Lie (and be totally obvious about it.)
I recently had a reg booked in and his time came and went so I messaged asking if he was still coming. He said he'd tried to ring and text to confirm but as he didn't hear back, he thought that I'd forgotten about the meet. I had zero calls, zero texts. Nothing since we arranged it. He obviously chose to ignore the fact that all phones these days have records of texts and calls and in actuality, it was him that forgot. I'd rather he just say sorry Hannaah, I forgot!