You know: I never could fully believe you were in love with me too except during those specific moments when you made it known. Seriously.

I still am not 100% convinced.

We had a unique and special bond. Eventually you realized that it was not like other Uncle-Niece bonds. (I call it mutual attraction.) How to define it, you wondered? And then you saw that it looked a lot like how couples typically behave. Only, we were doing it perfectly genuinely, without a label.

So it was a mutual crush, only we couldn't date since we were family. That was enough of an explanation at the time for us to still have the bond, but not be burdened by the question of how to define it.

But then you discovered by accident one night that I was in love with you.

More than a crush; now a thing.

To me, there was some other element that made it more Real. Somehow.

"You're getting the wrong idea about this," you said.

"Am I?" I replied. "Okay."

When we woke up the next day, something was different between us. But, not worse.

The next time I saw you after that, you were treating me like your boyfriend. I knew that occasionally you had other boyfriends, probably. You went to school after all.

But they didn't compare to me; they never lasted long and you barely knew them. There wasn't any chemistry.

You didn't lay, limbs interlocked, and listen to each other's pulse. It wasn't the same.

With me, there was some other element that made it more Real. Somehow.

And, you would catch me off guard with sudden sexual advances which you must have known I would never agree to.

"But we should," you said.

"No," I said. "We shouldn't."

You never asked why we shouldn't. I assumed it was clear, like why we couldn't date.

"But, you don't choose who you like so it's not wrong."

"It's what other people would think."

"What does it matter what other people think, if you know you're right?"

"You make a good point; except I don't know I'm right. I just feel very strongly about it."

But, you didn't stop the advances, regardless of how I would protest.

Maybe there was something about our love that you didn't fully believe. Maybe, like me, you forgot when we were apart. Maybe, like me, you felt that our times together were more like dreams than reality. Another place altogether. Heaven, maybe.

Maybe.

It was the same unique and special thing as before, now reconciled with idea of mutual attraction - which you hadn't previously understood, at least not in the sense I mean it.

Then, you hadn't made the connection between this specific type of feeling and the notion of being in love. Now you had, apparently, made such a connection; as well as, additionally, some connection between that type of feeling, and the notion of being in love, and the notion of sex.

We both wanted it to be, but knew it wasn't supposed to be; and yet, it was; and yet, it was not: so was it?

You knew how stressed I was.

You knew what your parents would think if they found out. What anyone would think, for that matter.

You tried to be open with me around your friends.

I tried to be open with you around my friends.

We tried to make the "thing", whatever it was, work; we both wanted it to last. We both felt sad that someday, it might come to an end. But, neither of us thought it would be this soon.

"Don't tell my parents," you begged.

"Promise me you won't tell them," you demanded.

I complied. "I can't tell them. I won't. I promise."

What would I even tell? Where would I even begin?

When other members of our family had negative impressions of our relationship such that they felt compelled to call me up, and threaten to call your parents up and openly call me a pedophile and the "thing" we had - whatever - abuse... yes: I ultimately broke.

There is no truer way to phrase what I did: I broke; I had a nervous break, and then I broke your trust and devalued every promise to you I ever made by telling them.

And that makes me want to kill myself.

The morally correct thing to do would have been to keep our secret.

I don't deserve you.

I didn't tell them about any of the specific things you did; but, I told them I was a pedophile, I eventually told them I was in love with you, and I eventually did tell them that I had begun to infer from various things that you would say and do that you might in fact feel the same.

I never could keep my mouth shut. And, finally, you paid the price.

Our family should have remained blissfully ignorant.

I should have trusted you.

I shouldn't blame you now if you don't trust me. How could you?

Your private love affair has been publicly decimated. Yours.

Mine too, yes.

But... you didn't make the executive decision; so you suffer in ignorance.

Sunshine, put a bullet in my skull.

Anything would be better than this: I know.

~ Rbl