What is the biggest lie you ever told? What were the consequences?
Is silence a lie when you don't want to speak the truth? Edward didn't know. 'A gentleman never lies', the Inventor had told him, and so Edward never did. And yet, he allowed people to believe an untruth and felt shame because of it, for how is that really any different from lying? The night that Kim and her drunken boyfriend Jim had lured Edward into breaking into Jim's house, Edward knew that what he was doing was wrong, but he helped them anyway because she wanted him to. When the police came and took him to jail, he didn't tell them that Kim and Jim had set him up. He didn't tell Kim's parents or the judge. And oh, the consequences had been terrible! Edward ended up with a criminal record and worse, far worse, he disappointed the woman who had adopted him, Kim's mother, Peg.
And yet, there were other consequences not quite so dire. Kim found out that Edward had done it all for her, and she finally realized that he loved her so that he was willing to have the whole world hate him just to protect her. In that moment, Kim realized that she had also been lying. She had kept her silence, too. She had not allowed herself to accept that she loved Edward just as much as he loved her, but once she did, the whole world changed in a single skip of her heart.
Later, long years after they were driven apart, Edward could console himself in his loneliness by remembering the three simple words that she had whispered to him, 'I love you.' And Kim could look back on her own long life without him and know that she had once been loved as no other woman on earth ever had been. These good things were also the consequences of Edward's silent lie, so perhaps in the end it hadn't been such a terrible thing after all. Surely the Inventor, long since gone from this world and looking down on his unfinished creation from heaven would forgive him for that one, single silent lie.
Edward Scissorhands
Word count: 350
Cross-posted to cookie_heart
And yet, there were other consequences not quite so dire. Kim found out that Edward had done it all for her, and she finally realized that he loved her so that he was willing to have the whole world hate him just to protect her. In that moment, Kim realized that she had also been lying. She had kept her silence, too. She had not allowed herself to accept that she loved Edward just as much as he loved her, but once she did, the whole world changed in a single skip of her heart.
Later, long years after they were driven apart, Edward could console himself in his loneliness by remembering the three simple words that she had whispered to him, 'I love you.' And Kim could look back on her own long life without him and know that she had once been loved as no other woman on earth ever had been. These good things were also the consequences of Edward's silent lie, so perhaps in the end it hadn't been such a terrible thing after all. Surely the Inventor, long since gone from this world and looking down on his unfinished creation from heaven would forgive him for that one, single silent lie.
Edward Scissorhands
Word count: 350
Cross-posted to cookie_heart