I stood up. I said to Lars, 'Gome on. We've been here long enough. I still have a lot of packing to do. Let's go.'

Lars said OK and started to get up. Then he stopped. I saw that he was looking at something behind me. I turned around.

And there was Michael.

He had obviously just gotten there. He was out of breath. His bow tie wasn't tied and there was still snow in his hair.

'I didn't think you were coming,' he said.

I knew my face had gone as red as Judith Gershner's dress. But there wasn't anything I could do about that. I said,

'Well, I almost didn't.'

He said, 'I called you a bunch of times. Only you wouldn't come to the phone.'

I said, 'I know.' I was wishing the floor of the gym would open up, like in It's a Wonderful Life, and that I'd fall into the pool underneath it and drown and not have to have this conversation.

'Mia,' he said. 'With that thing today. I didn't mean to make you cry.'

Or the floor could open and I could just fall and keep falling, for ever and ever and ever. That would be OK too. I stared at

the floor, willing it to crack apart and swallow me up.

'It didn't,' I said. 'I mean, it wasn't that. It was something Kenny said.'

'Yeah,' Michael said. 'Well, I heard you two broke up.'

Yeah. Probably by now the whole school had. Now, I knew, my face was even redder than Judith's dress.

'The thing is,' Michael went on, 'I knew it was you. Who was leaving those cards.'

If he had reached inside my chest, pulled out my heart, flung it to the floor and kicked it across the room, it could not possibly have hurt as much as hearing that. I could feel my eyes filling up with tears all over again.

'You did?' You know, it's one "thing to have your heart broken. But to have it happen at a school dance, in front of

everyone . . . well, that's harsh.

'Of course I did,' he said. He sounded impatient. 'Lilly told me.'

For the first time, I looked up into his face.

'Lilly told you?' I cried. 'How did she know?'

He waved his hand. 'I don't know. Your friend Tina told her, I guess. But that's not important.'

I looked around the gym and saw Lilly and Tina at the far side of it, both staring in my direction. When they saw me looking at them, they turned around really fast and pretended to be deeply absorbed in conversation with their dates.

'I'm going to kill them,' I murmured.

Michael reached out and grabbed both my shoulders. 'Mia,' he said, giving me a little shake. 'It doesn't matter. What matters

is that I meant what I wrote. And I thought you did too.'

I didn't think I could have heard him right. I went, 'Of course I meant it.'

He shook his head. 'Then why did you freak out like that today at the carnival?'

I stammered, 'Well, because . .. because ... I thought... I thought you were making fun of me.'

'Never,' he said.

And that's when he did it.

No fuss. No asking my permission. No hesitation whatsoever. He just leaned down and kissed me, right on the lips.

And I found out, right then, that Tina was right:

It isn't gross if you're in love with the guy.

In fact, it's the nicest thing in the whole world.

And do you know what the best part is?

I mean, aside from Michael being in love with me, and having kept it a secret almost as long as I have, if not longer?

And Lilly knowing all along but not saying anything up until a few days ago because she found it an interesting social

experiment to see how long it would take us to figure it out on our own (a long time, it turned out)?

And the fact that Michael's going to Columbia next year, which is only a few subway stops away so I'll still be able to see him as much as I want?

Oh, and Lana walking by while we were kissing, and going, in this disgusted voice, 'Oh, God, get a room, would you?'

And slow dancing with him all night long, until Lilly finally came up and said, 'Come on, you guys, it's snowing so hard, if we don't leave now we'll never get home'?

And kissing good night outside the stoop to my loft, with the snow falling all around us (and grumpy Lars complaining he was getting cold)?

No, the best part is that we moved right into Frenching without any trouble at all. Tina was right - it just seemed perfectly natural.

And now the captain says we have to put away our tray tables for take-off, so I'll have to quit writing in a minute.

Dad says if I don't stop talking about Michael, he's going to go sit up front with the pilot for the flight.

Grandmere says she can't get over the change in me. She says I seem taller. And you know maybe I am. She thinks it's because I'm wearing another one of Sebastiano's original creations, designed just for me, just like the dress that was supposed to make Michael see me as more than just his little sister's best friend . . . except that it turned out he already did. But I know that's not it.

And it isn't love, either. Well, not entirely.

I'll tell you what it is: self-actualization.

That and the fact that it turns out I'm really a princess, after all. I must be, because guess what?

I'm living happily ever after.