Tell them how you feel, you may regret it if you wait. (no one died)

To preface I've heard the advice just work on yourself in the meantime, im still processing things maybe time will lead to something else. This just really sucks, It was my first time for everything and we I didn't even feel I got to do fun relationship things

I recently had to go no contact with someone as I was stuck in this space of liking their friendship and them as a person but deep down I know I wanted more and it would hurt to stay talking to them. It's been about 4 years since we first discussed potentially going on a date, I was scared then of making things weird between us even though we didn't really talk much outside of text. We then finally went on a date about 9 months ago after matching on dating apps "as a joke" one too many times, we stayed in touch every once in a while. Ill be the first to admit the date wasn't perfect. After originally agreeing to the 2nd one she later went back on that saying we clicked better as friends. One thing I loved about us is we are very open with eachother most of the time. That was my first date ever and I was like hey you got any pointers, I was hoping this would work out but I was thinking it might not. (btw dont fist bump them at the end I was panicking on my first date ever).

a few months ago an arrangement of fwb came to be. She said I don't think I'm in the headspace for a comitted relationship, I just took this as keeping it casual, great 2 months, we had a couple normal dates to get comfortable with eachother as we didn't see eachother much after highschool and didn't want to jump the gun. towards the end I started feeling hey I don't want it to be this shallow anymore. just sex yknow. She was talking about how she was stressed about graduating college and she said hey Im not sure if want to do this to the extent we've been doing this anymore. I had a few chances to bring up my feelings but I wanted to wait till she graduated so she was less stressed. I brought of stuff from when we were seeing eachother ocassionally, not pushing for anything new but you know stuff happened, that's when she says she's been seeing someone else and she's happy and doesn't want any boundaries crossed. I told her my feelings the next day and she said if I had told her that definitely would have changed things but things have gone in a different direction now. I went no contact for about a week or two but came back trying to be friends still but ultimately I was making her walk on eggshells and I would tell her I miss you a lot yada yada and I want to support you. Back to no contact hopefully I keep it for awhile. I don't think I should try in be in her life if I can't be that person, moping in her dms when she has already apologized is just digging a hole for me/ruining any chance of reconcilation in the future. I had chances to tell her earlier and now I feel I'm in the timeline where I fumbled her 3 times, I thought I had more time.

The last time she spoke she said she wanted to be done with it because she also thought it was shallow, this was both our time ever hooking up (I haven't had a relationship). We both didn't bring these feelings up to eachother because we both agreed to the hey we aren't dating. I really thought things were heading that direction, she told me how I've done things (nonsexual) that no one she was committed to did, talked to her friends about me. I thought the main thing I was lacking when we first went on a date, I was scared to be intimate, I thought I fixed that. It's just we had the same thought process and it handled them in different ways and god I wanted things to work out like they hadn't quite in the past few years. I'm also really really really hoping my brain is wired, oh you just miss the physical things you did and is manifesting all these other feelings to cope with it.

I've tried talking to other people there's no spark like with her though. she was a big part of my life for those few months and now it may never be the same, waiting for her to maybe break up feels like a trap with an indefinite end. I almost wish things ended on bad terms, she didn't wrong me super bad except for the fact I felt our arrangement completely ended and she moved on to someone else so quickly without much communication to me. It seems we felt the same way, and I may have missed my chance forever.