“What about the texts she posted that he sent her?” I asked Tina. “Did he have an explanation for those?”
“He said she did interview him for her blog, so the texts are real, but that everyone’s taken everything he said out of context, and that all the rest she made up to get more hits on her site. I mean, I guess that’s possible, right?”
“Um,” I said. “Sure. I guess so.”
Lie number one.
Boris had told Michael the exact same thing (the two of them are still friends—they get together to play World of Warcraft a few times a month. The fact that Boris enjoys playing online fantasy role-playing games only endears him more to the Borettes).
Michael refuses to stop speaking to Boris just because he “allegedly” cheated on my friend. He says there are two sides to every story, and as a fellow celebrity, I should understand how these kinds of things get twisted by the press, and that I should give Boris the benefit of the doubt.
But I’ve seen the photos. Some violin players develop Fiddler’s Neck, a sort of callus along the underside of their chin from holding their instrument there for extended periods of time.
The guy in the photos has the same Fiddler’s Neck pattern as Boris (as I know only too well, having seen him shirtless playing water volleyball at the palace pool back in Genovia when he used to be allowed to visit there with Tina).
So despite Boris’s protests—and Michael’s—those pictures aren’t Photoshopped. The story has to be true.
Although I guess Michael hasn’t really driven me sex mad, so maybe it isn’t true. Ugh.
I always thought when I became an adult everything would become less confusing, but unfortunately, everything’s only become more confusing.
“Boris says that girl could have hacked into his phone, then wrote all those mean things about me because she’s obsessed with him,” Tina went on. “You know, stalker style. He says she’s jealous of me. But none of that seems very likely . . .”
“Tina!” I gasped. “You say that like there’s nothing for her to be jealous of. You know perfectly well how hot you are. You’re the hottest, most beautiful woman I know.” This, at least, was not a lie.
“That’s sweet of you to say, Mia, but I’m not as hot as her,” she said with an unhappy sigh. “Have you seen
her? She’s totally rocking that Brooklyn hipster music blogger thing.”
“And I will be more than happy to yank that ring right out of her septum if you’d like me to. I can always claim I tripped and grabbed it by accident.” To my relief, Tina started to laugh. “No, really. People will believe me, because I have a reputation for being a klutz, but I’m also a princess, and princesses never lie.”
HA HA HA HA.
“Aw, thanks, Mia,” she said. “That’s what I love about you. You’re the loyalist friend ever. Anyway, I don’t know what to do. Boris told me that new song of his, ‘A Million Stars,’ is about me.”
Ugh! I don’t want to be that girl—the girl who tells someone not to give her ex another chance, especially right after that person’s just called her the “loyalist friend ever.”
Because, of course, there’s always a chance Michael is right, and the thing with Boris really is only a misunderstanding. And this is America. We love forgiving people, then letting them have a second chance.
But that doesn’t mean “A Million Stars” isn’t the worst, cheesiest, most horrible song ever.
Which, of course, is only my opinion. The Borettes love it so much they’ve made it the number one bestselling song of all time ever. You can’t go anywhere—any elevator, any store, any airport, any hotel lobby, any restaurant, not even New York’s Times Square—without hearing it being blared over a set of speakers.
Worse, in the video for it (which is also played everywhere constantly), Boris is singing to a girl who is dying in a hospital bed, and Boris is telling her (lyrically) that he’ll give her a million stars (plus his love) if she’ll just find the strength within herself to not die, and love him forever.
Of course the girl is so moved by this hot rocker dude’s amazing song that she doesn’t die. Because it is a medical fact that people with fatal diseases only need a hot rocker dude to sit on the edge of their hospital bed and sing them a rock ballad in order to give them the strength to go on living.
People actually believe this stuff! At least the Borettes do.
Both the song and the video have made me hate Boris Pelkowski so much more than I already did (for breaking Tina’s heart) that now whenever I hear or see either of them, I begin grinding my teeth. I’ve even started doing it in my sleep, and have to wear a night guard, which is so not sexy when Michael stays over.
Although he says he’d rather have me wear a big rubber mouth guard in bed with him than for me to have tiny little nubs for teeth someday.
• Note to self: Which, if you ask me, is actually way more romantic than some rocker dude singing to a girl on her deathbed. But no one asked me.
“So what did you say when Boris told you he wants to get back together?” I asked Tina cautiously.
“I said I’d have to think about it. Just because he has over five million Borettes following him on Twitter doesn’t mean I’m ready to follow him.”