were entirely replaced with guilt. The voices of the policemen and paramedics that offered words of consolation and sympathy washed right over me. The din of the scene was distant, and I heard only the echo of her final words clearly in my head. `` Be right back,'' she had said. It was then that I encountered the horrible revelation that those words had been her third, and final, lie.
