How should I handle my best friend situation?

I've known my best friend for over ten years now. We went to high school together and he was a few years younger than me. I've always kinda liked him and over the years my feelings only grew. I never said anything for fear of messing things up, I value our friendship more than anything. He's always identified as straight but for as long as we've known each other he's never had a girlfriend and never so much as talked about how hot a girl is. He doesn't check guys or girls out at all. He's "talked" to several girls and given the impression that they might date but he usually picked girls who were REALLY religious and it ended as soon as they disagreed about gay rights because "His best friend is gay". I've always just assumed he was straight until proven otherwise because, like I said, I didn't want to mess things up. However, everyone else thinks that he is gay. Most people we used to work with thought that we were a couple because we are ALWAYS together.
One day he borrows a movie from me and has it for a really long time... like probably over a year. I find the dvd case in his car one day and say, "hey this is mine!!!" and we laugh at how long he's had it. I took it home and then finally opened it and instead of the movie he borrowed being in the case, it's a gay coming of age drama movie with several gay sex scenes. I think that's odd and text him about it just saying that the movie wasn't in there and tell him what was in there... he dodges the gay part and just says he'll look for my movie and try to get it back to me asap (I still never got it). But either way he added doubt into my head. Fast forward a year or two and over that time I've become pretty sure that he IS gay (or is at least attracted to guys in a physical way through porn I've found etc.) but he will not admit it to me at all.

He's studying abroad now but before he left he had a huge falling out with his sister about 7 months before. He lived with her and she pretty much told him he needed to find somewhere else to live. He moved in with me and my roommate in a 2 bedroom apartment and lived with me in my room. He slept in my bed, kept clothes in my closet and dresser, and was like my live in boyfriend minus the sex. Over that time my feelings became WAAAY stronger. I eventually told him how I felt in a letter... he got all awkward and didn't talk to me for a day... the next day when he came home from work everything was back to normal... he never talked to me about it. It didn't hurt our friendship at all though. I recently got back from visiting him in the country he's studying in. I stayed for two weeks and he stayed with me in my hotel for the entire trip.

I care about him so much and I feel like he is the perfect guy for me. I don't know why he wont tell me though. Part of me thinks maybe he thinks it will be too hard for me if he says he's gay but that he doesn't like me like that. I know his parents wouldn't care because they've asked him before if I was his boyfriend and that he could tell them if I were. The part where I need advice is what I need to do. Like I said, I care about him and value our friendship, but when he's around I end up building plans around him because I'd rather do something with him that with anyone else. But he also doesn't plan anything with anyone else so we only ever hang out together ( us two and my straight female roommate that also went to high school with us)

What would you do? How do you think I should handle this?

 

I guess I should have explained the last part a little better. When he's around and I plan around him I meant to add that because of that I don't ever date and if I DO go on a date I try to rush it a little if I know he is waiting. So I pretty much focus on him too much to pay attention to any other guy and I feel like until I get over him I'm just gonna continue to be single and pine after him. This is totally fine for now, going how we've been going, but I know that if he were to ever move off or stay around but end up dating someone else it will cause some serious damage down the line. I guess what I was hoping for by writing the letter was that maybe he'd flat out say to me "I don't like you like that. I only want to be your friend" and then it would be definite to me and I would have hurt but got over it. I wasn't telling him so that he would say he felt the same. I wanted him just to tell me something period. As for letting him know that I'm there for him... he knows that. He tells me almost everything else... from trouble between his parents to what's going on with his sister. I've made it more than obvious over the years and he's done the same to me. I was in a wreck once on an interstate heading back to my apartment from my parents live (and where we grew up) a few hours away. After I texted him and let him know what happened after my parents picked me up he called me and drove from the apartment all the way to my parents just to be there with me. I care about him so much that if I had to lose him I would feel like my boyfriend of 10+ years had broken up with me and I would be devastated.