When she heard dishes clattering in the kitchen, she realized with a start that she’d been reading about asexuality and aromanticism for almost two hours. She set her phone aside, gathered her toiletries and church clothes, and headed down the hall to take a shower. By the time she was done, Mrs. Merrick had finished cooking breakfast, and she and Cassie were eating (Cassie still in her pajamas), though Mr. Merrick hadn’t gotten out of the shower yet.
“Good morning,” Eliza said as she entered the kitchen.
“Hey,” Cassie said, going to the stove and serving herself some scrambled eggs. “What time was the service at that church you’re going to?”
“Ten-thirty,” Eliza said. “I’ve got another forty-five minutes before I need to leave. And I’ve got so much to tell you, but it had probably better wait until after I get back. Or else I’ll be talking with my mouth full until I walk out the door.”
“Oooh, did you unlock chapter ten?”
“There is no chapter ten,” Eliza said, enjoying the look on Cassie’s face, and started eating. Cassie and her mother continued asking questions for a couple of minutes, but Eliza just pointed to her closed, chewing mouth and smiled.
She finished eating not long after Mr. Merrick joined them for breakfast, and borrowed Cassie’s car keys to drive to the nearest Episcopal church, which she’d looked up before they left Cassie’s house. The service was pretty similar to that at St. Luke’s in Boone, to the extent Eliza could focus on it, but she found her mind wandering to what she had learned that morning, about magic, about extradimensional beings, about her sexuality or lack thereof… The implications of all that were going to take days if not years to sink in, she realized, and tried to wrench her attention back to the sermon.
After church, she returned to Cassie’s parents’ house and was eagerly greeted by Cassie, who was sitting on the front porch reading.
“Spill,” she commanded.
“Are your parents around? I probably want to tell them about it at the same time.”
“All right, let’s go inside.”
So Cassie went to tell her parents Eliza was back, and they joined her in the living room.
“So you finished the spellbook this morning?” Cassie asked eagerly. “I thought you said there were enough pages left for another chapter?”
“Just an afterword and index. And just moments after I finished the afterword, this British mage showed up in my room – he was kind of shadowy, like he was astral projecting or something? – and answered some of my questions…”
She went on to tell them everything she could remember about the afterword and her conversation with Mr. Draper. Cassie and her parents had a lot of questions for her, but the more questions they asked her, the more she realized she’d forgotten to ask Mr. Draper.
“Yeah,” Cassie said, “but what do these aliens look like?”
“I don’t know… I should have asked him more about them when I had the chance. I know there’s at least three groups of them, I guess, and probably a lot more – what he said implied at least two hostile groups and one friendly group. I don’t know if those are different species or different nations or factions of the same species.”
“You said someone else would be contacting you to check on your progress in a few weeks, right?” Mrs. Merrick said. “Maybe you can ask then.”
“Yeah, he said someone in my region would be contacting me in a while. And he gave me his email address. I guess I could ask him?”
“Do it,” Cassie urged. “Why not now?”
“I don’t want to bother him so soon,” Eliza said. “I might wait until I think of more questions?”
Cassie sighed dramatically. “I guess I’ll have to wait a few days to find out about the actual other-dimensional aliens who apparently exist.”
“However will you cope?” Mr. Merrick teased.
After discussing Mr. Draper’s visit to death, they started talking about what to do for lunch. Mr. Merrick proposed taking Cassie and Eliza out to a nice restaurant to celebrate their coming out and transitioning, and after some discussion of the options they decided on the State Farmer’s Market Restaurant. It was about twenty minutes away, near the campus of NC State and the convention center. Eliza had only been to Raleigh a handful of times and had never eaten there, but it was delicious, both the omelette and biscuits she ordered and the bits of food the others shared from their plates. Toward the end of the meal, they talked about what to do next, and decided on spending the afternoon at the Museum of Natural Sciences. Cassie hadn’t been since her freshman year of high school, and Eliza had never been there.
After about three hours of browsing the exhibits, they returned to Cassie’s parents’ house, and Cassie and her mom fixed supper. Eliza took off her shoes and read for a while in her guest room until Cassie came to tell her that supper was ready.
After supper, they watched Unicorn Store. Cassie’s parents went to bed not long after that, but Eliza and Cassie stayed up talking for a little while longer, sitting at opposite ends of the sofa.
“Man,” Eliza said, “your parents are so cool.”
“Yeah, I wish your parents would accept you like mine did me. I’m really sorry about that.”
Eliza looked away for a moment. “Yeah, me too. Maybe they’ll come around in time, but… I don’t think it’s very likely. And I dread telling my grandparents… or seeing them for the first time after Mom or Uncle Derek tell them about me.”
“Thanks for coming with me on this trip. I guess I wound up not needing much help with my parents, but I was really glad to have you here just in case.”
“You’re welcome. And I really appreciate you being there with me when I told my parents, and Aunt Krystal and Uncle Derek… I feel like it would have been twice as stressful if I were alone.”
They were quiet for a minute. Then Eliza said, “I didn’t feel like talking about it in front of your parents, but I read some stuff about what you said yesterday, you know, about maybe being asexual. I think that’s what I am – a lot of the stuff I read about other ace people sounds like me. Like how I was super anxious about getting married to Monica, because sex sounds really gross and uncomfortable. I mean, kissing wasn’t great, but Monica seemed to like it, so…”
Cassie nodded. “It really is kind of gross,” she said with a giggle. “It’s messy and weird and if I didn’t like it so much I’d probably be grossed out by it too.” She thought for a moment. “Did you figure out anything more? Like I know that ace people have words for different types of aceness, I’ve heard ‘grey ace’ and ‘demi-ace’ and some other terms, but I can’t remember what they mean.”
“Oh… I’m not sure. Maybe ‘sex-repulsed ace’?”
“What about, uh… I think ‘aromantic’ is the word? Are you not interested in a romantic relationship, even if sex is off the table?”
“I don’t know? I’m not sure what the difference would be between a romantic relationship without sex and a close friendship.”
“Probably about 200% more hugging and snuggling.”
“Oh… that might be nice. Maybe someday.”
Eliza was reminded about how, after Monica had broken off their relationship and she’d broken down crying, Cassie had been really generous with hugs. More than anybody she’d ever known, except her mom and maybe Monica. It was nice to have a friend who was comfortable with hugs, without the weight of expectations that came from being engaged. Would dating someone who didn’t expect sex be like that, but better?
To her surprise, it seemed like Cassie had been thinking about the same thing. After silently chewing her lip for a minute or so, she said: “I mean, maybe it doesn’t have to be ‘someday’?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean if you’d like to cuddle, with no expectations that it would go any further, we could do that. Now, or when we get back to the house.”
“Oh…” Eliza’s mind raced. A hug would be really nice right now, after she’d been reminded of her parents and their stubborn refusal to see her as a girl. And what was a cuddle but a really prolonged hug? “Now?”
Cassie nodded. “Or later, no pressure.”
Eliza scooted over and leaned against Cassie, and Cassie put her arm around her. She did the same, and they sat like that for a while without speaking.
Epilogue: March 2020
Eliza drove up the winding mountain road to her girlfriend’s house again. She’d been to visit for the weekend, or just for a few hours on Saturday, a number of times since she’d started her last year of grad school. And she’d spent Christmas with Cassie and her parents – it seemed an infinitely less awkward prospect than spending several days with her parents, though she did go to see them for a few hours on Christmas Eve. But now she was moving in with Cassie, for who knew how long – with the university, the dorms and practically the whole country shutting down due to COVID, she didn’t have anywhere else to go, except moving back in with her parents, and she regarded that as a last resort.
She just hoped she hadn’t caught the disease from someone at school, and wasn’t bringing it to Cassie.
She pulled in the driveway and wended back and forth until she reached the yard. Cassie was sitting on the porch, waiting for her. As Eliza got out of the car, Cassie pulled on a cloth mask, and Eliza did the same.
“I wish this were under better circumstances,” Cassie said, coming down the steps to the lawn. “Air hug?”
“Air hug,” Eliza agreed, and they mimed a hug from several yards apart. Eliza opened the trunk and the back seat, and they started hauling her stuff into the house.
“So for two weeks,” Cassie said, as they came back to the car for the last load, “we’re going to try to stay at opposite ends of the house, and eat at different times, right? And then we’ll be pretty sure neither of us have got it, and we can relax.”
“Yeah. And if we do get it, well, I’ve got an improved infection-fighting spell that should help us get over it quickly. How are your magic studies coming along?”
“I’ve been learning some gardening spells,” Cassie said, gesturing toward the no longer weed-infested patch of garden. “There’s not much to show for it yet, but I’ll be planting soon.”
“Cool. Are you planning on planting flowers or vegetables or both?”
“Flowers in front of the house, herbs and vegetables in back.”
They went back into the house, Cassie a good three yards ahead of Eliza; Cassie went to her master bedroom, where Eliza had usually slept with her on previous visits, while Eliza went to the guest room she’d used last summer. Then they spent most of the afternoon chatting on their private Discord server.
It was going to be a long wait before Eliza could cuddle her girlfriend again. Maybe there was a flesh magic spell she could use to check if she or Cassie were infected? She unpacked the Compendium of Flesh Magic from one of the boxes they’d brought in and started looking through the index and the table of contents.
It took some looking, but she found what she needed after about half an hour of finding promising-looking spells, studying the descriptions, and finding they weren’t quite what she wanted. It was actually a combination flesh magic-information magic spell, which would give her an exhaustive list of all the viruses in her body. She started practicing it right away, pausing after every couple of attempts to respond to Cassie’s latest message.
After three tries, she cast it successfully, and knew she was free of COVID. Then she started working out an other-directed version of it.
RoyalSorceress at 3:14pm: I found a spell to check if I have a viral
infectionRoyalSorceress at 3:15pm: and I don’t. I’m working on the version I
can cast on youPrincessOzma at 3:15pm: awesome!!! lmk when it’s ready
RoyalSorceress at 3:39pm: ready to cast. let’s get our masks on and meet in the living room?
Fifteen minutes later, they were snuggling on the sofa, occasionally reading funny bits of their books aloud to each other. There was nowhere Eliza would rather be.
deeply envious of the covid-detection spell.
fun story!
Congrats on finishing another story! They're an understated pair, but very cute. Thanks for the warm fuzzies.
this was extremely charming! i love eliza and cassie and how well you drew them as characters, they're delightful and they're refreshingly different from the standards in this genre. i love eggs that are denser than depleted uranium but it's sometimes nice to have one who actual considers transness as a thing people she knows can be and comes out an hour later. it's a very lowkey story with main characters to match and i loved it
this was such a great read! im rly happy with how the religious theming was handled as well (religious trauma yayyyyy >.>) with it being shown as a 'Eliza did this' rather than giving a play by play of what she is thinking/praying with a helping of 'God would be x y or z with me because of a b or c' i love how nice stuff was wrapped up and the hugs and cuddles are def a thing that is super nice and aaaa :D
nonsensical end of book comment for the win >:D
This was adorable. Thank you so much for the story
This was a good one. Very calm. Not really fluffy in the usual sense, but still quite satisfying.
As an ace woman, I really appreciate the ace representation
this was a really sweet ending! I'm so happy for them hehe, great story!
i enjoyed this story very much! thank you.
We got very anxious at the coming-out part, so it took us a long time to finish, but we're glad we did - what a neat story! We love Eliza and Cassandra, and we smiled at their Discord names in the last chapter.