I never meant to tell him. The words were supposed to stay locked inside me forever, buried so deep that even I could forget they existed. But tequila has a way of turning secrets into confessions, and loneliness has a way of making you reckless. "I'm in love with you, Cameron." Five words. That's all it took to destroy eight years of friendship. I remember the way his eyes widened, how the bottle of beer he'd been holding slipped slightly in his grip. We were sitting on my apartment floor at two in the morning, surrounded by empty takeout containers and the remnants of what was supposed to be a casual Friday night. He'd come over after another failed date, complaining about how the girl didn't get his humor, didn't understand him the way— The way I did. He always said that. "You just get me, you know?" Like it was simple. Like it didn't tear me apart every single time. The silence after my confession stretched for what felt like hours but was probably only seconds. I couldn't look at him. Couldn't bear to see the pity or disgust or awkward discomfort that I knew would be written across his face. This was it. This was how I lost my best friend. "Fuck," he whispered. I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the rejection, the gentle letdown, the "I love you but not like that" speech I'd rehearsed hearing a thousand times in my head. Instead, his hand cupped my jaw, tilting my face toward his. "Fuck, Riley. Finally." Then his mouth was on mine. It wasn't gentle. It wasn't tentative. It was desperate and hungry and tasted like beer and bad decisions. His fingers tangled in my hair as he pulled me closer, and I melted into him like I'd been waiting my whole life for this moment—which, honestly, I had. We stumbled to my bedroom, shedding clothes along the way, leaving a trail of fabric breadcrumbs that marked the path of our destruction. Or maybe our salvation. I couldn't tell the difference anymore. That night, Cameron touched me like he was memorizing every inch of my skin. Like he couldn't get enough. Like he'd been starving for this just as long as I had. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?" he murmured against my neck, his breath hot and ragged. I didn't have an answer. Or maybe I had too many answers. Because I was scared. Because I couldn't risk losing him. Because some part of me always knew that once we crossed this line, there would be no going back. When I woke up the next morning, sunlight streaming through my curtains, I expected to find him gone. Expected a awkward text or worse—complete radio silence. That's how these things always went in the movies, right? But Cameron was still there, his arm draped across my waist, his face peaceful in sleep. My heart did a stupid, hopeful flip. Then he opened his eyes. For a moment, we just stared at each other. I waited for him to say something. Anything. To define what we were now, to acknowledge that everything had changed. "I should get going," he said instead. "I've got that thing with Marcus at noon." He kissed my forehead—my forehead, like I was his sister or something—and left. I spent the entire weekend spiraling, analyzing every text he sent (casual, friendly, completely devoid of any reference to Friday night), convincing myself it had been a mistake. That he'd been drunk too, caught up in the moment, and now regretted everything. But then Sunday night came. I was already in bed, trying to distract myself with a book I wasn't actually reading, when I heard it. A soft knock at my door. The kind of knock that said I know it's late, but please let me in. I opened the door to find Cameron standing there in sweatpants and a hoodie, his hair messy, his eyes dark with something I couldn't quite name. "Hey," he said softly. "Hey." We stood there for a moment, the air between us charged with unspoken questions. "Can I come in?" I stepped aside, and he walked past me, his familiar cologne making my head spin. He didn't head to the living room like he normally would. Instead, he went straight to my bedroom. I followed, my heart hammering against my ribs. He turned to face me, and without a word, his hands found my waist, pulling me close. His lips crashed into mine with the same desperate intensity as Friday night, and I was lost. We fell into bed together, and this time, there was no alcohol to blame it on. This was a choice. A conscious, sober decision. Afterward, as we lay tangled in my sheets, I waited for him to say something. To explain what this was. To give me any indication of where his head was at. But he just held me close, pressing kisses to my shoulder, and eventually fell asleep. He left before dawn. No explanation. No "let's talk about this." Just a kiss and a whispered "I'll text you later." This became our pattern. During the day, we were the same as we'd always been. Best friends. We'd meet for coffee, send each other memes, complain about work. He'd tell me about the girls who hit on him at the gym, and I'd pretend it didn't feel like a knife twisting in my gut. But at night—at night, he was mine. He'd show up at my door after midnight, sometimes with takeout, sometimes with just that look in his eyes that made my knees weak. We'd barely make it to the bedroom before we were tearing each other's clothes off, desperate and hungry and completely unable to stay away from each other. We'd have sex—mind-blowing, earth-shattering sex that left me breathless and aching—and then we'd talk for hours about everything and nothing. He'd trace patterns on my skin while telling me about his day, and I'd play with his hair while recounting some ridiculous thing my coworker said. It felt like a relationship. It felt like more than friendship. It felt like everything I'd ever wanted. Except we never talked about what it actually was. I tried, once. After he'd spent the entire night at my place on a Wednesday, after he'd made me breakfast in the morning (shirtless, devastatingly beautiful in my kitchen), after he'd kissed me goodbye like it was the most natural thing in the world. "Cameron, what are we doing?" He'd frozen, his hand on the doorknob. For a long moment, he didn't turn around. "I don't know," he finally said. "But I can't stay away from you." Then he left, and I didn't bring it up again. Because the truth was, I was terrified. Terrified that if I pushed for a label, for a definition, for anything concrete, he'd realize this was a mistake and disappear. At least this way, I got to have him, even if it was only in the dark. Even if it was only in secret. My friends started noticing something was different. My roommate, Jade, cornered me one morning after Cameron had snuck out at dawn. "Are you going to tell me what's going on, or do I have to guess?" she asked, her arms crossed, one eyebrow raised. "Nothing's going on." "Riley. I've heard him leave at five in the morning three times this week. Either you're running a very specific escort service, or you and Cameron finally got your shit together." I couldn't meet her eyes. "It's complicated." "Complicated how? You love him. He's clearly into you. What's complicated about that?" Everything, I wanted to say. Everything is complicated when the person you love won't acknowledge what you are in the daylight.