I never really fiddled with prose much but I figure why not:

Gaydon looked at her, his eyes never blinking and his mouth never drier. He worked the courage up and up again but the words never left his mouth. As Cheryl looked at him with eyes that declared confusion so deep that no maxim could explain her the truth. It was all Gaydon could do to spit out the phrase, “What if anything is your hearts desire?”
Coming from Gaydon this was not an odd statement. He was often pictured as a thinker and his conversation on more than one occasion had caused a stir as these friends would sit around their lunch table. With a laugh Cheryl simply replied, “true love.” Gaydon had to fight to keep his expression from changing to drastically, he had to keep the air that he was above all answers and that he understood everything. At no cost could he lose his image, the image of a wiseman. If only Gaydon knew, he was the only one who saw his self this way. With a forced chuckle, to hide his nervousness, Gaydon remained without word. Then Cheryl smiled at him, quoting Hanible Lector in the Silence of the Lambs Quid pro quo, what of you?
There were a thousand things Gaydon wanted to reply with, one thousand bold statements that would declare his love, one thousand statements that would make her melt into his arms. But what if she felt different, what if she laughed? Gaydon in his had had formulated a statement that could say just enough to get her to inquire deeper but still hid his truest feelings. “Salvation from guilt.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Cheryl asked with a smirk, “sounds more like a cop-out to me.” Rushing into Gaydon like balefire came a flood of responses, but nothing to really explain what he meant. Gaydon had over intellectualized his self. Because of that there was no reply he could make that would answer her question without saying too much.
“Just that,” Gaydon hesitated, “It is hard to say everything I want to say when…” and he trailed off. Cheryl perked up but Gaydon faded away and walked back to his dorm finishing the phrase in his head. “It is hard to say everything I want to say when I stare into eyes so innocent when my soul is so dirty.”