I love him...not?

How do you stop yourself from falling in love? How can you admit what most of us are too afraid to hear? How is it that in our most desperate times, we want to speak to the last person we ever thought could help?
I feel like I care more than I should. I feel like maybe “love” isn’t so bad after all. Yea, I’ve been hurt before. I’ve been in love before. This…this is different. It’s different because I can talk to him about anything. I can tell him how I’m feeling. When he asks me, “What are you thinking about?” I can tell him. He’s easy to talk to, easy to be with. I never feel shy or self-conscious around him. I have never really felt this way about anyone before; despite my past “loves”. He’s like my best friend, and I never felt that way with any other guy.
“Are you going to miss me tomorrow?” I ask, basking in his warmth as his arms wrap around me.
“What kind of question is that?” He replies, looking at me incredulously.
“Will you just answer it please?” I say raising my voice and laughing.
“OK, yes I will miss you tomorrow. Just like I’ll miss you the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that, until—“
“Until what? Until you get sick of me?” I ask turning my head so I can look at his eyes. God, they’re so beautiful, despite what he says.
“Yea, until I get sick of you. What’s wrong with you?” he says laughing.
I knew he was being sarcastic, so I laughed with him. I turn back to face the TV.
“Are you going to miss me tomorrow?” He asks, sounding like a little kid.
I smile and turn to look at him again. “More than you know.” I say and turn back to the TV.
“Um, no!” he says turning me back around. “What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing! Goodness! I’m trying to watch the movie!” I say and try to turn back. He’s got me in a hold; I can’t release myself.
“You’ll see it in a minute. Tell me what you mean by, ‘more than you know’!”
I try to come up with something. But I can’t lie to him, it’s too hard. I have to tell him.
“I just meant…well, you see it’s just…I just meant that I think about you way more than you realize.” I say blushing. Good thing it’s dark in here, I think to myself.
“Mhm. And? I know there’s more.” He says smiling.
“Well…I want to be able to talk about you at school. I want to be able to go to my friends on Monday and say, ‘I had such an amazing day on Saturday! I was with…’ and be excited and have them be excited for me and I want to tell them that you kissed me and it was so great and so magical-well not magical, that sounds cheesy, but you get the idea.” I say, almost out of breath.
“So why can’t you?”
I bite my lip. “Remember at my Christmas party? How all my friends sort of…turned against me? Because I was dancing with you? And you kissed me? Yea well they haven’t forgotten it. All my friends at school hate you, and I can’t stand it! I wanted to talk about you so much, I created an alternate you.”
“An ‘alternate me’?” He looks confused.
“Yea, you know, kind of like an ‘alter ego’ type thing. To them, you’re not Esteban; you’re ‘Mystery Man’. No name, just some guy I supposedly met a few weeks ago. It kills me, you have no idea.”
“Mystery Man? Hmm…sounds sort of…sexy, don’t you think?” he’s smiling.
I can’t help but laugh. “Yea, it is. The ‘air of mystery’, as I call it.” I sigh.
“Hey,” he says, and takes my face in his hand. “Look at me.” He says, and I look in his eyes. “You shouldn’t care what they think.”
“I know but…” I start but he interrupts.
“No, ‘but’ nothing. If you want to talk about me, then just talk about me. It’s your life, not theirs.”
I know he’s right, but I can’t bring myself to think about that. They are just too important to lose over a guy. Even if they don’t really have a reason to hate him. Although they’d probably be mad at me considering I told all of them I didn’t like him anymore. I even went as far as to say they didn’t know him, because that was the first question they’d asked: “Do we know him?”
“It’s just…I can’t have them mad at me. If they found out, I’d be mad at myself for not telling them in the first place, but mostly I’d just be sad because…the one guy I really care about is someone they don’t want anything to do with.” I say. I look up at him again, only to realize he’s looking at me intently.
“What?” I say, suddenly uncomfortable.
He shakes his head, and says, “Nothing. It’s nothing. Look if you don’t want to tell them, that’s your problem. Just, uh, don’t let it slip.” And he laughs.
“Are you making fun of me??” I say, but I’m laughing too.
“Of course not!” and then he takes my face in his hands and kisses me, long and hard.
The thing is, no matter how hard you try, you can’t help but fall in love. We are all just human. We can’t control emotions. But I’m confused; do I love him or not? I think about him all the time, and when we’re together…it’s indescribable. I just can’t find the courage to admit-even to myself-that I might love him.
So…I love him, or I love him not?