What If... All Your Friends Turned On You

by Liz Ruckdeschel

  “I don’t know if I want to,” Haley said. “I can hardly look at the guy.”

  “You have to,” Irene warned. “If you care about his feelings at all, even as a friend, you’ve got to stop ignoring him and start being nice again. Unless you hate to give up the one man fan club.”

  “I’m sick of the fan club,” Haley said. “The fan club is stalking me!”

  “Haley, I’m serious,” Irene said. “Don’t take this game too far or you’ll ruin your friendship with Devon. And then I’ll be mad. And Shaun will be pissed that you hurt his friend’s feelings. And you might find yourself without any friends at all. Any interesting friends, anyway.”

  Haley absorbed Irene’s words. She’s been right about everything so far, Haley thought. Maybe I should listen to her.

  If you think Haley should start being nicer to Devon and try to restore their friendship, turn to, EQUILIBRIUM RESTORED. If you think Haley should tell Devon how she feels and cut him loose, turn to, SLOPPY SECONDS. Finally, if you think Haley should forget about Devon and go find some new boys to kick around, turn to, SPRING BREAK AT YALE.

  SLOPPY SECONDS

  Honesty is rarely the best policy when it’s heartless.

  “Hey, Haley.” There he was, the now ever-present Devon, waiting for her at her locker first thing in the morning as he had been every morning for the past two weeks. “Look what I made for you.”

  She could hardly bear to look at another trinket Devon had crafted for her by hand, but morbid curiosity made her turn and see. He’d silk-screened a T-shirt with a picture of her face, large and iconic as a Warhol image. On the back it said, in sparkling gold letters, “My Goddess.”

  Haley shook her head wearily. She wanted to disappear into her locker and stay there for the rest of her life. “You’re going to wear that around all day?” she asked.

  “All day every day. I’ve made a Haley shirt for every day of the week. Kind of like day-of-the-week underwear. Don’t some girls have those?”

  “No, no, no,” Haley muttered. “At least put a jacket over it. It’s hideous!”

  “Whatever you say, She Who Makes the Sun Rise.” He shrugged into his jacket. “You’re right as always, gorgeous. It looks much better with a jacket. Hey, maybe I could silk-screen your image on a jean jacket….”

  That was it. Haley couldn’t take it anymore. Irene had told her to go easy on Devon, to try tempering his adoration gently, with a little sympathy. But she just didn’t have it in her anymore. He’d worn all her sympathy away.

  There was only one thing left to try: brutal honesty.

  “Devon, listen,” she began. “We’ve got to talk.”

  He straightened up eagerly. If he’d had a tail, it would have been wagging.

  “I know you like me—”

  “I more than like you, Haley. You know that.”

  “Right. I know you worship me and all, but I’m beginning to think I might not be the right girl for you.”

  His face fell. In her mind she could see the tail drooping. “Don’t say that, gorgeous. You know I can’t live without you.”

  “You lived without me before, Devon,” Haley said. “You can do it again. You’ll be fine.”

  The color began to drain from his cheeks as it dawned on him what was happening. “No …”

  “Remember how you used to spend so much time with Darcy?” Haley said. “Not so long ago, the two of you were inseparable.”

  “Sure, but that was before I realized that I was born to love you forever,” Devon said, a note of nervousness creeping into his voice.

  “Come on, Devon. We both know that forever is a long, long time. Love should be fun. It shouldn’t be a life sentence.”

  “A life sentence?” Devon’s hands were shaking now. “Is that how you think of us? As a kind of prison?”

  Kind of, Haley thought, but she wasn’t brutally honest enough to say that out loud. “I’m just saying that I think maybe Darcy is better suited for you. She’s a lot punkier than I am, really. My punk thing is just a pose. Don’t tell anyone, but it’s true. I’m really straitlaced at heart.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Devon said. “There’s nothing phony about you. You could never fake the creative individual you are.”

  Haley flinched. She hated that lovey-dovey talk. That wasn’t the Devon she’d once crushed on so fiercely. “See, I hate to hear you talk that way, Devon. It’s not the real you. You’re like a zombie or something now.”

  “This is absolutely the real me. The me I discovered through you! Haley, don’t let the real me die. Don’t kill him! Don’t break his heart! I beg you!”

  Haley shook her head. “Now I don’t even understand what you’re talking about. Look, I’m trying to help you out here. Give Darcy a call, see what she’s up to. You’ll feel a lot better.”

  She saw the whole thing play out on his face: his love and fear and pain hardening into fury. And then he let her have it.

  “I get it now,” he said angrily. “I see what you’ve been doing. You’ve been toying with me, haven’t you? Just for fun. This was never about me, was it? It was all about you and Darcy. You played games with my heart just to show Darcy that you’re the all-powerful queen, ruler of the school, that she’s no threat to you. You wanted to prove to her that if you wanted me you could have me, no matter how much she might have wanted me too. That’s what was going on, wasn’t it?”

  Haley didn’t know what to say. She was shocked at his sudden change of mood, at how quickly he could turn on her. But she also had to admit there was a kernel of truth in what he’d said. She’d liked Devon for a long time, but she never really made an effort with him until Darcy staked her claim. Then, suddenly, Haley had to have him.

  But that was all in the past. Now that she had him, she saw that she didn’t really want him. What could she do about it now? Pretend to like him more than she did? It was impossible.

  Her silence seemed to confirm his worst suspicions. “I was right from the start. I knew it.” He took off his jacket and tore the Haley T-shirt off in disgust. “You know what, Haley? You’re a Cocobot at heart.”

  “What? I am not,” Haley protested.

  “You are. I don’t know why you bother spending time with freaks like me and Shaun and Irene. You belong with Coco and her crowd—superficial tarts who use other people to get what they want. From now on, hang with them. They’re your real people. And stay away from me and Shaun and Irene—and Darcy, too. Because you know what? I’m going to take your advice, Haley, and give Darcy a call. I’m going to see if she’ll forgive me for treating her as shabbily as you’ve treated me.”

  He stepped on the T-shirt, grinding his boot into the silk-screened image of her face. Then he walked away, leaving Haley struggling to get her bearings. She couldn’t deny it; she knew he was right. She’d been mean and manipulative. And she couldn’t just blame Irene. Haley deserved every word Devon spat at her and more.

  Haley’s big mistake: letting her power over Devon go to her head, and thinking he was too drunk with love to understand what was going on. He really told her off, though. Let’s hope she’s learned her lesson and won’t lead a boy around on a leash like that again.

  If only she’d shown him a little more kindness, a little compassion, she might have been able to salvage their friendship. Now Haley has lost not only that friendship but also the goodwill of the whole art crew. She may have no choice but to become a Cocobot, if she wants to have any friends—but it’s unlikely Coco will have her. Coco doesn’t take the art crowd’s rejects. And remember, Haley still has that green streak in her hair.

  Hang your head and go back to page 1.

  DEAD END

  EQUILIBRIUM RESTORED

  The difference between brutal honesty and compassionate honesty can mean the difference between anger and friendship.

  Devon showed up at school the next day wearing Haley’s worst nightmare: a T-shirt with her face silk-screened on the front and the words “My Goddess”
in gold on the back. That was the last straw. She could hardly stand the sight of him at the moment, but deep down she didn’t want to ruin their friendship. He was a good guy she knew that. She also knew that nothing turned him off like niceness.

  “What do you think?” he asked, showing off the new T-shirt. “I made it myself.”

  “It’s great, Devon!” Haley lied. “You’re so good at silk-screening.”

  “Thanks.” Devon looked pleased.

  “I wish I were as artistic as you are,” Haley said. “I really admire that in people.”

  “Thanks.” At the second compliment in a row, the glow in his face faded ever so slightly. Keep going, Haley told herself. You’re making progress.

  She stepped closer and touched his arm. “Maybe we should go to a museum or something this weekend. Together. Afterward we can go out for a romantic dinner. What do you think?”

  “Uh, sure. That sounds great, Haley.” He moved his arm away from her caressing fingers. She took his hand instead. He tried to tug it away, but she held it firmly.

  “I’m so glad we’re finally getting so much closer,” she said. “I’ve waited for this moment for so long.”

  “You have?” Devon said. “That’s funny. A few minutes ago you seemed like you didn’t really care about me.”

  “I care,” Haley said. “You know I do.”

  Now he looked scared. “This is kind of sudden….”

  “Say it,” Haley said. “Call me your goddess.”

  “My what?”

  “You know. Like it says on the shirt.”

  “Oh right. The shirt.” He looked down at the Haley T-shirt as if he was reconsidering it now, and shrugged into his jacket. It covered the shirt nicely. “This was really just a joke, kind of.”

  Haley laughed. She’d broken the spell; that was clear. Enough sweet talk. Now it was time to come clean.

  “What are you laughing about?” he asked. “You sure are acting weird this morning.”

  “I’m sorry, Devon,” Haley said. “I was teasing you a little bit before. It’s just that I started feeling like things were getting kind of out of hand between us. Too intense. You know what I mean?”

  He nodded and looked relieved. “You’re right. It’s my fault. I went way overboard.”

  “It’s all right,” Haley said. “It’s just … I missed being friends with you. I liked things the way they were. Do you think we can go back to hanging with Irene and Shaun and keeping things cool between us for a while, before we start proposing to each other?”

  “Yeah, totally,” Devon said. “I’d like that too.”

  He slinked away down the hall. The old, cool Devon was back. Haley just hoped this wouldn’t mean the resurgence of the old, cruel Darcy. But that was the risk she had to take. If she and Devon were going to be friends, she’d have to deal with that possibility too.

  THE END

  SPRING BREAK AT YALE

  Just being on an Ivy League campus doesn’t make you smart.

  “I don’t believe this,” Coco muttered. “Why didn’t you warn me?”

  “I did warn you,” Haley said. “You didn’t listen.” Haley’s pale yellow grandma-mobile backfired for the umpteenth time just as they pulled up in front of Ali’s dorm at Yale. Three cute Elis turned their heads, startled at the noise, and sneered at the hideous car.

  “I can’t believe I’m driving up to Yale in this car from hell,” Coco groaned. “Hide me please, Sasha. I think I’ll just curl up and die right now.”

  In her rearview mirror Haley saw Coco slump down in the backseat, hoping no one would see her arriving in the least stylish way possible. She tried not to take it personally.

  “I’m sorry, my parents don’t believe in wasting money on a new car when this one still works,” Haley said. “If you didn’t have to upgrade your perfectly good car every six months we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

  “Go ahead, blame it on me,” Coco sniffed. “But if my grandmother even looked at a car this ugly I’d have her removed from the family tree. This is a nightmare.”

  Cecily tried to cheer them up. “It’s not a big deal, Coco. We’ll park the car and walk everywhere from now on. No one has to know our tight little butts ever touched these Naugahyde seats.”

  “No one except the hundreds of people who already saw us driving up in this boat,” Coco said.

  “Um, she has a name, it’s the Lemon,” Haley said, trying to make light of their situation.

  “This has to be the most embarrassing moment of my entire life,” Coco said, and Haley could feel the team turning on her.

  Haley parked the car and sighed. She was embarrassed too. She hated Gam Polly’s car and wished Coco hadn’t forced her to drive them to New Haven. But now that it was done she also wished Coco would stop whining about it.

  “Everything will be fine once we change into our hottest threads and show these Yale boys what they’ve been missing,” Whitney said.

  The girls piled out of the car. Haley opened the trunk to get their bags.

  “Hide me, Haley.” Coco insisted on cowering behind Haley’s coat so that no one would know she’d just stepped out of the old-lady shuttle.

  They lugged their bags up two flights to Ali’s suite in Davenport College. Luckily Ali’s roommates were away for the weekend, so there was plenty of room for Coco and friends to take over. Not that Ali looked pleased about it.

  “Coco, I told you you could bring one friend, not four,” Ali complained. “How is it going to look, me being trailed everywhere by five high school kids?”

  “It’s going to look fabulous, because we’re going to look fabulous,” Coco said. “I call this bed.” She set her bag down on the best bed in the one empty room in the suite. “Two of you are going to have to sleep on the couch.”

  Cecily took the other bed in Coco’s room, and Sasha took the empty bed in Ali’s room, which left Haley to share the pullout couch in the common room with Whitney.

  “What’s on for tonight?” Coco asked Ali. “Cocktail party? Dinner at a nice restaurant? Maybe a frat blowout?”

  “There’s a party at Zeta Psi,” Ali said with a yawn. “I suppose it wouldn’t be too mortifying to be seen with you there. You could blend in with the clueless second-semester transfers.”

  “Thanks for the warm welcome, Ali,” Coco said sarcastically. “It means a lot to us.”

  “Hey—you invited yourselves up here,” Ali said. “It’s not my responsibility to make sure you have a good time. I’m a busy college student. I’ve got fashion magazines to read.”

  She buried herself in the latest glossy while her little sister and friends threw open their bags and started pulling out clothes.

  “Let’s get dressed for the party,” Coco said. She held up two dresses: one a simple blue sheath, the other a micro-mini baby-doll number. “Which dress screams college sophisticate? And don’t be wrong.”

  “Oooh, the baby-doll!” Whitney said.

  “I like the sheath,” Cecily said. “But only if you dress it up with jewelry—maybe an armload of bangle bracelets?” She unzipped her jewelry case and jangled a stack of metal bangles.

  Ali sighed and slammed her magazine shut. “You know what? I think I’ll do my reading in a café somewhere. Have fun without me.”

  “Aren’t you going to get dressed for the party?” Haley asked.

  “Uh, hello?” Ali said. “It’s just a stupid frat party. I don’t need three hours to get ready for that.”

  “Don’t listen to her,” Coco said. “She’s trying to make the party sound lame so we won’t stay in her stupid dump of a suite longer than necessary. Now, on to hair accessories …”

  The girls spent hours dolling themselves up to their idea of the height of sophistication with clothes, hair and makeup. Just before they left the suite to grab some dinner, Haley caught sight of herself in the mirror and paused. She’d never worn so much makeup before.

  “Are you sure all this eyeliner looks okay?” she asked the
room in general.

  “It looks amazing,” Coco said. “Stop worrying. It looks like a lot in this harsh dorm light, but at a nighttime party your eyes will seem smoky and mysterious.”

  “All right,” Haley agreed, and out they went into the New Haven evening.

  First stop, Mory’s, the venerable Yale club. They walked in but a bouncer stopped them just inside the door. “Can I see your student IDs, ladies?”

  “We left them in our dorm,” Coco lied as she tried to breeze past him. He blocked her with a beefy arm.

  “Sorry, Mory’s is for Yale students, alumni or faculty only,” he said. “And besides, if you girls are thinking about going to the bar, I’d forget it. You’re obviously way too young to drink.”

  Coco tried to finesse this by laughing coyly. “Aren’t you sweet. Did you hear that, girls? This adorable young man actually thinks we’re teenagers!”

  The bouncer rolled his eyes. “You are teenagers. See you in a few years.” He gently pushed them toward the door. They found themselves out on the cold, hard street, unsure of where to go next.

  “We’re not meeting Ali at Zeta Psi until nine,” Coco said.

  “And I’m starving,” Whitney said.

  “What about Pepe’s Pizza?” Sasha said, nodding at a pizza joint down the block. “New Haven is supposed to have the best pies on the planet.”

  The line at Pepe’s was out the door, but the girls had time to kill, so they waited. Whitney complained about hunger pangs the entire time. At last they got a table and sat down to share a large mushroom pie.

  “This is such a waste! After all our hard work dieting, we’re ingesting empty pizza calories?” Coco said, half disgusted, though not so much that she couldn’t devour a yummy slice.

  “Who cares? It’s delicious,” Haley said.