Meg Cabot - Forever Princess

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 foryou . And I…I was just soangry with you. And you were being so stupidly blind about who he really was. But…you seemed happy. And by then I had Kenny, andI 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. “Weboth 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. “Reallyhonest. 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.”