"That's just the way I feel about you," he said to her. Of course he knew she would never give in. After all, they were friends and had been friends for three years now. Pretty good friends. Close friends. But normal friends nonetheless. Would you ever marry your best friend? There was nothing he could know right now. His mind was blank with pain and anguish and in his face was just pure blandness. She thought he wasn't thinking but he was.
       "Yeah, well," she said, "I think we should get there soon."
       The whole point of the matter was that she was losing vast respect for him. He hadn't been the person she knew when she met him. Now he was just dull and not cheery to be around with. She thought about his death numerous times and she guessed that she would be sad but she would forget after a couple years just like everybody else. Now he was professing his love for her. It was too cruel. It was a no win situation for him. She knew it. And what could he do? He could just think and think until he thought himself to death. That's what she knew would happen. All of this was inevitable. The worse thing about it, though, was the fact that she knew that he knew that she couldn't understand him. And although he said that was fine in the past there was nothing to hold it up in the future. Accidents might occur. Maybe he'd find himself a girlfriend. But that wouldn't change him. It didn't in the past. She had come to realize that he was just a hole as he said he was. And there was all the hole she had for him. But she would never leave his friendship. If she did it would be the same as leaving him anyway, so why not just hang around and live a mundane life with your best friend.
       "You know I feel much better having said all I did," he said. She looked at him and saw that he was on the verge of tears (but he wouldn't cry because he never did, not in front of her). He would wait and wait and hold it in and then the minute after she was gone he would let it all go and think that he would never see her again. He did that everytime.
       They made their way past the point. It was how he would imagine it. He always felt guilty about letting her drive. But afterall, he didn't have a license. He just never wanted one. No one got it. No one ever did. And of course it was the point between the two crosses.
       "My mom said that she got the two of them for three, so I don't think it would be wise for you to try it," she said.
       No words came out of his mouth. Just that look. The look he always gave her. The gaze. It was piercing and never to the point. He knew she didn't know what it meant. He wanted her to know but he couldn't tell her. He just couldn't. He wished every cell in his body could just tell her. Just say to her everything. But he was afraid. Even though everything was out on the table, the table wasn't his. Ruins upon ruins his wasteland vanished away. He was dead and he knew it.
       This is where life ends.
       What began was now ending. He had played the game for too long. It wasn't his turn.
       The crazy thing was that he didn't even want a relationship with her. That's what no one seemed to understand. Of course there was the physical, which was...okay. No one understood that one either. Either the girls thought you were just being a "macho man" or that it was something involved with love. Of course love was involved but it was a different type of love. He loved her a lot. It was the sort of love where he would give anything to her if she just asked for whatever it is she wanted. He didn't care. And he didn't do it because he had to but because he wanted to. She was his everything; something she could never grasp. It was selfish on his part because she made him happy and that's what mattered most to him, his happiness. Because he thought if he could be happy he could make her happy and then the full circle would begin to generate and onward the world would go and everything would be okay. It was that simple.
       "I just don't see the joy," he said quoting that Morrissey lyric. The one that always annoyed her, not because of the fact that joy had left him but more of the fact that he knew joy had left him but somehow joy was still there. Was he kidding himself?
       "Well, we're close anyway," she said, "and popular belief says that she likes you a lot. You're mild mannered and she loves that."
       "Where will you be tomorrow?" he asked.
       _This annoyed her because now they were talking randomly as if conversation died. This is what bothered her the most. He had random memory like those detuned clocks they used to sell back in the old country. She always complained to him that he thought too much and that ultimately would be his downfall. Geez, he had many downfalls. I guess the sum of a man is negation of the addition of all of his downfalls. His thoughts made no sense either. He would say random things and she just couldn't understand. And the thing that made her angry the most was that he expected her to understand him and she just couldn't. And that made it worse. No win situation.
       "I'm going over Gallows," she said. "I left my cards there the other day." She was lying and he knew it. She just didn't want to state her real purpose in going. She would only hurt him. She would only let him down.
       It was crazy at first but she allowed herself to be judged at the Gallows. She didn't mind being someone she really wasn't. It was in her nature. After all, the only people who are true to themselves are brooding people who have no life but too much of their own. The guy beside her was the opposite of her every notion and rationale except in the factor of care. One thing that he could never be wrong about was that she actually did care for his sorry exterior and interior. There were no laws of mathematics to bound him outside of this notion. The laws of mathematics had already consumed his soul in it's unfulfillment for the truth or for whatever prevelent paradox there was. He didn't think that much when he thought about her. He knew he hadn't been a good friend. Their relationship was subconsciously "me, me, me". He wanted to hold her at this moment. He just wanted to die in her arms.
       He felt like crying.
       "But I'd only embarrass myself," he thought, "and what would she think."
       That was his constant problem. He never seemed to grasp the concept that life was flowing up until the end. And at the end lies regret. He was always tortured by the paradigm that non-distant future regret was a bad thing.
       Was there really joy?
       "I'm sorry," she said. She felt bad. She had never felt so bad in her life.
       "It's okay," he said.
       "No, it's not. I was just thinking about myself. You can come with me if you'd like."
       "But you don't want me there."
       "I didn't say that. It's just that... that..."
       "That I'd only drag you and your friends down, right." He stopped. He couldn't believe what he just said. He never thought he would say those trivial words to her. She stopped the car at the side of the road and looked at him intensely.
       "Why do you haunt me?" she asked. This was utter anguish to his ears. Now he realized that nothing was at all sacred. He realized that there was no one except for her and she wasn't really his friend. What could he do?
       Nothing.
       Stagnancy is a funny thing. It's like watching everyone go by while you have a gun to your head and the worse thing about the whole situation is that you can't fire the trigger because you can't move. So there is no choice over any situation.
       He fell into tears.
       She couldn't believe what she was seeing. It was what she wanted to see (because she really did love him). All through the years she had known him, he was always buried on his own pain. He had been selfish never to let her share it. She could understand. She wanted to understand. She never felt so much love and passion for him than she ever did in her whole life. She never felt so much love for anyone else but him at this moment. She wanted to be his everything. She started crying too. So she held his hands and took him in her arms.
       All he could think about was how she would react to him five minutes from the present moment. How would the situation, which was occurring, change things. Would he be happy? Would she be happy? Would his sign of weakness give them strength in one of his final moment? Would she finally understand him before it was too late?
       The answer was no.

       He just didn't see the joy.