You lack a pretension I see too often in other boys.

You don’t try hard to prove yourself to anyone.You’ve been through shit, but you make the best of things with sense of humour intact. The younger a person is the clearer they see things. I’m no child, but I’m younger than you & I haven’t learnt how to wear the weary wary eyes that grown-ups put on themselves to see others.
Maybe I liked you because somewhere in the decade between is what I needed to avoid these feelings from ever starting up. But we aren’t talking about ‘why’, are we. So here’s another ‘what’:

you know what you want.
(even if it isn’t me.)