"You're. . . .?"

"Hm?"

 "You're not. . . .mad or anything?"
  
"Why would I be? You write about me. That's pretty sweet. Thanks."

He went silent for a while. "That's. . . .um, that's it?"

"Why? What do you want me to say?"

"Probably a 'no'? A 'sorry I don't feel the same way'? Rejection in any form?"

"Luke." It has been a while -- even though they have been good friends for so long -- since she uttered his name. "You told me I inspired the things you wrote. You didn't confess to me or anything." 

"Well, I assumed you. . . ." He felt like giving his face a good punch -- for pausing over and over, for being extremely nervous just by having her around, and, most of all, for saying what he said next: "I assumed from, well, that, that you assumed I liked you."

"Luke." Two times today."Do you?"

"Well, after all, I write about you. . . ."

"Damn it, Luke!" Three. "Why do you have to be like this all the time!"

"Like what?"

"This! Always unmindful of how other people would feel. Always disconcerted. Always beating around the bush."

He couldn't bring himself to say anything. Or, at least, he felt he shouldn't say anything at all. Has he really been that way all this time?

"Have you even given this thought? Ever?"

". . . ."

"You're so rash! How can you be so rash?" 

He wanted to tell her he thought about it all the time. He thought about telling her how he felt. He thought about all the ways he could possibly do it. There were so many -- ones he loved, ones he didn't like completely, but all of them were the same in a single sense: each one required massive preparation and self-conditioning, and that was a requirement he found too difficult to satisfy.

He wanted to tell her something -- anything.
But he stood there.
And she walked away,
farther,
away from every word he chose to swallow.

Labels: found this among my wandering drafts, short short