Page 63 of This Is Who I Am

Devon just tilts her head and looks at me, giving me the time to find my words.

“I’m asexual and it’s not that easy. For Cass, mostly.”

“Oh.” Devon’s ginger eyebrows knit together. “Okay.”

“I don’t look it, but I’m a challenge,” I joke, although it’s also true.

“We’re all a challenge in our own way.”

“Some of us definitely more than others, but yeah…” I take a sip of beer. “I get that it’s difficult. Imagine not being able to touch Sadie in the way that you want more than anything.”

“Yeah, that’s hard,” Devon admits without hesitation. “But maybe it wouldn’t be if it had always been like that. If I’d known from the start that’s how it was going to be.”

“I know that Cass is very fond of me—madly in love with me even—but I’m so scared that she won’t be able to find a way to cope with that… very elemental desire. A desire I can’t possibly hold against her.” Even though the thought is harrowing, it’s a relief to be able to express it out loud. “I’m afraid that she’s going to leave me and my heart will be broken all over again and I just can’t bear to pick up those pieces yet again…”

“You’ve had some experience with heartbreak?” Devon leans toward me.

“Too much and always for the same reason.”

“It’s normal to be scared,” Devon says. “I’d be petrified if I was in your shoes, but it doesn’t mean it’s going to happen again.”

“I don’t know…”

“Are you talking about this with Cass?” she asks.

“Yeah, um, we try. These are not easy conversations to have and it’s all been such a whirlwind.”

Devon’s expression tightens. “Do you think she might leave you over this?”

“Not right now, but… down the line. When she finds she can no longer deal with it. When she realizes she needs—she deserves—more than I can give her.”

“Don’t you give her a lot already?” Devon purses her lips. “Today’s Cass is not the Cass from two months ago. She’s like a different woman, all sass and confidence—all because of you.”

“But still… for most women, it’s not enough.”

“Do you want me to talk to her?” Devon nods. “I’m pretty good at difficult conversations.” She throws in a smile. “I want to help because I want things to work out with you and Cass. I really do.”

“Thanks, but… right now, it’s okay. We’re figuring things out together, stumbling along. Finding our own unique way, I guess.”

“I’m here if you need me,” Devon says. “Any time.”

“That’s very kind of you.” I give Devon my warmest smile. Everyone in this town has been so incredibly kind to me. I’m most definitely staying for the foreseeable future.

“That’s what friends are for,” she says, giving me a warm fuzzy feeling in my belly that I can’t just ascribe to the beer. It also makes me think of my friends back in Berkeley, who were mostly colleagues, and whom I never had time for outside work because we were always so damn busy.

Look at me now, sipping beer while overlooking the ocean after my afternoon surf session that didn’t happen. I’ve relaxed a lot, about most things, except the one thing about myself I can never change.

“Sometimes,” I say, unsure whether this will make any sense to anyone who isn’t me, “I’m afraid that my failure at relationships becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. That I get so in my head about it, that I drive my partners to leave me in the end. That I give them no other choice because, ironically, I’m the one being difficult about it.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way with Cass.” Devon nods as though she gets it.

“I hope not.” I gesture at her empty beer bottle. “Can I get you another?”

“Why the hell not?” The smile she beams me lets me know, among other things, that we’re definitely friends now.

CHAPTER31

CASS

---