Everyone has that one best friend. The person you can tell anything and everything to, the one who’s always there, down for whatever crazy adventure you two decide to embark on. They know you better than anyone else. The circumstances may change, experiences differ, but one thing always seems to happen: you fall in love with them.

And why not? IT was bound to happen. They make you laugh and know your secrets. They’re the ones that you can call at all hours to pick you up from god knows where. They’re the ones who stay up all night with you when you have a major test to cram for and don’t want to be alone. They’re the ones who rub your back and hold your hands when you’re feeling low, and they’re the ones who never leave.

It’s the never leaving that you’re afraid of screwing up. You know them and they know you better than anyone could. They know your faults and weaknesses, everything that could make them not see you in the same light. They deserve someone wonderful, someone who’s always there for them. If you mess this up, they leave and that’s the end of you. Their leaving would destroy you.

So, you resort yourself to weekend-long trips and late movie nights. You share music and stories, and go stargazing and you try not to think about it but GOD. You hang on to the words that they say and you spin poetry out of the way that they light up when they talk about the stupid little things that have come to make your day. You drink together, laugh together, and, stupidly, make drunk decisions that demolish your resolve. You forget, just for a moment, that there’s nothing between the two of you. That nothing ever really was.

You sit shotgun and stick your hand out of the window while he plays your favorite song. You live for this, for night drives and belting indie lyrics. You grow to live for the heartbreak that happens every time without fail. You go anywhere and everywhere, do anything and everything. And, one day, it hits you like a freight train.

Maybe it’s the lyrics to that one song (I’m a little bit lost without you), or maybe it’s listening to their breathing while you both sit and think about what it means to be alive. You know it’s stupid, and you know this can’t lead to anything good, so you try to fight it. Then you realize that fighting it is almost harder. You wish you could just go back in time to the moment when you fell, just to tell yourself how stupid it is. But you can’t.

So you resort to poetry, music, and writing about it. You say you’ll distance yourself a bit, for the sake of your heart. (But you won’t.) And you’re doing so well, so much better, when it all happens over again. You’ll take one more late drive, you say. You give yourself “one more time” to give into it all.

But it’s never just one more time.