4 months he thought…4 agonizing months of being "just friends" and he wasn't liking it one bit! There was nothing wrong with Ginny…she had been perfect and that's exactly what his problem was.

Every time they met he had this overpowering urge to give her more than just a friendly platonic hug and a chaste kiss on the cheeks…a lot more than a chaste kiss in fact he thought as his night time fantasies began to invade his mind again. He shook his head as he warned his hyperactive brain to stop; he had been doing that a lot lately; reining in his truant thoughts whenever Ginny was around.

He loved laughing with her, more than that he felt on top of the world when he made her smile but he wanted to do more, he wanted to see those shy smiles again, he wanted to see the blush that spread right up to her toes and he missed those misty heart warming smiles that were once reserved only for him.

They could still banter for hours and not get bored of it. He realized that it was only with her that he could have inane conversations over nothing in particular. They shared a similar wry sense of humor and no one seemed to understand his dry wit better than Ginny but what he missed was the flirtatious teasing…those suggestive remarks that made her eyes twinkle and his face flush.

He felt comfortable with Ginny, much more at ease than he did with anyone else, he didn't always need words with her, she had an instinctive understanding of what was troubling him…silences with her were never awkward. He could open up to her and share his most troubling thoughts but they didn't talk about feelings anymore. He couldn't because he was afraid of scaring her away, she didn't because at some level she hadn't learnt trust him again.

He missed the caresses and hugs that made him feel everything was okay, he missed burying his face in her fiery red hair that smelt of strawberries and vanilla. He hated the physical distance that being "just friends" had put between them…

They would meet up for dinner sometimes, but he knew it was never a date. "Date" the very word now made his heart plummet to the bottom of his stomach. He hated dates…he hated Ginny's dates to be precise!

She went out with blokes on and off and whenever she did, he spent the entire evening getting drunk…he didn't have a choice; being in his senses meant imagining Ginny with the asshole she had gone out with and his imagination was never kind to him. His brain seemed to have developed a special torture mechanism, the fantasies were his, but the guy with Ginny wasn't him.

The only consolation was that she hadn't gone out with any of these blokes more than twice. He didn't know what he'd do if she actually started dating someone seriously. He knew he was living in denial, but he didn't want to think of the possibility of Ginny falling love with someone other than him…

"You are pathetic" he would tell himself everyday. He turned down dates so that he could be free, whenever Ginny wanted to see him. He would work late on most days to make sure his mind was too fatigued to come up with any new torture techniques…

He knew now he wanted Ginny desperately, but he also wondered if it was because he didn't have her! She belonged to him and he had let her go, because he couldn't handle the complications and pain of their relationship, then why was it that now he could only focus on everything that was great about the relationship that he had lost? The distance that had started numbing his feelings for Ginny was now making them all the more intense, was it because he couldn't take her for granted now? He thought it was painful when their relationship had become stagnant and monotonous, but if that was pain, then what would he call the constant ache he walked around with because Ginny was just his "friend"?

He didn't know the answers, what he did know though or had come to realize in the last four months was that while Ginny could make him happier than he had ever been, she also had the power to hurt him more than any one ever could.