Saturday night: Something you've been needing for so long will actually come and you want me to go with you pick it up. I readily agree, thinking that you'll forget about asking me anyway. So I just laughed it off.

Sunday morning: You text me, saying that you know exactly where to pick it up, and again insist that I come with you. Of course I get excited. I love running errands, and to run yours would be fun, I expect. Am I expected to carry around something? To watch your back and alert you when we're getting mugged? Am I to help you check the integrity of the merch?

We meet up, and then for the first time in weeks (since you've been on vacation), we talk along the way. We talk about anything and everything. And all is right in the world again. You were most perfect during the trip to and from home. But nothing really happened. I didn't get what my task was for this trip. Anyhoo, you ask if we could go grab something to eat and I oblige, knowing your appetite.

When we were headed for doughnuts I got excited. You owed me doughnuts, you told me. So you wait patiently in line while I go scout for a table. And when seated I got an unobstructed view of you and I stared for hours, it seemed. And we rambled on and on, until the time to part was upon us.

So while walking home, alone, I texted my thanks, and confusion regarding what my role was for tagging along. I wasn't of any particular use, I said. "Your company is more than enough," you replied.

And my heart stopped, my breath was thready, and my stomach flipped. What in the world did you mean by that?

---

Tuesday I was out with a best friend. And for the first time in months I got the most sane, straight-headed advice I desperately needed. Or support for a strategy I decided I'd employ where you're concerned.

I do not know what my role in your life is. I do not know how important I am to you. And I don't want to expect much from this, from you, because I would be setting myself up for disaster. And I'm already starting to expect. So where you're concerned, I have an algorithm that'll immediately pop up in my head.

1. Does this make you happy? If yes, proceed to step 2. If no, step 3.

2. Revel in it. And shake yourself to sanity afterwards.

3. Drop the thought immediately and think of something else. Like spam, for instance.

So there. I'm hoping this works. Because I don't wanna fall desperately in love with you. Hell, no.