“I’m a nurse.” The words fall out of my mouth before I can stop myself from saying them, loud and clanging like a pair of tin cans tied to a back bumper. If I could reach out, catch them by the tail, and reel them back in, I would, but it’s too late. They’ve been heard; two heads turn.

I should walk away. Or laugh, say I was just kidding. But when the dad and little girl look up at me from the park bench, his eyes shining with hope, her eyes shining with tears, I feel such a rush that I don’t do either. Instead, I kneel beside the girl and smile broadly, first at her, then at him.

“You need to ice it,” I say to the man, my voice clear and steady, the slightest air of authority that I assume someone in the medical field would naturally possess.

The thing is, I’m not a nurse. I never have been. What I am is a liar.

I had heard the little girl’s wails from across the playground, long drawn-out sobs that drew me toward her. I’ve always been nosy, leaning in to hear strangers’ conversations, taking a step closer to read over someone’s shoulder, glancing at the person next to me on the subway, straining to see the text messages on their phone. It’s another bad habit of mine. Add it to the list, okay?

“Let me see,” the dad was saying to the little girl as I walked up, holding her bare foot in his hand. “Where’d it sting you? Here? Or here?”

I’d wanted to help; he’d seemed so flustered, so unnerved by it, that, almost without thinking, I’d opened my mouth and the lie had dropped out. Clunk, onto the sidewalk, startling them both. I meant well, really, I did. I know, the road to hell, right?