It’s like every romantic comedy, except a different ending. Where girl and boy meet, they hit it off as friends, become close, become more than friends, and one or both fall in love with each other and they live happily-ever-after together. My story is different. Don’t worry, he’s still my best friend and he knows about how I felt before. It brought us closer as friends since there’s no secrets anymore, but this is how I fell in love with my best friend and what it taught me.
I had just gotten out of a long-term relationship in September. This relationship defined me as a person, and it broke me when it ended. I felt like because of this breakup, and it was still so fresh, is the reason we quit talking, but that’s for later in the story. I remember messaging Will while I was at Starbucks with my good friend K. Rob for her birthday. We were talking about your basic first encounter conversations. What do you like? How old are you? Where are you from? We hit it off and became friends. I’m not going to lie and say we were just friends. We did things just friends don’t do. We continued to talk to each other every day, we opened up to each other. I remember the first time I called him crying because of something that was happening at home. I’m pretty sure we were on the phone for an hour that afternoon. We would stay up late and talk for hours. I guess you can say at this moment that I enjoyed his attention and I started to like him more than I should for barely knowing a guy. Thanksgiving came up and so did our first fight of very many. It was my fault, go figure. I’m a jealous person and a little crazy, I’ll admit. This was 2014, Snapchat still had best friends visible publicly. Do I need to say more? I think you can guess how that fight began and well it ended with him saying he needed space. The next morning I sent a long apology and we moved past it, but things were different between us. Can you blame him? Once the semester ended and he went back down to Charleston, I was unaware that he wouldn’t come back to Clemson. I remember the one night we stayed awake until 7:30 a.m. talking all night about the most random things, that same morning he told me he wasn’t coming back to Clemson. Me still being me and wanting to be with him, I kind of became “that girl” who would do anything for us to be together, which kind of weirded him out and scared him off. Lol @ me though. I finally dropped the being together thing and decided that we were better being friends, but on the inside I still liked this boy. One night I was at church and he called me about something personal and I did everything I could to help. I didn’t know what to do or how to help, but I was there for him the best I could be.
We were two different people in 2014. We were young and immature. We have both said things to each other that should’ve never been said. That leads us to the “later in the story” part. I can honestly say I have no idea how this fight began, it’s kind of a blur, but I know how it ended. It ended with me being blocked. It ended with us never speaking to each other again. We began 2015 on a different chapter, a chapter without each other. I didn’t know anything about him from that point, as he didn’t know anything about me from that point. I opened myself up to him, which I thought was never going to be possible after the break up I had with my ex.
Later in 2015, I decided to message Will again. Instantly, we were back at our same old shit. We were closer than we were before. We opened up more to each other. We enjoyed each other’s friendship. I was comfortable with him, he was my best friend. He looked after me, he was there for me. He did everything right. The day after Christmas I drove down to Charleston and we met up. And everything was just great. I loved having him back in my life. It was the start of where we are today.
2016 was the year I finally figured out I was completely in love with my best friend and there was nothing I could do about it. He is smart, strong, brave, good looking, caring, stubborn, and himself. He’s everything you could want in a guy. His laugh and smile can lighten every mood. His sarcasm makes you laugh. He’s inappropriate at the times he shouldn’t be and it makes you laugh when you shouldn’t. He challenges you. He makes you want to be a better person. Although we’re different, we understand each other. He accepts me for who I am, he is there for me during the times I need him the most. He’s an A plus in best friends. We were always a little more than friends. In February, we slept together for the first time. It was just casual sex, no big deal. Sex with Will had no effect on the way I loved him. A month later I got a boyfriend and moved in with him to Charleston. Thus, setting the ground for me and Will being only friends.
I fell more and more in love with this boy, and I hated every minute of it. I hated it because I knew he would never love me the way I loved him. I would hope and wish that maybe one day he would, but I always knew it would never happen. He had no idea about my feelings towards him at all. He guessed at it sometimes, because I would hint at it. I would deny it every time he asked me about it though because I didn’t want to love him. I wanted us to have a normal friendship, with no complications. Of course, I was the one making it complicated. We slept together for a while with no problems. We were just friends having sex. Like I said before, having sex with Will never complicated anything and it’s not the reason I loved him. Loving him became harder and harder for me to cope with because I found out he loved someone else. He would talk to me about it and I would just have to listen. I would have to be there for him and every time it would hurt. I would see things I didn’t like that he was doing and it would hurt me. I had no control and it broke me. I wanted him to know I loved him and that I could give him everything he had been looking for. I was right there. I understood him. I get it. I felt like I wasn’t good enough, I felt alone. I felt like I couldn’t be his friend anymore. I even began to hate him. I hated that I loved him, I hated myself for feeling that way towards him. I felt tortured. It wasn’t until New Years of 2017 that I no longer was in love with him. I still love him yes, he will always have a special place in my heart because he is my best friend. I could never wish for a better best friend than him.
I finally told him how I felt. Honestly, it made us a lot closer than we were. We stopped sleeping together. I’m so thankful for him and his friendship. We still fight and argue. We’re there for each other through thick and thin. I’m thankful for falling in love with him, it taught me that I can get through anything. It taught me that not everything in life comes easy and not everything you want will be yours. It taught me a lot about myself. It taught me that sometimes people have a certain role in your life and you shouldn’t try to change it.