I like you because you're the nicest thing to look at 'round here. I love you because you'd spare a thought to a girl who's been tossed to a side and left to rot for years. I think I love you because sometimes I get the feeling you're less than you seem you are and I'm just pretending. The Marius you are and the Marius in my mind are different, I'm sure now. My Marius wouldn't cringe every time he sees me, wouldn't leave me alone, and would think twice before breaking a girl's heart. So you see, I think I love you. But it's not your fault. It's just me, foolish me making castles out of clouds. Never you.
Still, I do like you very much. I would like you more if you let me hold your hand like you let her do and if you stopped pretending not to see me in the hallway. But I take what I can get because there's not much for me out there now. And it's not good to be greedy and want too much. I have half a lifetime of experience of wanting too much, trust me. Do you wish for so much more? Perhaps one day we can sit down in a garden at night and discuss this. I think we'd have a lot to say to each other and I wouldn't mind doing all the talking anyway, no.
I love you because I would die for you. Or is it supposed to be the other way round? You've got my head in a mix now, you see, so I can't think straight. Never could think straight with you. I haven't thought straight for a long time. Everything is messy and only feelings slice through the chaos in my head. It's like a thousand voices shouting at once, and then I hear your voice, so clear so sweet, and everything clears like how the sun chases away the storm. And it feels like a better life.
I could see myself with you, in the countryside away from bad men and boys with too much fire in their blood and not enough sense in their brains (though I wouldn't be the best judge of sense). I like the country because there's always a smiling Maman standing at the doorway and a kind Papa that buys little joyful toys. I think that's what the country is like, from what I can remember of it. You wouldn't mind it one bit, because I know you can appreciate the flowers and I'd be prettier there; they say country air is healthier than the city's. Then the lark would be forever far away from your mind.
Of course, I know she occupies your heart, holds on to it with her wretchedly lovely lady fingers. I know I'm nothing against her and that's why you leave me and shatter my own weak, lonely heart. I don't think you know what you do to me. I pray you don't know because if you did and you still continued to hurt me, you really would be less of the man I thought you were. Are you? I don't know. And that's why I only think I love you.
At the end of it all, I still take a bullet for you. It looks like we won't be talking deep into the night in our own secret garden after all, or moving into a beautiful cosy house by vast cornfields larger than any city square in dirty, noisy Paris. I guess it really is a pity because I do think you're a very sweet boy even when you can't really look me in the eye now, even at my deathbed, and you still cringe when you touch me.
So yes, I do believe I was a little in love with you, in love with your eyes and your curls, with your smile (that was never directed at me) and your golden heart.
But only a little because you wouldn't want more anyway. And I never wanted to inconvenience you (mostly).
Adieu, monsieur, and may you learn to love me a little in your own way someday.