Princess Mia (The Princess Diaries 9)

This is what happens when you are gone for almost a week after having a nervous breakdown and aren’t around to defend yourself.

Well, I guess it’s also what happens when you have your picture splattered all over the place coming out of a theater arm-in-arm with a guy. But he was only helping me down the steps! Because I was in heels! And the steps were carpeted and there were no handrails!

Geez!

And, okay, based on the photographic evidence, I could see why middle America—and the rest of the world, I guess—would think J.P. and I are going out.

Still! You’d think my own FRIENDS would know better than that!

But apparently not. And the line in the sand has already been drawn:

Lilly now sits at Kenny Showalter’s lunch table.

I guess their mutual appreciation for his muay thai fighting friends has drawn them together, or something.

Perin and Ling Su sit with them, although Ling Su told me, over at the taco bar, that she’d rather sit with me.

“But Lilly appointed me secretary,” she explained, sounding genuinely dismayed about it. “Which is better than treasurer, I guess”—this is definitely true, given what happened when Ling Su was treasurer last year—“which is what Lilly appointed Kenny. But it means I have to sit with her and Perin, who’s vice president, so we can talk about Lilly’s new initiatives, like this whole renting-the-roof-for-cell-phone-towers-in-exchange-for-free-laptops-for-scholarship-students thing, and how we’re going to guarantee more AEHS students get into the Ivy League school of their choice, and that kind of thing.”

“It’s okay, Ling Su,” I said to her, as I sprinkled cheddar cheese over my spicy beef tostada. “Really. I understand.”

“Good. And just for the record,” she added, “I think you and J.P. make an awesome couple. He’s so hot.”

“We’re not going out,” I said, totally confused.

“Right,” Ling Su said knowingly, and winked at me. Like she thought I was just saying that, in some kind of misguided attempt to stay on Lilly’s good side! Which would have been so totally futile, if that’s why I’d said it. But that isn’t why I said it at all! I said it because it was true!

But Ling Su’s not the only one who thinks J.P. and I are an item. When I went to return my lunch tray, one of the cafeteria workers smiled at me and said, “Maybe you can get him to give our corn a try.”

At first I couldn’t figure out what she was talking about. Then, when I did, I totally started blushing. J.P.’s notorious hatred for corn! And she thought I could cure him of it? Oh, God!

At least J.P. doesn’t appear to realize what’s going on. Or, if he does know, he isn’t letting on. He seemed surprised to see me show up at lunch for

the first time all week, but he didn’t make a big deal out of it (thank God), the way Tina did, by squealing and hugging me and telling me how much she’d missed me.

Which was very nice, but sort of embarrassing, since it drew even more attention to the fact that I’ve been gone so long, and I’m totally tired of going, “Bronchitis,” when people ask me where I was all week. Because I can’t exactly go, “In my Hello Kitty pajamas in bed, refusing to get up after my boyfriend dumped me.”

The only thing J.P. did that was at all out of the ordinary was smile at me when there was nothing to smile about—Boris was actually going on about his hatred for emo, specifically My Chemical Romance, as he is wont to do. I was taking a big bite of my tostada (it’s amazing how, even though I’m totally depressed, I’m still eating like a horse. But whatever, I was starving; all I’d had to eat all day was a PowerBar I picked up at Ho’s Deli after my doctor’s appointment, on my way into school) and noticed J.P.’s smile—which, like Ling Su said, really is pretty hot—and went, “What?” with my mouth all full of chopped beef, cheddar cheese, salsa, sour cream, jalapeños, and shredded lettuce.

“Nothing,” J.P. said, still smiling. “I’m just glad you’re back. Don’t stay away so long again, okay?”

Which was nice of him. Especially considering the fact that he MUST know people are saying we’re an item.

Which would at least partially explain why Lilly is sticking so assiduously to her side of the G and T room. She won’t look at me—won’t speak to me—won’t let on that I even exist. To her, I’m apparently Hester Prynne from The Scarlet Letter.

Only the book, not the movie version in which Hester Prynne was played by Demi Moore and was semi-cool and blew stuff up. Oh, wait…that was G.I. Jane.

I wish I could just go up to Lilly and be like, “Look. I’m SORRY. I’m sorry I was such an ass to your brother, and I’m sorry if I did anything to hurt you. But don’t you think I’ve been punished enough? I can barely BREATHE now because there’s NO POINT in breathing if I know that at the end of the day, I can’t smell your brother’s neck. All I can think about is how I will never, ever again hear the sound of his sarcastic laughter as we watch South Park together. Can you not see that it took every ounce of courage and strength I possess just to come here today? That I’m in THERAPY? That I spend every single second of the day wishing I were DEAD? So do you think you could drop the cold shoulder thing and cut me some slack? Because I really do value and miss your friendship. And by the way, do you really think hooking up with random muay thai fighters is the most mature way to respond to your heartache? Are you supposed to be Lana Weinberger, or something?”

Only I can’t. Because I don’t think I could bear to see that dead-eyed thing she does whenever she looks at me now.

Because I know that’s exactly how she’ll respond.

Friday, September 17, PE

I’m standing here, shaking.

Standing and not sitting because I’m in one of the ball-fields on the Great Lawn in Central Park. I guess I’m playing left outfield, or something, but it’s hard to tell with all the yelling. Get the ball! Get the ball!