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by Corey Crossfield

The streets are empty as is my life. How does someone get to this point? So entrenched in their own lies that they actually start to believe themselves, and your life becomes one big deception. I read somewhere once that self-deception is the worst kind of lie. You lie so much to others then there comes a point to where it cannot stop. Like a wave slowly engulfing you, your lies slowly swallow you whole. I am no different from every other pathological liar. There is really nothing special about me, my story or how I started lying. My life is ordinary which is partly why I lie.

Deception is now a way of life. I lie about the stupidest things. The therapists I have seen say that I started to lie because of my parents. I think that is just an excuse they use to place the blame but none of my sisters lie. My family could not be more normal if they tried. My mother and father are the best parents a kid could ask for growing up. They never missed a baseball game or ballet recital. My parents differ in temperament. My mother is a very social and outgoing person and my father is rather reserved and rarely shows emotion. Their reactions are an equal balance in difficult situations. To my mother, status and looks are very important and as a teenager my life with her was hard. She constantly tried to fit me into a mold that just was not me. My father was an angel and told me to embrace myself, not to suppress who I really was meant to be. In the end, even with a normal childhood I grew up a liar.

My sisters never lied, except for once my middle sister did. My parents regularly searched my room for things since I tended to lie about how much food I ate. Hiding things in my room, they searched not only for the objects but the truth. One day during one of the searches, they were looking for chocolate chips. Normally they would find wrappers in odd places like under my box spring or behind my books, but that day they found nothing. They questioned me relentlessly making empty threats about punishments and grounding. My sister felt so guilty that she came down the stairs and told them that they were in her room. My parents still yelled at me and blamed me for being a bad influence on my sisters. To this day, my sister still cannot live down the one time that she lied to my parents. That sister I no longer speak to for reasons that will come later.

I am sitting on the sidewalk on the street where I live now. Thinking about the last year and all that had happened to me. My life had changed significantly in the last year of my life. I had dropped out of college, my parents were in the middle of a horrendous divorce and I had come out of the closet only to turn around and move to Los Angeles. The problem where I used to live was not so much about the people or places but about one certain situation. The problem’s name was Morgan. I am addicted to her like a junkie to their drug of choice. She came into my life at a bad time and when she left four years later I was barely recognizable. The lies, deception and actions that I had done in that time made me loathed by all of my family and friends. The lies and problems got the point where I could not take it anymore. I was strangling myself with my lies and I had to get away from her and my problems.

When I was in high school, I learned the meaning of the term pathological liar. High school was literally the odyssey of my life. Each year varied with different friends and different activities but the one constant was Morgan. I came to my high school from a middle school outside of the town. Arriving at the school for freshman orientation, I was overwhelmed by the people and social settings. The gym was huge and filled with people who were prettier and more popular than I would ever be in high school. You could almost pinpoint the jock or future homecoming queen from the crowd. I walked up to the table marked for my last name and retrieved my packet. Slowly opening the yellow envelope, I took the papers out of it and examined them. Just the usual stuff, a map of the school and my schedule, and a list of extracurricular activities in case we had school spirit. I went over to the line designated for pictures. The thought of having the same goofy image of myself on an ID card for an entire year only made me more nervous.

“Next”, called the photographer to me.

Still hesitant, I walked over to the stool and took a seat. The photographer told me to smile and say cheese. I gave him the best cheesy smile I had all the while cursing him in my head. When that ordeal was over, we were herded like cattle into another giant room to wait for our link crew leaders. Link crew was a club of kids that was supposed to make freshman year more bearable. My name was called and I walked over to a gangly girl that was wearing khaki shorts and an orange shirt. She had nerd written all over her. Her name was Rachel and she was our link crew leader for the year. She escorted us to a classroom where we all took a seat and introduced ourselves to everyone. When everyone was introducing themselves, I was thinking of something to say. Then came my turn to share the story I created and it was original.

“Hello. My name is Margaret Collins. I came from Hutch Middle School. This summer I spent my vacation with my family on a mission in Kenya. We were there for a few months and came back last week.” I said proudly to my group.

The rest of the group looked at me with incredible interest. Everyone had a look of envy on their face. Of course I had never been to Kenya with my family over the summer, I spent it watching Unsolved Mysteries and eating pudding with my sisters while my parents worked. It was a small lie and no one would find out about it. We continued with the group and everyone was fairly normal. There was a particular girl that I found interesting, her name was Morgan. Morgan reminded me of the popular girl leads in all the teenage movies I had seen. She was pretty, popular, friendly and beautiful. When everyone was done sharing their stories, we were dismissed for a break. I walked outside of the room and headed to the bathroom I had seen earlier. As I was walking to the bathroom, someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to see who it would be and was pleasantly surprised to see it was Morgan.

“Hi, I am Morgan. Do you mind if I walk with you? I am kind of bored,” she said to me.

“Yeah it is pretty boring. Sure you can walk with me, oh my name is Margaret,” I said nervously to her.

We walked to the bathroom and chatted about our expectations for the school year. Morgan was a soccer player, swimmer, and golfer. She also was on student council. I told her that I was a golfer and also was taking German instead of Spanish. She laughed at me and said that she was glad she met someone else on the golf team. For some reason, I was glad too. Glad that I might have made a friend instead of an enemy. People do not tend to like me when they initially meet me. None of that mattered now because I had met Morgan.

When we went back to the group she sat next to me and talked more with me. I talked with a boy sitting next to me during one of our getting to know each other exercises. He told me about his Magic card collection and I lied to him and said I played also trying to make myself look more interesting. After the exercise, we were done and allowed to leave for the day. I walked over to the place where my mother was supposed to get me and Morgan followed me there. We made plans to meet up with each other when school started and said goodbye to each other. That was the last time I talked with Morgan until the start of our junior year.

Freshman year went by pretty fast for me. I got to know a group of people and we became pretty good friends. I also joined FFA and became involved with the club. When I ran into Morgan during freshman year, I just ignored her and pretended that I had never met her. Consciously, I did not know why I did it but deep down I knew I was mad at her. We simply ran in different circles and had nothing in common. My friends were on the preppy side and she was popular. Life during freshman year was pretty decent. I had good friends, good grades, and a decent look. It would all change by the time sophomore year came around.

Freshman year was over and it was now summer. That summer I was holed up in my house the entire three months. I stayed in my bedroom most of the time just eating and watching TV. Slowly I began to start hating myself for the way I looked and behaved. I would wake up at about noon and eat then I would go back to my room and sleep until dinner time. I did that for almost two months. Before the beginning of the school year, I attempted to kill myself for the first time. I remember the day perfectly. My mother was gone all day with my younger sisters on a trip to Santa Cruz. We had gotten in a fight and I told her to go without me. I got up that day and felt weird. The feeling was indescribable but felt like a heavy stone was set on my whole body. This heaviness was driving me crazy. I was watching The Price is Right when I decided to get up and go grab something to eat. I walked into the kitchen and immediately went to the knives in the butcher block. I took one out and looked at it like it was my salvation. In that instant I decided that I should kill myself, I took the blade and put it on my right forearm. The jagged edges of the knife slowly ran across my skin. I was trying to feel the pain, like I needed some confirmation that I really was alive. The warm blood started to come fast out of my arm. I had gone deep but not deep enough. I took the knife and ran it through my left arm like my arm was a piece of steak. The blood came out faster and was getting everywhere. The last thing I could remember was the peach colored tile under my face.

I woke up to a steady beeping noise. I was lying in a hospital bed with my arms bandaged up and a heart monitor to my left. If this was heaven then I was screwed. My mother was sitting in a chair beside my bed and her face was puffy and swollen. She had been crying. Later I would find out that my youngest sister was the one that found me in the kitchen on the floor with a lot of blood. She ran and got my mom out of the car. I still feel bad to this day that she was the one that discovered me but that was the selfish person I had been. It was not about anyone else it was about me.

My mom woke up and looked at me. I had always been able to read her like a book but the face did not register. She grabbed my hand and started to cry. She must have cried for awhile because I fell asleep a little while later. The second time I woke up to the sound of a man’s voice in the room. It was the doctor that had stitched up my arms.

“Hello Margaret. I am Dr. Briar. You have been here for a week. The damage to your arms is minimal but you will have deep scars for a long time. Can you tell me what happened?” He said to me.

“I tried to get rid of a problem. Obviously it did not work. When do I get out of here?” I said to him with a monotone voice.

“I am afraid you are not going to be able to leave for a week. Then you will be released to your parents. You will be required to go to therapy.” Dr. Briar said to me. The sympathy in his voice made me sick.

I merely nodded at him as he explained that because I had tried to kill myself I had to see a therapist. My mother just looked at me with the weird face again before she left the room. I stared at the ceiling. How come I had not been successful? I made a plan with God right there and said that if he got me out of the hospital soon I would never try to kill myself again. It might have meant something if I actually believed in God but it was just an empty promise.

I was released from the hospital a week later. My parents moved me to the downstairs bedroom so they could keep a closer eye on me. They never let me out of their sight. For almost a month, my life was getting up, going to the therapist, and then going home and sleeping until dinner. I lost a lot of weight because I did not want to eat. My therapy was not helping a whole lot. The therapist’s name was Janney. She was nice and listened to whatever I had to say. She let me tell her about everything that had been going on and diagnosed me with depression. My parents refused to put me on medication and that was the end of therapy. School was starting two weeks later and I was now a sophomore.

The start of sophomore year began with a failed attempt to play golf for the women’s golf team. I went for a week of practice and quit before the first match. Morgan was on the team that year and I refused to talk with her beyond the usual cordial greetings. She seemed no to care so I brushed it off and went about my business. I was taking my second year of German that year along with a few other great classes that I actually loved. The one class I hated was my Agriculture Science course with Mrs. Mayfield. She was simply a bitch. As a requirement for the class, we had to raise an animal or plant so we could show it at the county fair the next summer. When she asked me what I was doing, I told her I was raising a steer. It was the first thing that came to my mind. Little did I know it would turn into one of many memorable lies I told that year.

As the year went on so did my life, one significant class I took was English. I always loved reading because it was an escape for me, an outlet for creativity. My English teacher was a kind old woman named Mrs. Cameron. She was the mother of two boys. In the middle of the school year, her son was murdered and she took a three month sabbatical. When she came back, all her students felt very bad for her. She would get up to lecture us and burst into tears. One day we had to write an essay on a significant moment in our lives. I decided to write about the time my mother was diagnosed with a terminal cancer. My essay was chosen to be read out loud to the class and when I read it at the end I was in tears and so was my teacher. Proud of myself and my essay, I left the class happy that I had helped my teacher or so I thought. When I got home from school, my mother approached me and said she had gotten a call from the school counselor about my grieving process. Apparently my teacher had told the counselor about my essay, and the counselor called my mother to help me move on with my grieving process. The problem was that my mother never had cancer and was pretty healthy. She assured my counselor that it was fiction and not real. The counselor told my teacher. Mrs. Cameron did not talk directly to me again and I never could blame her. I started to lie more and more that year. It became a process. I would lie to someone or something and my mother would be called.

Mrs. Mayfield was my next victim. She had been a horrible teacher and her students did not like how she taught. We would be given tests on subjects we never studied and all of our grades started to fall. As this happened more and more, my grade fell to the lowest it had ever been. My mother called for a conference with Mrs. Mayfield and one was set up. During the conference, my mother supported me and said that the teacher was incompetent. Mrs. Mayfield got in trouble for her lack of curriculum but like the classy woman she was she asked my mother how my steer project was going. My mother looked at her with a questioning look and asked her what steer she was referring too. Mrs. Mayfield then found out that I was lying to her about my steer. I was kind of disappointed about that lie. Over the year when she asked me about the weight of my steer, which steadily increased, I gave her great answers. My mother told me that at that moment she would never trust me again. I told her that I understood and would stop. Like any addict, I never meant what I said and continued with the lies.

With summer approaching very quickly, I started to get depressed. After what had happened the previous year, I was determined to make this summer better. When the last day of sophomore year approached, I was glad to be free from the school and my lies. The truth was that the entire year I had barely survived not hurting myself. The lies were becoming unbearable and even more outrageous. My first day at home by myself in almost a year I sat and watched TV the whole day. The next afternoon my mother informed me I would be going to therapy for the summer so I could try to get rid of the lying. This summer my therapist was a kind older man named Dr. Sanger.

From the first moment I met him, I like him. He was nice and actually listened to what I had to say more importantly he would call me on the bull I fed him during our sessions. At the fifth session, he asked me a question the previous therapist never did and that was when I had started lying. I told him that I do not remember the exact point in time I had started but I could recall the first moment if got me in real trouble. It was in third grade and I was telling a story during show and tell. I told everyone that I had walked to school that morning and a man offered me a ride to school. The man took me to school and told me he would wait for me after school. My teacher immediately took me to the principal where she relayed the story to her. I did not know that there was actually a man that was kidnapping children in my town and my story sounded like the man. The principal called the cops and my parents and retold them my story. My mother assured my principal that none of what I said was true. My grandmother had actually taken me to school and I had an active imagination. My principal got off the phone with my mother and told me that lying was not a good thing. That did not curb my lying I told Dr. Sanger.

He said that it sounded like I lied for no reason and that it was the worst kind of lying. Dr. Sanger diagnosed me that summer with Anti-Social Personality Disorder. He said that I was a classic case and it was only time before I would become a serial killer. One of the reasons for the diagnosis was the pathological lying a common trait among serial killers I was told. When I told my mother she said that was impossible and stopped my therapy sessions. For the rest of the summer, I watched TV, slept and ate a lot. Unbeknownst to my mother, that summer was the first time I began cutting.

I would get a knife from the kitchen drawer and run it across my arms. To this day I still can feel the scars on my arms, they have not gone away. Cutting was an escape for me, like trying to kill myself had been. I figured there was no harm because I could just wear a long-sleeved shirt. My mother has never found out that I was a cutter. That summer was when I had begun to isolate myself from my family and old friends even more. I would hole up in my bedroom for days on end. One day I got on the computer and typed in a search for a book on suicide. The book that showed first was one called “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath. That book changed my life. I read it until the pages became loose on the binding. The character proved that there was life after the darkness and I wanted to be her. I began to slowly talk more and more with my parents. My friends had abandoned me because of my lying. I never did blame them because I was a lot to deal with.

My junior year began quickly with the start of the women’s golf team. My younger sister was at the school now and we would have to live with each other. Morgan also came back to the picture in a big way that year. We began to have practice for the golf team and everything in my life began over. My sister, Taylor, began to become friendly with Morgan. They became good friends and Taylor went to visit Morgan at her job with my family. The day that happened was my mother’s birthday. We were going out to dinner that night and they had invited Morgan to go to dinner with us. I threw a fit and told my mother that I hated Morgan. My mother told me that I should give Morgan a second chance because she seemed like such a great person. No one knew that we would all live to regret it.

Morgan came over to our house that night after work. She was wearing jean capris and had her hair pulled back. She casually walked in and made herself at home. My sisters adored her right away. I was much more hesitant with her. She acted as if we had never met before when she was introduced to me. I never pointed out to her that we had actually met two years earlier because it seemed a bit weird to me. We all went to dinner and while there I found myself starting to like her too. She was just as funny and pretty that she had been before. When dinner was over, we all parted and she said she would see us at practice.

School began differently that year because I had a friend. Morgan and I had three classes together and spent a lot of time with each other. We had golf practice and football games to go to and parties for the first time in my high school career. Over the golf season we became inseparable and I grew close to her friends as well. Two of them, Julie and Jessica, were on our golf team. They invited me to eat lunch with them and they all became my friends. With homecoming approaching, everyone was scrambling to find dates. About a month before our homecoming dance, my mother began to intervene with my friends. She became really close with Morgan and set up Morgan with a boy that I had had a crush on for a long time. The boy and Morgan became close and ended up going on a date together before he asked her to the homecoming dance. That made me ill and not for the reasons that I thought. I did not want Morgan going with the guy to the dance. The guy was a player and had a lot of girls he dated. Morgan was just going to be another notch in his belt and I did not want that to happen. The tension between her and I slowly started to build into something more than just anger and disappointment. As I did with most of my friends I did not like anymore, I started to distance myself from her. Anytime she came over to my house I would go in my room and leave her with my family. Then came the night that changed our friendship, both of us never realizing how much we meant to each other.

Since Morgan had been dating the boy, I had begun to start realizing that I was in like with her. Every moment we hung out with each other, I started to look forward to in more than a friend way. She would hug me before we got to school or hook her arm with mine at a football game and I would feel a flutter in my stomach. I began to think I might be a lesbian and I would get physically sick. Being a lesbian in high school, was not something I wanted especially not in my hometown. So the only solution to curing my problem was space from the source, Morgan. She took notice and became really angry with me culminating in an argument at my house.

The night began like any other that year. Morgan came over and we all sat together eating dinner and watching TV. I excused myself after dinner and went to my room to work on homework. I was sitting at my desk when someone pulled the earphones out of my ear. It was Morgan and she looked really irritated with me.

“What is your problem?” She said to me with anger evident in her voice.

“Nothing”, I said abruptly trying to end the conversation.

“Bull, you have been avoiding me all week. You do not talk to me at school or practice and lately you have been avoiding our friends too. Do you not like me or something anymore? It does not make any sense to me”, Morgan said.

“I am not mad at you. I have just been busy with a lot of homework”, I told her offering an explanation.

She took a seat on my bed and looked at me to continue.

“Look I think you and I should not be friends anymore. I need space.” I said to her trying to not start crying.

“Why? We were fine a week ago. Is this because of my date? If I am going to lose you as a friend he is not worth it”, she said to me.

“Morgan I just cannot do this anymore. I am sorry”, I said to her, “It is not because of the date I just do not want to be friends anymore.”

She looked like she was crying and she turned and walked out of the room.

I sat back down at my desk and started doing my homework again. About fifteen minutes later, she walked back in and sat on my bed again.

“We need to talk. I am not willing to let you go as a friend. I will call you on it. If you do not want to be friends with me I want a valid reason. Not one about just cause, a real reason”, she said.

I turned to face her. My hands were sweating and my stomach was doing flips. How do you tell your best friends that you love her? I had no idea what to say besides the truth.

“I like you”, I said barely above a whisper but she heard me.

The look she gave me broke my heart. I turned back to my homework and continued working on my math assignment. She sat on my bed for a good half hour before she got up and stood behind me. She put her arm around my shoulders and turned my chair around.

“I like you too”, Morgan said to me confidently, “I have for a month or so now.”
My eyes opened wide. The thoughts going through my head were ones of us being a couple and living happily ever after.

“Okay”, was all I could say at the moment. I was still processing it. She liked me. I liked her. What came next?

“Okay. That is all you have to say. I was expecting more. It explains why you were distant. You do not have to be though. We can just see what happens”, she said as if she had been thinking about our future.

“Okay”, I said again.

I stood up and walked over to her. Wrapping my arms around her, I felt good. This was the person I really liked and for the first time I got the chance to be with them. I was honest for the first time and I got exactly what I wanted.

“Does this mean that we are lesbians?” I said to Morgan. Pictures of KD Lang and Melissa Etheridge filled my head, as did women with leather vests and mullets. My mother did have the Melissa Etheridge CD about the window. I should listen to it, I said to myself making a mental note for later.

“Yeah I guess it does. I mean I think so. We like each other and we are girls so I guess we are. We can’t tell anyone about us though, my parents would kill me”, Morgan said.

She let go of me and put her hand on my cheek. I looked into her eyes and knew that she was about to kiss me. She leaned her head forward and our lips met in a chaste kiss. It was my first kiss. We did not go any further because my parents were downstairs. I let her go and she walked to the door of my bedroom.

“Sorry but I have to go home now. My mom will get mad if I am late”, she said to me.

“Alright I will see you tomorrow”, I said to her. She gave me a quick kiss and was out the door.

The next day at school was really nerve wracking. I got into our first period English class and sat down next to her in our assigned seats. The class was doing partner projects and our teacher paired us up. We acted like we normally did with each other and occasional glance at each other. For the rest of the day, whenever we saw each other we could not stop smiling. I was happy, truly happy. It did not last long.

When I got home after school, my mother told me that Morgan was going with the guy she had gone on a date with to the homecoming dance. He had asked her and she said yes to him. I went to my room and cried for hours. I could not believe that she was doing that to me. She came up to my room the minute she got to my house that night. She assured me that she was going with him for no reason but to please her parents. Since we were not public, she could not tell her parents about us. I told her it was fine and we cuddled on my bed until my parents called us for dinner.

For the weeks leading up to the dance, Morgan and I got closer and closer. We held hands when no one looked, and had stolen kisses in between classes. It helped that we were the same sex and could use the same bathroom during breaks. No one suspected anything.

All of our friends had dates to the dance, and I was still looking for one. We had the Thanksgiving holiday approaching and I was determined to find someone to go with. A friend of mine told me he would go with me so I accepted, was the story I told her to buy time to find a date. I was ready to go to the dance and make sure that Morgan’s date behaved himself. She was excited when I told her that I was going to the dance. I had not lied to her yet but she quickly found out I was not telling the truth.

She got my mother involved and told her the story I had made up. My mother explained to her that I had a problem with lying to people and that I was always lying about something. Morgan confronted me with the accusation of not having a date and I told her that I did. The lie had been built up so much that I had to say yes I had a date. It was really sick. She confronted the friend and he told her he would not go with me because he was in a different city visiting his dad.

She got mad and told me that she could not handle the lies. Homecoming was only a week away and Morgan and I were not speaking. She had gotten a dress and was going with our friends to dinner before the dance. We did not speak the whole week. She went to the dance with the guy and nothing happened. He got drunk and she had a miserable time. The morning after the dance she came to my house and told my mother about the whole dance. After she walked to my room, and we had yet another fight.

“The lying has got to stop or we are not going to last”, she said to me.

“We? What we are you talking about? We are not dating, we are not friends so who are you referring to?” I practically yelled at her.

She started crying and looked at me. My heart broke at the pain that flashed across her face. That was the first time I realized my lies hurt those I loved.

“I am sorry. I do not want to do this anymore. We are through”, I said to her.

She got up and walked out of my bedroom. My mother said that she cried the entire way out of the house. When my mother asked me what happened, I told her that I ended our friendship. My mother always thought it was over the guy, but it was over a girl. The girl.

About the Author
Corey Crossfield is currently pursuing undergraduate studies in journalism. Corey is a contributing writer to a few publications, a newspaper editor, and reports international news, community interest, investigative pieces, and music reviews for the Hilmar Times.

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