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And the nervous pit in my stomach is back.

I rub at the back of my neck. “Ah, right. I didn’t think it was…” I pause. “Um.”

“Have you done any more research into it?” she asks.

I open my mouth, but can’t seem to get anything out.

“Do you want me to help you?”

It feels hard to breathe.

“I don’t know,” I admit. “It’s all so confusing.”

Lena sighs. “Maybe we’re going about this wrong. It sucks, but I need to just ask straight up—do you want to have sex with me?”

I open my mouth again.

“I don’t mean, do you want to make me happy, or do you want to do what I want. Do you feelanydesire to have sex with me?”

My mind feels like a fuzzy old TV screen after the antenna has been disconnected. My heart is beating so fast and hard that I can feel and hear it in my ears.

“I…” I can’t get anything else out.

We sit there in silence for another moment. My eyes start to burn, and Lena squeezes my hand.

“Do you need more time to think?”

I nod.

“Okay. That’s fine, I just…we need to figure this out and set our expectations and goals before we decide if I should meet your parents,” she insists.

I nod again.

For some reason, I can’t speak. I just can’t. I feel small and stuck. It’s happened before, but never with Lena. Not like this.

I’m pretty checked out for the rest of the night. All I really remember is finishing our food and Lena staying the night, sleeping beside me and reassuring me that we’ll figure things out.

The next day, as I try not to think about everything with Lena, I find myself stuck on what happened with Dante. It’s easier to be angry with him for threatening her than to think about the future of our relationship.

I should be researching more—finding a therapist, journaling, going to Reddit—to figure out if I’m asexual. I should be doing anything and everything to help me explain why I feel what I do not only to her, but myself.

Instead, I’m sitting in my car in the campus parking lot, on a morning when I don’t even have a class, waiting to see him. I know his major, so I know one of his classes has only one available option this semester—Mondays at eight in the morning.

There’s a high chance he won’t show up at all. After all, he’s not exactly known for being a model student. Quite the opposite, actually.

I see him get out of a deep crimson car. The doors open and close with just a touch of the handle. The vehicle is likely more expensive than twenty of my own car.

Sunglasses cover his eyes even though the sun is barely shining. My hands curl around my steering wheel.

No, it’s too soon. There are too many people around.

Luckily for me, as other students head to the building, he leans against his car and pulls a cigarette out.

Shockingly, I know exactly what it smells like. Whathesmells like. It’s a phantom scent in the back of my mind—clove and menthol.

I try to shake the memory out of my head.

Him leaning close to me, practically caressing my hand.