Princess on the Brink (14 page)

Mia! Is it true?

Yes, Perin. It’s true that Michael admitted he had sex with Judith Gershner and he’s moving to Japan and he and I are broken up. I feel really terrible about it and I don’t want to start crying in French, so can we not talk about it?

Um, no. I meant is it true that you would know what to do if a tsunami hit New York City?

Oh. Yes, that’s true, too.

I’m sorry about you and Michael. I didn’t know. So I guess you’re single now?

I never thought of it before. But, yeah, I guess I am.

Want to sleep over tonight?

Oh, thanks for the invitation, Perin, but I think I’m just going to go home and go to bed. I’m not really doing all that great, to tell you the truth.

Okay. Well, feel better!

Thanks!

Qu’est-ce que c’est que le mérite incroyable d’une femme, vous demandez? Selon la chaine douze, le mérite incroyable d’une femme est sa capacité de nourrir ses enfants. Une femme avec une carrière? Ça, c’est une femme qui n’adore pas ses enfants, ou son mari. Elle n’est pas une chrétienne! Elle est une serveuse du diable!

Mes camarades et moi nous nous sommes regardés les unes les autres. Nous avons changés le chaine. Et juste a l’heure!

117+76=only 193!!!!!! I need 7 more words!

Oh, wait…the title. AND MY NAME:

Une Emission Pleine d’Action par

Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Renaldo Thermopolis

YES!!!!

At least SOMETHING is going my way today.

My cell phone just buzzed. Michael left the following text message:

M
ICHAEL
M: At least let me come by and try to explain. Even though that won’t be easy because I’m still not clear on what, exactly, I did that was so wrong.

What is he talking about,
come by and try to explain
? How can he come by and try to explain? I’m in SCHOOL.

And how can he still not know what he did wrong?????

You know what? I don’t care. LET them stare at me. This is the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten in this cafeteria. If I’d known the cheeseburgers were this good, as a matter of fact, I’d have started eating them a long time ago.

And you know what? I don’t even care. I mean, I still feel bad for the animals, and stuff.

But in a way it’s like…well, tough luck for them. The world is an unfair place. Sometimes you’re the windshield. Sometimes you’re the bug.

That’s from a song my mom likes.

If there is such a thing as reincarnation, I’ll probably come back as a cow, and I’ll spend my whole life in a tiny stall I can barely move around in, and eventually someone will come around and bonk me on the head and then skin me and make my skin into a leather miniskirt and the rest of me into hamburger and a girl whose boyfriend gave his Precious Gift to Judith Gershner will eat me, and that will just be too bad for me. It’s the circle of life, baby.

Wow. I guess I’m a total nihilist now.

Lilly seems to think so. And she can’t seem to believe it.

“A burger?” She just kept staring at my tray. “You’re eating a CHEESEBURGER?”

“I don’t care anymore,” I said. Because it’s true. I don’t. About anything. Being a nihilist, and all.

“You and my brother,” she said, “get into one fight, and you break up with him and start eating meat? He’s right. You HAVE lost your mind.”

I put my burger down at that one.

“He SAID that?” I demanded. I didn’t care that we were having this discussion in front of the whole lunch crowd—J.P., Boris, Ling Su, Tina, Perin. Why should I? I don’t care about anything anymore. “Michael said I’ve lost my mind?”

“Basically,” Lilly said. “And the fact that you’re sitting there eating a cheeseburger proves it. You haven’t eaten meat since you were six years old!”

“Well, maybe it’s time I started,” I said. “Maybe if I’d been getting more protein this whole time, I wouldn’t have made so many boneheaded decisions.”

“Which one of your many are you referring to?” Lilly asked acidly.

“Hey, Lilly,” J.P. said, quietly but firmly. “Cut it out.”

Lilly looked startled. She isn’t used to J.P. butting in on her conversations with me. Because he’s never done it before.

But it was too late. Because my eyes were already filling up with tears. Again.

I guess I’m not a nihilist after all.

“If he thinks I’ve lost my mind,” I said to Lilly, barely able to contain a sob, “then he doesn’t get it AT ALL. I HAVEN’T lost my mind. I just can’t DEAL with it anymore.”

“Deal with what?” Lilly wanted to know. “Having a guy who loves you so much that while you were off in Genovia this summer, he invented this fantastic thing that could change the face of medical history as we know it, just so he could prove he was good enough to be with you, only to have you slap him in the face when he explained that in
order to get the thing off the ground he has to go away for a while?”

I just glared at her, even though it was kind of hard to see her through my tears.

“That’s not it,” I said, “and you know it.”

“Oh, wait, I know. Is it because all these months he didn’t tell you about something he KNEW you wouldn’t understand and would go bananas over, because it is in your nature to go bananas over the littlest things, and he wanted to spare you?”

“What he did,” I said, a catch in my voice, “wasn’t LITTLE—”

“Oh, spare me,” Lilly spat. “Tina told me about that stupid book her aunt gave her. Are you really so ignorant that you don’t know that this whole ‘Precious Gift’ crap started off as men’s way of controlling females so that they could limit their number of sexual partners, and therefore ensure the legitimacy of their own offspring?”

“Hold on,” I said, glaring at her. Which was hard to do, considering the tears that were causing my nose to feel prickly. “There is NOTHING wrong with waiting to have sex until you can do it with someone you love.”

“Of course there’s not,” Lilly said. “You’re totally entitled to that belief. But CONDEMNING someone who doesn’t necessarily SHARE that belief? That’s no better than those fundamentalist judges in Iran who condemn women to be buried up to their necks in sand and have rocks thrown at their heads. Because any way you look at it, that’s YOU punishing someone for not sharing YOUR morals.”

The tears totally came with that one. I mean, seriously.
Comparing ME to one of those evil fundamentalist judges?

But Lilly wouldn’t let up.

“Why don’t you just admit what this whole fight with Michael is REALLY about, Mia?” she snarled. “You’re mad because Michael won’t do what you want and stay in New York to be your little lapdog. Because he has a mind of his own and he wants to use it to make a LIFE of his own. THAT’s what this is all about. And DON’T try to deny it.”

That’s when J.P. got up, grabbed Lilly by the arm, and said, “Come on. We’re going for a walk,” and dragged her out of the cafeteria.

And that’s also when I started to cry in earnest. Not sobbing or anything. Just quietly weeping, over the remains of my burger.

Yes. I am a pathetic crying meat-eater now.

Boris patted me on the shoulder and said, “Don’t cry, Mia. I think you’re doing the right thing. Long-distance relationships never work. Better to make a clean break of it, like this.”

“Boris,” Tina said, sounding exasperated.

“No,” I said. “He’s right.”

Because he is.

I just wish he wasn’t.

Also that I was dead.

I just went and got some bacon to put on my cheeseburger.

I almost skipped this class. Partly because I felt really sick after the burger. I definitely shouldn’t have added the bacon.

But also partly because I didn’t want to see Lilly again. Especially without J.P. to rein her in.

But I didn’t skip because I figured I’d just get in trouble. And a trip to Principal Gupta’s office is the last thing I need.

Also, I got some Tums from the nurse, and that seemed to help.

I was glad I didn’t skip when I walked into class. Glad, because the first thing I saw when I walked in was Lilly, WEEPING.

I wasn’t glad she was crying. I was glad because she so obviously needed me. I mean, something had Happened. Something BIG.

Boris was standing there next to her, looking alarmed. I think it’s only natural that I assumed Lilly was crying because of something Boris said to her, since he flung me this totally panicky look when I walked in.

“What did you do to her?” I asked him, shocked. Because Boris can be a jerk sometimes. But he honestly doesn’t MEAN to be. And he’s gotten a lot less jerky since Tina started going out with him.

“She was like this when I came in,” Boris insisted. “It wasn’t me!”

“Lilly.” I couldn’t imagine what could be the matter with her. Surely it couldn’t have anything to do with me and Michael.
That
would never make Lilly cry. Hardly anything
made Lilly cry. Except…I gasped. “Did Lana Weinberger decide to run for student council president after all?”

“No!” Lilly said scornfully, between sobs. “God! Do you think I’d be crying over something like
that
?”

“Well.” I stared down at her blankly. “What is it, then?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Lilly said.

But I noticed her gaze slide toward Boris. What’s more important, Boris noticed it, too.

And so—exercising a little of the tact Tina has so carefully taught him—Boris said, “I guess I’ll just go start practicing now,” and went and let himself into the supply closet.

I said, “Okay, he’s gone. Now tell me.”

Lilly took a deep, shuddering breath. Then, glancing around at everyone else in the room—all of whom immediately ducked their heads, pretending to be engrossed in their individual projects, something that NEVER happens unless Mrs. Hill is in the room, which she most decidedly was not just then—Lilly whispered, “J.P. just broke up with me.”

I stared at her in complete and utter astonishment.
“What?”

“You heard me.” Lilly reached up and wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist, leaving a long black mascara stain on each side of her face. “He dumped me.”

I pulled out the chair next to Lilly’s just in time to collapse into it and not onto the floor.

“You’re joking,” I said. Because it was the only thing I could think of to say.

But it was painfully clear by the way tears continued to
stream from her eyes that she
wasn’t
joking.

“But
why
?” I asked.
“When?”

“Just now,” Lilly said. “Outside on the front steps, next to Joe.” Joe is the stone lion that flanks the stairs leading to the front doors of Albert Einstein High. “He said he felt really bad, but that he doesn’t feel the same way about me that I do about him. He said he values me as a friend, but that he’s never lo-loved me!”

I couldn’t stop staring at her. Somehow, this was way more horrible than what Michael had done to me. I mean, Michael had had sex with Judith Gershner and lied to me about it, and all.

But he had never said he didn’t love me.

“Oh, Lilly,” I breathed. I forgot about being a nihilist. All I could think about was how much Lilly was hurting. “Oh, Lilly. I’m so sorry.”

“So am I,” Lilly said, wiping her eyes again. “Sorry I was such an
idiot
for not admitting to myself what I KNEW was going on sooner.”

I blinked at her. “What do you mean?”

“Well, the very first time I told him that I loved him, and all he said was thank you? I mean, I should have taken that as a sign that he didn’t feel the same way about me as I did about him, right?”

“But we all just thought it was because he wasn’t used to having a girl like him,” I said. “Remember, Tina said—”

“Right, that he was like the Beast from
Beauty and the Beast
, unused to human love, and uncertain how to react to it. Well, guess what? Tina was wrong. It wasn’t that he didn’t know how to react. He just didn’t love me back, and
he didn’t want to hurt my feelings by telling me so. So he just led me on, all these months.”

I couldn’t help sucking in my breath. “Oh, Lilly,” I said. “No! I mean, he must have thought maybe—”

“That he’d grow to love me?” Lilly managed a bitter smile. “Yeah, well, apparently it didn’t work.”

“Oh, Lilly,” I said. I could have killed J.P. right then. I really could have. I couldn’t believe he was putting her through this.

And to do it at school! Of all places! I mean, why couldn’t he have waited until they were somewhere alone, like Ray’s Pizza, and broken the news to her then, so she could cry in private? What’s
wrong
with boys?

I’ll kill him. Seriously. I’m going to kill him.

I didn’t even realize I’d said the words out loud until Lilly reached out and grabbed my wrist and said, “Mia. No. Don’t.”

I looked at her, startled. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t say anything to him about it. Really. It’s my fault. I…I sort of knew all along that he didn’t love me.”

“What?”
I’ve heard about this before. When victims of rat fink boyfriends blame themselves for what the loser himself did.

But I never thought LILLY, of all people, would be one of them.

“What are you
talking
about, you knew? Obviously you didn’t know, Lilly, or you wouldn’t have—”

“No, it’s true,” Lilly said, her voice hoarse with tears. “When he never said he loved me back, I suspected that there was something wrong. But I—well, like you said. I
thought he might learn to love me. So I stayed with him, instead of breaking it off, like I should have. It’s not his fault. He tried, Mia. He really did. It was actually really nice of him not to let it go farther than it did. He could really have taken advantage. But he didn’t.”

I couldn’t help being all, “So, wait. Does that mean that you two never—”

Lilly’s eyes narrowed. “Nice try, POG,” she said. “I’m down, but I’m not out. We still have a presidential election to plan, you know.”

I dropped my head down to the top of the desk. “Lilly,” I said. “I can’t. I just can’t. Can’t you see I’m broken?”

“Well, I’m broken, too,” Lilly said defensively. “And I’m still able to FUNCTION. A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.”

I really hate this expression. I bet fish would totally want bicycles, if they had legs.

Then, in a gentler voice, Lilly added, “Look, POG, about you and my brother. I’m sorry.”

“Thanks,” I said. And all the tears I thought I had successfully fought down in the cafeteria came rushing back.

“But I don’t get it,” Lilly said.

“Of course you don’t get it,” I said miserably, to the top of the desk. “You’re his sister. You’re on his side.”

“I may be his sister,” Lilly said. “But I’m your best friend, too. And it just seems like such a stupid waste. I know you’re mad at him, but really…what did he do that was so wrong? So he slept with Judith Gershner. Big deal. It’s not like he did it WHILE you two were going out.”

“It IS a big deal,” I insisted. “I just…I never thought
Michael, of all people, would do something like that. Sleep with someone he didn’t even love. And then LIE to me about it. And I KNOW you think that’s just me inflicting my beliefs onto him. But I always just assumed he and I shared the same beliefs. And now I find out he’s more…well, he’s more like
Josh Richter
than he is like me!”

“Josh Richter?” Lilly rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. How is my brother REMOTELY like Josh Richter?

“Because sleeping with a girl you don’t even love…that’s something Josh Richter does.”

“It’s only a Josh Richter thing to do if the girl had a major crush on him and he used her and she got hurt.”

I lifted my head to stare at her. “You mean like you and J.P.?” I asked, trying to sound as concerned as possible.

Lilly just glared at me, though. “Nice try, Mia,” she said. “But I’m not falling for that one.”

Dang.

“Mia,” Lilly said. “You can’t get all bent out of shape over the fact that Michael has been with other girls before you. That’s just STUPID.”

Now
I
narrowed my eyes at
her.
“What do you mean, GIRLS?”

“Well, like that girl from Hebrew camp—”

“WHAT GIRL FROM HEBREW CAMP?” I screamed so loudly that Boris actually stuck his head out of the supply closet to see what was going on.

“Relax,” Lilly said disgustedly. “They just made out. And he was, like, in ninth grade, or something.”

“Was she pretty?” I wanted to know. “Who was she? What base did they get to?”

“You,” Lilly said, “need therapy. Now, can we talk about something other than our romantic travails for a moment? Because we need to work on your speech.”

I blinked at her. “My what?”

“Your speech. You think just because we’ve broken up with our boyfriends, we’re no longer capable of improving our academic environment, or leading our peers to a better tomorrow?”

“No,” I said. “But—”

“Good. Because you know you have to give your student council president speech at Assembly today, right?”

I swallowed. Hard. “Lilly,” I said. “That is not going to be possible.”

“You don’t have a choice, POG,” Lilly said. “I’ve let you off easy this week because of the whole Michael thing. But this part I can’t do for you. You’re going to have to get up there and speak. I figured you wouldn’t have prepared anything, so I took the liberty of doing so.” She slid a piece of paper—covered with Lilly’s tiniest handwriting—toward me. “It’s pretty much the answers to questions posed on the table-toppers in the caf. You know, what to do in the event of a Category Five hurricane or dirty bomb attack. Nothing new. At least, not to you. It should be a snap.”

“If I do this,” I asked, in a sort of daze—maybe I was crashing from all the bacon—“you’ll tell me, right? If you and J.P. Did It over the summer?”

“Is that your sole motivation for running?” Lilly wanted to know.

“Yes,” I said.

“God, that is so pathetic. But yes, I will. You loser.”

I didn’t take offense at this because she’s right. I AM a loser. She doesn’t even know how much.

Besides, I know that beneath Lilly’s bravado, she is clearly hurting inside. How could she not be? She adored J.P. in a way I’ve never seen her fall for any other guy.

Seriously, how could J.P. do this to her? I thought he was one of the good guys. I really did.

But now I honestly don’t know how I’m going to be able to be friends with him. Let alone lab partners.