Page 50 of Finally Loved

Neve was quiet for several minutes, lost in her own thoughts. “Do you think it makes me a child to not feel that way?”

Alba looked at her. Neve’s voice had been barely more than a whisper. She didn’t deserve the doubt and pain the people who’d hurt her had inflicted upon her.

“No. I don’t,” Alba said, resolutely. “There are a million things that make you an adult, but, even so, you are not a child. Factually speaking.”

“A lot of people act like if you don’t want sex, you’re childish. It’s like you’re missing something, like you’re barely even human.”

“Does it feel like you’re missing something?”

“No. But, I clearly am.”

“I don’t think that’s true. You have a sexuality. It works differently than a lot of people’s, but it still exists.”

“Does it count if it’s an absence of something, though?”

“Yes.”

Neve looked at her, studying her face hard. Eventually, she glanced down. “I’ve wondered for a long time whether Charlie thinks I need to be treated like a child because I’m ace. I’ve done everything else you’re supposed to do to be an adult—got a degree, got a job, got a place, had relationships. I feel like I’ve done everything I can, but she still treats me like a child. Especially when I get broken up with, and that’s always about sex, so I figure…”

Without looking directly at her, Alba reached over and took Neve’s hand, lacing their fingers together. “If that’s true, it’s Charlie’s problem, not yours. You don’t have to prove you’re anadult. You shouldn’t have to prove you’re deserving of respect or being treated like an adult. And Charlie—and everyone else—should not be acting like your sexuality has any bearing on how they treat you. That’s all their doing, not yours.”

“I think that’s a lesson a lot of people are still struggling with in general.”

“Yeah, well, that sucks for them.”

“And for us.”

Alba nodded. “But the problem is theirs. Sexual attraction is no different.”

“So, you don’t think I’m an incompetent child?”

Alba squeezed her hand gently. “I do not. And anyone who really cares won’t either. I promise.”

“What if nobody cares?” There was a desperate, heartbroken edge to her voice. Alba really was never forgiving Charlie for the damage she’d done.

She moved a little closer to Neve. “I care. I will always care.”

Chapter 15

When you broke up with a romantic partner, people expected crying. They expected sadness and heartbreak and they expected to give you that weird sympathetic expression everyone gave the recently dumped.

When it was a platonic friend hurting you, though, what were the rules? Neve wasn’t sure. Even the potential breakup of the friendship was less clear. Roxanne had hurt Neve, but it had been clear. She was calling things off. They were done. It was painful but it was a break, an end.

Neve found she couldn’t say the same thing with Charlie.

The things Charlie had said, the way she clearly thought about Neve, all of it was too much to sustain a relationship through. But, they’d been friends for so long. Or Neve thought they had. Did it really count as friendship if, at the first opportunity, someone attacked you in the way they knew would hurt most? Did it count if they thought of you that way? Did itcount if their friendship was contingent upon you acting the way they demanded?

Neve wasn’t certain it did, but the realization hurt so much more than realizing Roxanne was breaking up with her in a Best Buy.

Walking away from her family had felt easy when it finally came time. It had been impossible in the run-up. Years of Neve absorbing their behavior, accepting it, internalizing it. And then, one day, she finally made it to the other side of the bridge. It was time to go. It had been her choice. She’d felt empowered and right. Sure, it hurt, and sometimes it still did to think of all the things she’d lost out on, but she’d been losing out on them her whole life. She didn’t look at other people’s families showing up and loving them and feel pain over the fact that she was missing her actual family. She looked at them and felt pain over the fact that she’d never had that, never once known what it felt like to be loved by your family without expectations.

Maybe that was why Charlie and Alice had become so important to her. She’d left her biological family and been in desperate need of a family she could build for herself. She’d thought she’d found it, thought she was safe, and had friends who loved her. But maybe it was just history repeating itself again.

She’d had better moments with Charlie and Alice, though. She’d thought they’d cared. She wasn’t ready to walk away.

In truth, she wanted to cling on for dear life, erase every bad thing, and wipe away all of the pain she was feeling. Although, of course, there was no real wiping away what happened. There was accepting it and trying to move forward, or there was pushing it away, pretending it was okay, and letting it destroy her from the inside. What would that say about what she was willing to accept?

It hurt. Betrayal, sadness, confusion. Her head was banging with the pain and the questions—ones she’d likely never get answers to. Everything hurt.

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