Projection.
That's all there is to it, all there can ever possibly be to it. Beth is simply projecting her feelings, these emotions, onto Rick because he's their leader figure. She doesn't love him, couldn't possibly. She needs something—someone—to believe in, and she's unconsciously chosen Rick to fill those needs.
Or, at least that's what he tells himself. It's always been easier to pretend she's just confused. Easier to swallow her affections that way.
Meet me in the south watch tower after your shift.
He's been reading these words over and over again for the majority of the night. Beth had slipped the paper into his palm as he'd been handing over Judith for the day. It's been on his mind, in his firm grip, ever since. Rick knows how she feels about him, knows exactly how he feels about her back, but everything about it screams wrong. It's unsettling to say the least. And now, with ten minutes left until his shift finishes, he hasn't got a clue as to what to do about it.
Why she wants him though, he'll never understand.
Beth is too young for him, far too smart; a better person than he could ever dream of being. She's sweet and pure as the snow. She's the sun, bright and giving off warmth every possible chance she gets. What is Rick? Dampness, darkness; the clouds in the sky that cover her rays and bring cold showers in their wake.
He refuses to do that to Beth, to be that burden that hinders the light she's able to give off, even during the most horrible of times.
He's not worthy of these feelings and probably never will be again.
Not with Lori, his poor wife, long since dead and gone.
He could have done something to save her, he should have. Anything at all. But he'd failed her, yet again, and it had cost her everything; her life.
Lori.
Shane.
Dale.
T-Dog.
Andrea.
The list only keeps on growing and growing. Rick would rather sacrifice himself, his own wellbeing—happiness—if it means keeping Beth Greene as far away from that list as he possibly can.
It's sick anyway. Wrong for Rick to ever think, even for a second, that he might be able to reciprocate any of her own feelings for him. Beth is seventeen years old, still very much a child in every single way that should count. But she's not truthfully, not at all. She's far more adult than Rick enjoys admitting to himself. And that fact frightens him terribly.
He should feel disgusted in himself for finding her beautiful, should feel like a fraud of a leader and of a man. And he does—it practically eats away at him on most nights—but more so, he's disturbed by his lack of caring about what it makes him.
It's with a heavy heart and bloodshot eyes, up late again on watch, that he realizes he'd rather be perverse and with Beth than with his morals intact and without her.
But he won't do it, he couldn't possibly go there with her.
The second Rick reciprocates—shows Beth even a sliver of the love she's given to him—he knows they'll both be damned to pain, to death, to suffering, and to everything Rick has been hoping to shelter the blonde from the best that he can.
Beth has already had her fair share of pain in this world. She's got a scar on her wrist to prove it. Rick refuses to end up being just another scar marring her beautiful flesh. Certainly, he's worried of admitting his own affections only to be killed himself and leave her behind. What would she do then? How would she cope with the loss? The thought of Beth hurting herself because of him, because of nothing, causes his heart to ache.
But more than that, he's selfishly worried for himself. When he inevitably loses her, will the pain be too much? Will he revert back into himself, into his own mind, in the same way he did after losing Lori? Maybe she'll become a scar on his own wrist. This thought petrifies him.
He's weak for even thinking such a thought, and he knows that. Rick couldn't possibly leave this world, leave his children behind, in such a manner. But the pain, it seems, has been stacking up as of late. It's building, bubbling within the pit of his gut, and it's hot and rancid and more painful than he could have ever expected it to be.
It would be easy, so easy, to just disappear. But Beth would still be here, Judith and Carl and the rest of his prison family he's come to love and care for. And that would make him the most selfish man in the world, to just give into his own madness like that and leave them behind.
It's with an unsettling amount of numbness Rick realizes something; he'd rather keep Beth near, keep her safe and never give in to the temptation of her eyes and of her face and those beautiful lips and that wonderful heart, so long as she doesn't just become another Lori; a ghost left behind to haunt him.
Without another word Rick takes the paper he'd been holding, crinkled and dirty from his fingertips, and rips it up into as many tiny little pieces as he can.
Tossing the paper through the open window, he watches as each little fragment dances within the wind, scattering from eyesight.
Rick only hopes Beth doesn't wait up all night.
Besides, it's really just projection anyhow.