Page 77 of My Big Fat Shifter Wedding

“It’s just?” I prompted when the silence went on a bit too long.

“I’m worried I might be ace.”

“Ace?” I repeated, feeling dumb. “Like the card?”

“Ace as in asexual.”

Oh.

I sat there silently for a moment, and my feet stopped kicking. I’d seen coming out moments in all sorts of different media, but I hadn’t really been prepared for it to happen to me in real life.

“You think I’m stupid,” Amanda stated, and maybe an outsider would think that her voice was blank, but I heard the pain in it. I heard her bracing for rejection. So I rushed to respond.

“No! Not at all! Never think that. I was just trying to recall every single thing I’ve ever heard about asexuality and locked up for a moment.”

“Really? You don’t think it’s stupid for someone who looks like me to not be interested in sex?”

From anybody else that would be a wild question, but in a way, I knew exactly what Amanda meant.

To many people, she was the pinnacle of attraction. Supermodel, complete with abs, legs for days, a megawatt smile, and stacked as well, just to make things unfair. It probably seemed pretty incongruous to most people to see someone who they regarded as nearly painfully sexy be completely uninterested in such an aspect.

“Why would you looking any sort of way affect your sexuality?” I asked gently. Amanda was a kind and caring individual, so I wanted to be there for her with whatever was going on in her head. Whether she was asexual or simply needed to heal from someone abusing her trust, I was happy to help. “Isn’t that kind of like when people tell any sporty girl she’s a lesbian and every single man in drama club that he’s gay?”

“Um… I guess it kind of is. I just, ya know, I get what people expect of me and sometimes I feel like I’m some alien because I don’t wanna act like that. I don’t wanna be sexy. I don’t really care about mashing privates with someone. I like kissing, cuddling, and holding hands, but the rest? It’s take it or leave it for me.”

“Amanda, babe, you can’t live your life trying to adhere to what people expect of you.” Boy, talk about a subject I was all too familiar with! “You are your own person no matter what their preconceived notions of you are.

“And let’s say you are asexual. So what? Yeah, it means you should probably have a conversation to establish what your preferences are for a potential partner, but it doesn’t mean it’s somehow unfair for you to date someone.”

“Are you sure? Because it feels like I’ve been hiding this really important side of me from him, and that it would kind of be tricking him to accept a date after leading him on.”

Goodness. If she wasn’t so earnest in her stress, I would think that she had somehow found out about me hiding the fact that I was a shifter and was trying to show me through a parallel example of how silly and destructive it was that I hadn’t confessed to the man who I was now certain was the love of my life.

Or maybe my conscience was making everything a bit too much about me. Either way, I used my incredibly helpful albeit unhealthy habit of punting my inconvenient thoughts out of my head and focused on my best friend.

“You’re not tricking him by being yourself. And why would you have discussed it with him up until this point? It wasn’t like you were actively seducing him. The two of you had chemistry, and he asked you out. What you decide to do should be entirely based on what you want and not anything that you might be afraid of.”

There was silence on her side of the line for a drawn-out moment, and I was worried that I’d somehow put my foot into my mouth even though I had been genuinely trying to give the best advice I could about a topic that brushed a little too close to home with some of the things I was struggling with.

But then, after several beats, I heard a relieved sort of sigh from her. “You know, it sounds so simple when you put it that way.”

Phew! It looked like I had earned my gold star in friendship for the day.

“I like to think I’m a good sounding board. Sometimes it helps hearing your own thoughts from another person.”

“It does. And thank you, for the advice, and also for being so cool with the... you know.”

That vulnerability again, and I thought back to when she’d hauled me all over a shopping center and held my hand like the terrified and insecure woman I had been. I owed so much to her, and I wanted her to know that I was going to be repaying that kindness for the rest of my life.

“Amanda, I don’t care if you’re gay, bisexual, asexual, transgender, or even like crunchy peanut butter. You’re my friend no matter what, and I love you for you.”

Silence again, but this time I was patient.

“Really?” she asked, and I heard her sniffling.

Good Lord, she was breaking my heart in all the right ways. It was a shame that I had gone so much of my life without having any strong relationships outside of my family, but I would be eternally grateful that Amanda was my first one. “Really-really. On God and also my mother’s pasta recipe.”

“Oh.” Amanda laughed. “Now I know you’re serious!”