I Always Thought I Was Straight Until I Moved In With My Best Friend. Now Our Landlord Is Kicking Us Out And I Have To Decide. Should I Tell Him How I Feel Before We Lose Everything?

The Big Question

He says he needs to know if I want to keep living with him or if I’d rather get my own place. The way he asks makes it clear there’s a much bigger question underneath. He’s asking if I want to keep doing this.

Whatever this is between us. If I want to keep pretending nothing is happening or if I want something to actually happen. I tell him I can’t imagine living anywhere else. That living with him has been the best part of my year.

He smiles, but it’s not the smile I was hoping for. There’s something sad in it. Like my answer wasn’t quite what he wanted to hear.

He nods and says, “That’s good,” and goes back to scrolling through apartment listings.

I watch him for a minute trying to figure out what I said wrong, but then my phone buzzes with another work email and the moment passes. We spend the rest of the night looking at places in silence. Every apartment feels wrong somehow. Too expensive or too far away or too small.

By midnight, we’ve both closed our laptops without finding anything. He says good night and disappears into his room. I lie in bed staring at the ceiling wondering why everything feels so complicated. A few days go by and nothing changes.

6 AM Confessions

We’re both weird around each other now. Careful, like we’re walking on glass. I wake up early one morning and can’t fall back asleep. It’s barely 6:00 and still dark outside. I get up to get water and find him already awake on the couch.

He’s looking at his phone with this expression I can’t read. When I ask if he’s okay, he jumps a little like he didn’t hear me come in. He puts his phone down and rubs his face. Says he barely slept. That he’s been overthinking everything.

I sit down next to him and ask what he means by everything. He laughs, but it sounds hollow. Says he doesn’t even know anymore. That things between us have gotten so weird and he doesn’t know how to fix it.

I tell him I know what he means. That I’ve been feeling it too. He looks at me then, and I can see how tired he is. There are circles under his eyes.

He says, “I miss when things felt easy between us. When we could just hang out without all this tension.”

I tell him I missed that too. But then I hear myself adding that I don’t want to go back. The words just come out. He turns to face me fully. Asks what I mean by not wanting to go back.

My mouth goes completely dry. I can feel my pulse in my throat. I realize I’ve backed myself into having to explain something I don’t even understand myself. I start talking before I can stop myself.

Taking a Chance

I tell him I’ve been questioning a lot of things about myself lately. Things I always thought I had figured out. He stays quiet and just lets me talk. I can see him processing what I’m trying to say. His eyes don’t leave my face.

I keep going even though every word feels clumsy. Tell him that I’ve never really thought about being with a guy before. That it never crossed my mind as something I’d want. But lately, I can’t stop thinking about being with him specifically.

Not guys in general. Just him. The words come out awkward and wrong, but at least they’re finally out there. He’s quiet for a long time, just sitting there looking at me. Then he asks if I’m sure I’m not just confused or lonely.

His voice is careful, like he’s afraid of the answer. But I can hear something else underneath. Hope maybe. Or fear. Probably both. I tell him I’ve thought about that. Wondered if maybe I was just making things up in my head because we spend so much time together.

But it doesn’t feel like that. What I feel for him is different from any friendship I’ve ever had. I’ve never wanted to kiss a friend before. Never stayed awake thinking about someone’s hands or their voice or the way they laugh.

I tell him I’ve never been more sure of anything, even though it scares me. He reaches for my hand. His fingers slide between mine, and suddenly we’re holding hands. Just sitting there on the couch holding hands while the sun starts coming up outside.

No More Pretending

Neither of us says anything else, but we don’t need to. The silence feels different now. Not tense or awkward. Just quiet. Eventually, he leans his head on my shoulder like he did that night on the couch. The night his mom called and interrupted everything.

I can feel him breathing. Feel the weight of him against me. We stay like that for a long time until the room gets bright with morning light and I can hear cars starting to drive by outside. Later that morning, he lifts his head and asks if we can talk about what this means for us.

I tell him yes. We both acknowledge we’re scared out of our minds about ruining our friendship. That what we have is too important to mess up. But we also can’t keep pretending nothing is happening. Can’t keep dancing around each other and leaving things unsaid.

He asks what I want. I tell him I want to try. Want to see what this could be. He says he wants that too. Has wanted it for months. We sit there holding hands and making promises to be honest with each other. To take things slow. To protect our friendship no matter what happens.

I suggest we just see how this feels. That we don’t need to have everything figured out right now. He nods slowly and says that makes sense. Then he smiles a little and points out we’re already living together. That’s not exactly taking things slow.

I laugh because he’s right. We’ve been sharing a home for months already. We’ve seen each other at our worst. Morning breath and sick days and bad moods. If we were going to mess this up, we probably would have done it by now.