I hadn’t seen Freshman Boyfriend in a long time. A couple of short, awkward conversations at bars here or there, but almost never anything substantial. I always felt uncomfortable catching up with him while his girlfriend, a carbon-copy look-alike of me, stood by his side.

Tuesday night she was not by his side.

I walked into Sullivan’s at around eight on Tuesday, ready for St. Patrick’s Day festivities. It was packed. The first person I saw was Freshman Boyfriend. We said a quick hello, and then I took a quick Irish Car Bomb with my roommates. I could feel him watching me.

I think sometimes we have a sixth sense about when guys are into us. Freshman and I dated three years ago. He was in my Orientation Group the first day of college, and by second semester we were a couple.  It was a weird relationship. We both really cared about one another, I think, but didn’t know how to quite make it work. We bickered about really inane things; he thought I was wrong, I thought he was pretentious. Eventually, we broke up.

At some point while I was abroad junior year, he got a girlfriend. She was a mutual friend, actually, and she and I had often joked about looking alike. I couldn’t really be around them because it was too weird, and so I hadn’t had a conversation with either in a really, really long time.

And then that sixth sense thing happened. I could feel him watching me, wanting to talk to me. He talked to my roommates, and started reminiscing with them about freshman year. Maybe I was reading too much into it, but I felt like I knew exactly what he was doing.

Finally, he came over to me. He was obviously a little drunk, and so was I. He told me how he was volunteering next year (which I of course already knew from Facebook) and we talked about plans for the future. Then, he left.

He went to the next bar over from Sullivan’s, and since my roommates and I would probably end up there anyway, I decided we would all go now. I guess I was returning the sixth-sense feelings, but I don’t know if it was an entirely-conscious decision.

We were at opposite ends of the bar from one another, and played the game of look and look-away. The drunker we got, the worse it got, and I remember distinctly feeling excited and guilty the whole time.

Of course, I still wasn’t sure what the deal was. Had they broken up? Not last I checked his Facebook, but who knows?

The night wore on, and eventually, he came over to where I was. My roommates went to dance, and the two of us remained at the bar, drinking beers and scooting closer to one another. He put his arm around me. He asked if he could kiss me. I was drunk, but something in me stopped him.

“Wait, what about you and Erin?”

“We’re in a gray area,” he said seriously. “She doesn’t want to go with me to my volunteer site, and I don’t think we will last much longer.” There was a long pause. He looked at me. “I care about you.” I nodded. I think I smiled. Then he kissed me.

We barely made out. It was short and sweet. The whole night was more about talking—about our past and each other and how we should still be friends, at least friends. He told me he cared about me, and I believed him. But the kiss happened. And the next morning, of course, he still had a girlfriend.

He called me the next day, leaving an apologetic voicemail for something like “acting inappropriately last night.” Walking through campus, I saw Erin and him sitting happily at a picnic table eating lunch. He called me later and asked me not to tell anyone. He said he wasn’t “that guy,” and he didn’t know how it happened.

Well, I guess I was “that girl.” I was guilty of it as much as he was, and now I was keeping it a secret from a mutual friend, just to protect him. I agreed with him, he’s typically not that type of guy. He was very drunk. But we talk a lot on this blog about how being drunk doesn’t mean you’re not responsible for your actions. And we both were.

Still, I haven’t told her, and I’ve instructed my roommates to keep it on the down low. I have mixed feelings about it. Though he was drunk, I think he meant it when he said he cared about me. And I meant it when I said it back. And that, to me, is more significant cheating than a simple, sloppy St. Patrick’s Day makeout. We had some kind of emotional connection that night, and that is what Erin could never know about. And that is also why I will never tell her. I care about him, and I’m willing to not tell her to protect him. For that, I am doubly guilty.

But in the end, it’s not the guilt that’s killing me. It’s the disappointment. Though I was drunk, I knew it felt good to have a guy I care about say that he cares about me. When I woke up the next morning and remembered what had happened, I didn’t have my usual reaction of “Oh God.” I smiled. I literally smiled. And I think that’s what bothers me the most. Usually, drunken makeouts mean a lot less than they should. But occasionally, they mean too much more. And I don’t know whether to regret that or not.