The trouble is you think you have time. For instance, you always think one day you’ll tell her. Not now. Not when it’s so inconvenient. not when it could make things weird. Not if it means losing her. Not if it could make her uncomfortable. not if it could worry her. Not when it could cost you a lifetime of friendship, her kindness, that ease you love about her. and her lovely face, the way she lights up a room. Not when she’s your favourite kind of magic. You won’t tell her now, but maybe later, when you’ve introduced her to all your friends and her friends don’t think you’re weird. When you’re not invasive, not out of place. Just a friend. Maybe one day you’ll introduce her to someone, or she’ll let you meet them, the kind of someone who makes her feel everything she deserves, who gives her all she needs, a handful of rings and a fistful of diamonds kind of love people write about it. Perhaps, as the years go by, you’ll wonder if you could tell her. but it’s not so important anymore. And you lose touch, and hear one day that she got married to that person, that magic person. They post pictures of their honeymoon hiking across the Andes. So you won’t tell her then, either, but instead thread the memories of loving her into that tapestry of fondness, of the things that kept you alive and hopeful, the things that kept you wanting to be better. You’ll write about it, tell someone else as you stroke their hair by the sea. Another friend, maybe, to watch get married to somebody else. And you’ll tell them, that maybe you loved her, loved the fantasy and her enough to know that you didn’t want to risk losing her by loving her wrong. About how you walked home from that rainy café thinking of how you would brew her chamomile tea—anything she wanted. How when you sat next to her you stretched away from her but all you wanted to do was hold her close, her lovely lovely shoulders. How at choir you only wanted her to stand closer, and lean into you, and you imagined swaying, like that, in a kitchen alone. You will tell her that you always held back, but that you loved her, maybe, after all, but it all flew by and the trouble was you still think you have time.