I'm having a really bad girl-crush DILEMMA

ack this is my first time posting here so bear with me

First off, I've always known that I'm not straight but it hit me like a train around a month ago when I fell head over heels for one of my best (and only) female friends. After some google searches six months back I found a label that described me well. (Demi-pansexual.) I started coming out to close friends just this month. I've only had two crushes before and they were on very close male friends but it was strongly personality-based. I always thought it possible for me to fall in love with another girl but it just clicked with her. And god, things are just uselessly complicated.

One of my problems: she comes across as very not straight. (I have asked around and almost everyone is or was at some point under the impression that she's either openly or closeted lesbian.) She's incredibly intelligent (she's definitely a genius) and intense. She's incredibly assertive, does well in leadership positions and speaks in a commanding tone. She's absolutely gorgeous and butch. She doesn't like girly things and doesn't seem to enjoy the company of "girly girls", preferring to hang out with guys or, well, me. Apparently I'm her "only close female friend". In so many words, she sets off the gaydar.

She's a seriously beautiful girl. Fierce, commanding, handsome. She wears her dark brown hair in a long pixie cut. She has rectangular glasses and dresses in lovely earth tones and rocks flannel. She sings INCREDIBLY well and can act better than anyone in the entire drama department (it's a performing arts magnet, too- she was called back for the lead in a musical as a freshman) and she can dance and she's the smartest person I know. Accck.

I rarely, if ever, hear her talk about "attractive" males. I've never heard her vocalize about a guy's aesthetic, expressing that she personally finds them attractive, past "his smile lights up a room". (She's demiromantic as well, to be fair.) I've heard her vocalize about females, though. She thinks Emma Stone is really hot. She's stopped me and said "oh my god, did you see that really hot girl?" before at a dance and will call random girls pretty, beautiful, cute, etc. even without knowing their names. She's snuck in smug comments about my "great curves" before and how great she thinks my figure is. We eat lunch together every day and hang out on our "secret couch" behind the theatre and read together. We slow danced at homecoming for 30 seconds before the song changed. She's maybe three inches taller than me (I'm 5'2) and she's 15. We both look and act older than we are, but we both know that just because we're relatively mature doesn't mean we're emotionally developed. I'm an ENFP and she's an INTJ personality type, which means we'd be a "perfect" romantic match. That would explain why we collaborate so well. Gulp.

We knew each other at the beginning of the school year and had already been acquainted. I actually had a "platonic" crush on her for a really long time and it was satisfied when we became good friends. I've always thought she was super cool. We worked together with two other people on a year-long science project until April when we had to give our presentation. I was wondering why I missed our meetings so much until it hit me: I had kind of been falling in love with her. Or at least crushing really, really hard.

So the BIG PUNCHLINE: She's an evangelical (and up until recently, creationist) christian and conservative. And she's straight.

It gets worse: Her previous "only female best friend" came out to her as lesbian a few years back and she abandoned the friendship. Apparently because she thought "it was wrong" (to be lesbian) and that she "couldn't think of her the same way".

She's incredibly remorseful for her actions to this day. They never reconciled.

Now, I'm agnostic and very progressive. You'd think our conversations would be horrible but somehow, we almost always wind up agreeing. We talk nothing but politics and science and religion and it's just delicious. Almost nobody else can keep up with our delightfully fast-paced and intellectual conversations. We teach each other how to see the big picture, that scientific thought and faith can walk hand and hand. She's become progressive on social issues and curious to get information on sexual identities. She's even questioning her faith to an extent. She's changed a lot over the past year and has gotten help for her depression. I get drunk off our conversations and high off her company. But I'm scared.

Even though a lot of people have told me otherwise, I'm worried that all of this is just wishful thinking. I'm really infatuated with her.

I'm going to private school next year and she's homeschooling again. We still do theatre together outside of school, but I know it won't be the same. She told me that she's going to miss me. She said that one of the reasons she's going back to homeschooling is because she couldn't imagine going to our old school without me by her side.

And even further, she's the only one of my close friends who I haven't come out to. I'm scared that she'll find out and leave.

Eurgh, I know I sound like a giddy and pretentious schoolgirl but I'm always fighting with myself for wanting to kiss her and fall asleep at her side and let her know how much I really love her and I just don't know what to do anymore.

:bang:

 

Anyone still up? orz

 

I know I'll have to come out to her at some point but I mean, the only reason why my orientation is so fundamental to me right now is because I'm infatuated with her. She'll ask me if I've ever liked a girl, etc. I don't think she'll abandon me like she did with her other friend, but I think she'll be awkward around me for awhile. Things might change permanently, I don't know. School's almost out and we spend at least four hours of the day together every day. I'm totally confused about her orientation.

 

Yeah. I don't intend to make a move now or anytime soon I don't think. She asks me why I always wait for her so we can walk together and why I'm so kind to her. I've struggled to come up with good answers.
In English, we had to partner up and do a scene from Romeo and Juliet. When I asked her what scene she wanted to do, she replied with "Any scene is fine, as long as we aren't lovers. Haha!" The conversation up until that point had included some winky faces and cute stuff.

I'm starting to think that it's occurred to her that I'm not straight and I wonder if she's starting to suspect that I feel more than friendly towards her.

---------- Post added 4th Jun 2014 at 07:58 PM ----------

I also asked her the other day if she's ever had a thing for a guy or liked a guy and she said that she actually hadn't.

Aaaaacccck!