Time...

We hugged, hold one another tightly. I lost myself in the scent of his body, stroked the back of his head, his hair, and I could hear him groan in pleasure, and feel my bulge against his.

We hugged, I closed my eyes and wished that moment would last,  would come as  naturally as it always has felt... There is nothing more addictive, nothing more empowering to be in his embrace, to feel his hands and arm wrapped around my body. I may hug other people, for I love hugs and giving them, but hugging him is different. It draws out feelings, memories, and even tears. It fills me with such strength, such courage, and brings me to the here and now as well as a deep meditation could.

We stood in the office, arms locked around one another for several minutes. I felt him smell me, pull me in close and hold me closer. With eyes closed, I felt his breathing, smelt his breath. suddenly, admittedly though half expecting it, wanting it, I felt his lips on mine. Ever so gently, ever so softly, our lips touched and there was a spark of electricity. It felt like the first kiss, soft, true, intimate.

Earlier he had written to me, about how he broke into tears alone when he discovered a card I had written to him. Not just cards, but there are many notes, messages, scribbles and smileys I have left behind at his place. He wrote how much he appreciated them, appreciated my presence in his life, and how he is confused why he could not want to have something so special. It is frustrating, he said, to know that there is so much potential between us, but the timing and the circumstances are all wrong...

I was touched by his message, and later was touched by how he had bought a lovely teddy bear for me accompanied with lovely messages inside.

I wrote back, have been wanting to do that since I had that chance to get away and be not around him. As much as I don't want to, my mind tells me I need some time and distance from him. It's best for him, especially as he wants to resolve his feelings for the other person, to move on and to forget about me and what we had. It's best for me, because I'm afraid of being more hurt...

I said i don't know now how I should behave and interact with him, now that we are broken up. What do you do when you were first friends who became lovers an then break up? Do you go back to being friends, just friends just like that? I don't know, I've never had to deal with it, and I may be so naive in this way...

I would like that closeness, that friendship, that intimacy. But it hurts us both, hinders both our abilities to move on. And I told him I am not sure, at least in the near future, whether I can face him should he and the other boy get back together. I do wish he can rediscover the happiness and purity of emotions he found with the other person, because he deserves that after what I have put him through... But for my own (selfish!) sake, I'm not sure if I can deal with that, at least not at this moment. Especially with my tight schedules for the coming months, and the lingering troubles surrounding mum's health.

Am I such a terrible friend because I want distance, because I want time and space to protect my own skin and salvage every bit of my being I'm struggling to hold   together? I don't know, and I don't know what he felt after reading my message. Was he disappointed in me, because he has always been able to differentiate being friends and being in love with me?  He has always been there for me first an foremost as a friend, and he has alwad wished me happiness despite it being painful for him to see me go on dates. Why am I unable to do that? is it because i'm so petty and so concerned about my own feelings above all else? Is it because I don't want to feel that pain, that dee deep cut when he told me how much he feels for the other person, how much he wants to be with him, even during the time we were together?

I need to heal, to mourn, to get past all this, but  I do not wish to push him away, do not wish to create unnecessary distance between us or put our strong, beautiful friendship into jeopardy... I love him still, care about him much, and cannot easily get him out of my mind, even though I am unsure at times whether these feelings are mutual. If they aren't, I must dilute them, make them fade and eventually disappear.  If all that remains out of all this is a solid, solid friendship for life, then so be it. And if we are really meant to be together, if we are really so compatible and feel so deeply for one another, then one day perhaps we will come together again.

But I need time, I need space. And we both need the time and space apart to perhaps realise how much we mean for one another, how much we care about and love one another, if that.