I loved you. I have and will continue to love you. You have always been special to me. But something has changed.

I loved you. I loved you and everyone knew. I screamed it from the rooftops, I whispered it to you, sitting next to me.

This wasn't a romantic love, a love full of lust or want. The way I love (loved?) you is full of promise. Full of want, possibly, but a want to see you happy. A want for friendship, more solid than anything.

You said you loved me. You said it and the whole world knew it, but I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it because no matter what you said, your actions didn't match.

To love someone means to care for them, to think about them. I am sure I was not thought of until the moments when I reached out to you.

I think of you often. Every day there are things that I see that I think would interest you. I am always wondering if you are doing okay.

As often as I think of you, I don't reach out. I can't reach out. I don't think you love me because you don't reach out. Sometimes, I say I'll give it one more chance, one more time of me being the one to initiate a conversation, and then I wait for you to initiate contact. I wait and there is nothing. I wait and feel miserable about myself.

As I wait, I think of those times that you said you loved me, few and far between. Even less often are the times that you showed that you might care. As I wait, I think it might not be so bad, and I, once again, say I will give it one more chance and reach out.

I have hoped that something would change, that possibly we could remain in love, remain friends. Every day that passes seems to be saying that that is not possible. Are you so infatuated with what's around you that you cannot remember what you used to care for so deeply? Am I to wait until you remember me, remember that I am here?

I suppose I will. There will always be a link between us. Even as I may move forward in my life, there will be a connection, a string of something, tying our two lives together. When you do remember that I, too, need to be loved, that I deserve attention, I will still be there. Not in the same way, but I will be there.

You can't really love someone and then forget them, life is rarely that kind. So, I have loved you, I do love you, and I will attempt to forget. If I cannot forget, at least I try to not remember. But, I will remember. In those moments when I am just on the crest of sleep, I will remember your smile, those times that I put it there, think of who can make you smile now. In the moments when I have been so wound up by anxiety, when I feel like I am about to explode, I will remember the times that you could ground me. I will think of the hugs that somehow managed to keep all of my pieces together, if at least for a short while.

I will remember you, and I will love you, my friend.