I.
"I'm just going to come out with it," I said, leaning back on my couch. "I'm absolutely crazy about you."
"I know," Marie replied seriously, unsmiling, suddenly seeming much more sober than she had moments ago.
That's not the response I had been hoping to hear, but everything about my friendship with Marie had been confounding.
I'd been pining for her since the very first time we met. I was at a friend's birthday celebration when I saw her walk in. What first grabbed my attention was her face: gorgeous dark eyes, pink lips pulled into a beautiful smile, straight black hair, and fair skin. My eyes moved down her short, thin body, taking note of what looked like large breasts hidden under a tight sweater. I was smitten immediately.
I talked to her as much as I could that night. She was smart and clever, and while I realized that her interests tended to run nerdier than mine, I wished I could have stayed up all night talking with her. I was too chicken to ask her out the first night, but when I saw her at a party a week later and we found ourselves chatting again, I forced myself to do it.
"Sorry. I'm just not looking to date someone right now," she replied.
"Oh. Right." I was a little crushed and a little panicked that my dream girl was slipping away. "Well, maybe we could just hang out as friends? Study together?"
She seemed to perk up at the idea. "I could always use a study buddy," she said, smiling.
And that's what I became. It turns out that my nerdy Marie had weird sleeping habits, so two or three times per week, I would meet her around 10 pm in the dreary basement lounge of the college's chemistry building. We'd spend an hour or so actually reading our respective textbooks, but then we'd get to talking: about TV and music and our classes and our friends, but also about weightier topics, like her experience losing her mom to cancer. Before we knew it, it would be 3 am, and I'd walk Marie back to her dorm.
After a few months of this, Marie started coming over to my apartment once a week to watch a TV show--as much as she loved television, she didn't have cable. Sometimes I'd make her dinner, and some nights I'd make us drinks.
This was one of those nights. I'd maybe had one too many, and I couldn't stop myself from telling Marie how I still felt about her.
"I know how you feel about me, Jon. I mean, how much time you spend with me, the way you look at me, of course I can tell," she said.
"But you're not interested."
"No, it's not that! I'd love to be with you. But I can't."
"Why?" I asked. "With all the time we spend together, I can't imagine there's another guy..."
"No," Marie said. "There are just things...about me...that...wouldn't make me a good girlfriend."
"Well that's a problem, because I can't imagine anyone else in the world being my girlfriend," I said. Feeling bold, I put my hand on her thigh.
"I'm serious," she said, but she didn't move my hand.