Liar Liar Heart on Fire: How I fell in love with my husband through the lies he told me.

By Heather Anderson

There were three things I knew were true: 

1. His mom was definitely dead.
2. He had two sweet kids.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Take The Stairs Publishing
• Release date: Dec 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781736131015

Book preview

Liar Liar

Heart on fire

how I fell in love with my husband through the lies he told me

HEATHER ANDERSON

Copyright © 2020 by Heather Anderson.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address below.

Heather Anderson

1547 Palos Verdes Mall #143

Walnut Creek, CA 94597

Ordering Information:

For bulk ordering or additional book questions, email

[e-mail]

Liar Liar Heart on Fire/ Heather Anderson —1st ed.

ISBN 978-1-7361310-0-8

CONTENTS

The situation 7

Inkling schminkling 21 

The Acroyoga star 35

The insta-boyfriend 43

Clearing the decks 49 

The stripper. 57

The pinup painter. 63 

The amateur porn star 65

The bass guitarist. 67

The aspiring producer. 69

The (mostly) raw vegan 71

His German chemist. 73

The tipping point 75

The initial panic 81

What’s true, anyway? 85

The ‘Unlying’ game 89

Unbelievable 95

Dedicated to Danny Fuller, my daydream believer.

The situation.

Sometimes you fall in love with what’s true. Sometimes you fall in love with what’s imaginary or possible. But most of the time, it’s probably a little of everything. This is the true story of how I fell in love with my husband through the lies he told me.  

A year and half prior, I’d separated from The One. The one I’d planned to marry. The one with whom I’d shared a single bedroom in the middle of suburban nowhere for half of our twenties like two souls shipwrecked on an island. We’d named our future imaginary babies, looked at rings, shared a cat, a car, groceries and holidays, bank accounts and music equipment. Shared friends, family, and a house with roommates who drank cases of Mountain Dew Code Red, didn’t shower, and who made income by selling video game weapons. The whole shebang.

We scraped by and ate microwaved burritos while putting him through Film School on my one lame salary. We dreamed big dreams, made meager inching progress. And while I can’t get into how that all disintegrated right now, I’ll say that when it did, I was a weepy shell of a human being–a fragile zombie.

After The One, I’d frantically tried to fill the gaping black hole that was threatening to swallow me by going on my very first Match.com date after work on my birthday. I was turning 30 alone and had no plans. And that date made me laugh so hard, in the dark wooden booth of an Oakland pub, that I stuffed him into the aching hole like a rag into an exhaust pipe.

When the bartender yelled last call, I was ready to take this guy home with me even though I’d never been on a blind date in my life. And then I realized I only knew his profile handle. 

Hey, so what’s your name?

Peter.

You’re shitting me. I practically spit out my drink as my heart flipped. This was the unspeakable name of The One. The name no friend had dared utter in my presence since New Year’s.  Ummm, yeah, that’s not gonna work, I joked, not really joking. Do you have a middle name?

Alexander. 

Holy crap. That was the name of the guy with whom I’d cheated on The One–a year-long emotional affair that had turned physical and been the nail in our coffin. 

I told this Peter-Alexander date about my love triangle fiasco because it felt like I could tell him anything. 

What’s your last name?

Cohen.

Well, Cohen, wanna get outta here? 

Cohen and I ran to his car because it was closer and we figured he could drive me to mine. But before that even happened, I found myself straddling his lap in the driver’s seat, making out like giddy teenagers for a good 45 minutes until we accidentally released the E-brake, landing my ass on the steering wheel. He frantically tried to put the car back into park as it rolled–all the while–honking so loud and long that someone yelled and we flopped apart, laughing. We drove home and he stayed all weekend, leaving only to go to work as an ambulance driver. Having graduated Cal with a philosophy degree, he was working on a screenplay about ambulance drivers and was making money while doing plot research. When he returned and swiftly lay on the floor, scooting under my first-ever crooked and unwieldy Christmas tree like a mechanic in his EMT uniform, hoisting it up straight and tightening the screws, I asked him to stay and spoon me–and he did. I asked him to never leave–and he didn’t. We spent the week cuddling up in old sweats watching movies like a long-married couple. 

But over the next 6 months, he started to waste away and suffer from mysterious bouts of narcolepsy, which turned out to be a secret heroin addiction. And I did get a frantic call from his roommate, who’d found my number in his phone next to his body when he OD’d. They’d called 911 and then they’d called me. 

Around the same time, I was making demos with a long-haired metal drummer I’d found on Craigslist. We’d met up for an interview over coffee at Rudy’s Can’t Fail Cafe, the diner co-owned by Green Day’s bassist. He’d walked in with long