I will say one thing. You do draw out the story in the spaces between the words. It’s clever how a story that, while devoid of the asthetic details, manages to draw from the reader’s past (I’d say many of us have ‘admired’ from afar) and make it personal.
I had a Miss AB once, and I remember how once she took me to a work function because there was another fellow who had shown interest and she wanted a ‘buffer’. Her manner of ‘being’ is reflected in your descriptions, always there, but always out of reach.
*shrug* All I can say to you is next time… next time there’s an AB… work to overcome whatever ‘it’ is that keeps you from her.
I can recall a girl who would even come to my apartment and wake me from afternoon study naps (as I called them) and years later, looking back on things, I never told her I liked her. At the time, of coruse, I wondered why she never sought more than our casual friendship, but maybe it wasn’t her. Maybe she just needed that single affirmation that would have taken less than 10 seconds.