My best friend kissed me on live television...and then asked me to forget it ever happened.

In the three years since that moment, I tried my best to ignore how right it felt to kiss Noelle. I couldn't let my devastation over the fact that she didn't feel the same cost me the best friend I'd ever had. It was hard enough keeping her in my life after she moved to New York to become a pop star.

It all came crashing down three weeks before Christmas. She called me looking for advice - heartbroken, humiliated, and in tears - and like an idiot, I stuck my foot in my mouth.

"You've already found someone who loves you. You're talking to him."

Would that slip cost me our lifelong friendship, or would it bring me the best gift I could have asked for?