I’m in love with my best friend. It’s not like it’s anything new but I love him. He’s cute and funny and he makes me laugh. The only bad thing is his ex-girlfriend. She hangs all over him and says she and him should date. Does she not even notice how I look at him. I’m downright terrified to talk to him without saying something stupid but it’s amazing that the second I say one word to him, all the things I need to say just come out. Do you know how many people have a crush on their best friends? Too many. I’m not anybody new. It sucks because He’ll never love me the way I love him. Here I am, a teenager who fell in love with their best friend. It wasn’t even meant to happen. He just looked over at me one day and I saw it. I saw a future. The one I couldn’t see with anybody else. He’s beautiful. Even if he doesn’t know it. It kills me, when I see her around him. The second she touches him I want to be off of my feet and into his arms, letting him know that there are more options than just the same person. And sometimes I hope that maybe, Just maybe, He’s into me too.

I sat on his bed one day, thinking of this. He smiled at me, his hair catching the light from the window. We were working on homework and suddenly I just put all of my stuff down and looked at him. “Hey,” I said. And he looked at me, his eyes boring into me. “I want to talk,” I said to him. He smiled and got up from his place on the ground and sat next to me on the bed, moving my binder behind him. I inhaled and searched his face. “Do you like her?” I said to him, hoping he wouldn’t ask who I meant? “Who?” He said. I raised an eyebrow and he smiled to himself. “Oh. Her. No. I do not like her. She’s just. She’s been a somewhat ‘girlfriend’ for a long time. I don’t care about what she did to me. I just. Sometimes I just want to remember that I had something that I wanted. I don’t want that anymore but I had something. I Don’t like her. In fact, I like someone else.” I looked down at his last sentence, I felt in pain during this moment. I didn’t want him to see me like this. See me in so much pain over him. I kept my head down and instead said: “That’s great.” I meant it. It’s great. For him. I got myself together and chanced a look at him. His eyes were still on me. I smiled. He smiled back. But in his eyes. In his eyes, I saw something. A glimmer of something I’d only seen when he’d looked at her when they first started out. I saw hope.

The day I first realized I was in love with him was a Wednesday. Odin’s day. I sat next to him in language, haven arrived late to class, because it was the only available seat (Language is my worst class so I always try and sit in front). We had a quiz that day. I’d left my binder in my backpack in my locker so when the teacher gave us ten minutes to study, I hunched over his binder with him and recited words. In the middle of this, he looked at me the same time I looked at him and smiled. I always did like his smile. It brought me so much joy. Suddenly I felt it. Four years worth of feeling came rushing at me and I melted. Less than a minute late, She tapped him on the shoulder. She said, “Can I have a pencil?” Her hand was resting on his shoulder and I felt uncomfortable. No. I felt anger. I felt angry because this is the same girl who cheated on him. The same girl that said multiple times she only wanted to be friends while leading him on and kissing him. The same girl who dated his brother just get on his nerves. The same girl who doesn’t deserve him. But before I could say anything about their interaction on this Wednesday in language class, before a quiz, my quiz was being handed to me. I couldn’t say anything. I didn’t even have time to digest the fact that I was in love with him. Everything I was feeling was going a mile a minute in my head. It was surprising enough that I could even finish my quiz. That class did it for me. It was settled. I was in love with my best friend.

We met on a Tuesday. I was sick on the first day of school so my first day was on Tuesday. It was my Freshman year. I started out that day in my English class. We had been assigned, partners. I was his. He smiled me but he seemed shy. “Hi,” I said to him. We were supposed to be going over Shakespearean Sonnets. We’d been assigned sonnet 138. We decided it together and presented it up on the board together. After the class, I went to Math and then had two more classes before lunch. That year was my first year in Ohio. I knew nobody. I sat on my own. At least I sat on my own for a little bit. Until he came. I didn’t even think he’d remember me but he came and sat down right next to me. We ate in silence but it felt nice. Just having him there. That’s what felt nice.

Today. That’s where this brings me to. A full seven months of pining over him brings us to the day before graduation. I’m sitting in my car in his driveway. Thinking. We’d decided against going to the same college. Instead, I’m on my way to Miami University for business and he’s going to the University of Dayton for Engineering. We’re going to be an hour away from each other. I’m sitting in his driveway at the moment. Thinking about the years we spent together. Thinking about when we pied our principal. Or when we orchestrated the single greatest senior prank in the history of our school by making every single water fountain in the school pour out Kool-aid instead of water. When he told me he loved me and for a split second I believed it was as more than just friends before he said: “You are my best friend in the world.” I keep telling myself to leave my car. To get up the courage to walk into his house but with every command, I give myself I keep thinking: What if he rejects me. So I stay in the car a little bit longer. This keeps happening until I see him. He’s coming out of his house. He’s walking towards me. He's opening the door to my beat up Jeep. He’s staring at me. His face is blank. “Hey,” He's said to me. I nod at him, too afraid to speak. We look at each other for a full minute before I open my mouth but instead, he cuts me off. “I need to get this off my chest. Bare with me okay?” He says. I nod at him and he inhales. “Remember that day when you asked me if I still liked her?” He says. I nod again while I search his face for anything that can tell me what's going on right now. “Well. Gosh, I never thought I'd say this. I always thought this was something I was going to take to my grave. Okay… I’m just going to say it. I said that I liked somebody else. Do you remember that?” I nod again. Was this his way of telling me that he really does still like her? He inhales again and it just makes me want to kiss him. “Well I think like was an understatement. I think I meant love.” And it was coming. The day I came to tell him I was in love with him, he decides to, instead, tell me that he’s in love with someone I despise. I’m looking at my lap when he waves a hand in front of my face. I’ve just realized that I haven’t heard a thing he just said. “What’d you say?” I ask him. He smiles and moves closer to me. It’s almost too close but instead of moving to my lips he swerves to my ear and says “I was saying that I love you.” He backs up. I don’t understand. “Like a friend?” That’s what he said last time. He’s biting his lip and I feel myself shudder. He’s beautiful. He shakes his head. “Not like a friend.” And before I can even comprehend what he’s saying, he’s kissing me. He’s kissing me and he’s kissing me. I’m kissing him back. It’s soft and nice and beautiful. I want to die, I feel so good. He backs up and I’m still sitting in my car while I stare at him. The stars are out, They make him even more beautiful. I smile and I start to speak. “You’re beautiful.”

He’s smiling a lot and I’m smiling and then he’s hugging me and I'm hugging him back. I need to say it now. The three words that have been itching to come out of my mouth.

“I love you.”