Princess' Diaries

He probably only broke up with Lana just so he could tell his friends he’s dating a girl worth three hundred million dollars. He never even noticed you until your picture was on the cover of thePost. Lilly was right: That day in Bigelows, he WAS only suffering from a synaptic breakdown when he smiled at you. He probably thinks his chances of getting into Harvard or whatever are way enhanced by the fact that he’s the princess of Genovia’s boyfriend.

And like a big idiot, I fell for it.

Great. Just great.

Lilly says I’m not assertive enough. Her parents say I have a tendency to internalize everything and fear confrontation.

My mom says the same thing. That’s why she gave me this book, in the hopes that what I won’t tell her, I’ll at least get out into the open somehow.

If it hadn’t turned out that I’m a princess, maybe I might still be all that stuff. You know, unassertive, fearful of confrontation, an internalizer. I probably wouldn’t have done what I did next.

Which was turn to Josh and ask, "Why did you do that?"

He was busy patting himself down, trying to find the dance tickets to hand to the sophomores who were manning the ticket table. "Do what?"

"Kiss me like that, in front of everybody."

He found the tickets in his wallet. "I don’t know," he said. "Didn’t you hear them? They were yelling at me to kiss you. So I did. Why?"

"Because I didn’t appreciate it."

"You didn’t appreciate it?" Josh looked confused. "You mean you didn’t like it?"

"Yes," I said. "That’s exactly what I mean. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all. Because I know you didn’t kiss me because you like me. You just kissed me because I’m the princess of Genovia."

Josh looked at me like he thought I was crazy.

"That’s crazy," he said. "I like you. I like you a lot."

I said, "You can’t like me a lot. You don’t evenknow me. That’s why I thought you asked me out. So you could get to know me better. But you haven’t tried to get to know me at all. You just wanted to get your picture onExtra."

He laughed at that, but I noticed he didn’t look me in the eye when he said, "What do you mean, I don’t even know you? Of course I know you."

"No, you don’t. Because if you did, you wouldn’t have ordered me a steak for dinner."