[Herbert just stares at him for a moment. He almost laughs - something bitter and not at all humorous, wanting to remind the other boy that he'd already driven away his best friend with his interests, right into the gleefully waiting arms of a girl, and that the only other boy who'd shown any interest had been doing so just to screw with him, and had drifted off the moment he got bored. Herbert's pretty realistic about his chances - he's not handsome, nor charming, and maybe, maybe if he'd been straight there would have been a larger pool of possible ... candidates, but he's not.]

No. [says finally] I won't. And I'm not interested in that, anyway. I didn't expect to have those feelings in the first place, I'm certainly not going to waste my time looking desperately for someone who might take me. I'd rather get rid of the emotions entirely, but no one's willing to help with that, so I suppose I'll have to figure it out on my own.