How to Tell That Guy You’ve Been Dating, Your Boyfriend, or Your Friend (Whom You’re Actually in Love With) You Have a Disability by Lillie Lainoff

Winner of the 2019 Los Angeles Review Literary Awards, in the category of short fiction.

Final Judge: Tammy Lynne Stoner

Let him choose the place. Somewhere familiar, like the coffee shop on the corner that only carries local blends and twice as many types of green tea as they do actual coffee. Tea is good. Calming. Order something floral. You won’t remember the name but you’ll recognize the label with the little yellow flowers; your grandmother served you a cup the night of the family reunion when your aunt told your uncle through mouthfuls of chips and guac that she’d take all his money, your little cousins squirming nearby in booster seats. The tea is chamomile, maybe. Or chrysanthemum.

Wait for your order. Silently repeat the mantra you found on the Internet when you couldn’t sleep last night. Your neighbor waiting for the espresso with a splash of two percent, a splash of cream—no, not half and half—will mutter something before putting four more steps of distance between you. Say, Sorry; try not to bump into her when you reach for your drink. Smile sheepishly. Say, Sorry; again.

Pick a table. If you’re waiting for your boyfriend, grab one in the back and away from the window. When he leaves too quickly you won’t have to watch him walk away through the glass. If it’s someone you’ve been on a few dates with, but you still aren’t quite sure about, any table will do. If it’s the friend you’re secretly in love with… with him you’ll need two of the tall stools near the countertop by the window, that way you don’t have to see his eyes when you tell him—you’re not sure you’ll be able to handle that.

Bring a book to read. Anything to keep you from picking at your hangnails. It will be the book you’ve been reading for months now, the one you bring to waiting rooms; the reading of it is only ever in anticipation of something else. It isn’t really reading, though, is it—when you can’t remember the character’s name, when you read the same sentence six times without reaching its conclusion? Drink some of your tea; you’ll burn the tip of your tongue, but it’ll be worth it. Your mind will flash to that first night, when you swallowed the horse pill and it felt like a tumor in your throat. Sometimes, like now, you think you can still taste it, that you are still choking on something that isn’t really there.

When he walks in, wave. Try not to tense when he presses his lips a few inches left of your cheekbone. Don’t think about how you aren’t ready for this—you will never be ready for this. His breath will be sour and sharp even though he hasn’t ordered coffee yet. It’s the smell of early mornings, of doctors and cold stethoscopes that chill your skin. If it’s your friend, stand up to receive his hug—but don’t linger too long, no matter how much you want to. It is easier in these moments, the isolated ones, easier to pretend with your eyes shut and his hands warm against your shoulder blades that you are two people who want the same thing.

Talk about something easy. Your first day at the publishing internship, maybe, or how your parents just finished moving your baby sister into her freshman dorm. She will do well at college; she is too beautiful and reckless not to. Show him the pictures your mother sent, the ones without the dark shadows of her fingers eclipsing the upper right corner. You spent hours looking at them so you know which ones are the best, which ones show the relieved smiles on your parents’ faces, smiles of having done right—finally—by their youngest child, which ones show your sister’s uneven grin, her front tooth chipped from the childhood tricycle accident, which ones have her long hair draped just so, hiding the violent blush of hickeys along the curve of her neck. You’re the only one who knows they’re there; after all, she’s the one who asked you to cover for her, to tell your parents she was spending the night with you so she could sneak over to that boy’s place while his family was out of town. It was the least you could do after all those years of consuming your parents’ attention. She deserved so much more, but you could give her that.

If it’s your boyfriend, he’ll nod occasionally, perhaps ask how your parents are doing, now that they’re empty nesters, but will mostly stick to ambiguous mhmms. If it’s your friend, you’ll tell him the anecdote—the one where your sister accidentally packs the scissors inside one of the shipping boxes, and he’ll reply, That’s such a Rachel thing to do; and you’ll laugh despite what you’ve come here to say, because he’s right. Of course he’s right.

Drink more tea. Listen and nod as he talks about his newest project. Try harder this time to understand when your boyfriend explains yet again what exactly someone does at a consulting internship. Make some joke about how you were never good with numbers, anyway. You won’t have to feign interest if it’s your friend, though you will find yourself wondering if he always knew he wanted to save the world, or if it was something that just came to him as an undergrad, an epiphany in between bleary-eyed all-nighters and penny drinks at Toad’s. You will find yourself wondering what it’s like to want to fix something larger than yourself.

You’ll stall as long as possible. Even though you know it’s just delaying the inevitable. Hold your cup with both hands. Imagine the press of the paper cup against your skin is actually his hand—no, not the chill of a stethoscope, his hand… Remind yourself, again, not to pick at your hangnails. The guy you’ve only been out with a few times won’t know yet that it’s your nervous habit—but still, there is some part of you that doesn’t want him to see you bleed.

Tell him. Start from the beginning. Whatever you do, don’t use the d- word. Disability is scary; it’s the mouse that hides in your apartment; you never see it, but you can hear it squeak and scuttle around during the witching hour when you’re awake in your cold bed. In the morning you can find its shit in indistinct patterns around the radiator.

Don’t tell him about the waiting rooms where everyone is twice your age. Don’t tell him about the waxy paper that lines exam room tables. Don’t tell him about those months—you know which ones.

Look up; check to see if he’s okay. By now the guy you are starting to realize you don’t really know all that well will be squirming under your words. To him they will be like worms, ones that crawl and itch at his skin. You’ll be able to read his reaction because it’s how you felt when the doctor told you, as if your skin and your body were suddenly two separate entities—well, not exactly like the look he’s giving you now, but there is a connection between them, between the place your reactions come from. Your boyfriend will have his lips pursed, as he always does when he’s processing new, usually unwanted information. If it’s your friend, you will only be able to see three quarters of his face, his body tilted toward you. He’s uncomfortable, his too tall frame hunched in the too cramped corner, but you will not offer to move for fear—is that the right word? Anxiety, maybe, but that will not convey the terror of rejection that lingers no matter how much you try to let it go.

Use small words, layman’s words. To your ear they are patronizing—to everyone else’s, they are unthreatening. Comfortable. These are the words your doctor first used to describe it to you, back when you thought prescription meds were only for old people.

Because that’s your job, you see: to make him comfortable. Your external normality despite your internal fucked-up-ness makes him awkward and anxious and maybe even a little repulsed—the latter of which he’d never admit to, of course—but it’s all natural. It’s not his fault. But he’ll feel guilty about it all the same, and then guilty for feeling guilty, and that type of shame spiral really won’t be helpful when you’re trying to explain the difference between bradycardia and tachycardia. Which you know you shouldn’t be explaining, but you’ll do it anyway because you won’t know how else to fill the silence that is growing, the distance that is lengthening between the two of you. A couple feet might as well be a thousand.

I think; you’ll say, but then you will have to clear your throat, the ache back once more. Drink your tea. I think; you’ll start again, I think I may have gone through that a bit too quickly. By now, the guy you’ve been on a few dates with will have pushed back his seat. He will need to leave, something to do with work or a friend from out of town who is waiting at the train station. He will glance over his shoulder when he gets to the door, will try to smile, but it will be a compressed one, no teeth, which isn’t really a smile at all.

Look up again. Your boyfriend’s face will be easy to read. You know that expression of indecision, that look of what the hell am I even supposed to say; it’s common—usually boring in its frequency, but not now, not when it’s from someone who is supposed to know exactly what to say to you. You expect this from others. Not from him.

There will be a pause when you are unsure if you are supposed to continue speaking or if it’s his turn. Your boyfriend will wait with you. The silence will sting. Try to push away the image in your mind of him from that first night, his soft eyes clinging to the lines of your mouth. The tips of his fingers brushing against the small of your back. The warmth that pooled in your stomach at knowing you were wanted. At knowing for the first time in your life, you were wanted in that way. He might ask, How long; but you will know that every how long has a different meaning that you will never be able to fully unpack—how long have you been this way, how long have you known, how long have you known but not told me, how long how long how long. You won’t know which of these questions you need to answer. But you will try just the same.

Don’t tell him about the number of medications you have to take in a day. Don’t tell him about the specialist it took five months of drifting on the waitlist to see. Don’t tell him about the horse pill’s phantom presence in your throat.

If it’s your boyfriend, he’ll repeat the name of your disorder—the acronym you give him, anyway. The letters will be clunky on his tongue and his jaw will harden as if he never wanted to say this almost-word, even though he didn’t know it until moments ago; still never wanted to form the choppy consonants, the mispronounced vowels, sounds so painful to your own ears that they somehow become foreign.

Your heart will be beating too fast. Pick up your tea. Realize it’s empty. Pretend there’s still something left; drink air. Hide the thumbnail you’ve picked bloody behind the curve of the paper cup.

Your boyfriend will be motionless; his words will have not dissolved yet. He’ll catch your eye. You’ll smile, because that’s what you’re supposed to do, but there’s too much water in it. Now, after so many times of needing it, of using it, this smile is as familiar as breathing, as necessary as breathing. But you’ve never had to use this smile with him before, so somehow there is still something new to it, too. Maybe he’ll say something about how his grandmother also has problems with her blood pressure. You will not correct him. You cannot correct him: you will not have the words, and, even though his words stab, you cannot let him know that he’s making things worse.

If it’s your friend, though, he will have been quiet this whole time. Speak quickly, as you always do when you’re nervous. Your words will begin to blend together. You won’t be able to tell them apart. The empty cups will be resting by your left hand on the counter. You’ll be acutely aware of the space between your left hand and his right, separated by black surface and sugar residue.

Flinch as your friend’s arm snakes its way around your shoulders. Stare through the burn of tears. This is what you wanted, isn’t it? Isn’t this what you picture at night when you are alone in your cold bed—his arm around you?—one of the things you picture, at least.

You’re incredible; he’ll tell you. You’ll think you imagined it, but then he will say it again. You’re incredible.

You won’t tell him what that word means, not as bad as inspirational, but close enough. Just close enough.

He will look at you. You will look straight ahead through the glass. Your cheek will be somewhere near his shoulder. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll be able to pretend this means what you want it to mean.

Lillie Lainoff is a writer based in Washington, D.C. A former Division I NCAA fencer, she currently coaches fencing at Capital Fencing Academy and is the founder of Disabled Kidlit Writers. Her work has been published in The Washington Post, Washington City Paper, and Scholastic anthologies, and has received honors from Glimmer Train. She can be found @lillielainoff on Twitter and Instagram. See more at www.lillielainoff.com. “How to Tell…” is her first professional short fiction publication.