I think I may have lost my best guy friend

We had an argument a couple weeks ago. And it seemed like he was trying to tell me he liked me but feels its too late because im off at college. Im in love with this boy but he doesn't exactly know. A really bad trait of mine is too push the people I care about away before they can hurt me and that's what I've been doing to him. So a couple days ago I tried explaining how sorry I was for the argument and how I liked him and all but all he said was " I accept your apology". I guess I lost him 😥