♥ Best Friends Become Lovers ♥

To try to take three years of my life –- step back, examine it, condense it, try to make you understand how I felt, how much she meant to me, how much she and I were as one seems almost disrespectful. It reminds me of how a blind person would feel when someone tries to explain to them the concept of colors.

It's out of your league. You will never know. But for the sake of everything, I will try.

t's easy to forget that you have loved someone too.

I really wish I could invent a romantic situation and proudly tell how we fell in love at first sight in a sultry, amazing way.

Last time I checked, McDonald's does not qualify for any of the above. A McDonald's is not a conduit for romance. Congestive heart failure is another matter. But that's a whole different thing.

So we met there. Sue us.

No bells. No heavenly choir. No angels from up on high with lace and hearts and the "thump thump" of my heart.

My first impression of her was not ... flattering. I thought she was kind of a bitch.

The next time we met, I heard her laugh. And that was it.

It began.

Within about eight months, she became my best friend. We wrote notes to each other every day. We called each other. We went to different schools, but we would hang out at lunch. We were like two schoolgirls –- giggling and laughing and dancing and singing and just living.

We were tight. People thought we were going out. We would look at one another and go "ewww".

My love for her didn't grow. Or gradually build. It snuck up on me and kicked me in the back of the head.

I woke up one day. And started crying. I wanted her to be with me.

I kept this secret to myself. It was agony to see her all the time and be in love with her ... and not be with her. I was scared to tell her. I couldn't risk losing my best friend. I just couldn't.

Six months passed.

And then I told her. One day out of the blue. My friends were getting annoyed. They started yelling at me to tell her. So I did.

She started crying. And told me that she felt the exact same way I did. And all this time she was scared to tell me.

We both cried and held each other. Anxiety, nervousness and relief washed through us, lingered around us, and plunged into the earth we laid on, gone forever.

I remember kissing her for the first time the next day, on a hill in the woods. Spending all day there kissing and hugging and laughing.

She was my first real girlfriend. And the first person I ever kissed. And the first person I ever made love to.

She was my whole life for three years.

Notice the past tense.

We aren't even good friends any more, really. Sometimes if you split apart violently enough from a person, you break out of each other's orbit – possibly for good.

I see her two days out of the week. We're in a band together. And we hang out with the same people. Our relationship is like a watered-down version of the care-free love we had for each other. We hold ourselves back when we talk and laugh and smile.

There is a big wall between us.

And we look at each other. Torn between our past and the fact that we still obviously care a hell of a lot for each other.

Life is full-circle. You end up where you begin.

We are back to hiding from one another. Back to lying to ourselves. Back to ignoring what we really feel.

And it scares me a lot. Because I still and will always love her. And I know she still loves me.

It makes me sad. But I know I can't climb over that wall for her.

I also know she won't climb it for me.