I'm No Prince

Am I A Prince?

Andrew sat in his room, cross-legged, the question he'd asked himself last night still haunting his thoughts; "do I even want to be a prince?"

Surely, he thought, he was simply being silly. He still remembered when his mom had called him her 'little prince'. He'd been scared of moving, of going to a new school, and of going into fifth grade without any friends. Andrew had considered hiding away where nobody could find him, so that he couldn't be forced to go to school, where he'd feel so incredibly weak and alone. His mom had found him, crying in a dark corner of their home, and asked him what was wrong.

"I don't wanna go to school, Mom," Andrew had said, "please don't make me go, everyone will laugh at me and bully me. I don't have any friends in this town, nobody has my back anymore."

Andrew remembered his mom sighing, and a look of concern flashing across her face. He remembered the way she'd smiled when she began to assure him that everything would be okay.

"Andrew," she had said to him, "why would you be scared? You're a little prince, dear, you know that everyone will love you, and do you know what the best part about a prince is?"

Andrew had shook his head, confused, much like he was now, about what his mom meant by what she was saying.

"The best part of a prince," his mother had continued, her hands on the young Andrew's shoulders, "is that he brings people together. You are a prince, Andrew, you'll draw good people towards you, and they'll want to be your friends. They'll look up to you, and grow to care about you, because you'll be wonderful and kind. They'll be rowdy and annoying sometimes, but, even if they wouldn't use the same phrase to describe it, you'll be their prince, their leader. You, Andrew, will be so impactful on their lives that they'll follow you through whatever you go through, because that's what friends do for a prince like you. How does that sound, Drew?"

Andrew remembered the rest of the story, too. He remembered how that was the day he'd met Jason, and decided that his mother was right, even if she used dramatic terms, Andrew could be like a prince, and people would like him. He'd decided that he'd keep trying to be the person who could bring people together, the 'prince', which was really more like glue, that kept friends together.

He wondered now at the meaning of 'prince', scrutinizing what it meant to hold his friend group together. Andrew knew what people would describe it as, and he knew that he agreed with the definition. Andrew believed that to hold a group together, a strong person was required. He knew that they would have to be someone that everyone could relate with, and... He didn't know what else, though there was certainly more, but he didn't feel like he could truly say he wanted to be strong or relatable anymore. Andrew didn't even know if he wanted to deal with such a large group of people on a regular basis anymore, even. Weren't Harry and Jason good enough?

The second thing Andrew wondered, was what even did other people expect a 'prince' to do? He knew what he thought of when he thought of a prince, the glue holding people together that he'd just imagined and puzzled over, yet was that even the traditional definition that people had of 'prince'?

A cursory search in the dictionary led Andrew to the definition of a prince; simply put, it stated that a prince was a ruler, nothing more than that. Andrew thought about what a ruler was, and did not find any desire to be expected to lead anyone, no matter who they were. He knew that, thankfully, he was not an actual prince, and would never be expected to lead a country, yet a person could also be the leader of their friend group, or the leader of a class of younger kids. He could even be expected, as a prince, to lead others his age towards a goal that they sought, if he was seen as a leader.

Andrew wasn't sure how logical any of his current thoughts were, yet he could not deny that he was now finally starting to make some headway on his question of who he was. He wondered on what he'd thought of so far, and determined that he'd sufficiently defined what it would mean to be a prince, and now he looked towards a new question for himself to answer. He wondered at what he needed to know, and only one thing would come to mind; the initial question he'd asked himself last night: "Do I even want to be a prince?"

When faced with the question, not only of if he wanted to be a prince, he wasn't completely sure he could answer that one yet, but also with the question of why he even wondered that question in the first place. Why wouldn't he want to be a prince? His parents really did expect him to step up one day, not for anything big, but to be a leader to people who might need him. they would want him to be a strong man for those who would rely on him. Did he want to be a strong man? What was he even thinking about right now?

Andrew squeezed his eyes shut, concentrating on answering the question, hoping that something would come to him so that he would understand better. Something, anything, would be better than the sudden worry that had hit him, though he didn't know why it had even been warranted. He wasn't sure why his usual pondering now seemed so daunting and dangerous, and wondered at what to do next.

The sound of the garage shook Andrew from his reverie, and the sounds of Kelsey clambering out of the car and into the house started to make him wonder at something else. Kelsey had been odd around him lately. She'd not been different, necessarily, but she had been her usual brand of odd, in a different way. She seemed to be getting more concerned for him than she'd been not too long ago, as if she was thinking about his questions, too. She seemed as if she might have her own thoughts about what he might be feeling, even though he wasn't even sure just yet. 

A thought crossed Andrew's mind, and the new question seemed to be something of a breakthrough, now that he thought about it more and more. He wondered what kind of things Kelsey had noticed that he, perhaps, had not? What did she think was happening with him, and would it be helpful for him to hear her outside opinion, and try it on for a few days if it made sense?