I’ve always found my best friend, Ben, beautiful. But then again, most people do. Hot, sexy, gorgeous; whatever adjective you choose to call him, the meaning is the same.

Beautiful.

I first met Ben when I was 12 years old. Not yet a teenager and still in the stage where boys should be kept at least three feet away at all times. Cooties, and whatnot. But still, when I saw Ben for the first time the word beautiful flew through my head. He was the new boy in class, and we were instant friends. We spent all our time together. He’d come over to my place pretty much all the time; my mom used to joke that she should charge him for housing and feeding. We were both the token outcasts in school, so everybody pretty much left us alone. It’s not that we were un-popular, it’s just that neither of us really felt the need for more friends. We understood each other perfectly.

Most people expected us to become a couple. Each year we were voted \"most likely to date\". We always laughed it off, but I secretly wished that we would. Date, that is. I kind of had a crush on him. It wasn’t a mad, passionate crush; it was just kind of there, in the back of my head. I think it was so dormant because I knew, totally and completely knew that he’d never feel that way about me. He loved me as a friend, nothing less, nothing more. And in a way, I was glad. We were both so comfortable, so happy in our friendship that I wouldn’t want to change that for anything. I knew we would never work as a couple. We were great friends, but as lovers we’d end up killing each other. I’d cling too tightly to him and he’d constantly push me away, uncomfortable. That’s just how we were. So I was happy, being his friend.

Therefore I was never jealous whenever he went off with different girlfriends or occasional one-night-stands, because I was confident that he’d always love me more. Those girls could never mean as much to him as I did. They all found him beautiful, of course. And it wasn’t just a physical attractiveness about him, either. He had some kind of innate beauty, radiating out of his every pore. There was something deeply sexual about him, just the way he moved, talked, stood, anything. Beautiful.

When we were 18, he took my virginity. I’m not sure how that came about, exactly, it just sort of happened. We were both drunk, and I told him I didn’t want to go off to collage a virgin. He grinned at me and kissed me on the mouth, same as he’d done before a million times. Suddenly, I just asked him. He looked at me for a long time, and then agreed. I don’t remember as much of it as I’d like to, but I know that it was wonderful. I’m glad it was him, because he was the only one I’d trust to make it perfect. And he did. After that, things were kind of weird between us, for a while. My crush on him had increased in intensity, which is understandable, and I’m pretty sure he knew that. But we got over it, and were as close as ever.

Two years later, he met Thea. She started working at the diner we frequented to earn money for collage, and they hit it off right from the start. I didn’t understand it. He started paying less attention to other girls, spending all his time with her. Whenever I’d call he was either with her or on his way to her. It infuriated me like nothing else. She wasn’t even beautiful, not like him. Sure, she was pretty enough, but he was the beautiful one.

I felt like Thea was taking Ben away from me. It was irrational and crazy, but that’s how I felt. Even after I met a guy of my own I always felt, in the back of my mind, that Ben was ultimately mine.

They had a stormy relationship, probably because there was so much passion between them. And every time they broke up, there I was, trying to keep it that way, instead of trying to make Ben see what he was losing. But no matter what I did, they always got back together.

I was a horrible friend, I realize that now. I wanted Ben to be happy, but I wanted him to be happy with me. I never realized how much my crush on him grew after he met Thea. It was probably because for the first time, something was threatening my relationship with him.

Ben was still the most beautiful creature I’d ever set eyes on, and I wanted him for myself.

After a while, though, I managed to press those feeling down a bit, to make room for the love I felt for my own man. They were still there, only not in the foreground. I still couldn’t get why he was with Thea, and felt he’d be better off without her.

It’s first now, five years later and three days before my own marriage to the guy I love, that I get it.

Ben is beautiful.

But he’s never more beautiful than when he looks at Thea.