Love Lost: #1

Not the first, and not the last, but one that still feels a shame, even after the passing of nearly ten years. He was my housemate and we met the day he moved in, about a week before the rest of the house came back after the summer. We danced like idiots to Infected Mushroom, and discovered that he'd been responsible for getting me shot in the boob at paintball the previous summer. The connection was instant, we knew each other immediately. Some people are simultaneously easy and exciting to know. That was us. Not in a sexual way, so far as I understood it. But we were best friends, we held each other semi-clothed watching cartoons in our hangovers, we loved each other and held no notable secrets. We occasionally slept together, just sharing a bed, nothing more, wrapped around each other, happy and peaceful. Not exciting, not excited, but there was peace, affection. We occasionally kissed. He always brightened my day. We talked about everything and anything.
It changed a little after University, but we were still close and we still talked all the time, and saw each other a lot. I never thought anything of it, but friends, family have subsequently commented on how close we were. Apparently we were "all over each other" in public, though it never felt like that, it was just natural to have our arms about each other in some way. But it wasn't like that. He had a girlfriend, and I was the flake I've always been. When I eventually moved back to Manchester, we spoke nearly every day.
The end came when I went to visit him one St Patrick's Day, many moons ago. Eight hours on a bus melted into nothing when I saw my best friend. Everything was the same, so easy, so happy. There was everything to talk about and talking about nothing, just as it always was. We walked arms around waist without a second thought on the way to book a restaurant for him and his girlfriend, who was visiting the night after. We made dinner; I was sceptical about wrapping bacon around a chicken breast in turn wrapped around half a banana, but it is still possibly the best chicken recipe I've ever tasted. And then we went out and got drunker and drunker. After many pubs, and even more beers, we ended up in a club where, no doubt due to my extremely short hair, I was getting a lot of attention from the ladies - short hair in West Country villages tends to elicit assumptions. Ever the gentleman, my friend pretended to be my boyfriend to alleviate this, but he was getting a little too into the role. I thought this was drunkenness, and didn't put too much store by it, but as we were stumbling home, wrapped around each other, he kept telling me he loved me. I assumed in the way I loved him, and kept saying "I love you too". But he wasn't. I pretended to misunderstand, safe in the knowledge that we'd get back, I'd pass out on the sofa and it would be back to normal in the morning. But we got back, and Peter Parker was asleep on the sofa. No pseudonyms here, he was actually called Peter Parker. Peter Parker, asleep, in a living room with a massive spider in a tank in the corner. So we bunked in. And he made a move, and I said no, you're drunk, you have a girlfriend, and you'll thank me in the morning. For a while he was quite insistent that I was wrong, but eventually he passed out. The next day was awkward, though we both professed it wasn't. And for me it wasn't. Not really. But after a fairly reserved, polite morning, I got on my bus. And we never spoke again. He married his girlfriend. I did the right thing. I lost my best friend. Once or twice I wondered if I should have behaved differently. But even though we were so much to each other, we weren't that. We never would have been that and for all I miss my friend, and will miss him until the end of days, we weren't that. Both of us very sexual people, but never a glimmer with each other. At least not for me. I loved the time I lived with my best friend, but it's a different sort of love, a different sort of intimacy, and if I'd acted differently that day I'd have been opening myself up to the possibility of settling for less than everything, to be happyish, but never quite happy enough. I will miss you forever.