He was going to lie.
I knew it even before he opened his mouth. It was in the tell that I’d figured out a few months later that let me know when he was lying or going to lie. It was so obvious to me now, that I wondered why I didn’t notice it on the first day we met.
Oh, I know why.
It was the childlike innocence. He seemed so genuinely confused when I collided with him in the library and sent our books to the floor. Then it was the clumsy way he went about gathering into the books and the awkward but sincere chuckle we exchanged when we mistakenly bumped heads. Twice. He had a soft grin on his face and wide eyes practically begged me to understand that he wasn’t usually this clumsy. It was like the cheesy K-dramas I loved. All an act. But I didn’t know then.
We talked for hours that day. Over coffee at his favourite coffee shop which was coincidentally also my favourite. It was like we’d been friends forever. In the first hour, I knew all about him. The fact that he was raised by a single mom and was an only child, how his favourite snack was prawn crackers and how he secretly had a fondness for geckos. It was the mixture of all things silly and sweet. He’d had me hooked in that hour. But I guess he already knew that.
In the third hour, I was convinced that this was the man I would spend the rest of my life with. He said the right things. Talked about how the world would be a better place if it was ruled by women and as the final blow to complete the whole, perfectly layered ensemble, he said “If I had a woman, I’d show her just how well a woman should be treated. Like a queen.” There was a twitch in his neck. So infinitesimal, I would have felt like I had imagined it all if I hadn’t been admiring that part of his neck in that split second. But I broke away and looked into his eyes. And it was the most soulful pool I’d ever gazed into.
I looked him dead in those deep, drowning eyes of his and said, “Would you be my boyfriend?”
He agreed instantly...of course. And said that this was a moment I would never forget in my life. He was right. I never forgot it. Because I cursed myself every day for that single moment of careless abandon.
We announced our wedding a month later. My family was appalled.
“How can you marry someone you barely met?”
“You’re usually so level-headed, Maddy. Why would you decide so rash?”
“I hope you don’t get to regret this.”
The only person that had spoken to me calmly was Dad. He held my hands and smiled as he gazed down at me. “You know you’re my favourite daughter right?” This made us both laugh. It was an old joke of ours for I was his only daughter. “I have always been so proud of you, Madeline. You’ve never brought shame to me, which is why I completely trust your judgement. If you say he is the one. Then I believe with all my heart that he is the one.”
Tears ran down my eyes and even now they do. Because it was a double stab to my already debilitated heart, the implicit trust and love Dad had shown me as he blessed the marriage. It should have been perfect. But how could that be when it was doomed from the start?
I realize now that I never mentioned his name. James. Or Jimmy as he preferred to be called. We had just two weeks of absolute peace after we got married in Athens, and then I began to spot the changes.
It started with the smile. The boyish smile I’d fallen in love with. It became more of a smirk, especially when he looked at me. And only in times when he thought I wouldn’t notice. Like he was in on a joke I was oblivious to. Nevertheless, he still maintained his usual kindness so I thought nothing of it. Then came the question of joint accounts. It’s something we’d planned to do in our brief courtship period but he became insistent. When I agreed to it, he hugged me and said.
“You’re the most sensible woman in the world. I’m so happy you’re mine.” I’d beamed at this. Who wouldn’t with a man this handy with compliments?
When he asked that I hand over my financial accounts to his name, barely a year later, I wasn’t so keen. Why did he want that? But then he turned on me. Yelling and stomping his feet all over our exquisite Persian rugs. Saying I didn’t trust him and how broken I’d made him feel knowing that his wife didn’t think him worthy enough.
I was sufficiently and efficiently brainwashed, I ended up apologizing profusely. And then he smiled at me and said, “I’d never do anything to hurt you, Maddy. I love you.” It was a spot behind his ear that I’d been looking at, so I saw that twitch again. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen it and I already knew that he had just lied to me. But about what?
It may be expected that I didn’t sign those papers, handing everything I had and worked for to him after what I noticed. But I did. Shamelessly so. It all fell under after few months after that. Jimmy took everything I had. My savings. The company’s funds. My happiness. Everything. He ran away with it all, and after so long, he was found in Ibiza, partying hard. No longer was the man I’d fallen in love with. It had all been a mirage.
But then I looked at him now, in the poorly lit visiting room of the prison. And I knew he was going to lie when I asked him the single question I came for. “But why?”
The lie was expected but so unexpected at the same time, I started laughing. I kept laughing even as I was escorted out of the prison by Dad. I was happy that I’d impulsively carried shades and a face mask. Then, no one was going to see the tears that were steaming ceaselessly down my face.
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