The Majesty of Choice

Dig

"You can't even name one?"

"We live in a town of intolerable people, Patrick, I can't name a person aside from you or Ray who I would rescue if they were dangling off a cliff."

Patrick sighs, "Okay, but nobody? There's not a single girl who you think is even kind of okay?"

"No," Gerard says firmly. Really, everyone in this town is pretty scummy in his eyes and they're all a million times more disgusting as they get older. The only bearable people are the ones who haven't learned to resent Gerard's very existence yet. Unfortunately, all girls do dislike Gerard, or at least they're cautioned for their entire lives to stay away from him.

Gerard isn't sure how visible his curse is to these people. He doesn't think he's been ordered around by half of them, but maybe it's such a bad aura around him that he repels anyone who comes into contact with him. He's a social outcast simply by nature, not by any real action on his part. It's unfair, and it has left him incredibly cynical of the people around him, but he can't help it.

Still, Gerard refuses to even kind of reduce himself to their level. He's not fond of most people in this town but he doesn't necessarily look down on them inherently because he can. Only when you've proven yourself unworthy of his respect does Gerard ever decide not to care for what you have to say or think about him. That is, this is his life motto unless royalty is involved, than his stance on the matter is fuck the lot of them.

"And you wonder why Ray and I tease you about the Prince?" Patrick continues, confusing Gerard, because he's certain they weren't talking about the Prince a moment ago. They were talking about girls, not the Prince, and those are two very dissimilar topics if you ask Gerard.

"Why is the Prince important?" Gerard asks. "It's been almost a week since he left, when will we be able to get past him, and onto interesting things? Like grass growing, or the consistency of goat milk."

"Because he's going to rule the kingdom someday."

"No, I didn't mean like that, I meant in this particular conversation."

"Because you totally liked the guy."

"I didn't," Gerard replies, shaking his head. He's not sure what's true, but he doesn't need to deal with that anymore since he's never going to see the guy again. It makes things easier. Probably. If he never has the chance to know the guy more than he already does, then Gerard doesn't have to grapple with how he felt because it's simply not in the cards anymore. It works for him. Or it has so far. He hasn't reached a crippling point of existential crisis yet over the guy so he's really hoping he'll be able to push that back for as long as he can. That is, if he's even aware of his oncoming identity crisis at all.

He hasn't told Hattie or Olive about the Prince yet. He's not sure he's going to. They don't talk to each other often. Mostly Gerard ignores them and when they speak to him he pretends he can't hear and walks away. He doesn't want to acknowledge them any further than that. Just because they live in his house doesn't mean he has to have any real sort of connection with them. They don't need him, he doesn't need them, and meeting the Prince doesn't intersect those boundaries.

"You did."

"Okay, I didn't. I mean, I don't like having friends. Well, other than you, but I'm still undecided on how I feel about that. I just don't think you know how I felt about the guy because if you did, you certainly wouldn't think I actually liked him."

"You think I think you liked him like a friend though."

"I have no idea what you just said," Gerard says, confused.

"I never said that I thought you liked him the way you like me, or so to say, completely platonically."

"You're heading down a path I don't want to listen to," Gerard says, terrified of wherever he's going with this. He's also terrified of what it means to him.