Playlist:
"How Soon Is Now?"- The Smiths
"Wrong"- Depeche Mode
"Come Undone"- Duran Duran (Highly Recommended)
"Walk On the Ocean"- Toad the Wet Sprocket

I can't help it. I've always been this way.

It's not that I'm afraid of having friends and relationships, I just don't want them. My duties as a guardian of the universe, as a Crystal Gem, are too important. It was what I was born for, it is what I live for, and it is what I will die for.

The others don't understand. It's alright, I don't expect them to.

However, I can't help but cringe when they mutter such things as "antisocial", "criminally silent", "isolationist", and "she's just shy, you'll get used to her", in my direction. I've gotten used to it, not to worry.

And now they've seemed to dismiss the hushed, gossipy whispers and pitiful head-shakes. At first I couldn't understand what it meant. The earthly customs they had adopted were difficult for me to read.

Eventually, I did figure it out.

Rose and Amethyst had come to the conclusion that I was incapable of falling in love. Not asexual, but utterly incapable, as if love were some custom or language I couldn't hold in my grasp.

It was a confounding concept. They had, to the best of my knowledge, analyzed what they had seen from me.

Or perhaps, what I'd allowed them to see.

But to come to a profound conclusion such as that was beyond me. Just like that, I knew that a wall would forever be between I and the others. It would take years for me to completely forgive them.

Worst of all, it prompted a terrible feeling deep in my body, one I'd never felt before.

I'd expected for Pearl to be in on this as well. Honestly, I wouldn't have been surprised if she had been the one to originally promote the very idea.

She was. But not in the position I'd imagined. Not at all.

Pearl was running against Rose and Amethyst in this miserable topic of debate.

She came down to my quarters late one uneventful night. Or rather, she stumbled in with the weary urgency that would've come with running a marathon. Her eyes were red, as if she'd been crying. Her breath came out in self-induced sobs and gasps, laced with confused, directionless fury.

It wasn't a surprise. She had a habit of stressing herself out about ridiculous things.

What had been surprising had been the words she'd gasped and puffed, unable to hold the tears in her voice.

"It's not true! Tell me it's not true! You have a... h-heart! You must! You... must... You... love...!"

At first, I wasn't sure how to handle the situation. She was having an anxiety attack. Rose usually handled those. Before I could even begin to process the scene before me, she had crumpled to the floor in a pitiful stupor.

I had to do something.

Kneeling on the floor, I reached for her shoulder.

Startled, her bloodshot eyes regained consciousness. She scurried to an upright position, her chest puffing.

"G-Garnet?"

"I'm here."

She scanned the area around her, possibly making an attempt to recall the situation that she likely hadn't been fully aware of.

"Oh... goodness." She ran a hand through her mussed hair. "Did I...?"

"You had an anxiety attack."

She didn't appear to have heard. Instead, she picked herself off of the ground and without another word, left. Simply left.

From that day forward, she'd begun paying peculiar attention to me. I feel her bright, owl-esque eyes burn in my direction when I turn away. I see the sweet admiration, respect and subtle expectancy in her smile as she looks to me for guidance. If I struggle to understand an earthly concept, she is now the one to clarify my misunderstandings in an instant. Not Rose. No longer Rose. It is now Pearl.

It's strange, I fear that she may have developed an obsession with me. That may be a rather, for lack of a better word, narcissistic thing to say, I understand. But the intensity of the situation calls for nothing short of the truth.

The most unsettling thing about this arrangement is without a doubt, my own inability to handle it in a responsible manner. All the disciplinary training and battle practice in the world could never have prepared me for romance.

Of course, that doesn't mean a small part of me doesn't want it.

At this point in my rolling, rumbling train of thought, I would have shoved it off the tracks and gotten on with my life.

But as of late, it's becoming difficult to refrain myself from thinking such thoughts. I can't let frivolous, superficial desires distract me from my duties as a Crystal Gem.

I'm ashamed of myself. Ashamed and angry.

How can the others have human companions and relationships, whereas I can't make one friend? Why is it so easy for them? How can they possibly bear the burden of romantic commitment?

Perhaps they're right, and it is I in the wrong. Perhaps love is a societal normality, and I am simply incapable of love, and therefore incapable of fitting myself into an earthly lifestyle.

Fine. I don't need it.

Do I?

A rather odd interaction with the fair Pearl is causing me to foolishly question myself.

I believe it was sometime in the mid 1970's. Of course, when you have lived as long as I have, the years begin to blur together, and the very idea of keeping track is enough to wear a gem out.

I'd invited her to my room one drizzly summer afternoon. I hadn't the slightest idea why I'd done it, or what I'd had planned, only that I had done it. I had sealed a denotative date with Pearl in under sixty seconds.

As you can imagine, both Rose Quartz and Amethyst were momentarily stunned. I couldn't help but enjoy their realization of a great lapse in judgement. Ha, take that, I wanted to say.

Strangely enough, I seem to recall Pearl's reaction to my offer to be rather... incredulous. Positively inexplicable, and quite beyond me. I can only remember smiling, and shushing her as not to rouse the great serpent we were assigned to slay that day.

The "date" was, for lack of a better word, awkward. The whole expanse of the time was spent in my room, more specifically on my own bed.

It was at this time that I saw Pearl at last comfortable enough to "let her hair down", as some might say. She spoke in low, rehearsed tones to me, as lovers do. It was a strange, oddly delightful experience, and I found myself listening intently, drinking in every word. This was the being who saw me in a golden light, more so than Rose or Amethyst. I made the realization that Pearl and I, Pearl and Garnet, could be something. Something far more beautiful than the dirty, tasteless, mind-numbing atmosphere that had surrounded us tortured souls for so long.

One thing led to another, and we soon found indulgence in each other's nude physical form underneath the bedcovers. I don't remember much from it, and I'd rather not. Memories such as that are best left in the moment. All I can say about it... is that I repeatedly asked myself questions, "Is this please, love? Is this the long sought-after feeling that has feverishly avoided my grasp until now? Is this ecstatic feeling in my body, burning in my palms, pounding deep in my chest, what is believed I am incapable of feeling? Have I proven them wrong? Have I proven myself wrong?"

These questions I have turned over in my head every day since.

To this day, Pearl hasn't given up on me.

And I don't think I've given up on myself, either.

Don't worry, my faithful little buckers, I'll finish "Idiosyncrasies". However, I feel this is one of the better things I've written. I'm quite proud of it, and I desire your thoughts on it.
-Bucky