As I sit here next to you watching a new season of one of the series that we like to watch together, I find my mind wandering, as it often does when I’m next to you.

I find myself thinking about the warmth of your naked body against mine. How you used to look deep into my eyes as we made love, and I’d get lost in the ecstasy of it all. You had a way of bringing me to places I had only imagined previous to being with you. Our bodies were always in sync. Even though other things between us may not have been.

It was not always easy for me being with you because I often felt that I loved you more than you loved me. And that’s hard for anyone to feel. When I looked at my future, I would imagine it with you by my side, but I knew you couldn’t and wouldn’t let yourself go that deep with me or with anyone.

You had done that once before and got burned, so you just weren’t going to put yourself in a place where it could happen again.

God, I hurt for you inside. I hated her for doing that to you. I loved you so much that the thought of someone making you feel this way just killed me inside. It still does. My heart is so protective of you. I do know that you love me too, but I am not sure if it is to the depth of my love for you. At least, that’s what I always have felt to be true.

For so many years, I waited patiently for you to catch up to me and where I was in our relationship, to see a future with me, just like I saw one with you. I always knew that we had a special connection right from the start. I know you feel that too. We still have that.

If only you could let yourself feel safe with me, let your guard down, and allow yourself to be vulnerable with me. I know that I would never hurt you, that I would never betray you the way your last love did, but you can’t see that.

You have put up a wall and wouldn’t let me in. Many times you have chosen to leave, only to come back because it just doesn’t feel good to be apart. I always let you back in my life for the same reason, even though I know that I am taking a risk of my own heart being broken again by doing so.

Our lives just don’t feel complete without each other in them. This is why, when you said you needed to be on your own for a while, I knew that I couldn’t hold on to you anymore. The only chance we might ever have is for me to let you find in yourself whatever it is that you need to find.

I had to stop and think if by letting go of what I had hoped my future with you would be, could I still be your friend? Because that’s what you told me you needed from me right now. So I had to make a choice.

What I know is you are my best friend, and it would be more painful to let my best friend go than to let my lover go. But I didn’t realize that a year later, I would still yearn for my lover. So here I sit next to you tonight, still fighting my feelings for you, wanting to touch you and feel your body next to mine once again.

We talk and we laugh and enjoy each other’s company, but we don’t hold hands or sit close, touching each other like we used to. We spend time together a few times a week, and we talk daily. It’s no secret between us that I still love you, that I still have the same feelings for you now, as I did before.

You know it and I know it, but we just don’t talk about it. But I decided that having you in my life, in whatever capacity you were able to give, was more important to me than not having you in my life at all.

The thought of looking to meet someone else, to put it bluntly, is just extremely unappealing to me right now. I have put up a wall of my own regarding other men. Even though my head says it’s time, my heart won’t let me forget what we once had. To me, you were everything I wanted.

I don’t know what the future will bring anymore now than I did eight years ago when you and I started. I do find that I still hope and imagine and dream. But now, when I do, it’s not always as clear as it was before. I don’t know if you really only see me as your friend or if you still think of me the way I think of you.

I’m still in love with you.

If you ever decide to take a chance and let me in, will I have resigned myself by then to only having a friendship with you and found someone else?

Maybe I will have finally broken down my own walls and moved on. I do know you will always be my friend and there will always be a part of me that will wonder what might have been, even if I am with someone else.

But for now, I can’t imagine a day without you in it. So we start another episode, and I try to just enjoy tonight and having you here next to me.