Fear. He hated the emotion. It encompassed him at every turn, driving his actions, fueling his emotions. Fear called the shots now, and he was not in control.

For the longest time, he thought of himself as a hopeless romantic. Now he just felt hopeless. He'd had daydreams of romantic encounters with faceless girls, fully aware that his actions in his dreams were driven by romantic images depicted in the movies, and that attempting to reenact those depictions would earn him a slap or worse. He knew that they weren't realistic in the least.

He still held on to those daydreams. He still held on to that little sliver of hope that maybe, just maybe one day he'd be able to gently kiss someone he was interested in without her knowing he was going to, and the girl not be offended by it. Maybe he'd be able to hold onto the girl without her pushing him away because he's creepy.

He grew up being told he was intelligent. He almost believed it, too, except for his lack of common sense. For some reason he always wanted to do things the hard way, or come up with some creative, complex way of doing something that was really quite simple. After he graduated from high school, he started wondering if his intelligence was all memorized book smarts, and he was really just retarded. Some days he feels like he can't function in the real world, and every so often those thoughts take hold and ride him like a horse through the valley of depression for months at a time.

He was convinced he'd be a fatass if he wasn't depressed so much. Well, more of a fatass.

He doesn't know how to act around her. He doesn't know how to flirt with her. She finally knows how he feels, and it scares him to death. He can't bring himself to tell her his feelings; he has to write vague little stories with no names and hope that she understands that he's talking to her.

His feelings have lingered for years, as strong as ever, but for the first time in never the faceless beings of his daydreams finally have a face. And for the first time in never he scolds himself for having those daydreams, afraid of what she'll think of him when she finds out. He'll make sure she finds out; it's not fair to keep something like this from her.

It's nothing explicit. It's never explicit. Even if he tried to force himself to dream explicitly, he can't. He understands why; respect. Respect for her, and the way he feels about her. The way he's felt about her for ages now. He's a creep, he thinks so himself. That's why he can't force himself to make a move.

He's afraid. Mostly afraid of rejection.

When it comes to his feelings, he won't say love. He can't, he distrusts that word too much. He's heard it too often thrown about as if it's some anchor used to tie a person down. He gets a chill now whenever he hears someone tell someone else that they like them, but love doesn't do anything anymore. He's had it used against him too often.

He thinks she's beautiful. He always has. He likes the way she tries to hide when she smiles. He remembers how you couldn't get much more than a chuckle out of her most times, but even that chuckle lit up his day. She's got a creative spark that appears whenever she gets into anything, be it her comics, her cooking, even simple conversation. When she *shrugs* he's reminded of the way she did so back in school; the careless, "oh well" look she gave with her hands open at her sides. He considers himself lucky that she even still talks to him, and that he can make her smile.

He's afraid that he's going to scare her away. He's afraid that he's going to say something that is going to offend her, or hit the wrong nerve, and she'll tell him to get lost. He's already afraid that it feels like he's trying to impress her, though in a way he kind of is. He doesn't know how to flirt with her. He feels like it should be different from normal flirting, because she's different from normal girls. But different in a wonderful way.

He can't center his thoughts anymore. He rambles, he gets lost, he rambles some more. He manages to stay on a linear thought pattern when he talks to her, but the rambling is apparent in forum posts.

He wants to see her face to face again, but doesn't know what to say. He doesn't know how to act around her. He's afraid of rejection. He's afraid of scaring her away.

He wants to touch her. Not in a perverted way. Something simple, like a hug. He wants to make her smile, make her laugh. He wants to see her comfortable. In the back of his mind, he wants to kiss her, but he knows that'll probably never happen. She's too shy for that; it would probably give her a cardiac infraction.

He wants to make her happy, and he's too afraid to make a move.