Duff, excuse me if i missing anything before the story you just told but in my opinion: your trying too hard to get her attention by using conventional methods such as pretending you don't care and such. but in my experience, a guy is so much more attractive if they're just themselves and confident in what they do. if you act like you don't care about her, she probably wont care about you (unless she absolutely loves you beforehand). I'm not saying jump and give it all you can, im just saying that if you like her than just go for it when you feel the time is right. there is no trick, its different for each person and its better to do it without regret than regret later if shes leaving for college.