I wrote a short story for Pride Month! It's about a young aromantic coming to terms with their aromantic identity and how society treats aromantics. Slightly overdramatic and Soap Opera-y but what can you do. It's inspired a little by my recent experiences with aphobia and feelings about how aromanticism is represented in popular media. Because not projecting onto my characters who? Anyway, hope you enjoy it! Especially seeing as it's the first peice of my own writing I've posted on here...... ~ Thayer/Reynie/Theta/Whatever you wanna call me
TW FOR AMATONORMATIVITY, APHOBIA, DEHUMANIZATION, MENTIONS OF SPIDERS, DISSOCIATION, DEMONIZATION AND VILLIFICATION OF AROMANTIC PEOPLE, AND SOME MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES SUCH AS ANXIETY, MENTIONS OF CRUSHES. READ WITH CAUTION PLEASE.
Dante
Cliche as it sounds, I never quite understood the meaning of Pride and the importance of LGBTQIA+ education until someone taught me. Don’t get me wrong-- I was always proud of who I was. Being a gay man was as much a source of pride to me as the poetry I wrote every day and the fact that I was still alive despite everything I’d gone through. Still though, I’m not sure I ever quite understood what Pride was for-- why everyone pushed for education and acceptance and good representation in the media-- until I saw just how much the lack of it was destroying my best friend's soul.
Rainer Borday was the happiest person I knew-- a human ray of sunshine and goodness if ever such a person could exist. A human angel, if I believed in a God. They were the human embodiment of the colour yellow and fields of flowers on sunny days. Rainer spoke in poetry, with words as vibrant as the colours they painted with. It had always confused me as to why they’d never put their talents to work as a poet like me. After all, they had the way with words needed, and meter was an easy enough concept to learn. But when I said that, they always said that poetry was my job and the subject changed.
Rainer, for all their light, had always been there for me-- from the day I came out, to the darkest points in my life where tomorrow seemed like an uncertainty for me. They never stopped being the world's brightest light despite being friends with someone stuck in darkness for so long. I never once suspected there was anything that could possibly bring down this unstoppable force of pure light.
Turns out there was. And that something was ignorance.
*****
Rainer
Hey Dante. I hope I didn't wake you.... You need those 12 hours of sleep you know.
I just wanted to tell you how much you mean to me. You're the best friend I've ever had and I've treasured every moment we've had together. But we can't be that way anymore. I'm sorry, I don't want it to be this way but we have to. The longer I put this off and the longer we stay friends.... The worse you could get hurt.
The worse I could hurt you.
So this is goodbye. I'm sorry.
- Rainer Borday
*****
Dante
I first started having my suspicions that something was wrong in May. Rainer’s smiles weren’t quite as bright, and their metaphors and turns of phrases seemed to be used less and less. They wore hoodies almost every day, with the same pair of dark and paint splattered blue jeans. Stupidly though, I thought that perhaps this was just another change in their medication. Every time Rainer’s ADHD medication was adjusted, they acted weird for a week and then went back to normal as their brain adjusted. Corin and Jian didn’t think anything of it either, even when the behavior stretched on for more than a week.
None of us one thought something could be wrong until a text chime woke me up at 11AM on a Saturday.
I blinked awake slowly, my head groggy from nightmare fog. A shaky hand that looked like mine reached out from underneath my tangle of blankets and grabbed my phone. I pulled it underneath the blankets with my head and turn it on.
You have (1) new message from TheOneWhoPaintsWords, my notifications read.
I clicked on it and tapped in my password. My phone unlocked and the messaging app popped open to the message. My eyes widened at the message and I jumped out of bed.
Five minutes later, I was fully dressed and running out the door in a panic.
*****
Dante
It only took me two minutes to open a portal to get myself to Rainer's house, but the effort involved in that drained me of my energy more than simply running there at full speed would have. I didn't care about that though, I just needed to get to my best friend.
I knocked frantically at the front door, the world spinning before my eyes. I squeezed my eyes shut to block out the nausea as I waited, bits of Rainer's text echoing in my mind like a scream in the nighttime.
I don't want it to be this way. Then why are you doing this? The longer I put this off worse you could get hurt. I've already been hurt. The worse I could hurt you. How on Earth could a ray of sunshine hurt me? Oh Rainer, what's wrong? Why didn't I see? Why hadn't I noticed, stupid, stupid Dante--
The front door to the Borday household swung open and Rainer's mother opened the door. The second she saw my face, hers melted from worry into relief. I felt something in my stomach drop as Camille Borday ushered me into the house. "Dante! I am so glad you're here, I--" she exclaimed, "I don't know what's wrong-- Rainer's not-- they're not talking. They're just-- they're just CRYING, Dante, I don't--"
The petite woman broke off to stiffle a sob and I used that to make my move. "Where are they?" I asked gently, following the woman into the house.
"In their room," Ms. Borday said, "They haven't left since they got home from school. Dante, what happened? What's wrong? They're normally so happy, why--?"
I shrugged helplessly, trying desperately to keep the fear from my face. I had to be strong, and being strong meant showing no fear. "I don't know, I came to find myself," I told her, "They sent me a very concerning text this morning."
I felt my mask of strength suddenly crack, and I ran up the steps to the second floor of the Borday household before Ms. Borday could see me cry.
*****
Dante
I knocked softly on the door to Rainer's room. "Hey," I said softly, "It's Dante. Can I come in?"
No answer.
I knocked a little louder. "Rainer, I'm not leaving until we talk."
"Fine. Come in," Rainer's muffled voice seeped softly through the wooden door.
I pushed the door open and stepped inside. The room was just like it always was: seafoam blue walls with green accents, messy canvases full of colors, an agender pride flag hanging on the wall above the bed. The scuffed wooden desk was tucked into the corner, piled high with unfinished schoolwork. The fuzzy carpet underneath my feet was spattered with blobs of paint and rubber bands like some sort of reverse night sky. The easel and stool where they painted had bottles of paint and jars of paint brushes stacked on top of them in a precious imitation of a skyscraper.
The only thing that was different this time was Rainer.
Instead of sitting confidently on the easel, paintbrush behind their ear and paint spattered over their face like rainbow freckles, or even sitting at their desk looking stressed over a homework assignment, Rainer was hidden under a pile of blankets on their bed. All I could make out of them was the vague outline of their body shape, curled into a ball. They were unmoving except for the slight rise and fall of their chest as they breathed.
"Rayne?" I said tentatively.
Yet again, no answer. I wasn't that surprised. Instead, I grabbed the spinny office chair from my friend's desk and sat down in it right next to the bed. "Rainer, please," I said, "You have to talk to me. You can't just send me a text like that and not expect me to have questions! What's wrong? Why are you so scared of hurting me?"
There was a long moment of silence, charged with an emotion I couldn't identify. Guilt? Fear? Shame? I'm still not sure. Rainer was always better at identifying emotions than I was thanks to their synesthesia.
"Dante, I don't feel love."
I blinked a few times. "No. No, you do love. What do you call your feelings towards your mom?"
"You know what I mean Dante! I don't love! Not in the way that matters….." Rainer's voice was filled with an indescribable pain and anguish, "And that makes me a bad person. Because love is what makes you good."
I closed my eyes trying to process. "Does it really?" I asked them, "Rainer, you're the kindest person I know. If you're not a good person, then who the heck is?"
"Really? Name me one person who did not feel love in fiction or real life that was a good person!"
I tried to think. But Rainer was the only one I could think of. Every character who didn't feel love I could think of were all horrible, psychopathic monsters like Voldemort. They barely even seemed to feel anything at all, least of all love. And everyone in real life that I thought of as being loveless were all horrible as well, committing atrocities that made one wonder if all humanity was really that atrocious deep down. The only exception to all of the Evil Loveless was Rainer.
Fear and a sudden realization punched me in the stomach. Hard. Now I understood.
If loveless people were always like that, how long until Rainer was like that too? Had there been something wrong with them deep down since the moment I'd met them? What did that friendship say about me if it had? And how much danger was I in if I kept hanging around someone like them, a person destined to become a human-shaped monster?
"Rainer, I--"
"Just go, Dante!"
Rainer yanked the blankets off of their head and I could see their face for the first time today. Their normal mess of controlled chaos that they'd once called their hair was a tangled rat's nest of electric green curls. Their dark brown eyes were bloodshot and aching with pain. Bags had formed under their already puffy eyes and I could see tear tracks etched into their checks.
A fresh wave of horror slammed into me like a brick wall. This couldn't be Rainer-- this couldn't possibly be my best friend. Rainer had never looked like this before-- and I've known them since we both were four.
I couldn't help myself. I gasped audibly before my hand could slap itself over my mouth and stop me.
"Stars above...." I whispered.
"I said go, Dante!" Rainer said again, their voice icy cold, "Just leave. There's nothing you can do."
The world went fuzzy right about then. I felt myself stand up and walk out of the room and out of the Borday house, my head lost in a fog that not even Mrs. Borday could get through.
*****
Dante
It took a conversation with Jian for me to realise that Rainer needed something I couldn't give them. Not because I was a bad friend, but just because I was just as in the dark about "Aromanticism" as they were. Not to mention someone with anxiety isn't exactly the best at helping to work through the emotional complications caused by extreme societal alienation and demonization.
Jian quickly explained to me that what Rainer had described was a lesser known orientation called Aromanticism, where people experienced no romantic attraction to people of any gender. It didn't make them psychopaths or horrible people with some sort of terrible illness. They were just as normal and valid as everyone else-- society most made it seem like they weren't.
I had to admit I felt much better about the whole situation and my friendship with Rainer after that talk.
But something kept eating at me-- I knew Rainer wasn't a monster, and so did Jian. But no one else did. And Rainer hadn't either. If Aromantic people were just as normal and valid as everyone else.... Why did no one talk about them in any context but as horrible people? Why is it that there was so little knowledge available outside of the internet?
That didn't seem fair to me. Afterall, straight people heard about people like themselves every day and didn't deal with feelings of monstrosity due to their orientation. And even though gay and trans people experienced similar demonization and invisibility, neither community seemed to accept or care about aromantics. But fully grown adults who are the sweetest and most accepting people I know still don't know what aromanticism is. And almost every single one didn't understand how it could exist, and if it could exist, how it didn't mean something wasn't terribly wrong with that person.
I had an advantage over Rainer-- not a big one, but still an advantage. One they didn't have because of the lack of education out there. And because of that lack of education, my best friend-- the sweetest, kindest human being on the planet-- now thought that they were a heartless monster.
I had to do something. Not just because they'd been there for me, but because no one deserved to feel like that. Ever.
"Jian.... Is there anything I can do to help them?" I asked, scrubbing angry tears from my face with one hand, the phone in the other warm against my ear.
" I dunno... " Jian said, "Maybe help them get in touch with other aromantic people? I know I definitely felt less alone and weird when I met other pan people. Maybe it would help Rainer to have people to look up to who were just like them."
I nodded, even though that was pretty stupid. Jian couldn't see me. She'd have literally no idea what was going on. "That's a fantastic idea. Got any recommendations for a group I could take them to?"
"No, but you could look online," She suggested, "I'm not sure how much luck you'll have given how.... Unnoticed….. that community is. But it's still worth a look. "
"Thanks Ji," I said, "You really helped."
"No problem honey, I'm here any time you need me."
I hung up and opened my laptop. I entered "aromantic groups near me" in the Firefox search engine. Several Tumblr blogs and group chats popped up, but I crossed them off my list. Rainer would benefit more from an in person meeting. Besides, I was pretty sure they didn't know how to use the internet outside of Discord and YouTube.
I found some groups at the local college and library, but they were all for asexuals, not aromantics. Jian had specifically said the two were very different and using the two interchangeably wasn't good, so I crossed those off of my list too. The only group specifically for aros that I COULD find was all the way on the other side of England. Not very helpful.
I closed the computer and instead decided to try magic. Perhaps the aromantics had a closer group that I couldn't find on the internet.
I closed my eyes and focused on the magic inside of me. When I opened my eyes again, my hands were glowing gold and ready to perform magic. Using my fingers, I traced the pattern for a Finding spell and cast it. These were tricky spells for most Mages my age to do, as they required nonstop focus on what you were looking for while you cast the spell. Any deviance would screw with the spell and cause you to find something that was either a combo of what distracted you and the original search, or something wildly inappropriate.
Thankfully me though, the spell worked perfectly. The streak of golden light shot like a lightning bolt from my hands and returned a minute later with what I was looking for.
"The Quiver of Aros Club," I mused to myself as I read the flyer the spell had brought back, "All kinds aromantics welcome. Meetings from 15:30PM to 17:45PM every Saturday at the Arrow Café. Hmm."
It sounded perfect. Almost too perfect. I wasn't used to the spell working this well.
Or at all, really.
I decided it was probably worth it if Rainer went to a meeting. Afterall, what did I have to lose by checking it out? Besides, who knew? Perhaps this group was as good as it seemed. Perhaps it could help my best friend not feel like a monster.
*****
Rainer
Once upon a time the world used to be full of colors. They danced when I was happy, twirled when I heard sounds, and sparkled when I looked at letters and numbers on a page. The world was a rainbow and I was at the center, the one and only spectator to the show they put on for me.
Now the world was grey. Nothing had color anymore. It was almost like living in a black and white movie, but not quite.
My colors had abandoned me and I knew I deserved it. No loveless psychopath deserves to be surrounded by beauty. It just didn't vibe with their aesthetic of death, hatred, and evil.
Black and white and grey did.
*****
Rainer
I'd been curling underneath my blankets for over a day when Dante came back with a word. I'd been hiding from the world to keep it safe from the monster I was so sure was waiting to rear its ugly head soon. But, to my complete surprise, I felt my comforter be ripped off me like a bandaid from a still bleeding wound.
I screeched, momentarily blinded by the bright light and paralysed from the freezing cold of my room. I felt almost like I'd been shoved out into the Arctic without a coat in the middle of winter.
Once my eyes recovered enough, I glared up at the blanket thief.
"Rainer, I think I know how to help you!" Dante's face was animated, more excited than I'd seen it in a long time.
It also wasn't supposed to be here. Not now that he knew the truth and that I would hurt him if he stayed.
"Dante," I pleaded, "You have to go. There's nothing you can do, ok?"
"Yes there is! Rayne, you're not alone, ok?" Dante sat down on the bed next to me and placed a gentle hand on my shoulder, "There are others like you out there. In this town, actually. And I think you meeting them would help."
I scowled at him. "How on EARTH would that help me Dante? Why would it help me? You could be introducing me to people who could make me an even worse person!"
"Rainer, I swear on my life: this WILL help you," Dante said gently, "I just need you to let me try. Let them try to help."
I bit my lip, thinking. Was it worth it? Was he right? Could something really help me? Save me? Make it so I wouldn't hurt my best friends? I didn't know.
A phrase overtook my thoughts like darkness always overtook the light: you can only save those who want to be saved. And I wasn't completely sure if I did or not.
Afterall.... It would be so easy to just let whatever darkness that would eventually consume me win-- let myself become what I was supposed to. Not to fight the Evil inside me thanks to my lack of love.
But I also didn't want that to happen to me. The darkness wanting to consume me and make me evil was so far from what I knew myself to be. Picturing myself becoming that way was like trying to imagine the life and thoughts of another person-- an experience so foreign, so alien, so counter to myself that I was beginning to doubt it would ever be true.
But that was what society said I was destined to become and when was society ever wrong about evil?
*****
Dante
I led Rainer through the front door of the coffee shop, holding the flyer tight in my fist. I say led, but it was really more like dragged. Rainer had the energy and general movements of a sea slug, walking so slow I wondered if I was watching a slow motion video version of them instead of the real Rainer. It was painful to see and it made it all the more clear to me that I had to get them to do this. I had to get them to meet others like them.
A bell jingled overhead and a wave of chilled air crashed over me and Rainer. I looked around the café and took a deep breath. The air smelled of coffee, unsurprisingly, and the place was pretty dimly lit despite the walls being mostly floor to ceiling windows. I think this had more to do with the storm clouds that occasionally blocked out the sun as opposed to the black floors and dark aesthetic of the place though.
There were several low coffee tables and comfy looking armchairs scattered around the coffeeshop and a teenage boy stood behind the coffee counter. He was pretty cute for a barista, but I already had a crush on another guy.
I walked up to him, leading Rainer gently by their wrist. "Hey," I said, "Uh, there's supposed to be a meeting here today in fifteen minutes? Do you know where it's going to be?"
I held up the flyer as if that would explain what I meant.
The boy behind the counter frowned at me, his dark eyes confused and mistrustful. "How did you get that? I've never seen either of you in here before."
I felt my face go red and I glanced at Rainer to see if they'd heard. They were currently staring at the ground blankly, the hood of their hoodie pulled over their head to hide their messy green curls. They didn't seem to have noticed. They didn't even seem to quite be in the frame of mind to notice that their shoes were untied-- and they were staring pretty much at them.
I looked back to the boy. "I uh. I found you through a friend?" I lied weakly, "Not Rainer, obviously, another friend."
The boy's eyes narrowed a little more and I got the feeling he knew I was lying. "Uh-huh. And why do you want to be part of the aro-spec meeting?"
"I don't," I said, "I want my friend to."
The boy rolled his eyes. "Fine. Why do you want your friend to be a part of this?"
"Because.... I think they might be aro-spec," I said, "And.... They're not taking it very well. They're over the impression they're a, um, psychopathic monster."
The boy blinked and something skin to understanding washed over his face. Understanding and.... Something else. Anger, but the sort that wasn't directed at a person. And also the sort of anger that didn't seem surprised that the thing making it angry existed. I didn't know quite how to feel about that. "Follow me," he said, "I'll take you to the back."
*****
Rainer
I don't remember walking to the Café. I'd been lost in a heavy grey mental fog since the second I'd gotten out of bed. It swirled around and around and around like a slow moving tornado. Coherent thought ran into it like a cement road barrier and shattered into a million pieces.
The most I remember was pulling my hood over my head to keep the sun out of my eyes. Then I was sitting on a comfy armchair in a back room of the coffee shop, staring at the carpeted floor. It was almost as though I'd been dreaming and then woken up.
"Do you think your friend will want anything to drink?" An unfamiliar voice said, "Or a pastry? First meeting gets you free stuff from our menu."
"They'll probably want something cold," a second voice, Dante, replied, "Nothing with caffeine though, or they'll be fast asleep in ten minutes."
"Got it."
A few minutes later, a cold lemonade is sitting in my hand and a frosted green sugar cookie sits on a paper bag on my leg. I barely paid any attention to either. The carpet was much more fascinating to my foggy, swirling mind than the thought of sugar. Dante had left, promising to be out in the shop part of the cafe waiting until the end of it for me.
"Alright, it looks like we're all here!" A voice announces, forcing me out of my reverie a little.
The voice belongs to a short older woman with dark skin and darker curly hair that had been carefully put into a bun. Her eyes were warm and kind, a lot like my mum's, framed by a pair of wire framed spectacles. She was wearing a purple shirt and old grey overalls that had obviously seen better days. I could picture her drinking tea with my mom, knitting blankets for kids, and playing with kittens. If my colors were working I think her voice would have been a similar shade of purple to her t-shirt.
"Since we have a new person joining us today, how about we all go around introducing ourselves?" The woman suggested, "Name, pronouns, and orientation. Who wants to go first?"
A kid in the circle raised their hand. They had long, thick, straight, black hair and a beanie. I was a little intimidated by their formal style of dress. Afterall, who wore a waistcoat and bow tie to a coffee shop meeting? I instantly felt underdressed and stupid.
The woman nodded at the kid to begin, so they straightened in their seat and cleared their throat "I'm Averrill. Xe/xem right now," Xe said, "I'm aroace."
Xe gestured to the person sitting next to them, a feminine looking person with bleached blonde hair and dark brown eyes. "I'm Theodosia. She/her. I'm aro. Just aro."
The next person after her was someone I vaguely remembered to have been running the register when Dante and I had arrived earlier. They looked to be related to the girl who'd gone before him, but with dark brown hair and a bit of a scowl. "I'm Cole. He/him. I'm demiromantic omnisexual."
The next two to go were the woman who'd started off the meeting and a guy I was pretty sure was married to her because they were holding hands. "I'm Olga," the woman said, "She/her and aromantic bisexual."
"And I'm Daedalus! He/him and quoiromantic heterosexual!"
Everyone's eyes were on me now and I felt my insides twist into a nervous ball. "I'm, um, Rainer," I began slowly, "I use they/them pronouns. I have no idea what I am, or what a lot of the stuff you just said were? Just that I'm...." My cheeks and ears went hot and my throat began to hurt. "I don't love."
"It's ok dear," Olga said gently, "You don't have to have it all figured out right now. We'll go over a few of the identities in a bit if you want."
"I'd like that," I mumbled and took a sip of lemonade.
The sour taste booted me back to reality a bit, which felt…. Better, in a way. A bit like flexing a muscle I hadn't used in a while, but still good. I took a bite of cookie and resisted the urge to make a face. It tasted like cardboard. I took a large swig of lemonade and turned my attention to the next person in the group.
The last person seemed very into the grunge aesthetic, wearing a red and black flannel over a black t-shirt, ripped jeans and combat boots. They had long brown hair and, despite their vitiligo, seemed to be the only white person in the room besides Daedalus. "I'm Sil. Vo/ven/veir pronouns," vo said softly, "I'm Aroace."
"Great! Now we all know each other," Olga said, a satisfied grin crossing over her face, "Who wants to start off today's meeting?"
The kid I remembered as Averrill raised her hand. "I think the newbie should go first," xe said, "They probably have a lot of questions if they don't even know what aromantic means and they're here."
Olga blinked, as though she was suddenly remembering her previous intentions to do just that. "Oh. Thanks Averrill, I completely forgot." Everyone's eyes were back on me, "Rainer, do you have any questions?"
The feeling of a hundred spiders crawling all over my body overtook me. I swallowed and nodded. "Yeah," I mumbled, "I have a lot of questions."
"We're happy to answer all of them," Averrill told me with just the smallest of smiles, "It's a safe space here, yeah?"
I didn't know why, but I felt a lot more at ease after that. My shoulders relaxed and my jaw unclenched. Questions poured out of my mouth like a faucet turned on high-- ADHD at its finest. "What did all those words mean? Aromantic? Demiromantic? Aroace? Quoiromantic? What do they mean and why does it mean that I belong here?"
Olga nodded slowly, counting and noting each question with a nod of her head. "Those words are all orientations. Like gay, or lesbian," she explained, "Aromantic means someone who doesn't experience romantic attraction. Aroace is a little short hand to mean aromantic and asexual, meaning you don't experience romantic or sexual attraction."
Something in me stirred-- in confusion or hope or both, I couldn't tell. "That's me," I said softly, "I'm… I'm aroace."
Olga beamed. "That's fantastic Rainer! I'm glad you were able to figure that out!"
"But why's there this difference between aro and ace?" I asked, trying to wrap my head around it all.
It was strange, having a real word to describe me now. A label other than simply 'loveless'. On the one hand, it felt wonderfully freeing and peaceful. On the other though, it didn't free me from the labels of "monster", "psychopath", and "evil".
"There's this system," Theodosia explained, "Called the split-attraction module. It classifies romantic attraction and sexual attraction as different things because one can be asexual but not aromantic and aromantic and not asexual. Personally, I don't use it. Never felt much connection to the ace community and Just Aro feels a lot more comfy as a label to me. More fitting, y'know?"
I nodded. I could understand that. I actually sort of identified with that too, considering I'd just heard the word asexual five minutes ago and had very little idea what sort of community that was. "What about Demiromantic and quoiromantic?"
"Dae, you want to explain quoi?" Olga asked her freckled, red headed partner.
The man nodded. "Sure! Quoiromantic basically means I can't distinguish between romantic and platonic attraction," He said, "Cole, do you want to do demi?"
"Yeah, I can do demi," Cole said, "Demiromantic means I don't experience romantic attraction until I've developed a close emotional bond with you. Makes coming out annoying because people apparently don't understand that's not how it works for everyone."
"Ok, I think I get that? But what's Platonic attraction?" I asked.
"It's like a squish," Cole explained, "You want to be friends with a person pretty much. It can be pretty strong for some people"
"Or," Averrill joined in,"You can experience no platonic attraction at all. Like me!"
I stared at the circle of humans around me, absolutely green with confusion. How could they be so.... Happy? How could they be so accepting of their identities, those parts of themselves? How could they feel joy in themselves while knowing they were evil? I didn't get it.
"You ok?" Theodosia asked me gently, seeming to notice my expression.
I shook my head. "How do you do it?" I asked softly, "How do you accept this about yourselves so easily?"
"Because it's a part of who we are! And a beautiful one at that," Olga said.
"No, I mean-- We're monsters, aren't we? Psychopaths? Because only the heartless don't feel love, right?" I said, "So.... How are you so calm and accepting of this? Don't you want to fight it so you don't hurt people?"
There was a tense silence. Looks of deep anguish passed over the faces of everyone in the room. Almost as if this was something they'd felt before. My chest burned with guilt at this, a raging wildfire that made me want to cry from it. It made me want to scream.
Why did I have to say that?
"We're not evil."
My head snapped to look at the speaker. It was Sil, finally speaking up for the first time that whole meeting. Vo's brown eyes were fierce and piercing, staring straight into mine and pinning me to my seat with yellow darts of fear.
"We're not monsters. We don't just need to find the right person to 'fix' us. We're whole and good on our own," Sil's voice was firm but gentle, "We're just as capable of forming genuine and deep connections if we want-- no matter what sort of 'evil cannot love' crap people try to pull. Empathy and love are not what makes us human, or even what makes us good people. Those things come from a completely different part from inside us. We're not Evil."
I let Sil's words roll around in my head. It.... Made sense.
I might be loveless, but that didn't make me less than everyone else. It didn't make me evil or cruel, any more than being hypo-empathic made my cousin Shayna those things.
My mom had always told me growing up that being a good person was a choice You actively made every day. Having bad thoughts didn't make one inherently horrible. Being a good person was in the action of being kind to everyone and helping out despite not liking them or thinking something horrible about them while angry. Why didn't it apply to the Loveless aspect of me too?
Besides, I'd never wanted to kill or hurt people before. Why did realizing I was loveless mean I suddenly would?
I felt a little silly and extremely horrible for not realizing this sooner.
"You don't need to apologise," Sil said, as though vo had been reading my mind, "Everyone goes through this in some way at first."
"Really?"
The five other aromantics in the room with me nodded. "It.... It has a tendency to creep up on you even if you never outwardly thought about it before discovering your identity," Theodosia said.
"That's horrible," I said, "People shouldn't have to feel like that. That's not.... That's not fair."
"You're right," Averrill agreed, "It's not fair. But there's more to us than constantly feeling like monsters because of popular culture. There's a lot of happy stuff too."
"Really? Like what?"
*****
Rainer
First thing I noticed when I left my first Aros Meeting was that it was raining. Several Café patrons had brought umbrellas and the floor near the entrance was shiny with watery footprints. I even heard a distant, neon green rumble of thunder overhead, complimenting nicely with the deep purple pattering of rain in the roof.
The second thing I noticed was that Dante was watching me intently, concern and tentative hope written all over his face. I beamed at him and waved. "Dante! Dante it's RAINING!!!" I exclaimed excitedly.
His face broke out into a grin and he hugged me tight. "You're back," Dante whispered before letting go, "I'm so, so happy you're back."
"I wouldn't say that...." I said, "A part of me died a while ago and there's no getting it back. But I think I've learned that maybe it's not such a bad thing to have lost."
Dante shook his head. "You really should be a poet you know."
The final thing I noticed after the meeting and while Dante said those oh-so-familiar words was that my colors were back. The world was more alive with color than it had ever been before-- a rainbow primarily composed of green. I smiled a little at the familiar cherry red sphere of my joy as it returned to it's normal spot in my vision.
"Nah. I'll leave the poetry to you Dante."
Fin
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