"If only you were someone else," she'll say, "then I could fall in love with you."
You nod.
"As things are, I know too much about you. We've known each other too long, we've tried being different things to each other, and I just don't think you care." She pauses, "I'm just not getting the feeling that you care. I've tried to care about you anyway, but it's really not working. It's lopsided, and it's not making me happy. Do I make you happy?"
"Sure," you say. She hasn't made you particularly unhappy, there have just been one or two times when she's been annoying; usually when she lapses into having a crush on you."
"It's like I have this romantic idea in my head, that somehow, if I hold on, suddenly you'll understand... something, and then you'll fall in love with me... After that, I imagine us travelling the world."
You hadn't really thought much about girls until she forced it on you. You had a few as friends, and you had a few boys as friends, it was no big deal. You probably had thought that she just wanted to be your friend, you certainly weren't accustomed to girls wanting any more than that.
"I remember having dreams. I used to have them pretty often. I guess it was kind of creepy, but I really liked them, you loved me in them." She stops for a second and starts pulling a leaf apart. "Actually, in some of them I was chasing you around just like I used to when I wasn't asleep: Shouting 'Hi' in the hallways, and keeping careful track of the things we talked about, things you liked, things you didn't like. When you only have a couple of forty-second bursts in a hallway to start a relationship with someone, you need to hoard your material," she says, grinning at her own ingenuity, and her despair.
In fifth grade there was one girl who made you cookies around the holidays. You can't really remember what it looked like, it didn't really matter, you were busy getting ready for confirmation. It was like joining a big club, and you got to pick a code name too, which made it like a secret club. A club with you and other people who were like you, who thought like you, who believed the same things as you. People who knew that other people were wrong, and they were right. You knew you were right, you're not as sure now. Sometimes you wish you hadn't put too much though into it, because then you wouldn't feel so lonely now. Now you just don't like other people, they're still wrong, you're still right, you just don't know how. Or why.
"You had these really weird suspenders on the first time I met you," she says, remembering suddenly. She turns to you for approval.
You can't remember them and squeeze your face up like you're trying to remember. Then you shake your head 'no.'
She frowns a little and turns back to looking at the gound in front of her.
"Do you remember the first time we danced together? It was at Jakes party, in the beginning of middle school."
Another 'no.'
"Did you like that book I got you for your birthday?"
"It was alright."
"Do you care about me?"

You sit there and look straight ahead. After a minute, she stops looking at you for an answet. She gets up, and brushes off her jeans, and turns towards you for a second. Then she thinks better of it and starts to walk away. She almost turns again, but stops herself and turns around again.