“Don’t you believe me?” you say.

And all I could think of was the fact that every person has the capacity to lie; in fact, a person on average lies at least six times a day and who’s to say that this isn’t one of those lies? Maybe you hadn’t reached your six lie quota, assuming that you do lie six times a day because you’re just an average person… but unique… just like everyone else in the world who happens to lie on average six times a day.

“Six,” I say.

That’s one lie before leaving the house, three at work, maybe more depending on the day and how your boss feels and whether or not you have a big assignment due that you haven’t finished so you have to make up some bullshit excuse as to why you couldn’t do it, like maybe your dog died because he was brutally killed by a hit and reverse and hit and run driver who is a renowned canine sadist and makes it his life duty to massacre any four-legged, furred creature he can before he is ultimately caught and taken to the crazy house and put in the electric chair where they charge him up like a battery, volt after volt, until they give him just enough to stop his blood-beating battery for good, one hell of an overdose, and then your boss feels horrible for you because Charlie, the nonexistent dog, was like your child and he was part of the family and while you blow fake snot into a tissue he pats you on the back and says “it’s ok” and you’re in the clear which still leaves you two lies for when you come home to use freely on whatever you please, so what are the chances that “don’t you believe me” isn’t a way to mask lie number five or six (you said you really loved my steak and pasta hot dish but I saw the way you looked at it when I first put it on the table).

“Excuse me?” you reply.

I couldn’t tell if you were angry because you are one with a quick temper and tend to get mad at little things that even I don’t understand but I doubt you could possibly get mad because I said the word six so it had to be out of confusion which makes perfect, logical sense but of course my sensible brain is incapacitated because I know every man lies at least six times a day and will always have the capacity to lie which keeps me from stopping and just believing you because this is what all men do: let you down, fuck you, then drop you.

“What are you thinking?” you ask, fingers dancing in my hand.

But deep down I know because of the way you lean closer to me as I drift unconsciously from you in my sleep and how you massaged the back of my knee after a hard workout and how you snuggle with me all day and night when I have a hundred four degree fever or how you tell me that I’m the biggest most irrational fool you know and yet adore every second that this isn’t lie number five or six or eight… this isn’t a lie at all.

‘Nothing,’ I say.