by Meg Cabot
Also, I would just like to add, I knew it! I knew they Did It! Way back in the beginning of eleventh grade, I knew it.
“Lilly!” I cried. “You told me you never slept with him! I specifically asked you, and you said he could have taken advantage, and he never did!”
“Yeah,” Lilly said, sinking down beside me and slumping against the wall. Her face was devoid of expression. “Well, I lied. I still had some pride, I guess. And anyway, it’s not like I didn’t get something out of it, too. I was totally warm for the guy’s form. I just would have appreciated it if, in the end, he wouldn’t have turned out to be lusting for my best friend the whole time.”
“Oh my God,” I said, again. I was having a whole lot of trouble picturing J.P. and my best friend—Lilly—doing…well. That.
Also, what about all those times J.P. said he was a virgin, just like me? About how he was so glad he’d waited for the right girl, and how that girl was me? J.P. Reynolds-Abernathy IV’s Big Fat Lie Number Four. Or was it Five, now? Wow, he was going to start beating my lying record soon.
“Lilly,” I said. My heart felt like it was twisting in my chest, I felt so bad. Not for myself. For Lilly. I understood now. Everything…even about ihatemiathermopolis.com. This didn’t make it right.
But it made it more understandable.
“I’m so, so sorry,” I said, reaching out to take her hand, with its black-painted nails. “I had no idea. And…well, about the other thing. Him dumping you for me. I had no idea about that, either. Honestly, though…why didn’t you just tell me?”
“Mia, come on.” Lilly shook her head. “Why should I have had to? As my best friend, shouldn’t my ex have been off-limits? You should have known better. And what were you doing, breaking up with my brother over that dumb Judith Gershner thing in the first place? That was just so…psychotic. Most of the beginning of last year, you were psychotic.”
I bit my lower lip. “Yeah,” I said. “I know. But the things you did didn’t help, you know.”
“I know,” Lilly said. When I glanced at her, I saw there were tears in her eyes. “I guess I was pretty psychotic, too. I…well, I loved him, you know. And he dumped me for you. And I…I was just so angry with you. And you were being so stupidly blind about who he really was. But…you seemed happy. And by then I had Kenny, and I was happy…and well, I figured maybe now that he had you, J.P. would be better…how do you apologize for something like that…what I did?”
She looked at me and shrugged helplessly. I looked back at her, my own eyes filled with tears, as well.
“But, Lilly,” I said, sniffling a little. “I missed you. I missed you so much.”
“I missed you, too,” Lilly said back. “Even though I kind of hated your guts for a while.”
This made me sniffle harder.
“I hated your guts, too,” I said.
“Well,” Lilly said, the tears sparkling like jewels in the corners of her eyes. “We both acted like idiots.”
“Because we let a boy come between our friendship?”
“Two boys,” Lilly said. “J.P. and my brother.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe we should agree never to do that again.”
“Agreed,” Lilly said, and snagged my pinky with hers. We pinky swore. Then, sobbing a little, we hugged.
And it’s weird. She doesn’t smell like her brother.
But she smells really good, just the same. She smells like something that reminds me of…well, of home.
“Now,” Lilly said, wiping tears from her eyes with the backs of her hands, when she let go of me. “I have to get back to the party, before Kenny blows something up.”
“Okay,” I said, with a shaky laugh. “I’ll be right out. I just need…I just need a minute.”
“See you later, POG,” Lilly said.
I can’t even tell you how good it felt to hear her call me that. Even though I used to hate it. I couldn’t help laughing as I wiped away my own tears.
And she got up and left, just as two girls who looked only kind of familiar to me came in and went, “Oh my God, aren’t you, like, Mia Thermopolis?”
And I was like, “Yeah.” What now? Seriously. I don’t know how much more I can take.
And they went, “You better get back out there. People are looking for you. Everyone is saying they’re going to name you prom queen. They’re just, like, waiting for you to come back out so they can start the ceremony.”
So. Yeah. Looks like I’m prom queen.
Sadly, if J.P. is prom king, he’s in for a big surprise.
Sunday, May 7, midnight, limo on the way downtown
I walked out of the ladies’ room and sure enough, they were calling out the names of the Albert Einstein High School prom king and queen: J.P. Reynolds-Abernathy IV and Mia Thermopolis.
I’m not even kidding.
How did I go from the geekiest girl in the whole school my freshman year to prom queen my senior year? I don’t get it.
I guess turning out to be a princess might have helped.
But I don’t think that had all that much to do with it, really.
J.P. came through the crowd and found me and smilingly took my hand and steered me up to the stage where the lights were shining so brightly down on us. Everyone was screaming. Principal Gupta handed him a plastic scepter and put a rhinestone tiara on my head. Then she made a speech about positive moral values and how we exemplified them, and how everyone should look up to us.
Which was a pretty big joke, if you consider what we’d both planned on doing after the prom. Oh, and what I’d been doing in an old-timey horse carriage yesterday with my ex.
Then J.P. grabbed me and dipped my body back and kissed me, and everyone cheered.
And I let him because I didn’t want to embarrass him by having Lars taser him right there in front of the entire senior class.
Although that’s really what I felt like doing.
Except if you think about it, it’s not like I’m all that morally superior to him. I mean, I’m wearing his ring, and I’m not a bit in love with him. At least, anymore. And I lie all the time, too.
Except that my lies were to make people feel better.
His lies? Not so much.
But at least I intend to do something about it.
Anyway, right after our kiss, a lot of balloons came down from the ceiling and the DJ put on a super fast punk version of The Cars’ “Let the Good Times Roll,” and everyone started dancing like mad.
Except for me and J.P.
That’s because I pulled him off the stage and said, “We need to talk.”
Only I had to shout it to be heard above the music.
I don’t know what J.P. thought I said, but he went, “Great, yeah, okay, let’s go.”
I guess he was in a really good mood on account of being made prom king. Our whole way out of the ballroom, we kept getting congratulated by all the girls, and J.P. kept getting high-fived by all the guys—when he wasn’t getting chest-bumped, like by Lana’s Westpointer date—for his mad prom king skills. That made our progress out the doors to the lobby, where it was quieter, very slow.
But we finally made it.
“Look, J.P.,” I said, dragging the plastic tiara off my head. It was really uncomfortable and I’m sure had ruined my pretty hairdo. But I didn’t care. I checked to make sure Lars was nearby. He was, sticking his fingers in his ears to check his hearing, which he apparently feared had been damaged by the din inside the ballroom. “I’m really sorry about this.”
The thing is, Dad had only said I had to go to the prom with J.P. And as far as I was concerned, the prom was over now. I mean, they’d crowned the king and queen. So, I felt like that meant the evening was complete.
Which meant, as far as J.P. was concerned, I was done.
“Sorry about what?” J.P. had walked me over toward a bank of elevators. I had no idea why at the time, because the hotel exit was on the ground floor, and so was the ballroom. But later, I figured it out. “This
is actually the perfect time to leave. That music was driving me crazy. I don’t know what’s wrong with a little Josh Groban. And there’s no better time to go than with everybody wanting more, right? How’s your foot? Does it still hurt? Look—” He dropped his voice. “Shouldn’t you tell Lars he can go now? I can take it from here.” He smiled knowingly, then stabbed the elevator button UP.
I had no idea what he was doing. Or what he was talking about. At least, not then. I was completely focused on what I had to do.
“It’s just,” I said. I didn’t want to hurt him. Grandmère had given me a speech to use for letting down suitors gently.
But honestly. What he’d done to Lilly? That was unforgivable. And I didn’t see any reason to let him down gently.
“I think it’s time we were honest with each other,” I said. “Really honest. I know it’s you who’s been calling the paparazzi every time we go out. I can’t prove it, but it’s pretty obvious. I don’t know why you do it. Maybe you think it’s good publicity for your future career as a writer or something. I don’t know. But I don’t like it. And I’m not going to put up with it anymore.”
J.P. looked down at me with a shocked expression on his face. He said, “Mia. What are you talking about?”
“And the thing with the play?” I shook my head. “J.P., you wrote an entire play about me. How could you do that—drag my personal life, like the thing with the sexy dancing, out into the public like that—and let Sean Penn make a movie out of it? If you really loved me, you’d never do something like that. I once wrote a short story about you, but that was before I got to know you, and once I did get to know you, I had all the copies of it destroyed, because it’s not fair to take advantage of people that way.”
J.P.’s jaw dropped a little lower. He started shaking his head. “Mia. I wrote that play for us. To let the world know how happy we are—how much I love you—”
“And that’s another thing,” I said. “If you love me so much, how come you’ve never read my book? I’m not saying it’s the greatest book in the world, but you’ve had it a week, and you still haven’t read it. You couldn’t have skimmed it, and told me what you thought? I appreciate your trying to get me this fantastic book deal, which I don’t need because I already got one on my own, but you couldn’t have glanced at it?”
“Mia.” Now J.P. was starting to look defensive. “This again? You know I’ve been busy. We had finals. And I was in rehearsal—”
“Yeah.” I folded my arms across my chest. “I know. You’ve told me. You have a lot of excuses. But I’m curious to know what your excuse is for why you lied about the hotel room.”
He took his hands out of his pockets and spread his palms, face out, toward me, in the age-old gesture of innocence. “Mia, I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“The rooms in this hotel were sold out weeks ago. Seriously, J.P.” I shook my head. “There’s no way you called this week and got a room. Be honest. You made the reservation months ago, didn’t you? You just assumed you and I would be hooking up tonight.”
J.P. dropped his hands. He also dropped the pretense.
“What’s so wrong with that?” he wanted to know. “Mia, I know how you and your friends talk about prom night—and everything that entails. I wanted to make it special for you. So that makes me a bad guy all of a sudden?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Because you weren’t honest with me about it. And, okay, J.P., I wasn’t honest with you about a lot of stuff either, like about the colleges I got into and my feelings and…well, a lot of stuff. But this was big. I mean, you lied to me about why you broke up with Lilly. You told her you loved me! That’s the whole reason she was so mad at me for so long, and you knew it, and you never told me!”
J.P. just shook his head. Shook it a lot.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “If you’ve been talking to Lilly—”
“J.P.,” I said. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe what he was saying. I couldn’t believe he was lying. To my face! I’m a liar. I’m the princess of liars. And he was trying to lie to me? About something that mattered this much? How dare he! “Stop lying. Lilly and I are friends again. She told me everything. She told me you slept with her! J.P., you aren’t a virgin at all. You were never saving yourself for me. You slept with her! And you never thought that was something you ought to mention to me? How many girls have you slept with, J.P.? I mean, really?”
J.P.’s face was turning so red it was almost purple. Still, he kept trying to salvage the situation. As if there were anything left to salvage.
“Why would you believe her?” J.P. cried, shaking his head some more. “After what she did to you? That website she made up? And you believe her? Mia—are you crazy?”
“No,” I said. “One thing I absolutely am not, J.P., is crazy. Lilly made up that website because she was angry. Angry at me, for not being a better friend to her. And yes…I believe her. You’re the one I can’t believe, J.P. Just how many lies have you told me since we started going out?”
He stopped shaking his head. Then he said, “Mia—”
And he looked…well, terrified is the only word I can think of to describe it.
Just then, the elevator doors opened in front of us. And Lars came over to check to make sure the car was empty. Then he asked dryly, “You two aren’t going anywhere, correct?”
J.P. said, “Actually, we—”
But I said, realizing just then where those elevators went—upstairs, to the hotel rooms—“No.”
And Lars backed away again.
And the elevator doors closed and went away.
Here’s the thing: I’m not going to say that I don’t think J.P. ever cared about me. Because I think he did. I really do.
And the truth is, I cared about J.P., too. I did. He was a good friend at a time when I needed friends. Maybe we’ll even be friends again, someday.
But not right now.
Because right now, I think a big part of the reason he liked me so much is because he wants to be a famous playwright, and he thought hanging out with me could help make him that way.
It sucks to have to admit this. That a guy really only liked me because I’m royal. How many times am I going to fall for this, anyway?
But you know what else sucks sometimes?
Actually being a princess. And having people who are so fascinated by this that they can’t see the person you are behind the crown. The kind of person who wants to be judged on her own merits. The kind of person who doesn’t care if someone offers her a quarter of a million dollars for her book. She’d rather have less money if it’s from someone who really values her work.
Oh, sure. People will claim they like you for who you are. They might even do a really good imitation of it. So good, you’ll even believe it. For a while.
The thing is, if you’re smart, there’ll be clues. It may take you a while to pick up on them.
But you will. Eventually.
And in the end, it all boils down to this:
The people who were your friends before you got the crown are the people who are going to be your best friends no matter what. Because they’re the ones who love you for you—you, in all your geekiness—and not because of what they can get out of you. Weirdly, in some instances, even the people who were your enemies before you got famous (like Lana Weinberger) can end up being better friends to you than the people you become friends with after you become famous. And even when those friends get mad at you—like Lilly was at me—you still need them, even more than ever. Because they might just be the only people who are willing to tell you the truth.
That’s just the way it is. It’s lonely on the throne.
Luckily for me, I had fabulous friends before I ever found out I was the princess of Genovia.
And if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past four years, it’s that I better do my best to try to hold on to them.
No matter what.
Which is why I foun
d myself giving J.P. the speech Grandmère had taught me—the one for letting suitors down gently.
“J.P.,” I said, pulling the ring he’d given me off my finger. “I care about you. I really do. And I wish you the best. But the truth is, I think we’re better off as friends. Good friends. So I want to give this back to you.”
And I lifted his hand, and put the ring back in the center of his palm, and closed his fingers around it.
He looked down at his hand with an expression of abject misery on his face.
“Mia,” he said. “I can explain why I didn’t tell you about Lilly. The thing is, I didn’t think you—”
“No,” I said. “You don’t need to say another word. Don’t feel bad.” I reached up and patted him on the shoulder.
I guess I could have felt sorry for myself because my prom had gotten totally and completely ruined. I’d gone to it with a guy who’d turned out to be a total phony.
But I remembered what my dad said about how it’s the duty of royalty always to be the stronger person, and to make everyone else feel better. And I took a deep breath and said, “You know what I think you should do? Call Stacey Cheeseman. I think she has a total crush on you.”
J.P. looked down at me as if I were nuts. “You do?”
“I totally do,” I lied. But it was a white lie. And I was pretty sure she did have a crush on him. All actresses adore their director.
“This is completely embarrassing,” J.P. said. Now he was looking down at the ring.
“No, it’s not,” I said, patting him on the shoulder some more. “Now, are you going to call her?”
“Mia,” J.P. said, his expression stricken. “I’m sorry. But I thought if you knew the truth about Lilly, you’d never—”
I held up my hand to indicate he should say no more. Really, you would think a man of the world such as he would know better than to keep trying to get me back when I had made it so clear I was done.
I wondered how much of his reluctance to call Stacey was rooted in the fact that she isn’t really that famous. Yet.