Of course I had always loved you. Of course I had. How could somebody not love you? You were perfect after all. Perfect. The way you joked, the way you threw your head back when you laughed (often at your own jests), your smooth hair, your rough stubble. Perfect. Your ego wasn't arrogant, it was more joking, more playful. Your friends, well… they were another story, a badly written one, to say the least, while you were a sonnet beyond any comparison.
That's why I couldn't say so. You were so beautiful, and it was your friends' fault that I had to keep that beauty stored inside of me. How could anybody ever find out? If people knew that I loved you they would mock me. 'How fickle, what a teaser.' I can hear it playing over in my mind even now. Your friends, I hated them just for keeping me from declaring everything I felt. Your loveliness at times seemed like too much to keep inside. Something so monumental, so earth-shatteringly gorgeous seemed like such a burden at times to keep secret.
Not that it was secret, exactly. Other people noticed your looks, your charm, but did they really see you like I did? Did they drink in your every movement, mannerism, emotion? Your soul? Did they pay any attention to that? I was the only one, the only one, who really knew you. I didn't actually make contact too often with you, which made it even stranger. That didn't matter. I could see you, and that was enough.
Your friends weren't the only things keeping me from you. You weren't like most boys, because you liked most boys. Not in a friendly sort of way… You liked them. Isn't it inconvenient that in our language there is no way linguistically to distinguish between like, and like? That is far beside the point; the point is that I was the only one who noticed your many Friday Night Girls were just a cover. I saw how you Looked at Remus. I hated him for it.
Strange how Remus and I could've been really great friends. He was in reality a lot more gentle, caring, compassionate, and kind than you were. That didn't matter. You had so much more as a lover. It didn't matter that Remus and I could've been friends, it was ruined the day I saw you Look at him. I was shocked, I thought a part of me died that very moment. A flame flickered in my heart. How could you have done this to me? You didn't even know how I felt about 'us', but it didn't even matter. You had betrayed me. You let me down. I didn't know if I could ever love again. Shattered. I was laying in pieces on the floor and you didn't even bother to notice.
I noticed you. I noticed everything. The way you tucked you hair behind your ear when (on the rare occasion) you were concentrating on schoolwork. How you never actually looked straight into any of your Friday Night Girls' eyes; you looked straight at them, to be sure, but I could tell your eyes went a little unfocused, you looked but did not see. And now you turned and looked at me just moments after you broke my heart, killed my faith, shattered my world, but you didn't see. You never saw me the way I saw you. Because you just weren't like other boys. You liked other boys.
In the end it wasn't your friends; it was you. I couldn't help the fact that you were different from every other boy in our class. Of all the boys, why you? I know I shouldn't sound resentful but maybe it still hurts. Not really the fact that it happened, but the memory. I remember how I felt, and it happens all over again, the pain comes back and I can't help but feel a little bitter about what you did. You never really get over your first love.
There was a second love. Perhaps it was more real than our love because it actually was a situation including our. Between you and I, it was really just my love. You had no part in it, and that's how you let me down. I grew to love somebody else. It was so hard, and so strange. Of all the goddamn people in the world it had to be the person I would always be seeing you with. It was the person I hated so much because he had kept me from saying how I really felt.
With the way he had always acted before, I couldn't tell a soul. I'm sure you remember clearly how he was around me. I hated him for two reasons, one simply because to me he was The Biggest Prat to Have Ever Walked the Earth. Two, because of the way he acted about me, I couldn't tell anybody how I really felt. How I really loved you. 'Oh, how cruel, how promiscuous, to pursue him. Everybody knows how his best friend feels about her.' So I couldn't. People would say I was toying with his heart.
In the end though, it was with he I shared a heart. Because I saw you that day in History. You Looked at Remus, and I knew it was hopeless. I didn't just guess, or assume, or consider; I knew. I had known you well enough in my own way for some time to know what was going on. That's not to say I didn't continue to love you for many months, perhaps even a year to come. Eventually I just realized it was pointless. It didn't matter how much I loved you, I knew I would always be the only one, the only one, to ever be a part of 'our' relationship. So I moved on.
It was so hard, and it made it so much harder that I had to see you every day when I was with him. I've already say that, I know, but it doesn't matter how many times I say it, because it will never be enough to explain how difficult it really was. It made me feel like I had betrayed you, which was obviously stupid. It made me feel like I didn't know where to go. It should have been clear, you were Off Limits, but that didn't even matter every time I saw you.
Eventually the task became less and less painful, until one day I realized that I could talk to you and not imagine What Could Have Been. I could just talk to you like (I hope) friends do. Were we friends though? I had once loved you with all my heart, it seems like that would make a good case as to whether or not I could at least be friends with you. But I could never tell if you were giving as much to our friendly relationship as I was contributing to it. In our relationships, time after time, I was always the one giving. It's going to be rather exhausting if you never lend a hand. I can't provide for the both of us. Some day you're going to have to give a little too.
But maybe you're waiting too. And I know; I'm the only one who wasn't blind. I know who you're waiting for. I know how it feels to be the only one in a 'relationship;' I'm the only one, who knows how you feel. I understand what it feels like to wait for your love to be answered by the man you pour you heart out onto. I did the same for you; I will always be doing it for you. I will always be waiting.