Chapter 17
Skylar
Ava’s sucked my soul right out of my body.
Once again, I’m wondering how in the fuck a girl who’s only been with one person—one man—has managed to make me feel boneless and sated in a way I’ve never felt before.
Except, I don’t know if I’ll ever be completely sated when it comes to Ava. I fear I’ll always crave just one more taste. One more touch. One more time with her.
A girl can wish.
After I finally found the energy to move, Ava and I took turns showering. I wanted to shower together, but my bathroom only has a tiny stall, and we wouldn’t have fit comfortably.
While she was in the shower, I changed my wet sheets. I’ll never admit how red my face got when I saw the wet spot. I had no idea my body could do that.
Leave it to Ava to show me something new when she’s the inexperienced one.
In some type of unspoken agreement, we got into the clean sheets naked, Ava’s back pressed against my front. I have an arm draped over her waist, and her fingers are laced through mine.
It’s dark in here, save for the low red light from the clock on my dresser. The darkness creates a false sense of security, a blanket of safety to say things that have no right being said in the light of day. Things that could alter the entirety of our relationship.
I bite my lip to keep the words from tumbling out and force my eyes closed to try to get some semblance of rest.
I need to be rested for whatever happens in the morning, when things inevitably change despite both of us wishing they wouldn’t.
“Sky?” Ava whispers into the darkness.
“Yeah?” I whisper back.
“Have you ever had a crush on me?”
The question knocks the wind out of me, and my whole body goes rigid.
Why would she ask me that?
There’s no way she knows, right?
Do I tell her the truth? Would the truth scare her off?
I can’t ignore the question, and I can’t bring myself to tell an outright lie. I squeeze my eyes shut as I answer, like it’ll stave off the embarrassment. “Yeah, when we were teenagers.” It’s the truth, but not the whole truth. She doesn’t need the whole truth.
“Really? Why didn’t you say anything?”
I can’t help but scoff. “Ava, you didn’t know you were into women until recently.
What was I supposed to do? Tell the most Molly Mormon girl I knew—my best friend—I wanted to know what her lips taste like?
You would have run for the hills. It’s a miracle you didn’t when I came out to you in college. ”
Ava’s body shakes with laughter. “True. I wouldn’t have been the most… understanding person in high school. God, how times have changed.”
“You can say that again.”
After a few beats of silence, I think she’s going to drop the subject, but then she asks me another question, “So… you’re over your… crush… on me?”
Fuck.
I don’t want to lie to her. But the truth could ruin everything.
“Does the way I fucked you feel like I’m over it, Ava?” My tone is a bit harsher than I intend, and Ava doesn’t answer, so I turn the question back on her.
“Do you want me to be?”
Ava squeezes my hand, answering immediately, “No.”
Okay, this conversation isn’t one I want to have in the dark. I need to look her in the eyes.
I sit up and turn on my lamp, and Ava follows suit, covering her chest with the sheet like I haven’t already had my mouth on every inch of her body.
Focus, Skylar.
“What do you mean ‘no?’”
Ava bites her lip and stares at a spot over my shoulder as she shrugs. “I don’t want you to be over your crush on me.”
“Why?”
“Because I—” She clamps her lips shut again and shakes her head.
“No, no. Don’t do that. Don’t shut down on me. Tell me, please, Ava.”
“You were my gay awakening,” she blurts, then covers her mouth with her hand, her eyes going wide.
My jaw goes slack. “What?”
Ava makes a noise between a groan and a frustrated whine before she takes a deep breath.
“After the divorce—when we started hanging out more often—I started to…
notice some feelings. At first, I thought it was just a trauma response because you were there for me when my life was in shambles, so I told my therapist about it.
We spent a lot of time dissecting my feelings and talking through the trauma of growing up in a religion that demonized the LGBTQ+ community, and I learned what compulsory heterosexuality is.
“Basically, we concluded my feelings were—are—not a trauma response. They’ve been there all along, and I never realized what they were until I was already deconstructing and finally felt safe enough to be myself.”
“Ava,” I croak out. “I’m going to need you to spell out what you’re saying because I’m having a hard time connecting the dots here. I don’t want to be wrong.”
Ava gives me a nervous smile. “I lo-like you, Skylar Jane Call. As more than a friend. I don’t want what we did tonight to be a one—well, two—time thing and go back to pretending I don’t want you.
So, no, I don’t want you to be over your crush on me, because then it would make the crush I have on you really awkward. ”
“Aves, I—”
Ava shakes her head. “I don’t want you to say something just because you feel like you need to. If you need to take time to think about this, you can. I know this is a big truth bomb to drop on you at—” she looks at the clock, “midnight. Jesus, I really have poor timing, huh?” She chuckles.
My head is spinning so fast I can’t respond.
Ava, my best friend of thirteen years, likes me.
Ava, the girl I thought was straight until a few weeks ago, wants me.
Ava, the most beautiful woman I’ve ever fucking seen with the kindest heart, wants me.
“I’m not over my crush on you, Aves,” I finally croak out. “Not by a long shot.” The admission makes me feel both lighter and fills me with a sense of dread. The insecure teen in me wonders if Ava is just playing a prank. What if at any minute, she’s going to say, “Gotcha,” and laugh in my face?
But of course, my anxiety is wrong because Ava’s face lights up with a smile bigger than I’ve ever seen from her, and she giggles.
“Sorry,” she says as she covers her mouth. She clears her throat and tries to keep her lips from tilting up, but she can’t control it.
I can’t help but smile back at her, her happiness has always been contagious. “I’m not just saying it because I feel like I need to, either. I mean it.”
“I know you do, Sky.”
There’s a heavy pause, the tension thickening to the point it feels like it’s going to choke me.
“So where—”
“What do you—”
Ava and I both speak at the same time, then smile like idiots at each other, and Ava breaks into a fit of giggles again.
“You go first,” she offers.
“Where do we go from here, Aves? Do we go back to being friends or…” I trail off. I’m scared to voice the quiet part out loud. Do we become more than friends? Do we have a chance at a real relationship?
“Well… I guess… it’s a decision we need to make together. I don’t want to go back to being just friends, but I don’t want to assume anything. My life is still kind of a mess since the divorce, and I know you don’t want kids—”
“Woah, woah, woah. Hold on. I never said I don’t want kids.”
Ava’s brows furrow in confusion. “You’ve said before you never want to have kids of your own.”
“Let me clarify something, then. I never want to be pregnant. I don’t want to have biological children. But Ava, I love your kids. They’re the best tiny humans I know.”
Ava blows out a breath of relief. “Okay. That’s good. They love you, too, you know. I was so worried when I started dating that whoever I was with would see them as baggage, but my kids and I are a package deal.”
“I want the whole package, Aves. You wouldn’t be you without your kids, and I don’t see them as baggage at all. They’re an amazing bonus.”
“If we do this, I wouldn’t want to introduce you as my girlfriend right away. I think we’d need to go slow, especially since their dad just introduced a new partner to them. But I don’t want to hide our relationship, either.”
I give in to my urge to touch her, grabbing her hand and intertwining it with mine. “I’ll go at whatever pace you need, Ava. As long as I get to do it with you.”