October 22, 8:27 PM
My room

Evidently, my parents did not appreciate my "little disappearing act" yesterday. What if I had gotten hurt? Mom wanted to know. What if I did something needlessly reckless? Dad had worried. What if I had been kidnapped, held for ransom, and left Arkadia bankrupt? Chancellor Jaha lectured.

Well, Mom, I have aced all my first aid courses and know which hospital is the fastest to get to from any of the boroughs. Dad, you seriously over estimate my ability to behave recklessly; I have a near-unshakeable reputation for being a stick in the mud. And, last time I checked, Chancellor Jaha, my parents' marriage and my subsequent birth had all been kept relatively private (at least from the media) and, until very recently, I had not been considered the legal heir to anything besides my grandmother's old easel. So, why the hell would anyone be interested in holding me for ransom when there are much more viable targets for any self-respecting hustler?

Wells has been the only one who has been even slightly rational about this.

If there is a god out there, he, she, or it really ought to bless Wells Jaha because he is legitimately one of the few good ones on this sad rock of a planet.

After my parents had realized I had gone AWOL yesterday, my mom was about two seconds away from notifying the authorities; my dad had the Arkadian air force ready on speed dial; and Jaha was fully prepared to send out a bounty hunter to bring me back. Wells, thankfully, talked them all down from their respective ledges and conferred with my mom to figure out where I was most likely to go. It didn't take them long to realize I would probably seek out the safe familiarity of my friends. The list of places I could be immediately shrunk.

Mom called up Bellamy because out of the three Blakes, he was easily the most responsible and most likely to pick up the phone, especially if it was his friend's mother on the other end of the call. He had been out with Gina at the time and didn't know where I was but he assured her that he would call back as soon as he knew I was safe. He made good on his promise when he came home around midnight, after seeing me huddled up on his couch watching some weird conspiracy theory special on the History Channel.

Bellamy is definitely suspicious but has opted to wait for me to talk about it. He's probably going to have to wait a while because I am so not confirming that his little nickname—princess—is an accurate moniker.

Anyway, I came home early this afternoon to find my mother, my father, the chancellor, Wells, a burly man I later learned was named Roan, and a woman I learned was named Becca all congregating in my living room. There was a brief moment of stillness when I walked into the room, all eyes locked on me, before they all pounced. Dad had pulled me tightly into his arms; Mom was near tears; Jaha seemed utterly furious; Becca lectured me with astonishingly cool authority considering she and I had never interacted before that very moment. Wells and Roan stood off on the sidelines; the former, waiting for an opportunity to intervene, the latter, seemingly uninterested in the whole affair.

After I had assured everyone that, yes, I was fine and, no, nothing untoward happened to me between the time I had left them yesterday and arrived home today, I was subjected to the longest lecture of my life about responsibility and duty and I cannot go running off like that anymore and yada, yada, yada. The thing is, I get where they were coming from. I really do. Taking off like I did yesterday was, in hindsight, pretty stupid. Not answering any of their phone calls or texts was also incredibly petty of me. But, I just wanted them to feel a little bit like how I felt when they dropped that bomb on me: scared, uncertain, overwhelmed.

My little stunt has cost me my freedom for the next month, at least (although, I'm not sure how they plan to detain me for more than that since I will be legally an adult in a few weeks). Effective immediately, I'm grounded. No going out, no seeing friends outside of school, and no visitors here unless it's for classwork. Oh, and I will be escorted to and from school by my new body guard, Roan. After school, I will be subjected to princess lessons by Jaha's assistant, Becca.

PRINCESS LESSONS?

From the description that Becca gave in her syllabus (she has a freaking syllabus!), we will be covering everything from customary curtsies to formal dinner etiquette. Diplomacy? Nope. How to address Parliament? Nada. Apparently, the thing that concerns everyone is not my ability to serve as a representative of Arkadia to the global community, but rather whether or not I will embarrass myself by using the wrong fork in front of the ambassador of France.

The only good thing about this is that I get to keep Wells. While my dad and the chancellor will be returning to Arkadia in a few days, Wells will be staying behind. He emailed me a couple months ago about applying to my school's exchange student program. Jaha has allowed him to remain in New York with the understanding that Wells will assist in my lessons and provide him and my father additional feedback on my progress. I can't say I'm thrilled to have my friend essentially spy on me but at least this way I'll have someone I can talk to about this whole mess who isn't one of my parents.

October 23, 11:13 AM
A.P. Government

Crap, it is really hard to concentrate today. I feel kind of bad about since Kane seems to be really into his lecture today. All I can think about is the collective shock written all over my friends' faces when Roan and I pulled up in front of the school today. I tried to convince him to stop a few blocks away so as not to cause a scene but he wasn't having any of it. He told me my dad's orders were explicit and between the two of us, he was inclined to side with the person who signs his paychecks.

I got the distinct impression that he was enjoying my discomfort with the whole royalty thing.

Anyway, we got to school and I could see Monty, Jasper, Maya, Harper, and Octavia all congregated in front of the entrance. Most of them looked confused at first when they saw the limousine come to a stop in front of their school. Then that confusion quickly turned into a mixture of teasing smirks (Monty, Maya, and Harper), unbridled delight (Jasper), and thinly veiled disgust (Octavia) when they realized I was the passenger inside.

"What the hell was that?" O more or less demanded when I reached the rest of the group.

"I don't want to talk about it," I said, brushing past her and hurrying to my locker.

So, naturally, I ran right into Bellamy, who had also clearly witnessed my ostentatious arrival to school. He opened his mouth to make a very clever comment about my privileged status, I'm sure, but I was in no mood to listen to his teasing. "Please don't," I sighed heavily. "I really don't need your caustic wit right now."

"As you wish, Princess," he murmured with a smirk before sidestepping me to go talk to Principal Wallace about who knows what.

I could feel the blood drain from my face. For one brief and terrifying moment, I was certain he knew. Thankfully, the rational part of my mind kicked in and yelled at the rest of my brain for jumping to insane conclusions. Bellamy has called me princess for years, first as a barb, then as some strange term of endearment. As far as I know, Arkadia has never been of interest to him; his interests lie with ancient civilizations and mythology, not tiny principalities the size of a small U.S. city (in terms of population, at least).

It is highly unlikely that he has a clue about who/what my father is and what that makes me.

October 23, 7:07 PM
Limo ride home

Princess lessons are without a doubt the dumbest and most vapid thing I have ever been forced to endure. Today was my first lesson with Becca, or Ms. Pramheda as she insists I call her. How have we spent the last three and a half hours? Sitting.

That's right.

Apparently, I require sitting instruction.

Three and a half hours of her repositioning my shoulders and my hands, forcing me to practice crossing and uncrossing my ankles. Every time I thought I had mastered what she was asking of me, she had a new critique to give. My hands were too tense; my shoulders were too slumped; my chin was too low; my chest was puffed out too far. Really, you'd think the world was going to end if I sat slightly too far to the left on my cushion. Meanwhile, Wells sat in the corner of the hotel suit, hunched over his schoolwork and chuckling to himself anytime he particularly felt my irritation.

I wonder what he will report to our fathers this evening in his nightly email.

Homework:
A.P. Literature finish reading Act 1 of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
Anatomy review questions at the end of chapters 4 and 5
A.P. Government begin outline for paper
Art IV find a work that demonstrates chiaroscuro and write a brief analysis of its use, continue senior portfolio
A.P. Calculus odd problems on page 59
Spanish necesito escribir sobre un evento actual en español
Gifted and Talented n/a

Things to do:
- Convince Dad that there are better things I can learn in princess lessons than how to sit properly
- Ask Mom about her date with Mr. Kane
- Find a way to convince Roan to not drop me off in front of school tomorrow if I must ride in that ridiculous limo
- Think of a plausible explanation for said limo if I am unable to convince Roan

October 24, 2:10 PM
Gifted and Talented

My dad and Chancellor Jaha seem pretty keen to keep this whole princess thing under wraps until I have been deemed ready to be officially presented to the public. Which is why it would probably be imprudent of me to murder Finn Collins for being an exceptionally obtuse individual.

Really, what the hell was he thinking?

I first met Finn as a freshman. Immediately, I found his sanctimonious pacifism off-putting and made a conscious effort to not linger too long in his presence. He likes to perpetuate this idea that he's a deep, rebellious, socially conscious guy and this image somehow leaves girls swooning; he even caught Octavia's eye for a brief moment before she wised up and found his behavior nauseating. Then my dad got sick and my judgement was clearly impaired by my anxiety; suddenly, I found his deep rebel act appealing instead of manufactured. We sat together in Spanish and often studied together and flirted frequently, too.

He was the first guy I had ever been with and that left a bitter taste in my mouth when I realized that I was not, in fact, the only girl he was seeing. As it turns out, he already had another girlfriend who, up until midway through last year, went to another school. Of course, I was hurt to find all this out but, more than anything, I was baffled by it. Raven's awesome. She's smart, beautiful, athletic. Why would anyone cheat when they have her? Hell, if she gave me any indication that she swung my way, I'd date her.

When I found out the truth, I told Finn it was over and naively thought that was the end of that. No such luck. Despite allegedly trying to work things out with Raven, Finn still tried to pursue whatever our thing was. One would think he'd take a hint when I kept telling him "no" but Finn has proven to be tenacious in his pursuit of infidelity.

Which leads me to what happened between Spanish and Gifted and Talented. Since the end of last semester, I have made a habit of booking it out of Spanish before Finn could find the opportunity to corner me. Today, I was not so lucky. I nearly made it to Gifted and Talented with no incident when I felt a familiar hand wrap around my wrist and turn me around.

"Clarke," Finn said, breathless. From the way he was panting, I could tell he had sprinted to catch up to me.

I yanked my hand out of his grasp. "What do you want, Finn?"

He took a step closer, enough to make it look like he was just trying to avoid the foot traffic, but I knew better. This was his move, what tipped our flirtation over the edge into a full-blown hook up session last year. He likes to move in close so that he can lower his voice to an intimate level and gaze into your eyes in what he perceives is a smoldering fashion. I'm embarrassed to say this once worked on me, but given the circumstances, I was not having it today.

"I wish you would stop avoiding me," he said, and ah yes, there was "the smolder." "I miss what we had."

"We had sex once," I reminded him through clenched teeth.

"Great sex," he interrupted.

Of course, this was the moment I saw his girlfriend coming down the hall towards us. "It was a mistake," I hissed. How the hell could I get him to understand? "One that I would like to move on from, thank you very much."

Raven was getting closer and I was silently praying that she didn't notice us talking.

"Well, I don't think I can."

From the way she brushed past Finn's shoulder, I could tell she definitely heard us. Her steps sped up as she essentially stormed into the Gifted and Talented room. My stomach dropped.

"We're done here," I said before turning on my heel and rushing off to class.

She was seated at her desk, front row, next to the window, with her earbuds in and her laptop out. Her brows were furrowed as she glared at her computer screen. Her fingers flew across the keyboard. Everything about her demeanor told me and everyone else in class that she was royally pissed off.

"Raven," I said, ignoring the warnings in my mind to leave her be.

"Don't," she replied without looking up from her computer.

"I—"

She pulled her earbuds out of her ears and glared up at me. "No. I get that it wasn't your fault but I really don't want to do this with you. Okay?"

The thing is, Raven's right. What happened last year and what happened in the hallway a few minutes ago wasn't my fault. But I still feel guilty.

Things I don't understand right now:
1. Why the hell would Finn cheat on Raven? Seriously, she's a total catch.
2. Why does she stay with him? There are so many guys (or girls, if she decided she was into that) that could treat her better.
3. Why the fuck did I find him appealing in the first place? I mean, I know I was under a lot of stress last year but every time I remember that hook up, I cringe. Despite what he said, the sex was just okay. Certainly not great.
4. Why the school administration insists on registering me in this "class" every semester. It's not a class. It's a glorified study hall for "gifted" students.

Things I would like to do right now:
1. Skip princess lessons this afternoon. Apparently, we're learning the art of the curtsy today. Someone shoot me now.
2. Tell my friends what's going on in my life. I probably won't do this because my family wants me to keep it secret until they make a public announcement and because I don't really know how to begin. "Hey, guys, guess what. I'm a princess of a small European country!" Yeah, no. That's not going to happen.
3. Talk to Wells. At least he already knows what's going on so I can vent to him without having to fill in all the backstory.