And also it didn’t really seem to apply considering the fact that J.P. and I have been going out for almost two years. So it’s not like his prom-ring proposal was completely out of left field.

Come on! I don’t even know where I want to go to college next year. How am I supposed to know who I want to be with for the foreseeable future?

But I have a pretty good clue:Not someone who hasn’t evenglanced at my book yet, even though he’s had it more than forty-eight hours.

I’m just saying.

The thing is, I’d never say that in front of everyone on the whole boat, and humiliate J.P.! I love him. I do. I just…

Why, oh, why did he have to kneel down like that in front of everyone? And with aring ?

So instead of Grandmère’s speech—and totally aware that there was this growing silence as I just stood there, idiotically saying nothing at all, I said, feeling my cheeks getting hotter and hotter, “Well, we’ll see!”

Well, we’ll see? WELL, WE’LL SEE?

A totally hot, totally perfect, totally wonderful guy who, by the way, loves me, and is willing to wait for me for all eternity, asks me to go to the prom with him, and also offers me what looks, at least according to the size chart Grandmère made me memorize in my head, like a three-carat diamond ring, and I say,Well, we’ll see ?

What’swrong with me? Seriously, do I have some sort of wish to live alone (well, with Fat Louie) for the rest of my life?

I really think I do. J.P.’s confident smile wavered…but just a little.

“That’s my girl,” he said, and stood up and hugged me, while somewhere out in the crowd, someone started to clap…slowly at first (I recognized that clap…it had to have been Boris), and then more rapidly, until everyone was politely applauding.

It was horrible! They were applauding for me saying “Well, we’ll see!” in response to my boyfriend’s asking me to the prom! I didn’t deserve applause. I deserved to be tossed overboard. They were only doing it because I’m a princess, and their hostess. I know deep down inside, they were thinking, “What a byotch!”

Why? Why had Michaelleft ?

As J.P. hugged me, I whispered, “We have to talk.”

He whispered back, “I have certification to prove it’s blood free. Is that why you look so freaked out?”

“Partly,” I said, inhaling his mingled scent of dry cleaning and Carolina Herrera for Men. We’d stepped away from the microphone by then, so there was no chance of anyone overhearing us. “It’s just—”

“It’s only a promise ring.” J.P. broke the hug first, but he still held on to one of my hands…into which he’d slipped the box holding the ginormous diamond ring. “You know I’d do anything to make you happy. I thought this was what you wanted.”

I just looked up at him in total confusion. Part of my confusion was over the fact that here was this wonderful, wonderful guy who really did mean what he’d just said—I knew he would do anything to make me happy. So why couldn’t I just let him?

And another part of me was wondering what I had ever said to make him think what I wanted was a ring—promise, engagement, or otherwise?

“It’s what Boris got Tina,” J.P. explained, seeing my lack of comprehension. “And you were so happy for her.”

“Right,” I said. “Because that’s the kind of thing she likes—”

“I know,” J.P. said. “The same way she likes romance novels, and you wrote one—”

“So naturally if her boyfriend gave her a promise ring, I’d want one, too?” I shook my head. Hello. Couldn’t he see there was a big difference between me and Tina?

“Look,” J.P. said, closing my fingers around the velvet box. “I saw the ring, and it reminded me of you. Think of it as a birthday gift if it freaks you out to think of it the other way. I don’t know what’s been going on with you lately, but I just want you to know…I’m not going anywhere, Mia.I’m not leaving you, for Japan or anywhere else. I’m staying right here, by your side. So whatever you decide, whenever you decide it…you know where to find me.”

That’s when he leaned down and kissed me.

And then he, too, walked away.

Just like Michael.

And that’s when I ran for the safety of…this. Wherever I am now.

I know I should come down. My guests are probably leaving, and it’s rude that I’m not there to say good-bye.

But hello! How many times does a girl get sort-of proposed to? On her birthday? In front of everyone she knows? And then turns the guy down? Sort of? Only not really?

Also…what’s wrong with me? Why didn’t I just say yes? J.P. is clearly the most amazing guy on the planet…he’s wonderful, gorgeous, fantastic, and sweet. And he loves me. He LOVES me!

So why can’t I just love him back, the way he deserves to be loved?

Oh, crud…someone’s coming. Who do I know who’s limber enough to climb all the way up here? Not Grandmère, that’s for sure…

 

Tuesday, May 2, midnight, limo home from my party

My dad isn’t too happy with me.

He’s the one who climbed all the way to the yacht’s bow to tell me I had to stop “sulking” (his word for what I was doing, which isn’t completely accurate, in my opinion…I’d call it venting, since I’m writing in my journal), and come down and say good-bye to all my guests.

That wasn’t all he said, either. Not by a long shot.

He said I have to go to the prom with J.P. He said you can’t go out with a guy for nearly two years, then decide, a week before the senior prom, that you’re not going to go with him, just because you don’t feel like going to the prom.

Or, as he so unfairly put it, “Just because your ex-boyfriend happens to have come back to town.”

I was like, “Whatever, Dad! Michael and I are just friends!”Love, Michael. “Like going to the prom with him had ever even OCCURRED to me!”

Because it totally hasn’t. Who takes a twenty-one-yearold college graduate millionaire robotic-surgical-arm inventor to their high school prom? Who, by the way, broke up with me two years ago, and also clearly doesn’t care about me now either, so it’s not like he’d go if I asked.

And like I’d do that to J.P., anyway.

“There’s a name for girls like you,” Dad said, as he sat down next to me on my precarious perch out over the water. “And what you’re doing to J.P. And I don’t even want to repeat it. Because it’s not a nice name.”

“Really?” I was totally curious. No one’s ever called me a name before. Except for the names Lana routinely calls me—geek and spazoid and stuff like that. Well, and all the stuff Lilly called me on ihatemiathermopolis.com. “What name?”

“Tease,” Dad said gravely.

I have to admit, that made me start laughing. Even though the situation was supposed to be completely and totally serious, with Dad sitting there on the edge of the yacht, talking me down like I was about to commit suicide or something.

“It’s not funny,” Dad said, sounding irritated. “The last thing we need right now, Mia, is for you to get a reputation.”

This just made me laugh even harder. Considering the fact that I happen to be the last virgin in the graduating senior class of Albert Einstein High School (besides my boyfriend). It was just so ironic that my dad was lecturing me—me!—about getting a reputation. I was laughing so hard I had to hold on to the side of the boat to keep from falling into the inky black waters of the East River.

“Dad,” I said, when I could finally speak. “I can assure you, I amnot a tease.”

“Mia, actions speak louder than words. I’m not saying I think you and J.P. should get engaged.That , of course, is completely absurd. I expect you to kindly and gently explain to him that you’re much too young to be thinking of that kind of thing right now—”

“Da-ad,” I said, rolling my eyes. “It’s apromise ring.”

“Regardless of your personal feelings about the prom,” he went on, ignoring me, “J.P. wants to go, and surely wasn’t wrong to have expected to take you—”

“I know,” I said. “And I told him I wouldn’t mind if he takes someone else—”

“He wants to takeyou . His girlfriend. Whom he’s been seeing for nearly two years. He has certain rights of expectation because of that. One of them is that, barring any sort of gross misconduct on his part, you would go to the prom with him. And so the right thing for you to do is go with him.”

“But, Dad,” I said, shaking my head. “You don’t understand. I mean…I wrote a romance novel, and I gave it to him, and he hasn’t even—”

My dad blinked at me. “You wrote aromance novel ?”

Oops. Yeah, guess I forgot to mention that part to good old Dad. Maybe I could distract him.

“Um,” I said. “Yeah. About that. You don’t have to worry. No one wants to publish it anyway—”

My dad waved a hand like my words were something annoying that was buzzing around his head.

“Mia,” he said. “I think you know by now that being royal isn’t all about being driven around in limos and having a bodyguard and taking private jets and buying the latest handbag or jeans and always being in style. You know what it’s really about is always being the bigger person, and being kind to others. You chose to date J.P. You chose to date him for nearly two years. You cannotnot go to the prom with him, unless he’s been in some way cruel to you…which, from what you describe, it doesn’t sound as if he has. Now, stop being such a—what do you kids call it? Oh, right, a drama queen—and come down from here. My leg is getting a cramp.”

I knew my dad was right. I was being stupid. I’d been acting like an idiot all week (so what else was new?). I was going to the prom, and I was going with J.P. J.P. and I were perfect for each other. We always had been.

I wasn’t a kid anymore, and I needed to stop acting like one. I needed to stop lying to everyone, just like Dr. Knutz said.