It happens.

You go through a difficult event in your life and you lean on your best friend to help you get through it.

Emotions are chaotic in these situations and before two best friends realize what is happening, they are intimate.

You feel bad because you believe that you were the one who instigated this to aid you in getting over the difficult event you are grappling with.

You felt like you misled him, and now, you don’t know how to tell him.

You realize that it was a big miscalculation and that what you realistically feel for him is platonic in nature.

There is no potential for romance and you know this.

The idea of telling him that he was a rebound gives you a belly ache.

You don’t want to have to be the bearer of bad news.

It makes it worse when you remember how happy he was when the hookup occurred, as though he had been waiting for this for a while and couldn’t believe that it was happening.

Meanwhile, you were merely using him to quell your chaotic emotions.

Since then, those chaotic emotions have been quelled to an extent and you are ready to move on from what put you in such a sorry state to begin with.

Notwithstanding, you used your best friend as a rebound and are at a loss for how to tell him.

At your core, you know you want him to remain your best friend, but you are terrified that you have ruined everything by taking advantage of his support during a difficult time in your life.

Telling him that he was a rebound is sure to crush his spirit, but the last thing you want to do to your best friend is lead him on.

Listen, the sooner your best friend is made aware that there is no promise of romance between you, the better.

You don’t have to tell him that he was a rebound.

He already knows that you were having a rough time of it emotionally, before the intimacy occurred.

All you have to do is tell him that you aren’t at a place emotionally to date anyone.

And honestly, that is the truth.

The last thing you should be doing at this time is jumping into an new relationship with the new handsome guy in your chemistry class or workplace.

When you go through a period of emotional upheaval, your mind and body needs time to heal.

So, in telling him that you are working on recovering from the emotional chaos and thereby lack the emotional availability to anyone for romance, he will understand.

That’s it really.

Back up your words.

Your best friend is not going to be very happy if he sees you flirting with some new guy in the foreseeable future after having told him that you are working on healing emotionally.

As long as you don’t send him any confusing romantic cues as you work on healing yourself emotionally, the two of you are on a path to returning to how it was before any of this happened.

That of being platonic best friends and nothing beyond that.