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You don’t say it.
You still remember the day you realized; when you adjusted his tie, a stupid grin on your face, and suddenly you heart felt too big for your chest, just for a second; but you shoved it down, deep down, anyway. “When humans want something really bad, they lie.” You wanted him to have something better, so you lied, to yourself, to everyone.
You don’t say it; not when he beats you up in the dark alley (“I gave up everything for you!” he screams, and through the blood and the pain you want to scream back, I would give everything up, too, but I gave up a long time ago!), not when he gives you the distraction you need to stop the apocalypse (you would’ve, maybe, but he doesn’t exist anymore), not when he leaves you with Lisa (and you want to scream at him to come back, to help you, anything).
And months and years mend together, there is no apocalypse anymore but so much more goes wrong, and you try to forget, because there are new darker monsters and Sam is more important, but you can’t; and when he betrays you, you want to scream it at him, anyway.
You want to tell Emmanuel, too; want to tell him so badly. He has a wife now; you wonder if he told her, maybe? When he remembers, you want to cry, and everything inside yourself screams, tell him, but you can’t, and you leave him behind anyway.
Even in the woods and the dark between monsters you won’t say a word, because it seems to be the wrong time, and again you leave him behind. You don’t say the words that have been eating you up on the inside now, either.
In the end, the choice is taken from you, taken from you by him; stupid, heroic how he is, threw himself in front of a monster to save you, too late to realize that he’s human now, what would happen.
You say it, now; whisper it to the cold corpse in your arms, over and over.
“I love you.”
But it’s too late, now.