Very bad Will-They/Won't-They Dynamic with my (Best?) Friend and I'm not sure what to do, if anything, about it.

Basically we go over and back between almost getting together and pushing each other away. She's had an accident and I'm half way across the world and can't go see her. I think I've realised I actually might be really in love with her. I don't know. The whole ramble is below. I'm aware I don't come across as a very good person in all of this.

Some backgroudn info: We're both 22. We're friends nearly five years now, we met in student accom back in first year and we still share a house during term time. We are both studying the same course and have similar ambitions. We share the same friends.

At the start of the second year living with her, I was going through this INSANE breakup. Had to go to the police over it, it was awful. Anyway she was very good to me during that time and made sure I was on the straight and narrow. I started to fall in love with her then. We started doing everything together- going to lectures, studying, cooking. I introduced her to my friends and she fit in perfectly. Later that year she got sick and I looked after her. We used spend a lot of time singing, dancing and playing cards. About once a week she'd say something to me along the lines of "Nobody understands me like you do", or "Nobody makes me laugh as much as you". Thos are real quote btw. One time she looked at me very seriously, with eyes that could bore through me into my soul and asked "If you liked someone, would you tell them or would you hide it?"

One night we took ecstasy with friends- I know a terrible idea- and I told her I loved her. Also a terrible idea. I had run out of the club and home to write poetry. Anyway I tried bring it up a few days later and she asked me not to speak of it so I never mentioned that night again. Kind of drew a line under things. A week later she was my plus one to a party and I met an amazing woman and started a very intense romance.

We sat our summer exams and parted ways for the summer. When we met again for the start of third year, she'd picked up a boyfriend. She wasn't too happy about having him, it seemed to me that she was with him only for the sake of being with someone. At some point she started to dislike my then-gf. Whatever. I didn't care. She encouraged me to break up with her at one stage. Often she brought up the ecstasy and asked me what I did that night while we were apart and what was going through my mind. I never acknowledge the elephant in the room.

She spent a lot of that year sick and again I looked after her. We drifted a bit though, the boyfriend was very insecure. Stopped spending so much time together. We were both focussed on our own lives. One incident stands out: we made cakes together for our partners the day before Valentine's day. We both argued with our partners on the day itself. We both had more fun making the cakes than we did with them.

That summer her relationship broke down. I won't go into the specifics but he was psychologically abusing her. She went abroad for an erasmus and she used call me for hours after placement. We grew closer again.

College restarted and at around Christmas my own relationship ran into trouble. My gf was talking about emigrating. I wouldn't be able to do that kind of long distance.

And as if my friend could smell my doubts, she started making those intense comments again. You'rw my best friend, you understand me like nobody else etc etc. We started spending an awful lot of time together. A lot of flirting. A lot of touching. Sometimes I did it back. Staying up late drinking tea, I eventually told her about my worries. I don't remember her response but from then on she was much more critical of my gf from then on.

I have a policy of just letting someone speak unchallenged, providing they're not hurting anyone. Even if I don't like what they're saying. You can get a lot more out of people that way.

Anyway I was letting her speak and she eventually says; "Please don't get mad at me, it's not my place to say this, but I think you and GF are not very well suited. I just never thought I'd see you with someone like her. And she's very hard on you, you two argue a lot. How would you be able to live with her? We'd be much better suited together, we've lived together for four years and we've never had an argument".

I don't remember my answer but it was something along the lines of "Hmm I don't know we'll have to see".

My conclusion was that I'd wait for three months to see if I could change my gf's mind about leaving. Or accept the fact that she would leave. We had three weeks off for Christmas. By the time term re-started in the first week in January, my friend had met and started dating a new man.

I left my gf the first week of March. My friend left her new bf three days later. The signals and the flirting intensified. I started doing it back. One time she looked at me with that very serious soul-boring look and said to me that when you tell a friend you like them and they say no, sometimes you plant a seed that grows into something later. This was ostensibly about somebody else and not us. I was about to ask her out.

And then right before the Summer exams a mutual friend told me she'd slept with another friend of ours while single in the Autumn. Which I wouldn't care about usually. But she'd spent a lot of time talking VERY badly about him and honestly I was just sickened at that and lost all interest.

On the big night out at the end of the exams I kissed her.

We never spoke about it. I actually nearly forgot about it. When we have spoken our conversations have been short and kind of awkward. I don't know if that's my doing or hers. The friend who delivered the news in the last paragraph tells me I should talk to her about it. He says I owe her that. She said something that maybe tells me that she wants to as well.

But she's after getting into a car accident. She has very serious injuries. No danger of dying or anything but a lot of pain. And I'm working abroad this summer with a charity. I'm half way across the world and I can't visit her and I'm realising that maybe I do love her and more than anything I want to hug her and look after her and talk to her late into the night as we do in college. I miss her. I'm scared that if I say something about how I feel that she'll not reciprocate, as she has often said she doesn't want a relationship since the break up with the psycho boy. She often talks about being afraid to ruin what she has by dating a friend. I guess I would be afraid of the same.