Glimpse: The Complete Trilogy

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  She had a lot to think about on her trip back to school. As much as she was sick to death of thinking about (and being around Meri), there were plenty of things to wonder about on that topic. Her sister had made no move to keep her under the influence during her time with her. She had expected that. She didn’t think it would be worth it to Meredyth to try to answer questions on why she was bordering on nonfunctional. She had also expected that Meredyth would open up to her somehow and place her cards on the table to try to pressure her to stay in line. She hadn’t done that. The two of them had entered into an elaborate arrangement of pretending. Meredyth pretending that there was nothing going on and no reason for them to discuss anything. Lia pretending that she had noticed nothing worth comment.

  It was all too bizarre for her to wrap her head around. What did Meredyth think that she was doing? Meri really, truly thought that she was a complete and total idiot. There was no other possible explanation. She should be comforted by the fact that Meredyth thought she was so incapable of rational thought (she should be able to get away with very nearly anything that being the case), but it just left her feeling oddly discomfited. Her sister was apparently operating on the assumption that she could keep her drugged out of her head while she was at school, stop when she was with Meri, and then start back up again when she got back to school without her ever noticing that it was happening. She found herself wondering if she was really that out of it when she was on whatever it was that Meredyth had had her on that she wouldn’t have ever processed that there was something wrong. She couldn’t answer that question. She didn’t know. She was just going to be grateful that the staff at school had jumped at the “easier” method of med distribution and had, as far as she could tell, not bothered to tell Meredyth about it.

  She didn’t want to tell Connor about that -- the drugging. It didn’t have any bearing on the information that she wanted him to have. It didn’t cause difficulties for anybody but her, so she thought it was okay to just not mention it. She knew Connor. She knew how he dwelt on things, and she knew how much he tried to take personal responsibility for things that weren’t his. She didn’t need to give him any more ammunition. She would just skip that part of the explanations. As much as she would like to get some outside perspective on figuring out this whatever it was between her and Meri, she wasn’t going to put that off on Connor. She couldn’t go to Anna either. She would tell him in a heartbeat. She knew whom she wanted to talk things though with, but she didn’t know if that was fair either.

  It was his senior year, and he should be focused on other things. It might very well be that he hadn’t even missed her the way that she had missed him. She needed to stop thinking like that, or she was going to arrive at school teary eyed. The people at school were supposed to think that nothing ever held her attention long enough (or mattered enough to her) to leave her teary over. She practiced her half-vacant expression that was every bit as natural to her now as being silent had become.

  That’s when a thought that had plagued her on a few previous occasions came rushing back with a vengeance.

  She was a magnificent liar. She wasn’t just a liar. She wasn’t just a passable liar. She wasn’t merely a good liar. She was a magnificent liar. She was truly, spectacularly brilliant at it. She had to be, otherwise what semblance of control that she still retained over her own life would evaporate more quickly than water droplets in the dessert. She wasn’t about to let that happen as long as there was something that she could do about it. Therefore, she was going to embrace being a magnificent liar.

  Lia wasn’t certain how she felt about that on the day that the truth of that sentence first occurred to her. She hadn’t originally set out to become one (it most assuredly had never made it on to her list of life goals before now), but there it was practically screaming at her in flashing neon. It was simply there one day -- a circumstance of her personality every bit as defining as her long acknowledged habit of eavesdropping. She was harboring quite the collection of besetting sins.

  How was she supposed to feel about that? Were you supposed to be happy when you realized you were a fully competent teller of falsehoods? Were you supposed to be proud? Were you supposed to tuck it away in your toolkit of life skills to be used whenever you deemed it necessary? If that was the case, then how would you know when it was really, truly necessary? If you were so good at lying, then what was there to prevent you from lying to yourself about the validness of your reasons for lying?

  Those were the thoughts that tumbled around inside of her head whenever she gave herself leave to ponder her new found revelation. Consequently, she didn’t often offer herself the chance (and when she did, she quickly found herself rubbing her temples in a feeble attempt to stave off the accompanying headache) -- it was much easier to focus on other things (things that had an effect on other people and were therefore easy to convince herself were of more importance that her own personal moral crisis). She wasn’t clear as to why it mattered to her now. She wasn’t exactly new to the realm of carefully orchestrated pretending. She had sabotaged her grades and done everything in her power to keep from doing anything that would draw Meri’s interest for years. Wasn’t that deceit of the same form as what she now practiced on a daily basis as she did her level best to convince everyone around her at school that she was just shy of comatose?

  Her life was all about lying even to the people that she loved best. That was her world.