You Should See Me in a Crown(76)

“I think I owe you a dance, Queen Liz.” She smiles and places her hands on my waist. Her—or Jordan’s—crown tilts slightly to the left. “I know you’re sort of against them, but I have to say, this feels like a fairy tale to me.”

I drop my flowers on the ground between us and wrap my arms around her neck to pull her close. Because let’s face it, I’ve never been much of a dancer.

So I kiss her instead. There in the middle of all our classmates, with the spotlight on us and those gaudy, coveted crowns on our heads, I kiss her with everything I have. Like I’ll never kiss her again. Because this is real, we finally made it to this place, and it’s better than any fairy tale. Because I’m done letting people stop me.

Because here, always, we deserve this good thing.





Acknowledgments might be the toughest part of this whole bookmaking thing because I owe so much of who I am and what this book has become to so many. But the first thank-you for this book, this life, always, is due to God, who has shown me an almost-unbelievable amount of grace and mercy over the past twenty-five years. I know that’s kind of your bag and everything, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t still amaze me every day.

Thank you to my incredible agent, Sarah Landis, who read an essay of mine two years ago and decided that I was a writer worth taking a chance on. That is a gift that no amount of gratitude can repay. This book (and everything I write, honestly) wouldn’t be what it is without your early guidance and endless tenacity.

Thank you to Maya Marlette, my genius editor. You have been a supreme blessing in my life since the moment you told me we were going to make a book together. You have made and continue to make me not only a better writer but a better thinker. Thank you for helping me usher our complicated, incredible girl, Liz, into the world, and for allowing me to write the book we both needed when we were fifteen. I’m grateful every day to have shared this journey with you. Ugh, your mind.

Thank you to my incredible team at Scholastic, without whose love and care and attention Crown would not exist. pulls out megaphone Taylan Salvati, David Levithan, Mallory Kass, Nikki Mutch, Melissa Schirmer, Stephanie Yang, and Josh Berlowitz: You all are the squad of my dreams. Even now, as I hold this book in my hands, I struggle to believe the fact that I got to do this with you. Thank you for making this dream of mine a reality. I have no choice but to stan.

Thank you to Heather Peacock, who has always answered all my questions and indulged all my comments. Thank you for pushing me to be unendingly curious and bold to a fault. This story began in your classroom fifteen years ago, even if I didn’t know it at the time. And to the folks at the Sarah Lawrence College MFA in Writing program, thank you for giving me the space to find my voice and for the brilliant community of writers who I now get to create alongside forever.

Thank you to the friends who might as well be my blood—CRR, NG, SS, JS, RTW, QM, DE—touches of you all are scattered throughout this book. No matter how far apart we are, I carry pieces of each of you with me every day. Thank you all for being the family that I get to choose every day.

Thank you to my earliest reader on this manuscript and platonic life partner, Khadija. You’re a madwoman and a national treasure. Thank you for being there to remind me—especially on days when I forget—that stories matter, that meet-cutes are always worth believing in, and that pop culture died in 2009. Now go check your DMs; I just sent you a Hozier meme.

Thank you to my critique partner and the other half of the Duffy Collective, Arriel. What can I say except thank you for seeing me, for matching my energy, and for understanding what it means to be “down bad” in a way that only we can. You saw me and this book through all its many highs and lows, and I look forward to the day I get to do the same for you.

Thank you to my very best friend and the light of my life, Ally. You are my greatest gift and the brightest mind I’ve ever known. This life is better because I’ve gotten to spend twenty-two years of it with you by my side. Thank you for loving me, for always being willing to share stories with me, and for speaking exclusively in obscure pop culture references with me at all hours of the day. Everything I write is made possible because of the dreams we shared in that bright yellow bedroom.

Thank you to my family, wholly, entirely for your love and support. To Jon, for those years we performed monologues in the living room every Monday and talked about what it will take to get ourselves free. To Sissy, for your constant encouragement and faith in me. To Granny, for teaching me to have a heart for stories, even before the world was ready to hear them. And to Mom and Pack: There isn’t a better pair of parental units. Thank you for being my twin beacons of light, for never asking me to be anything other than exactly who I am, and for showing me what it means to love unendingly. I’ll love you forever, and I’ll like you for always.

And finally, thank you to black girls everywhere—in all our flawed, free, fantastic glory. I see you, I am honored to share this sisterhood with you, and I’m so grateful for the chance to write our stories. There is no world in which we’re not both miracle and magic, in which we’re not worthy of every happy ending. Thank you for teaching me how to wear my crown.





Leah Johnson is a writer, editor, and eternal Midwesterner currently moonlighting as a New Yorker. She is a graduate of Indiana University and Sarah Lawrence College, where she received her MFA in fiction writing, and currently teaches in their undergraduate writing program. When she’s not writing, you can usually find her on Twitter, ranting about pop culture and politics, at @byleahjohnson. You Should See Me in a Crown is her first novel.