I'm Yours (PRN)

xv

As much as he hates to say it, he's starting to think Andre was right.

He needed to refresh his mind, something Andre told him, following a week of manifesting all of the most dauntingly stressful parts of his life into his reunion with Monica. His gloom, his sickness... It was more than her. Everybody but him could see it. He was on edge about the tour, about the record, about life, about so many thing. Seeing Monica was the straw that broke the camel's back, splitting Prince in half as he lost all sense. He needed a regrouping. He needed a centering moment.

Prince came back from tour with some color in his face, though he's still slightly dull in the eyes when he smiles.  He yearning for Monica remains, placing a slight damper on his expected parade as he wonders if forcing his feelings into a platonic world will satisfy him enough. Unsure, Prince is still willing to try. He's not completely himself, but he's returned enough for Andre to longer worry about his best friend. He's returned enough to pique Monica's interest with a version of him self she's never met, one she didn't pity.

"¡No manches!"

Monica glances back at Prince as they hear the squeals of her family's disbelief from outside the door. Prince's eyebrows raise, never having heard Spanish coming the Wells' residence. She giggles at the sight of his expression. "If they're this loud that means the good cousins are here," Monica tells him. "Get ready..." Prince takes her warning to heart. The laughter heard from outside the door already overwhelms him.

The door fully opens, revealing Prince to the same crowded foyer he saw on Thanksgiving now full of a brand new race of people. He's nervous now. Instead of the usual suspects, he has to deal with a brand new room of people with just as much energy combatting his reserved ways off of the stage. Monica keeps a careful eye on him as they fully emerge into the realm of boisterous affection.

"Mo!" The cheers come in scatters as her name makes waves in the sea of Jorge's maternal family.

Benny steps forward, ahead of the others, and scolds her. "You're late."

"And you're ugly," Monica shamelessly fires back. She takes note of Prince stiffed laughter, recalling that he is present after almost blowing up on her step-brother. "I don't know why I'm even talking to you. Move." Monica signals for Prince to follow behind her. "Let's go, Prince."

He follows her every step in verbatim as they zig-zag through the house, searching for Monica's mother in the kitchen. Becoming overwhelmed, Prince looks around the kitchen for a familiar face. Anthony is nowhere in sight. On his search, Prince locks eyes with a young woman, somewhere in her late twenties. She squints at him until the slang of a language is not fluent in flees from her maroon lips.

"¿Neta?" Her head tilts. Alarmed, confused, and unsure of what to do, Prince drops eye contacrt. The woman leaps to her feet, her squint deepening in his direction. Feeling exposed, Prince turns around to Monica but, much to his undoing, she has been swarmed in by a realm of relatives. "No way," the woman says, approaching Prince as a smile form. Realizing he is stuck, he simply freezes in place. "Excuse me."

Prince's eyes waft down to the big brown pair staring up at him. They sparkle, screaming of the beauty many women dream of, with a light mole resting between them as if its a placeholder for her third eye.

"Did you play a show here in Minneapolis? Sometime earlier this year? You look exactly like the guy my friend took me to see," she questions. Prince nods, slowly, trying to mentally work out her bold energy. "I knew it! I fucking knew it! I saw you walk in and I said," the woman points to him, "I've seen this guy before."

His struggle to digest the fireball standing eye to eye with him becomes apparent those who truly know him. From the corner of the kitchen, standing at the phone with it to her ear and a hand over the transmitter, Brenda's yells set Prince free. "Stephanie, leave that boy alone!" Laughter takes over the end of her demand. The phone is quickly hung up. "Prince! Over here honey," Brenda calls to him.

As Prince shimmies past the bright-eyed woman named Stephanie, he can hear her whisper to someone he assumes is her relative. "I told you that's the guy with the panties. I knew it."

"Don't worry about Stephanie," Brenda says as Prince approaches her. "She's a real firecracker."

Prince forces a laugh. "She's pretty," he says, glancing at the woman over his shoulder.

Brenda smiles, hangs up the phone, and humbles him ambitions with a clear, concise sentence. "She's a lesbian." Her belt of joyous laughter upon witnessing Prince's wide eyes fazes no one in the kitchen. Brenda pushes her long, blown out hair over her shoulder as a mechanism of keeping it from getting tangled in her expensive pearl necklace. "Where have you been, Prince? You look great! Your skin is a perfect shade of tan. You look like you've been getting some sunshine since I last saw you."

Sheepishly grinning, Prince's eyes fall to the boots he taps against Brenda's kitchen tiles. "Thank you." He fails to return Brenda's eye contact. As well put together as he is, he's still fragile. Too much emotional movement has the ability to send him right back to the depths of hell. Needless to say, he's ready to find the nearest exit. "Well, I just came to drop Monica off so I'll be on my way." His head swivels around for Monica. Realizing she's no where to be found doesn't surprise him.

The moment she left him in the kitchen, Prince began wondering how much his arrival was only attached to her appearance. It hurts his feelings to think his invitation may have come with stipulations only benefitting Monica. Still, he appreciates the invitation.

"Oh, you can't stay?"

"No," says Prince as he apologetically smiles, shaking his head. He scans the room one more time, silently hoping to spot his ex-girlfriend. He's out of luck. "I have to get home and feed my..." Prince forces himself to pick an animal of choice. "Bird." Trying to believe himself, Prince pushed out an authentically playful laugh. "I have a pet bird," he adds.

Brenda chuckles at the sound of Prince's own bizarre laughter. "Okay, well I won't keep you. Don't be a stranger, Skipper. It was good to see you so soon again."

"You too," Prince cheesed.

The very second Brenda turns her attention elsewhere, Prince guns for the door. His familiarity with the home's layout plays to his advantage. He goes through the back exit of the kitchen, down the empty hallway, and out of the home's side door that usually is taken down to the basement. His relief is found in the silence of him being alone. Finally, he can think.

He enjoyed the day he's spent with Monica. However, he's noticing a certain uniqueness about her latest personality developments. Her lack of tact when speaking, her lack of attention to details of previous conversations shared. Prince finds himself wondering if he is boring her... Or if Monica simply doesn't care. As Prince questions her interest in him, Monica resides in the four walls of her upstairs bedroom. She is tied into a phone-call with her ex-boyfriend, William, trying to get off before Prince realizes she is gone. Unbeknownst to her, he has already gotten in his car to leave.