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Damian Desmond, now twenty-five years old, walked through the busy streets of Berlint with hurried steps, hands buried deep inside the pockets of his coat as he tried to avoid the cruel wind that had arrived with one of summer's sudden whims.
The sky was painted a dark gray, and for that time at night, that never meant anything great for his clothes. Or more so, the lack of adequate attire.
Glimpses of rain began to mingle with the air; raindrops brushed against his coat, darkening the patches where they inevitably fell. Beside him, exhausted workers were walking past, heading home with their colorful umbrellas in hand, on their way to wherever they were going.
Too bad he didn’t carry one with him at the time.
That day, out of all the possible days it could’ve happened, work at Parliament had been particularly heavy. His supervisor had practically killed him with her looks at the mere suggestion of leaving early during a session day.
Apparently, anniversaries weren’t reason enough to head home early when hell was breaking loose at the Prime Minister’s office.
There were no brother benefits, not even when the Prime Minister itself was your older brother.
Letting out a sigh that mingled with the cold air, it seemed more like a rattle breathing.
It was late. Late enough that, after some point, he had told Jeeves not to wait for him and went home instead. The old man wasn’t suitable anymore for waiting long hours, and even though he initially protested, he eventually left.
As the city lights started to fade, the usual sounds began to quiet down, and with it came the fact that his wife would be annoyed with him as well.
It looked as though the sky was going to do the crying for him now.
As always, occupying the forefront of his mind was the ever-prevailing thought that adorned her days and nights and had managed to do so since he had use of reason. Anya Forger.
Only tonight, his thoughts drifted down a slightly different path than usual.
It wasn’t exactly news to him, but Anya Forger was a liar.
Not a particularly good one, mind you. She lied about little things, big things, important things and then some utterly ridiculous things she had no reason to lie about with a straight face, to then immediately ruin it by blinking too quickly or fidgeting with her sleeves. She lied so often that, over the years, he'd developed something of a catalogue.
Frankly, it was a miracle she'd managed to deceive anyone.
Setting aside the lie that was her entire existence at the beginning of her short life, then the situation with her peculiar, to say the least, adopted family, and later on, the casual revelation that she possessed mind-reading powers, there was a list of things that qualified her for the title of biggest liar of all time.
And he had plenty of examples to prove it.
The memory surfaced naturally as he waited for a traffic light to change.
Like that one time they were having dinner at that westalian restaurant that they went to because of her father’s recommendation. The plate arrived, looking positively spicy. Now, he tolerated spice, but there was a thing with westalian dishes that seemed personally offended by the concept of moderation.
Across from him, Anya took a bite and savored the food in odd fascination. Again, nothing that would indicate a sign of distress or that the food was, in fact, capable of burning a hole through a person’s dignity.
“Is it spicy?” he stupidly asked. In all fairness, he should’ve seen it coming the moment her emerald eyes lit up immediately.
“Not one bit!” she declared with complete confidence before helping herself to another bite.
He took that as a sign, but in retrospect, he shouldn’t have trusted that little pink-haired gremlin and instead should have trusted the plate, basically screaming at him not to eat it. Then, to no one’s surprise, the food was spicy. Not the regular level of spiciness, it was a level that made him choke and desperately shove a glass of water down his throat. All that show, while she laughed hysterically, saying that to her, the food wasn’t spicy at all.
"It's not spicy!" she insisted between giggles, offering a napkin so he could take off the sauce from the edge of his mouth.
"To you! This is not for normal people," Damian had managed to wheeze, the tips of his ears pink from embarrassment.
“It’s not for the weak.” The woman just shrugged and resumed her eating with an innocent smile as if nothing had happened.
The pedestrian light next to him turned green, motioning to keep walking.
Shaking his head at the memory, he resumed his walk, crossing the street toward the jewelry store. Behind the glass sat the sapphire ring he had purchased a week earlier after Anya had casually mentioned liking it while passing by. Casually, as if she hadn't slowed to a complete stop in front of the shop to stare at it for an entire minute. Not that he’d been counting.
The bell above the door chimed softly when he entered.
The store inside was warm, leaving outside the terrible weather that nearly matched his mood for having to be later that day. He sincerely hoped she was still awake by the time he came home. The attendee turned his head at the sound of the bell ringing. Damian walked straight to the counter and gave his order number, to which the attendant smiled and went looking for it in the back of the store.
While he waited, his thoughts inevitably returned to the subject at hand. He then declared her a liar. A terrible, terrible liar.
The lies we’re now so engraved into their being that they seem like part of her by now.
For example, some place that, according to her, was not very far away. Only for him to follow her and find out the damn place is on a 45-minute walk.
‘We'll only say a quick hello!’ apparently meant staying long enough to watch the sunrise together.
His thumbs found the bridge of his nose. Could he even recall the first-ever lie she told him?
No, because he obviously did. There was nothing in this world that could erase the imprint of her 6-year-old fist smacking him across the hallway the first day they met. Once the hit was received and Professor Henderson had arrived to investigate, she had possessed the unbelievable audacity to claim she had merely been dusting something off his cheek.
Damian Desmond should’ve known back then that nothing good would come from associating with the most problematic person on earth. And now, despite every warning sign imaginable, he had eventually gone and married her. The truth was, Anya had always possessed a remarkable talent for finding trouble even while insisting she wasn't looking for it. Honestly, he never managed to fight whatever natural law seemed determined to place chaos directly in her path, and instead, he’d found the irresistible impulse to follow her ever since.
Years of friendship, dating, and eventually living together had made Damian fluent in Anya Forger.
The way she claims she isn’t hungry before stealing fries, specifically from his plate.
She claims she isn’t cold, then shivers theatrically until he places his coat on her.
Sometimes she would say, ‘You can stay longer at work if you need to.’ And somehow, looking utterly disappointed whenever he did.
“Mr. Desmond,” A voice put him out of his thoughts. “Here is your order. Turquoise as you requested.”
A beautiful combination of blue and silver caught his gaze. The vendor held with gloved hands a bright blue gemstone that twinkled and gleamed whenever the light caught its different angles. The band had small, engraved patterns that twirled around like a ribbon and fit perfectly with the stone. It was neither too big nor too small, just the right size for Anya to carry it without discomfort.
She’d love it. He knew precisely how her face would light up.
“Do you want me to wrap it up?”
“Sure,” He absentmindedly replied, still thinking about her wife and the strange predicament that followed her everywhere she went. The strange thing was that Damian couldn't remember exactly when he had become so good at detecting her constant lies, up to the point he could almost anticipate the moment the lie came out of her mouth.
As the attendant carefully packed the ring, a different question surfaced.
When did he start noticing Anya's lies?
Taking the package with him and bidding a polite goodbye to the vendor, Damian walked out, feeling once again the harsh wind strike across his features. The streets had emptied further while he was inside, leaving only a few scattered pedestrians hurrying themselves to some place he didn’t know of. The sound of his chauffeur's clacking against the sidewalk was the only sound he could focus on.
Upon closer realization, the answer came to him. He realized that Anya Forger had always been a liar from the moment they met. Just not a liar like everyone else. From a very young age, he learned that people often lied. To everyone else and to themselves. Whether to get closer to his father, given that he came from one of the most important families in all of Ostania, or simply because they thought they could get something from associating with him, but it was rarely because of him.
His entire childhood had been filled with those kinds of lies, only that Anya's lies were different. Skipping the part where she initially got closer to him because of his father, most of her lies afterward followed a strangely consistent pattern.
Lied to spend time with him, to be near him with those weird excuses, and much to his own embarrassment, so he won’t be alone. To his own misfortune, he fell for it, repeatedly, sometimes even gladly, sometimes fully aware what she was up to and going along with it anyway.
A laugh nearly escaped him at the realization. That, more than anything else, was what made her the worst and biggest liar he had ever met.
Years later, after learning every expression, every habit, every tiny tell she possessed, Damian could predict most of them before they even happened. The worst part was that she genuinely seemed to believe some of them, as if saying them out loud might make them true.
‘I'm not worried about it.’
‘I don't miss you."
‘I wasn't waiting for you.’
The list was immense, and yet, he grew to learn that those lies were bestowed upon the most innocent and pure of reasons: love.
Before he realized it, the familiar silhouette of his apartment building emerged through the now misty rain.
The anniversary hadn't gone as planned. He was awfully late, and the weather was awful. Climbing the front steps, Damian brushed a few lingering raindrops from his hair and adjusted the package beneath his arm.
Passing the door frame of his apartment and quietly closing the door behind him, the smell of sundried linen enveloped him as he took out his now-wet coat and put it over a chair. A quick scanning of his surroundings welcomed him to one of his favorite sights of all time.
There was his wife, curled up on the couch under a fluffy blanket next to the dimly lit chimney, left cheek pressed against the back of the couch in a way that would undoubtedly make her neck hurt in the morning. She was snoozing up, and upon closer inspection, he saw something clutched up in her hands, blissfully unaware of the stupidest look he probably had on his face. The wrapping seemed uneven and crooked in places, as if she wrapped herself up whatever was inside along with a handwritten note, and that’s what made it even better. A present, he realized.
For him.
Then, his golden eyes scanned the surroundings. Over the table, there was a charcuterie board and a good bottle of wine for the night, along with half-melted candles she probably blew off when he didn’t come home in time.
An unwanted smile made its way to his face. Kneeling over her sleeping silhouette, he delicately used his fingers to set aside the soft pink hair curled up on her forehead, only to press a light kiss concrete enough to wake her up from her slumber.
Green eyes slowly met golden ones in a small act of utter adoration.
“Hey Forger,” he smiled apologetically.
A yawn escaped her mouth while her eyes focused on his silhouette. “Sy-on?” she asked, turning to watch the hour on the clock over the wall.
Answering her silent question, he offered. “I know it’s really late, I’m so sorry.” And he meant it. “Were you waiting too much for me?”
“Not at all,” she lied to him, giving him the sweetest smile, generous enough to make his regret feel stronger.
A lie. For the looks of it, she probably fell asleep while waiting for him more than was acceptable, and yet, the first thing she did waking up was ask about his day.
Honestly, the biggest liar of them all.
“Liar,” he murmured at the same time he offered his hand to help her stand up.
“How was work?” She stretched her arms, and Damian saw she was still in her outside clothes. She didn’t want to get changed until he arrived.
“Brutal,” his response was almost immediately, perhaps to the gorgeous outfit she was wearing for the occasion, making her look unfairly pretty, or for his day itself. Either way, even if his answer had different interpretations, it led to the same result. Memories of his long day threatened to come out, but he managed to keep them at bay for the occasion. “But let’s not talk about that right now.”
She made a face that told him she was reading his mind. He let her do it, not really accustomed to the casual circumstance of one having a wife with mind-reading powers. Once it seemed she had finished seeing his memories for the day, she tilted his face and scrunched her nose in quiet understanding. “Sorry you had a bad day.”
He gave her a tired smile. His hand, with a mind of its own, rose to his face and gently caressed her cheek. “It’s not your fault, Forger.”
Anya then stepped in her tiptoes and gave him a little peck on the lips. Suddenly, the exhaustion from the entire day became irrelevant. Embarrassing how one single kiss of this liar managed to undo hours of parliamentary misery.
“Here,” she grabbed the box that slid onto her side and put it in his hands, giving him a little smile. “Just a little something from me to you, hoping it will cheer you up.”
Oh no.
Damian felt himself in danger now because his cute wife had the absolute gall to look abashed at giving him a gift that he obviously would like. He now wanted to effectively die. Anya could give him a pebble from the sidewalk and he would put it in his office, possibly frame it, and keep it for eternity.
“Oh? What is this?” he took the box and shook it a little to guess its contents. The content was slightly heavy, and the sound featured pieces crashing into each other.
Having a rough idea of what was inside, Damian placed the box on the nearest table for support and opened it.
Inside, there was a beautifully crafted chess game made out of ebony and maple accents, with his initials engraved on the sides. “Demetrius helped me pick it! Do… you like it?”
That was probably the understatement of the century. He absolutely loved it.
“Of course I do. Thank you,” he pulled her in a very much needed hug. “I’ve also got you a present.”
“You didn’t have to bring me anything,” this time, the lie came more to her than to him. He knew she loved receiving gifts. “What is it?” Anya asked, eyeing the package before finally taking it from his hands in the blink of an eye.
“No mind reading!” he warned her, knowing she sometimes spoiled surprises when accidentally reading his mind. “I saw it and thought of you.” She started to inspect it from all sides. “Happy fifth anniversary, Forger.”
Tearing the white envelope apart in a heartbeat. A black velvet box replaced the paper in her hand, and as soon as she opened it, she carefully took the piece in her hands and turned it around a couple of times before recognition hit her features.
"Aww, silly Sy-on, it’s the ring I saw the other day! I can’t believe you remembered!”
Of course he remembered. He recalled every trivial thing about her to the point that it was impossible not to.
“Do you like it?” His voice came out softer than he meant to.
“I love it!” Her eyes gleamed in delight. “Can you put it on?” She handed him the ring, even though she was perfectly capable of putting it on her own, and he still obliged. Taking the piece from her hand, he grabbed her hand and put the piece on the ring finger, where it fit perfectly alongside her engagement ring.
“Looks so cute,” she grinned, making his heartbeat just a little faster despite being married for so many years. “I love you!" she proudly declared upon seeing the ring in its rightful place.
Out of all the lies Anya Forger told every day, ‘I love you’ had never been one of them.
How someone could be such a professional liar and yet so completely transparent remained one of life's greatest mysteries.
In that moment, Damian Desmond had the revelation of a lifetime: Anya Forger was the loveliest paradox to ever exist.
The biggest liar he had ever met still told the truth every now and then.
“I love you too.”
Their bodies close the distance in the sweetest way, kissing each other the way lovers are supposed to do after a lifetime of knowing each other too well.
And after so many years of dealing with people whose lies took things away. Apparently, the biggest liar of them all has a little bit of truth in her after everything, and dealing with her wasn't too much of a hassle as he initially thought. After all, he'd been doing it for almost twenty years.