The speaker looks back on a moment from childhood when a boy told her he liked her. She rejected him and, with the others watching, pointed and laughed at him. The poem makes clear she did it out of fear or pressure rather than real scorn, because her own heart broke as she did it. She never managed to say sorry.
Years later he is sitting in front of her as a grown man, and the old feelings have only deepened. Her guilt and longing are tangled together, and the short, halting lines mirror how hard it is for her to speak. When she finally tries to tell him, she can't even meet his eyes.
The mood is aching and regretful, with a quiet fear running underneath. The last lines leave her uncertain, afraid that the love she is ready to admit may already have faded on his side.