12October 1984
"Do you love me?"
I had known this was coming. I knew what she was going to ask before she'd asked it. I'd known since we'd come back to school. I'd known in the way that she'd say she loved me all the time, and mean it, and I'd only be able to smile and nod or kiss her to avoid saying it back. If I did say it, I could never say it seriously, I could never make it sound right. I knew she was going to ask because we both knew the answer, and she would ask hoping for something other than the truth. She would ask and hope that I lied to her.
I wished that I could lie to her. It would be so much easier than telling her the truth, but the words were so hard to force. People lie to people about loving each other all the time; why couldn’t I? Why couldn’t I get the words to come
