I'm in love with my long lost best friend.

He was my best friend. My very own well-wisher, who was my neighbour for 12 years. He left to Kerala when his father had to transfer jobs. When he was around, the teenage me did not realise that what we had was love. I didn't even consider him to be anyone special, beyond being my best friend and neighbour. I feel embarrassed now to remember that I even dated other boys and used to tell him about my dates. He would then simply smile sweetly and reply with whatever I needed to hear at that time. He had also dated a number of girls at that time, many of them being my schoolmates or our tuition friends and had asked me to be his wingman when he flirted with them.

Neither my parents nor his were religious or conservative, so our inter-religious, boy-girl friendship did not worry them.

When he left, he took a part of me. At 17, I did not know that what I had felt was love, but I remember feeling extremely empty and incomplete when he left. We promised to keep in touch, but that never happened. I don't remember why I didn't even make the first move to reconnect. Since I am a happy-go-lucky girl, I have always made new friends easily. However, no one can ever replace him. When I entered college, thoughts about him were always haunting me. I wasn't able to date because I didn't have my best friend to advise me on my next move. Years passed and I got into an IT profession just as I dreamt.

A colleague of mine, who was also my family friend, proposed to me.

Since my parents really liked him, we got engaged just after 2 months of knowing each other and we are to get married by the end of this year. Two months ago, I was sent to a training session as part of my job profile and guess who was my trainer? Yes, it was my long lost best friend. I didn't recognise him in the beginning.

The boy, who once looked so thin, with a pimpled face had changed into a handsome hunk.

He was my trainer and when the MC introduced him, his name rang a bell. We spoke over lunch that day and caught up with most of what we had missed out on in each others' lives. I say 'most' because we didn't disclose everything to each other, as we had done in the past.

You know the feeling when you meet someone that you knew very well after many years, only to realise that you don't really know that person as well as you thought.

That was exactly what we felt. I didn't disclose anything about my fiance and he didn't disclose anything about his marriage. The training was a five-day programme and we talked to each other whenever we got the chance. That was when it felt like old times. As we were staying in a hotel, I knew that his room a couple of floors above mine. As we were not sharing rooms with anyone, we even visited each other's rooms to chat and one thing led to another. The last night at the hotel, I willingly gave myself to him. I was not a virgin but I felt my body burning under his touch and I did not want him to stop.

It was at that moment that I realised that I loved him and I wanted him very much.

I cried when I returned to my room, but it was not out of shame, but because I loved him. On our last day of training, I packed my things early, in order to leave right after training ended. I didn't want to see him, as I didn't know how to face him, especially since I was another man's fiance. Luckily, I didn't meet him during the last day of training as my team was taken over by another trainer. He wasn't there even during the farewell lunch. This made me curious about his whereabouts, so I went up to his room, to check up on him. He was a complete mess. He was trying to pack his things and was shoving everything around in the room. We argued for a moment about his disposition. He said that he regretted the night before and apologised for everything. I couldn't remember much of our conversation because I was crying so badly.

Both of us opened up to each other, him about his marriage and me about my engagement.

We decided to carry on with our lives by forgetting whatever happened between us during this 5-day training period. We promised to keep in touch but we lost touch with each other again. I broke off my engagement and hence, I'm writing this story now.

To be honest, I still love my best friend, but I only wish for him to be happy, even if it is without me in the picture.

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