I think I might be in love w/ my best friend.

I (16nb) have known my best friend (17f) since we were in grade 1, let's call her Apple. We're both now in grade 12 and she means everything to me. Apple has been my closest friend all throughout my school years and even when we went to different schools in grade 9 and 10, nothing changed. She now goes to the same school as me so I get to see her everyday again.

Me and Apple have a very...flirty dynamic. You know when you have that one friend that you're "married to" type thing. We have the kind of energy that makes people feel like they're third wheeling. We're also both very clingy/touchy people (or at least when it comes to eachother) so it's never been weird for her to be sitting on my lap or for us to be holding hands down the hallway. We joke about matching for prom (I say joke but there is definitely a corsage plan in the making) and doing a promposal and we have matching bracelets that both of us wear like everyday.

I can't imagine a life without her. She's been with me through everything. My friend group has been going through a lot of drama recently and in all situations, as long as I'm friends with Apple I know I'm going to be okay. Obviously, I love my friends in general, they been with me through a lot of ups and downs but with her it's different. There's very little I wouldn't do for her, the idea of hurting her in any way makes me so scared.

I didn't start to think that this might not be platonic until recently. I've always considered that if I had to date anyone in the friend group it would be Apple, I thought that was a casual thought though but now I don't know. I'm constantly looking forward to next interactions, the flirting feels real. But I can't tell if it's me searching for romance in my senior year or genuine.

I've like never posted on Reddit so I don't even know if this would be the right subreddit... I just made this account to ask if something like this has ever happened to anyone else and like...what did you do? How did you know?