Happiness Unraveled
Chapter Two
Is a lie a lie if it keeps the happiness?
Nobody wants to know the truth. They would rather be lied to, would rather hear sugar-coated niceties than the truth.
Nick was quick to offer them. Eager to please, the words were fully formed, waiting in his mouth to be pasted as reassurances, patches in his façade. The glue of society became mortar to hold together the wall of lies he built to keep himself safe.
Catherine said he looked pale, he said he was only tired, pulled on that easy-going grin and let her believe it.
Maybe because he was so hoping to believe it himself.
A white lie is the quickest, like a lethal injection. It's there before you know it.
Is a lie a lie if you never spoke untruth?
Everyone forgets. A birthday, a phone bill, the location of the keys. That he threw up twice this morning.
"You sound awful," Sara murmured as he cleared his tortured throat.
"Throat's just a little sore." Because I threw up until I could taste blood.
"Getting sick?"
"A little. I've had it a while now."
She believed him, her mouth tugged into that sympathy face he knew so well, and why wouldn't it? She looked down at her evidence log; he was long put out of mind.
But when she got up to leave, she paused, brushed fingers across his forehead, hummed worry, and told him to get some rest.
He thought he could still taste the blood at the back of his throat – tangy, wet iron red – but the guilt he swallowed hard slipped past and all he could taste now is his next meal coming up.
Omission is a passive lie, a manipulation of assumption. The facts quietly vanish.
Is a lie a lie if you expand the truth?
He wouldn't pretend he wasn't sick. He wasn't delusional, he wasn't insane. "It's just a little stomach bug," he told Warrick, and it was. He was sick to his stomach, vomiting every few hours. His stomach wouldn't settle, he couldn't keep anything down.
"You were sick a few weeks ago too. Is everything okay?" Warrick squinted, stretched up a little to intimidate possible lies, hovered for an answer.
"Yeah. Everything's fine." No better than okay, but really no worse. He was doing okay, he was not dying, no need for a hospital, everyone was still alive and well.
"You should take the rest of the day…"
"I'll be okay." He would. Someday.
An exaggeration is uncomfortable – truth has a tight boundary and it's cutting into his skin.
Is a lie a lie if the truth is wrong?
There are procedures. Policies. Ecklie-style checklists and protocols for people like Nick. A simple set of steps to tell him he's sick, broken, failing. To tell him the generic "we" will be here for him and that all that matters is that he get "better."
The checklist hung shabbily from the bulletin board all year, a little-read blurb at the top failing to attract attention. Except for one day each year, when the checklist was removed, photocopied, passed out to the crime lab public, discussed, evaluated, then returned to its compartment.
The day of, each team took one hour to meet with the supervisor. They reviewed the list. They discussed common symptoms of the usual problems. Depression. Drug abuse. Mental illness. Eating disorders. Because "we" care about our people and "we" want them to be successful.
They all sat in the break room. Grissom stood, pondered his paper and scowled at lost time. Catherine perched on the arm of the sofa, Sara sat to one side of the couch, Warrick lounged in an understuffed chair. Nick sat at the table, muscles rigid, mechanically drinking his third cup of coffee and relishing the sting on his raw esophagus.
"Common symptoms of bulimia nervosa," Grissom read. He charged each of them with listing one.
"Problems with body image," Catherine muttered, rolling her eyes. Nick softly touched his own ribcage. He had no delusions about this – he used to be fit, now he was thin. He was afraid of gaining weight, even after the vomiting. He worked out religiously.
"Fear of weight gain." Nick cringed. Damn.
"Any physical signs?" Grissom prompted.
"Fatigue," Sara offered and Nick pushed away his coffee. "Weight change." He touched his ribs again. "Reddened, bruised, or abraded knuckles." Nick dropped his hand to his lap and clenched his fist until the scabs cracked and he felt new blood squeeze through.
"Nick?"
"I need to…I'll be back," he said roughly, shoving his chair back and escaping. He almost ran through the halls, nearly crashed into Greg, stumbled into the bathroom and threw up. No fingers, no medicine. Just guilt, fear, and truth.
He threw up breakfast, threw up again a half-hour later, and now all he had left is the three cups of coffee, bile, and diluted blood. He vomited until he shook violently, until he couldn't catch his breath, until his vision greyed and he melted to the floor, back against the side of the stall.
"Nicky…" Grissom knelt beside him, pressed a cool, damp towel to his forehead. The room spun lazily and he tried to focus on Grissom. He gagged, lurched back to his original position and threw up again.
Grissom reached for his right hand, found a pulse in the thin wrist.
"I'm okay," he rasped, coughing again. "Please."
Grissom shook his head, eyes lingering on Nick's bleeding hand.
"I fell a couple days ago, running," Nick offered, eyes falling closed again because Grissom's eyes were sad and Nick was too sad already. "Every- everything is fine."
"Come on, Nicky, let's get you up." Grissom stood, held out his hand, helped haul Nick to his feet. Nick listed to the side, hit his arm hard on the door of the stall, forcing Grissom to grab his arm and steady him.
Stumble to the sink, wash hands, rinse mouth twice, wet face and neck, paper towels to dry off, no worse for the wear. Except the paleness, red eyes, blood-stained lips, dry and broken skin on his knuckles.
"Warrick'll drive you home," Grissom said, and Nick didn't argue.
Warrick dropped him off, he escaped into his dark house with little protest, put his back to the door and slid down, head in his hands. Because he knew the truth.
We lie to ourselves every day. All the time. When the truth is too hard, too sharp, too painful, too wrong to be true. But it's a lie. Shreds your character, self-respect, you – until all that's left are a few frayed edges rough-hewn into someone you don't know.