Page 16 - TruthAboutLyingFinal

The Truth About Lying
For one strange second, the street seemed to stutter.
A taxi hung too long at the intersection.
A man crossing the road lifted his foot, but it didn’t come down when it should have.
Then everything snapped back into motion.
Henry stopped.
A horn blared. Someone swore. The city went on.
Stress, he told himself.
Nothing more.
He started walking. He didn’t know where he was going. Away was enough.
His phone buzzed.
Claire.
He stared at her name on the screen.
They hadn’t spoken since Thanksgiving two years earlier, when she’d called him a professional liar and he’d called her self-righteous and unemployed. The fight had been ugly. The silence after it had been worse.
He let it go to voicemail.
Three blocks later, he stopped outside a coffee shop and saw his reflection in the glass.
He looked like a man who had just walked away from a burning building.
Which, in a way, he had. His phone buzzed again. Not Claire this time.
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