What can I do to make this not happen?

Dad says to stay out of it—that I’ve done enough…

Yeah. Like that doesn’t make me feeltoo guilty.

It’s all just so exhausting.

Not to mention all this other stuff. Like it even matters, in comparison to what’s going on with Dad and Genovia, but…well, it kind of does. I mean, Dad and Genovia are facing all these changes, and so am I.

The only difference is, they aren’tlying about it, the way I am. Well, okay, sure, Dad’s lying about why Grandmère is in New York (to plan my birthday party, when really, she’s here because he can’t stand having her around).

That’sone lie. I havemultiple lies. Lies layered upon lies.

Mia Thermopolis’s List of Big Fat Lies She’s Been Telling Everyone:

Lie Number One: Well, of course, first, there’s the lie that I didn’t get into all those colleges. (No one knows the truth but me. And Principal Gupta. And my parents, of course.)

Lie Number Two: Then there’s the lie about my senior project. I mean, that it wasn’tactually on the history of Genovian olive oil pressing, circa 1254–1650, which is what I’ve told everyone (except Ms. Martinez, of course, who was my advisor, and who actually read it…or at least the first eighty pages of it, since I noticed she stopped correcting my punctuation after that. Of course Dr. K knows the truth, but he doesn’t count).

No one else even asked to read it, because who’d want to read a four-hundred-page paper on the history of Genovian olive oil pressing, circa 1254–1650?

Well, except for one person.

But I don’t want to talk about that right now.

Lie Number Three: Then there’s the lie that I just told Lana, about how I can’t go prom dress shopping with her because I’m busy hanging out with John Paul Reynolds-Abernathy IV after school today, when the truth is—Well. That’s not theonly reason why I’m not going prom dress shopping with her. I don’t want to get into it with her, because I know what she’ll say. And I just don’t feel like dealing with La Lana right now.