How does Buddy's Friend in A Christmas Memory show her love for him?

The question is correct in asking about how Buddy's friend shows her love for Buddy because she never actually says the words to Buddy. The closest that she gets to actually saying "I love you" is through a hand squeeze. The text tells readers that Buddy and his friend are too excited to sleep on Christmas Eve night. She sneaks into his room and declares that she is too excited to sleep. Instead, they huddle together on the bed, and she squeezes Buddy's hand with an "I-love-you" squeeze.

We huddle in the bed, and she squeezes my hand I-love-you. "Seems like your hand used to be so much smaller. I guess I hate to see you grow up.

However, readers don't need to hear her say the words to Buddy to know that she loves him. It is clear through her actions. She wants to be around Buddy, and she wants to spend all of her free time with him. It doesn't matter if they are talking, baking, handing out fruitcakes, drinking whiskey, or flying kites. She simply loves to be near Buddy, and when she is reprimanded for being a bad influence, it nearly crushes her to know that it might be true. She feels terrible that she might have been a bad influence on somebody that she so clearly loves.

"A child of seven! whiskey on his breath! are you out of your mind?"
[...]
My friend gazes at her shoes, her chin quivers, she lifts her skirt and blows her nose and runs to her room. Long after the town has gone to sleep and the house is silent except for the chimings of clocks and the sputter of fading fires, she is weeping into a pillow already as wet as a widow's handkerchief.