Member-only story
The Twelve-Year Lie
My ex conned me for years.
I was 19, and he was 18. We had just moved in together and felt extremely adult (spoiler alert: we weren’t). It was Sunday morning, and I was lying on the floor reading the paper while he made breakfast.
“Are you at the comics yet? Will you read me the comics?” he asked.
“Read you the comics? What are you talking about?”
“Describe what is happening in each panel and read me the dialogue.”
“Um… how about if I just set them aside for you?” Reading the comics aloud felt weird; why would anyone want that?
He stood over me, looking down at me lying on the floor. “I can’t read them later. I’m dyslexic. If you loved me, you would read them to me.”
He had a smile on his face as if he was daring me to disagree. Dyslexic? He was in college and hadn’t mentioned it in the months we had been dating. But I did love him, and I didn’t want to downplay something that could be a hurtful subject. “Okay, let’s start with Snoopy.”
That started a tradition of reading to Eric, one that lasted years. At night I would read to him before bed. I read sci-fi, adventure, even romance. And, of course, the Sunday comics. It was an activity that we looked forward to, and we worked to make time every night for a chapter or two.
