payment page
“You live in a home where every single piece of furniture holds meaning for you. A memory. You grew up around these things so they’re a part of you. It wasn’t the same with my stuff. They were pieces of necessity. Somewhere to sit so I wasn’t on the floor and nothing more than that. It was easy to give them away.” The furniture I’m talking about might not have been given away today, but the feelings are true nonetheless.
This quote from Chapter 3 reveals Evie’s adeptness at telling lies that contain emotional truths, using them to gain trust and manipulate others. While the literal facts she shares may not be true, the underlying sentiment—that she has always lived without attachment—remains sincere. This approach allows Evie to connect with Ryan in an authentic way, even as she conceals deeper truths about herself. It exemplifies how Evie blurs the line between truth and deception, making it difficult for those around her to distinguish what is real from what is fabricated. She also uses emotional truths to obscure factual ones. While her words feel emotionally true, they are not factually accurate in the present moment. This interplay between truth and deception mirrors how Evie navigates her life and relationships throughout the novel.
Thoughts about Mama and that small trailer we called home—that Mama made a home—wash over me, and for the first time, I don’t want to tell the first lie. I want to tell him how she taught me to sew and how we made dresses for every stuffed animal I had. How we had tea parties and acted like we were royalty. I wanted to tell him about the map of the world that hung on the wall. We would throw a dart and then learn everything we could about the place it landed on. But I stick with the script and tell him my parents died in a car wreck and I’m just trying to find my way. I weave more truth than I should into the story. Give him more of myself than I’ve ever given anyone else.
This quote from the penultimate chapter of First Lie Wins reveals how Evie’s lies are never purely false—they are stitched together with fragments of emotional truth, creating a tapestry that feels genuine even as it conceals key details. By "weaving more truth than she should" into her narrative, Evie allows herself to be vulnerable, but only in controlled doses. She uses this partial truth as a tool, drawing Ryan in emotionally while still maintaining the protective barrier of her constructed identity. This strategy encapsulates the way Evie navigates her relationships throughout the novel: her truth is not just hidden beneath lies, but intricately interwoven with them, making it difficult to separate the real from the false. This moment encapsulates how truth, for Evie, is both a desire and a liability, something she craves but cannot fully embrace, leaving her trapped in a liminal space where even her most intimate relationships are shaped by deception.
“That’s Lucca Marino,” I say after a few quiet seconds.
The two detectives look at each other, then back to me.
Detective Crofton asks, “Lucca Marino?”
“Yes, the woman in that video is Lucca Marino.”
This quote from Chapter 24 exemplifies the theme of the blurred line between truth and deception, as Evie manipulates facts to create a version of reality that both conceals and reveals aspects of herself. When she identifies the woman in the video as Lucca Marino, she’s telling the truth—because Lucca Marino was once her. However, she uses this truth as a deliberate misdirection, capitalizing on the detectives’ assumption that she is Evie Porter. In doing so, Evie transforms truth into a tool for deception, bending reality to fit the narrative that benefits her survival.
And in a sense, it is the truth; at this point in the story, Evie has become more comfortable as “Evie Porter,” leaving her identity as Lucca Marino behind. Although she once clung to the idea of reclaiming Lucca Marino as her true self, she now embraces the inevitability of living as Evie Porter, an identity that better reflects the person she has become through her choices and actions. By telling the detectives that it’s Lucca Marino in the video, she distances herself from her past self while also subtly acknowledging the identity she has shed.
Ultimately, her claim embodies an emotional truth: she didn’t kill Amy Holder, and in many ways, Lucca Marino is no longer who she is. She speaks the truth, but only in a way that reinforces the deception she needs to survive. This moment underscores how, in Evie’s world, even the truth becomes a performance—something to be deployed strategically, rather than a straightforward reflection of reality.
