A/N: This was written for a prompt on the GAM on lj. At first it took a different direction so the second chapter is the 'alternate ending' of sorts. Also, Quinn's response mirrors, to a large extent, my own. If you'd like more information on asexuality, asexuality(dot)org is a wonderful site.
It's something that she's always known about herself. It didn't sneak up on her, sucking away a part of her and leaving a hole where that urge had been. There was no hole; there never had been an urge. At first she thought she was normal, and then she tried so desperately hard to be normal. Then she found a name for it, and through the tears she could whisper it as if it was an accusation. Asexual.
Finding the information had been hard. So many blogs and websites tried to tell her that she just hadn't found the right person. That when she found someone she actually loved it would be like a flower blooming inside, arching across the gap, the lack, in her and healing it. Like she was broken in yet another way.
Mentally she was a patchwork of you had a daughter at 16, you're a slut, and no one would ever chose you if they could have someone else and you'll never measure up. At first she blamed the people around her for those scars and it had taken a summer of toeing the edge of a cliff before she was brought back to safety.
Physically she was a mass of faded bruises and bones held together with pins and wire and skin stitched closed with thread. She wanted to give up, just take the whole bottle of pills the doctor sent home when she was finally released from the hospital and surrender to a darkness that had to be less painful than living but eventually the pain receded and the pills ran out.
She didn't think she could handle it if even emotionally she was defective. She had tried, even before she had a name for it, to mold herself together with wine coolers and the caress of a boy who said he loved her. But it wasn't that boy, or the boy who she convinced herself she loved, who had saved her before.
Rachel's words had dragged her from the edge of the cliff. Rachel's hands had taken hers and helped her stand by herself for the first time after the accident. But even Rachel couldn't ignite the feelings everyone seemed to think she should have. Did that mean she didn't love Rachel?
She loved Rachel. She had been falling in love with Rachel since junior year, probably even earlier but she was so consumed in the pregnancy to consider the feelings. It was hard to imagine life without Rachel - impossible. When she thought of the future, the brunette was always there. They understood each other in a way that she had never been able to find with anyone before or since. She knew every expression on Rachel's face. She could tell each thought as it passed through her mind. Nothing was perfect, they still fought sometimes, but at the end of the day she knew that they would defend each other against anything.
And yet she sometimes had to force herself not to flinch away from touches that got too intimate, school her face into a mask of pleasure instead of repulsion. But Rachel knew her too well, knew how to tell a lie, even one not spoken. And if she didn't do something, fix herself again, Rachel would be gone.
She kept her secret for a long time, the word always rising to the surface when she most wanted to forget about it. It taunted her, whispering in her ear when Rachel was spread under her. She wanted to ignore it, to push it away and go back to pretending nothing was wrong.
When she finally broke down, when the secret grew to be too big to hide, she expected Rachel to hate her. She expected shouting and accusations and hurt. What she didn't expect was gentle arms holding her close and smoothing her hair while whispering you're perfect, you're perfect. She didn't expect Rachel to spend hours researching on the internet. She didn't expect it, but she should have. Rachel was always the one who understood her, the one who know how to slowly drag her from her deepest pits and see that the world wasn't ending. The only one who could force her to accept herself not only for everything that she was, but also for what she wasn't.