Page 38 of More Than a Friend
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.”
“Youwere 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 spenta 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, likesme.
Ava, the girl I thought was straight until a few weeks ago, wantsme.
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 shegiggles.
“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.
