7. Deena

Deena

G od I sucked at conversation.

I'd always been different from other people. I had a genius level IQ, crippling social anxiety, and I was also neurodivergent. When I was young my school had told my mother that I likely had high-functioning autism, but Mom had refused to let them test me.

"I'm not putting a label on my baby girl," she'd yelled at the principal when he tried to insist on getting me tested. "How dare you pathologize her just because she's a little different!"

He'd looked to the school counselor for help, but the woman had just shrugged.

"We can't force her to get tested."

Mom had pulled me out of that school and enrolled me in a school for the gifted a couple of towns over. She and Dad had struggled to afford it, but they felt strongly about using my talents and getting me the best education I could.

I never did get an official diagnosis. I didn't need one to understand that my brain worked a little differently than most people.

I'd started running in middle school. It was a good way for me to clear my head and process my problems. It also fulfilled a gym requirement at school in a way that didn't involve me needing to interact with a lot of people. I was less ‘weird' at the gifted school, but I still had a hard time fitting in. My friend Joan adopting me was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Social interactions were always difficult for me, particularly before I grew comfortable with a person. Anxiety tended to make my brain turn off, or at least move more slowly. Once I got to know someone, the anxiety would fade, and I became more adept at reading signals and interpreting nuance. Not great, but better than I was with strangers.

My parents had thought I'd become a physicist, which was understandable given that I'd gotten a PhD in physics when I was twenty-two. After a few years working in academic research in my field a sports agent discovered me. She was attending a marathon in Detroit the day I inadvertently ran a faster time than any of the pro women in attendance.

At first, people assumed that I'd cut the course or somehow cheated, but when I repeated my accomplishment at another marathon only two months later, the running community realized that I had some talent. A lot of talent.

Then I was offered a position with a multinational sporting goods company that was expanding their women's sports program. It was a sweet deal. They'd pay me to run and train with them and, if I won some high profile races, I'd get bonuses and be considered for some endorsement deals too. Working at the university paid well, but the money that came with being a professional athlete was much better, even if women athletes made a fraction of what the men did.

It was a no brainer to take the cash while I could. I worked it out so I was able to move into a part-time remote position at the university, thus continuing my research on a limited basis. And now, two years later, here I was, part of the US team competing at the International Games in Paris.

It was a dream come true. If I could just figure out how to communicate with my longstanding crush.

"Are you asking me questions from a list?" she demanded.

Damn, maybe I'd moved to the sibling question too quickly. I could feel my face heat as she stared at me.

"Yes," I said quietly.

There was no reason to lie. My best friend and I had created a list of ‘get to know you' questions a while back that I could use in social situations. Even though I'd memorized the list, I tended to forget it when I became anxious, so I'd copied the list on my phone for easy access.

"Why?" Paula tipped her head as she stared at me.

"I was trying to make conversation like a normal person so you'd stop hating me."

I was surprised by my own candor. I think she was too. Paula held up her hand, a frown creasing her pretty face.

"Hold up, there's a lot to unpack there."

I sat back in my chair, waiting for her to continue.

"First of all, I don't hate you. I don't know you enough to hate you. But I, uh, thought you were the one who hated me."

I leaned forward and forced myself to meet her eyes, even though as a rule I felt uncomfortable with eye contact. It was so intimate.

"I don't hate you, Paula. But I understand why you might think that because I have heard this before from people."

My struggle to connect to new people only increased my anxiety, which made it even harder to connect to new people. It was a bad cycle.

"Because you can't have conversations like a so-called normal person," she asked, clearly putting two and two together.

I leaned forward a little more, then looked around to make sure no one was nearby. The last thing I wanted was to be the subject of gossip.

"I have social anxiety," I said quietly. "And I'm neurospicy, as my mother says. I communicate and process information differently than most people. Some people find me…off-putting because of it."

Her eyes lit up. "Oh. This explains a lot. I can't believe I didn't see it before. I'm such an idiot."

I didn't know what she meant, so I didn't respond.

"My best friend's sister is on the spectrum. She's a freaking genius, but she gets super fixated on things, has a lot of tics, and can't hold a conversation to save her life." She paused, giving me a long look. "Not that I'm saying you're like that, I'm just saying that I should have recognized some of the symptoms."

I hated that word ‘symptom', it made it sound like I was defective. Usually I would have let it go by, but for some reason, I didn't want Paula to think of me that way.

"They are not really symptoms," I said. "Just different ways to process the world or respond to stimuli than the average person."

Her eyes widened as she realized what she'd said.

"I apologize, you are absolutely right. Besides, we all have our own little quirks, some of them are just more obvious or unusual than others."

She picked up her fork again, so I followed suit. I was so hungry after our long trip that it took all my willpower not to wolf down my food. Based on how rapidly Paula was eating, she felt the same.

After a few minutes Paula came up for air and asked, "How can I help you while we're here?"

That's when I went from having a crush on her to feeling head over heels in love. The emotion hit me in such a rush that I nearly gasped. My mind raced as I tried to process this new information and also respond to Paula's question.

"It's easier for me once I get to know someone," I said. "When I'm not anxious, I'm better able to communicate. It's like the anxiety amplifies my autism somehow. It's much milder when I'm around my family, for example."

She nodded and gave me an encouraging smile. "Then we should get to know each other. Tell me about your family."