Deceitful

He is a liar! He is narcissistic! He is Liam. Gael Helgason’s short story Bluffing follows the events of Gabrielle and Liam, a couple who go hiking up to a lake where they have a deadly encounter with a grizzly bear. This encounter leaves Liam in the hospital and Gabrielle unsure about his true intentions when he states that “[He] wasn’t trying to run away up there” but instead to save her. Is he a hero or a coward?  Is he trustworthy when the going gets tough or completely unreliable? Simply put to solve all of these questions, he is a liar and fabrication is his strong suit. The fact that he said he wanted to save her shows that he cares for her, but this ‘caring’ only seemed to manufacture itself after the bear attack. Before the bear attack he shows no signs of caring for anyone but himself, so saving Gabrielle seems like something he wouldn’t do in that predicament. He wants to leave and go to “…Yosemite, maybe New Mexico.” without even asking for her opinion on the matter. This in itself proves that if he indeed cares for her, it is only in a miniscule manner. He is also controlling, going as far as to insist that a certain “home-made cleaning solution…” should be used in their home and nothing else. Most of all, if he indeed did care for her then he wouldn’t have left her to face that behemoth of a bear by herself. Liam would’ve stood his ground with Gabrielle instead of “…running away as fast as he could.” Although Liam thought he might have fooled the world into believing he is a hero, certainly Gabrielle knows otherwise.