Page 43 of It's Just You

The remainder of the day passed slowly, way too slowly for my liking. Once I’d determined that Finn was indeed the only guy I was attracted to — after studying quite a few clients, male and female alike — I’d decided I needed a couple of hours to figure out what that meant for me. I didn’t like labels, but in this case, I just wanted something that would make me fit in.

Somehow, I was afraid of being the only person experiencing this, and it was so… isolating.

If I wasn’t the only one, I could at least somehow… relate? Not feel so alone? I didn’t even know. My head was starting to pound. I needed to stop fretting, focus on work, then worry about googling later. And after that, I could figure out what the hell to do about Finn. If there was one thing there was no doubt about, it was that I liked Finn, but he clearly hadn’t been happy when we’d parted ways.

But first things first. I had to understand myself.

I rubbed my forehead. This was so complicated. Why couldn’t I just be normal?

Well, life didn’t work that way. I’d already learned that one.

Besides, normal was boring anyway. Right?

As I’d expected,Dad did need help getting in and out of the shower, though the shower stool helped him mostly manage his own needs once he was in there. In less than an hour, he was dressed in his pajamas and ready for bed.

I’d gotten used to helping him by now, since there simply wasn’t anyone else who could do it. Mom couldn’t lift him, and Sam… Well, Dad still refused to tell him. I still didn’t know how my little brother hadn’t noticed anything, but even if he had, he hadn’t said a word.

In a few days, we had another doctor’s appointment, even though we’d all more or less lost hope in figuring out what was wrong with him.

Some days, I thought his doctors’ supposed efforts were a scheme to cheat us out of our money, but then I stopped myself. The doctors we’d been seeing really did seem to care, but as long as tests ran negative and the symptoms continued, there wasn’t much they could do to help him.

Insurance helped, but the bills were high. So much of my income went to keeping the household going, which made dreams of going back to college even further away. Sam’s tuition was hard enough to keep up with.

If we could only tell him, Sam could get a job and help out…

But first, Dad needed to lose his goddamn pride and spill the beans.

With a sigh, I dropped down onto my bed. I was tired, damn tired. But Finn wouldn’t leave my mind, so I wanted — needed — to do some research about myself to try to figure out what was going on.

Maybe then I’d be able to figure out what the hell was up with Finn and what I should do, or even could do.

Damn, all of this was more than confusing. Life hadn’t been easy before, but this added like ten layers of complication to the mess I usually dealt with. But my feelings, my desire to be with Finn in any which way it might be, weren’t wavering, so I needed to do this.

I grabbed my laptop from my desk, immediately navigating to the google page. But what then? What did I type in?

What does it mean to only be attracted to one person?

That seemed like a good place to start. I typed in the question, and immediately, a result came up.

Demisexual.

I read the definition with my heart racing. Someone who’s only attracted to someone they’ve made a connection with.

Well, that sounded obvious, didn’t it? But then, people hooked up all the time without any sort of attachment. I hadn’t known Finn long, but he’d made an impression pretty quickly.

Unbelievable. I wasn’t alone.

I hadn’t let myself connect to too many people growing up, though there’d never really been a reason for it. I’d just always kept to myself and done my own thing, and no one had intruded on that. Maybe if they had, I’d have found myself attracted to someone. But now, here was Finn, and I was on that demisexual spectrum.

Now it at least made sense, why I didn’t know if I was straight or gay or even bisexual. I wasn’t any of those things. I just… was. But it had a label, and it felt better to know that other people were experiencing this too.

I still didn’t know what to do with my newfound knowledge, but it made something ease inside of me.

Now, the next, most important question was what to do with Finn, the person I apparently had a sexual attraction to, and who I’d managed to alienate somehow. It wasn’t like I could really ask Sam what I’d done wrong, assuming Finn would even tell Sam about any of this to begin with.

So I just needed a reason to contact Finn, then I could find a way to get him to talk to me.

One plate of food and a hot shower later, I was still nowhere close to figuring out how to get Finn to tell me what had happened. I at least did have a valid reason to talk to him, though: he still had my brother’s clothes. Sam would probably never notice nor care that Finn still had them, but it was my way to reach out. I didn’t know how else to do it, so it was the best option I had.

---