**Please be kind, I’m terrified of anyone being doxxed.**

10+ years ago, I had a brief, intense relationship with a fledgling writer. He was my first love, and the only person (to this day) that I’ve ever said “I love you” to. His response was… underwhelming: “It’s not like you’re the only one.”

Cue lifetime of fearful-avoidant attachment and thousands of dollars in therapy.

The relationship ended because, in addition to a huge geographic distance, there was also a sizeable age difference and, at the time, a humongous disparity in life experience. We continued to be very close friends. However, I remained secretly in love with him, even as we moved forward in our lives/work/other relationships.

He became a successful screenwriter and wrote one of the massive Marvel films. I went to see it right away, of course. I sent him a pic of me with the ticket stub, and he had a meltdown. “Oh god, please don’t go. Don’t go see it. It’s shit. Please just turn around.” It was a bizarre response, but I figured he was just a mess due to typical opening weekend anxiety.

The movie was as fun as any bajillion-dollar franchise could be. Not generally my cup of tea, but I was so proud of him. Until several minutes in, when a female character appeared.

Lo and behold, the romantic interest - with all her physical attributes, quirks and backstory - was exactly like me. Even the origin of the her relationship with the protagonist was uncannily similar to the night we met. Exchanges I’ve had with him were used verbatim.

He’d never warned me about this, and I felt blindsided. It was a surreal and bewildering experience. It was also, via the mega stars playing our proxies, the most explicit confession of the depth and profundity of his feelings for me. I am probably the only person to sob through the duration of a fucking superhero flick. I left the cinema in a state of shock, and never told anyone, or even him, that I recognized myself, and us, in the movie.

A long, long time passed before, on a boozy phone call, I finally asked him. “\[She\] was based on me, wasn’t she?” His eloquent response: “Well, *duh*.”

In the intervening years, he has written additional movies, and is much more open about using me as inspiration for other characters. I guess that makes me a “muse,” which is flattering, if a bit weird. We continue to talk almost daily, but remain based in very distant cities with very different lives.

Recently we saw one another in person for the first time since before the Marvel film debuted. We went out for drinks. I made a stupid joke, and apropos of seemingly nothing, and after over a decade of repressed emotion, he said it: “I love you.”

I always imagined hearing him finally say it would cause some invisible orchestra to swell and all life's problems would be solved and we’d ride off into the sunset on some horse that’d conveniently be standing there, ready to go, on a city block, but it was actually quite calm.

“It’s not like you’re the only one,” I said.

I realized I’ve always sort of known he’s loved me. We’ve loved one another for a long, long time.