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?