Eight years ago, when I was 16, I met a boy at a mutual friend's pool party. We were all sitting on a trampoline and he started talking about how he had seen The Offspring the night before. We started talking music and it wasn't long before I was smitten. He was a cute, kinda nerdy type that always wore punk t-shirts and had an affinity for writing fiction. A girl in one of my classes briefly dated him before we met, and told me he sent her an Alkaline Trio song that reminded him of her. I swooned. She thought it was creepy. It probably was, but whatever I was into it.

The boy and I became pretty close friends. We had a lot of the same taste in music and introduced each other to new bands and we went to the city together pretty often to see punk shows. The first time I knew I was in love with him was at a different party and he called out to me from across the backyard to yell about a Rage Against the Machine song that came on. Which sounds dumb, and it it, but I was 18 and a boy hadn't yet ruined my life, so my hopes were pretty high.

I never told him how I felt in high school. After graduation, he was set to leave the country for two years. I figured I'd get over him. After all, I was just a teenager. No one should start college dating anyone, and I was studying mathematics so I didn't really need the distraction.

We ended up writing each other. A lot. He had access to a computer once a week. We would send each other long emails, and occasionally write letters. I'd tell him about new music that came out and about my life at college, he'd tell me about life in Brazil. We'd send memes, photos, stories, pirated MP3s. He was my best friend.

During my freshman and sophomore year of college, I gained a lot of confidence, and guys started asking me out. I had gone on a couple dates, but I couldn't forget about the boy in Brazil. I ended up writing him a short email, telling him I liked him and asking if he ever saw us together. He said no, he didn't. He didn't have a reason, but he didn't see us together.

I still haven't known heartbreak that bad. I went home to my parents. I drank my first (and only) Portillo's cake shake. I cried for a long, long time. We still emailed and wrote letters, but I wasn't really the same. I told myself to get over him, and it took months to meet someone else.

I met my first long-term boyfriend my sophomore year of college. We would end up dating for almost four years and living together for two of those years.

I had been dating that boy for 11 months with the other boy came back from Brazil. I learned that he had told me he didn't see us together because he didn't want me to wait for him, even though he felt the same way. He told me as much while I was at a concert with my boyfriend.

I didn't want to give up a really good year I'd had with someone for someone else who had already hurt me once. So I stayed with that boyfriend. I stayed as he got abusive, I stayed as it turned into a long-distance relationship, I stayed when we lived together and when he slowly turned into something I didn't even recognize. I was so unhappy, but I was too afraid to leave.

That whole time, I was talking to the boy from high school. We'd get dinner sometimes and I wouldn't tell my boyfriend. We'd still go to shows together. We'd still talk and text and hang out. He met another girl, and I've hung out with her a few times as well. They've been together almost three years.

My boyfriend left me last May. He moved out while I was at work, took a bunch of my stuff, and more or less disappeared with no warning. I was angry, but I was also so relieved. Without him, I got my degree in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science. I got promoted at work. I started speaking at conferences. I moved into my dream apartment in the city. I started dancing. I joined an orchestra and picked the violin back up.

But I'm still hung up on the boy from high school. We still talk, a lot. We still hang out. Not often, as he's going to school kind of far away. But I'm still in love with him. I think I've always been in love with him.

And now he's dating this girl and I can't bring myself to tell him. It's too selfish of me to do. They've been together three years and I can't throw myself in the middle of that. I have no idea if he's happy or if he loves her. He never talks about her to me. He tells me he has dreams about me and that it looks like I'm doing really well now. We talk about music and TV and college. We talk about our dreams for the future, about the fact that we're both pretty depressed and anxious sometimes, and amazing things that are happening in our lives.

So, I'm getting it off my chest to someone because I can't get it off my chest to him. I will, someday. Maybe if they break up. Maybe when I'm ready to handle the fact that if he doesn't feel the same way, I can't be friends with him anymore. Someday, but not today.