This is gonna be a long one, but it's been on my mind lately, so it's happening.
Me [f] and one of my guy friends [m] got close in middle school and were best friends all throughout high school. People were always telling me we were meant to be together, and I did initially have a huge crush on him, but we never went for it. Which was good, because he was one of the most dependable people in my life, and we had such great times and a really close knit friend group.
We both dated other people in HS, but senior year, it started to feel like we might be something more. Just... there were a lot of instances where I knew that he liked me as more than a friend. Like the time I called him when my car broke down, and he almost ditched the date he was on his way to to come help. Or if I mentioned a guy was creeping on me/flirting with me, he would get jealous.
Finally towards the end of senior year, he broke up with his gf, we were both single, and the line got crossed. I remember the exact moment because we were hanging out in his room like we always did. Only this time we had made sort of a fort in his bed, and were cuddling under it listening to music, and it felt so comfortable and blissful...
A bit later we had our first kiss, both admitted we thought it was going to be super weird, but it wasn't. Cue the best few months of my entire high school career where we were together. He told me he had liked me since before I even knew him.
It was like a movie or something. We were already insanely close and knew everything about each other, knew each other's families, had the same friends, same sense of humor. Went to senior prom together, etc.
I went on a trip abroad the summer before college where something bad happened to me. Basically a guy followed me into the bathroom and tried to take advantage of me. I never told him (or anyone...) because in my mind I had cheated on him and I felt horribly guilty.
I returned, we went to the same college (in-state), and even lived in the same building. Dream scenario, right?
WRONG.
I ended up having something of an emotional/mental breakdown that dragged out over the course of a few months. I have no idea what happened, since my mental health had always been fine. But something inside of me broke and he became a casualty of that.
(Also he wouldn't have sex with me despite neither of us being virgins but that's a whole thing.)
We broke up because I was acting like an insane person. I missed him and we still loved each other so we got back together. We broke up again because I was acting like an insane person (and fucked with his heart in a really horrible way...). Almost all of my friends from high school (aka the only people I knew in college) took his side and alienated me. I had nobody and it was horrible and I deserved it.
Finally kind of got myself together but by then it was too late. We got together maybe once or twice afterwards, I wanted to salvage our friendship but we both kinda knew there was no hope. Too much had happened.
That was all like six years ago but I still think about it from time to time. If I could go back in time... I'm not sure what I'd change. One on hand we were so good together in high school. On the other, I would've gladly sacrificed that to avoid the horrible fiery shitshow that was to follow.