Princess on the Brink (The Princess Diaries 8)

The price of jeans went up by 30 percent since last year. If last year’s price was x, what is this year’s price in terms of x?

Oh my God, who CARES?

The average height (arithmetic mean) of 4 members of a 6-member cheerleading squad is 175 cm. What does the average height in centimeters of the other 2 cheerleaders have to be if the average height of the entire squad equals 180 cm?

CHEERLEADERS???? ON THE SATS?????

Oh my God, who am I fooling? I can’t do this. I CANNOT DO THIS!!! I can’t have SEX. I’m a PRINCESS, for crying out loud.

Oh my God, I think I’m having a heart attack.

Thursday, September 9, nurse’s office

Okay. Well, this isn’t embarrassing, or anything. I mean, that I hyperventilated during our PE class’s run around the reservoir.

I am supposed to be breathing into a paper bag with my head between my knees. But I did that already and it didn’t help. Well, obviously, I can breathe now. But I’m still FREAKING OUT. I can’t believe I’m really going to DO IT.

What if something goes wrong, and my mom and dad find out, somehow? Like, what if it turns out I still have my hymen, or whatever (even though in Health and Safety last year they said that most girls lose theirs through ordinary physical activity, such as biking and horseback riding)? And I start bleeding out, and Michael has to rush me to Cabrini and some Dr. Kovac-type has to put in a central line and then I slip into a coma like on ER?

EVERYONE WILL KNOW I GAVE AWAY MY PRECIOUS GIFT.

And okay, I have never actually heard of this happening to a girl, but in Tina’s historical romance novels sometimes the girl does bleed—although she never seems to mind and goes on to have a massive earth-shattering orgasm anyway.

I just don’t think I’m good enough at orgasms yet to have one under those particular circumstances. Particularly with someone else in the same room. Someone besides James Franco dressed in a suit of armor, I mean.

Oh, no, here comes the nurse….

Okay, well, Nurse Lloyd just said it’s highly unlikely anyone would bleed so much from the breaking of a hymen that they would have to be hospitalized, unless they are a hemophiliac. She also said that most women’s hymens are already perforated. If they weren’t, we wouldn’t be able to menstruate.

So that whole Precious Gift thing is kind of bull.

She also said romance novels aren’t necessarily the most reliable health guides, and gave me a pamphlet that says So You Think You’re Ready for Sex. The pamphlet has a confused-looking couple on the front and talks about the need for protection. It didn’t say anything about your virginity being your Precious Gift that you should save for the person you marry. But it did say how you should wait to have sex until you have really gotten to know the person and are sure you really love them—which I already knew from the oxytocin thing.

And then there was some stuff about the age of consent (Whatever. Like my dad would really press charges. Would he want the whole world to know his daughter had had premarital sex? Not so much.), and not feeling pressured.

Then there was this section on abstinence and how it’s okay not to Do It. Like this is supposed to be news to me. I fully know it’s okay not to Do It. It’s fine for other girls not to Do It.

But other girls’ boyfriends have not invented robotic arms to use in heart surgery and are not moving to Japan tomorrow for a year.

I didn’t say any of this stuff to Nurse Lloyd. Well, not the sex stuff. I told her about Michael, though, and how he’s moving and how I’m freaking out about it, and am pretty sure I won’t be able to survive if he actually leaves.

To which Nurse Lloyd replied, “My brother had a triple bypass after a heart attack last year. They had to crack his chest open. He said he’s never felt pain like that in his life, and that for six weeks afterward he just wished he was dead.”

Which is very sad for Nurse Lloyd’s brother, but in no way helps me out with MY problem.

Thursday, September 9, Chemistry

Mia, are you all right? I heard you spent P.E. in the nurse’s office.

God, word travels fast in this school. And I’m fine, thanks, J.P. Just got a little winded from running around the reservoir.

Got it. I’m glad you’re all right. Though you look a little pale.

I have a lot on my mind, I guess.

That’s right! Michael leaves tomorrow, right?

Yeah. Well, supposedly.