I really don’t know how to start or end any kind of actual conversation I’d have with you about this. It really feels like such a champagne problem. I know it is, but it’s also so frustrating? We’ve been going through the motions of this dance for the better part of a year now, and while I understood it at first, I’m pretty tired by this point. We get close, you confess, I reject you, you ghost me for several months. Wash, rinse, repeat. I’m not blameless here.

Trust me, I know I’m not. I did my fair share of flirting, and that wasn’t fair to you. I’m sorry for my part in this. I really am. If I could go back and do over all those moments we had together, I honestly would. I would have kept my hands to myself and ignored the comments you made. I can’t go back as much as I wish I could.

The cycle is starting again, I can tell. It took us three months to speak again. Took me tagging you in a post and crying on my sister’s porch at a family dinner while sending you massive paragraphs pouring my heart out while I waited for you to respond. I spent months thinking you hated me, convinced I’d broken whatever remained of our platonic bond by ending your hope of something more. You said it was because you were hurt I didn’t let you stay over.

You have a way of clawing into my heart, in ways I’m not really sure I understand. You’re corrosive, dissolving my flesh and leaving me shaking, a pile of bones and my own worst instincts. We’re talking again, and you’re flirting. I flirt with everyone; I feel weird avoiding it with you, but our history doesn’t really allow for certain aspects of a usual friendship. I can feel it in the way you hug me for a second too long, the way your eyes linger on me. I hate to assume these things.

I know it’s a reasonable conclusion to come to, given everything that’s gone on between us, but there’s still a part of me that’s screaming that I’m presuming too much of my importance in your life. The other part is yelling about how it’s worse to assume my actions and presence are incapable of affecting others. Not really sure which is right.

You’ve told me you’ll always be here for me. That we’re friends. It’s hard to feel like that when the only time you act like my friend is when you think you have a chance. I wonder if there’s any friendship between us sometimes. I wonder if it’s just whatever feelings you have for me, and the part of me that just revels in being wanted.

I don’t know how to salvage this. I feel like if I bring it up again, you’re just going to stop talking to me again. I just want us to be normal. I want to do normal friend things and not have to worry about your friendship expiring again when you can’t have what you want. I care about you. I want to be your friend. I wish that was enough for you.

FROM…. Eddie