Page 8 of Forever is Now

“It will be okay,” he said.

[She clears her throat] We fell in love, again, quick, hard. And it was easier this time, like we were on the same page. It helped that we had, technically, reconnected on the ace dating site. We both knew each other’s secret.

I mean, at first, I had still been cautious. Wondered if he really was. Because I guess all the toxic masculinity ideas had really got to me and I was looking at Ruari, wondering how someone who looked so masculine with his beard, so full of testosterone, could well, not be interested in sex.

He spoke about it once, a few months later, how he hadn’t been sure, thought he was broken. That he even went to the doctor. That they offered him therapy. It made him feel like less of a man, until he went to the therapist and was told nothing was wrong with him. Being asexual is not being broken. It’s not being wrong. It’s not being abnormal.

Being asexual is natural.

“We must’ve known, both of us before,” he said, that day in my mum’s new living room. “Subconsciously. We’re just meant to be together.”

It was easy after that. I didn’t have to be worried, didn’t feel like I’d inevitably be pressured into sleeping with him to keep him. It was just such a huge relief. We’d found each other, and we were the same.

September was coming around though, and I knew I needed to make a decision about whether I was going back to London. Ruari was now working in the Museum of Dartmoor Life, in Okehampton, and I wanted nothing more than to stay here. But Mum did keep saying that I couldn’t stay for a boy. That Ruari was a decent boy and he’d wait for me.

But I didn’t know if I wanted to go back. I didn’t want to put distance between us again, because it was unlikely he’d be able to afford to travel to London to see me. His mum was in a rehab program, but his dad had moved back in with him. Mr. Braddon was drinking a lot, barely working, and all of Ruari’s income was going to keep their household afloat.

I didn’t want to put pressure on Ruari to spend money on train tickets or driving lessons, but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to come back every weekend to see him too. And the thought of not seeing him, of us being apart for any longer, really tore through me. It felt like a gaping wound inside me.

So I suspended my studies.

I moved back home, full-time. I got a job, waitressing in a café in Red Lion Yard.

And I started writing too. Mainly because I was bored at first, during the times when I’d be waiting for Ruari to finish work. I started writing these stories. Just silly little things. I hadn’t really written or read much outside of academic work when I’d been at university, but this really allowed me to find myself again, my love for stories.

Over the next few months, years even, life was perfect. It was November 2015 when I got an agent for my books. Six months later, she phoned me to say she’d got a publisher who was really interested. I had a call with the acquisitions editor, and I actually felt like I could be a proper writer. I’d already decided then that I’d hyphenate mine and Ruari’s names, for my pen name—Summer Taylor-Braddon—as there was already a Summer Taylor writing, and it felt so exciting. Just knowing, you know? Some people find that weird that I chose to use both our names like that, before we were married—before he’d proposed. But we knew we were going to be together. We knew it in our souls.

And a week later, my agent had the deal memo come through for my first book. This wasSwept Away. Contract negotiations began, and then five months later, I was able to sign the contract and announce the deal.

I was going to be a traditionally published author, and nothing felt better than that. Well, that and having my life sorted. Being with Ruari. My man.

I think that’s the happiest time of my life. Those few years. Because Ruari and I moved in together pretty quickly too—first into Mum’s house in 2015, then into our own flat in 2016. It was on the road to the castle, a cottage that had just been converted into three different flats. We had the top floor, but also a room at the bottom of the cottage that had its own staircase, so we had our own front door there too. It was pretty cool. And of course it was really close to where Ruari was then working—at the castle itself. I guess I should explain about the castle too.

So it’s the ruins of a medieval motte and bailey castle. I think it was built some time in the eleventh century. It’s now managed by English Heritage, and that’s how Ruari started working there. At first, I think he was just doing tours of the grounds for visitors, but then he got more involved in English Heritage’s other historical sites on Dartmoor. He’d got his driver’s license by then, so often he was leaving quite early in the mornings, out on the moors for most of the day. There was an archaeological dig or something going on at Grimspound, and he was so excited to be able to work on that. It wasn’t exactly geology—or what he’d thought he’d want to do—but it was Dartmoor, and it really got him into prehistory. Bronze Age stuff. He did these, uh, YouTube videos about it, and they actually really took off. Like, loads of people were watching them.

He started an online archaeology degree, and I’ve honestly never seen him light up so much. It was amazing—his enthusiasm was contagious. That’s why one of the protagonists in one of my books ended up being an archaeologist. It was kind of like this joint project that Ruari and I had going on. And it was great. The flat wasn’t that big, but we had a second bedroom, and at that point, while we were working on that book, we had it as an office. A massive table in there—almost as big as the room itself, and we could only just fit in two chairs. We’d have all these archaeology and Dartmoor books piled up on the table, and notebooks everywhere, and we’d both work there. Me writing, and Ruari studying.

We were so happy in that flat. Yeah, we lived there for, well, all the time until... well, until he went missing. I couldn’t really go back there after what had happened, so I moved back into Mum’s, but sorry, I’m jumping ahead, aren’t I?

Hana Burton: Well, perhaps now would be a good time to ask you more about romance when you’re asexual? I know when we talked yesterday, you mentioned some things that you specifically wanted to address. And you told me to ask you them.

Adelaide James: Hold on,I’mthe interviewer here.

Summer Taylor-Braddon: Yes, well you areaninterviewer—but I don’t exactly want you of all people asking me these questions—and I believe you’d already got a lot of things you want to talk about later. But like I said, this is my session today. I’m leading it. You’ll get to talk on Monday.

So, the misconceptions about what asexuality is and isn’t—because people often think that you can’t be truly in love if you don’t have sex. Or if you don’t experience sexual attraction. They see us as... lacking.

I am going to tell you about specific occasions.

So, setting the scene: We were lying in bed, one morning, semi-naked, cuddling. People always assume I mean something sexual by this, but it both is and it isn’t. We were barely clothed, and feeling Ruari’s skin against mine felt good—so reassuring and safe and calming—and I just wanted that closeness. That feeling of security. And the pressure of his body against mine was like an antidote I never knew I needed. Skin-to-skin contact, like, it’s always really made me feel safe.

“I love you,” I whispered to him. It wasn’t the first time we’d said it, but I still got goosebumps at the way it made me feel, voicing this declaration, cementing this bond that we had.

He smiled, made a pleased sound in the back of his throat, and then kissed me. I shut my eyes as we kissed, as the kiss got deeper and deeper, and his hands roamed over my hips. I rubbed his back, and we were pressing against each other so hard, like we could truly melt into one another.

I was completely and irrevocably in love with him. And it’s weird how I always thought about that, when we were kissing, when we were cuddling in bed like this—how certain I’d feel. When, maybe just hours before, watching TV on the sofa or maybe the next morning, eating breakfast, I’d think about what love was and worry whether this was it. Was I feeling it in a correct way? Was it supposed to be something more? Something exciting?

I read a romance novel once that really made a big deal of the instant attraction between the main couple. How the girl had that ‘spotlight’ moment where she just zeroed-in on the guy who’d be her love interest. How she couldn’t wait to touch him, to hold him, to kiss him. How complete she felt just seeing him, knowing that he existed.

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