the one true thing there is no way to say
Deciding to go ahead and think somebody’s a stand-up guy: it’s like you drop something, you give up all of your power over it: you have to stand there impotent waiting for it to hit the ground: all you can do is brace and wince. It kind of enrages Lenz to like somebody. There would be no way to say any of this out loud to Green.
Context
Under all the involuntary broadcast sits the one thing Lenz genuinely feels and absolutely cannot transmit: that he likes Green. Liking someone is rendered as helpless exposure — dropping something and bracing for the smash — and sincerity gets stage-fright right down to the mechanics of where to aim your eyes, since meeting the other's gaze while meaning it would open a live circuit too dangerous to complete. The man who can't stop talking has no channel at all for the only sentence that matters.