by Kelly Oram
. . . . .
Apparently, Lady Luck was as pissed at me as the Science Squad. I got to Jo’s just as Mr. Uptight himself slid the deadbolt locked on the front door and flipped the window sign to read CLOSED.
When he realized I was standing at the door, he stared at me for a long moment. I rolled my eyes. “Banned for life…you’ll call the cops...yadda, yadda…I get it,” I yelled through the glass. “But I really need to talk to Avery, capisce, Coffee Man?”
He opened the door but stood in my way and continued to stare at me with his intense gaze, as if he was searching for the right way to say whatever he was thinking. He needn’t bother saying anything. His “Get the hell out, and don’t come back” had been perfectly clear the other day.
With a brief look skyward, I put my hands on my hips and scowled at him. “Do you see my boyfriend standing next to me? Does it look like I’m here to fornicate?”
Surprise flickered across his face for a second, but then he dragged his dark brown eyes down the length of my body and up again. The action was so surprisingly slow and heated that I felt that gaze as if it were his hands moving up my body. I would have spontaneously combusted if he hadn’t raised an eyebrow—just one, the one with the hoop pierced through it—into a perfect challenging arch when our gazes met again. He was basically saying that I looked skanky with that look. Curse him for looking so dangerously hot while insulting me.
Wait. When did Coffee Jerk get sexy?
I wanted to get pissed, but then I looked down at my skirt that was a little too tight and a little too short, and realized he was kind of right. I groaned. “Whatever. Just let me in. Please?”
Adam made me sweat it out a second longer, then reluctantly stepped aside to let me in. I could have hugged him. “Thank you.”
He didn’t look impressed as he nodded toward the corner. “Go have a seat. They’re expecting you.”
I stumbled to a stop in the doorway. “Expecting me? How can they be expecting me?”
Shrugging, Adam ignored my question and locked the door behind me as I headed toward my friends. They weren’t hard to find. They were the only people still in the store.
Brandon, Levi, Tara, and Aiden had claimed the couches in the corner nook. Avery was still behind the counter, but when she saw me she held up a steaming mug and walked in my direction. “You’re right on time.”
The mug was filled with caramel apple cider. I brought it to my nose and took a deep whiff—cinnamon and nutmeg. They really had been expecting me. “I don’t understand.”
Avery smiled and steered me toward the rest of the gang. Tara sat between Brandon and Levi on one couch, and Avery sat down on the other next to Aiden, leaving the spot on her right open for me.
Everyone was staring at me with a bunch of weirdo looks. “Did you guys use science to rob a bank or something?” I asked, squirming in the awkward tension that filled the air. “Because you all look really guilty for some reason, and to be honest, I expected you to be angrier.”
Nobody answered my question. They all looked to Avery, who smiled at me too big and too bright. “Thank you for coming tonight.”
Was she kidding? “What do you mean, ‘thank you’? You do remember that I wasn’t exactly invited to this little shindig, right? That you actually kicked me out of science club and set up this secret meeting so that I wouldn’t be here?”
Aiden laughed bitterly. “We had to. If we’d asked you to come, you’d have blown us off.”
Um, okay, brilliant, but also totally rude. And untrue. “I would not.”
“Oh yeah?” Levi asked. “When’s the last time you didn’t blow us off?”
Brandon nodded, his face a grimace. “It is what you do now.”
My mind reeled at the unexpected attack. I looked to Tara for support, because she would never exaggerate. Unfortunately that plan backfired, because Tara cringed and said, “I stopped inviting you to do things a couple months ago because you would never show up anyway. You didn’t notice that we stopped hanging out.”
My jaw fell open at the betrayal. Even Tara, Miss More Afraid of Confrontation than George McFly, was ganging up on me. “What is this, a metaphorical blanket party? You’re all just going to circle up and start taking turns beating me? Are you really that mad?”
A low voice that radiated calm interrupted my rant. “Nobody is angry with you, Libby.” My head whipped around to where Coffee Man was now standing. “Your friends are all here because they love you.”
Adam surprised me when he sat down in a chair next to the couches, as if he were part of our group. And even weirder, everyone looked to him as if he was in charge. He glanced around the circle once, and then met my gaze unflinchingly. “Hi, Libby. I’m Adam Koepp.”
I snorted. As if I’d forgotten the guy who called me a selfish slut. “I remember your name, Coffee Man. What the heck is going on here?”
The guy’s confidence never wavered. Not a single flinch. His resolve was like freaking titanium alloy. “Your friends have asked me to help them talk to you tonight. They’re concerned for you, and because they care about you, they want to help you.”
W. T. F?
The Coffee Man took a breath and sat up straighter in his chair. He never looked away from me. “You have a problem, Libby.”
“Oh, whoa, hold up and stop right there! Are you intervening with me right now? Is this supposed to be an intervention?” Coffee Man’s stare wasn’t going to break, so I looked around the group at everyone else. None of them would meet my eyes. “Did someone cook up something special in the chem lab or something? You’ve all officially gone mental. I’m not on drugs.”
Avery finally looked at me. She shook her head. “Of course you aren’t on drugs, but your relationship with Owen is just as destructive.”
I barked out an incredulous laugh. They were comparing me to a drug addict and saying Owen was my crack? “Are you freaking kidding me? I came here to apologize to all of you, and this is what I get?” I jumped to my feet. “This is such Equus ferus feces!”
I bolted for the door and got about three steps before Adam intercepted me, blocking the way like a lean, tattoo-covered wall of attitude. He stood in a typical bouncer’s stance, with his feet shoulder width apart and his arms folded across his chest. Though he wasn’t particularly tall or bulky, he was still intimidating. I glared at him. “And you’re a gluteus maximus!”
Frowning, Adam looked to the group to translate. Aiden grinned. “That’s Libby speak for this is horse shit and you’re an ass.’”
When Adam brought his gaze back to me, I kept up my glare, refusing to take it back. I waited for him to flip out on me, but was shocked when his lips twitched, as if he was fighting a smile. I had to be wrong, though, because there was no way Mr. Uptight Coffee Jerk had a sense of humor. “Get out of my way,” I said.
His face hardened again. “You sit that luscious little gluteus maximus of yours back down on that couch right now, or I’ll put it there myself.”
It really does not happen often, but I was rendered completely speechless. I was also unable to move, save the way my eyes tripled in size as I gawked at him. He gave me a dry look and added, “Capisce, Cider Chick?”
Once my shock wore off, I swallowed hard and brought my fingers up into a salute. “Capisco, Coffee Man.”
I parked myself back down on the couch between Aiden and Avery. I mean, what else could I do? Adam’s voice had been low, calm, and had left absolutely no room for debate.
“Thank you,” Avery whispered. “Please, just try to hear what we have to say.”
“Fine. Speak your piece,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure I’d be able to pay attention. My eyes kept drifting across the circle to Adam. Once I sat back down, he’d returned to his chair as if nothing had happened. Like he hadn’t just called my posterior luscious, as if it were common knowledge. Obviously he couldn’t have meant it, but how’d he say it without any hint of sarcasm? And why?
Levi’s voice broke th
rough my thoughts. “Libby, you are one of my very best friends, and I care about you a lot, but your relationship with Owen has changed you.”
I pulled my focus back to the group of disgruntled science geeks in front of me. Levi was reading his words off a crinkled piece of notebook paper. “At the beginning of the year, I asked you to be my partner in AP history because you were my friend, and I knew that we would work well together. For our first semester project, you flaked on me six different times. Finally, I was forced to cancel my plans with Brandon the night before the project was due because you hadn’t done your part. When you finally called to tell me that you didn’t get your work done and weren’t going to be able to finish it by morning, you didn’t even apologize. You just asked me to do it and said thanks for covering for you. Then you offered to give the presentation in class, as if that made everything okay. But even that you followed up by laughing and saying that I was too socially awkward to give a good presentation anyway, so it was better this way. I missed out on the book signing of one of my favorite authors that night to stay home and do your homework assignment so that you could go to your boyfriend’s basketball game.”
I sat back, stunned. That’s not how I remembered that happening at all. Yeah, I’d missed a couple of weekends, but I hadn’t blown off the assignment on purpose. I honestly thought I’d have time to do it. But then the weekend that project was due, Owen’s basketball team made it to the play-offs. It was a very big game that was important to them. I was just trying to be supportive.
“I’m sorry,” I said to Levi. “I didn’t know you had plans that night.”
Levi glared at me. “That’s because you didn’t ask. You assumed that because I didn’t have some superstar athlete girlfriend to keep me busy, that I had nothing better to do than sit at home doing your homework. You thought only about yourself, and impressing your jerk of a boyfriend. You took advantage of me, and then you insulted me, and you did it without blinking an eye!”
Tara picked up Levi’s hand when he lost his temper. “We’re not supposed to attack, remember?”
“Levi,” Adam broke in gently, “I know it’s hard, but she’s more likely to hear you if your words are spoken out of concern instead of anger.”
I scoffed at Mr. Know-It-All Adam, but Levi looked at him and nodded. “Sorry,” he whispered. His gaze slid to mine, and he attempted to smile. The sadness in it shocked me. “I’m not angry. I’m hurt.”
The word was a punch to my gut.
Levi took a deep breath and then went back to reading his paper. “You have been my friend since I was in third grade. I could always count on you and trust you. You used to help me feel proud of myself, and you always stuck up for me when I was bullied in middle school, but lately I feel like I need bully protection from you.”
I gasped. “How can you say that? Don’t you think you’re exaggerating just a little?”
Levi’s jaw clenched, and he continued to read his letter without answering me. “I came here tonight because I care about you. If you promise to get rid of the bad influences in your life and start being yourself again, I will do anything I can to support you. However, if you refuse to acknowledge that you have a problem and don’t commit to change, then I will be forced to cut all ties with you. I would hate to lose our friendship, but the relationship we have has become unhealthy. You make me feel bad about myself, and you hurt my feelings. I don’t want to be hurt anymore. I’m sorry.”
Levi folded up the paper in his hands and looked at me. I didn’t know what to say. Before I could gather my thoughts and vocalize what I was feeling, Brandon turned on his tablet and began to read a letter of his own.
“Dear Libby. When I was in sixth grade, my girlfriend, Jenna, dumped me for Joey Stinson because he was popular, so I asked an eighth grader to the eighth grade dance. I thought that if I got to go to the eighth grade dance when Joey Stinson couldn’t, it would prove to Jenna that I was cool, too, and she would come back to me. You told me you’d take me to the dance, but only if I promised to try to forget about Jenna and have fun with you.
“You were teased mercilessly that night for being the only girl who had to get a sixth grader to be her date, but you ignored everyone. You introduced me to your eighth grade friends Avery and Aiden, and you spent the whole night making sure that I had fun. You taught me that cool was a matter of opinion, and it was better to be friends with people who accepted me the way I was.”
Wow. Talk about taking a trip down memory lane. I smiled at the story, and so did everyone else. I’d been floored that day in the hall when this skinny little freckled kid marched up to me with a determined look on his face and said he needed to go to the eighth grade dance so he could impress a girl, and that he could return the favor by tutoring me in any school subject up to tenth grade math and science. I’d liked him instantly, and he’s been one of my favorite people ever since. Seriously, Brandon Campbell is one of the coolest guys alive.
“For years, I have practically worshiped you like an idol. I’m not sure when you went from letting me know that my shirt came untucked to telling me I should stop dressing like I’m asking for a wedgie,” Brandon said, with a nervous quiver in his voice, “but you are not the girl I look up to anymore. You taught me to love myself, and think for myself, and never care what others say, but you don’t do any of those things for yourself anymore. You’ve changed your clothes, and your hair, and given up your real friends just so you could have a popular boyfriend who doesn’t even treat you the right way. The girl you have become is an imposter of my friend.
“I am here tonight because the real Libby Garrett is my hero, and I want her back. I love that Libby, and I want to help her. If you refuse to take this seriously and don’t stop dating Owen Jackson, then my friend is already lost to me. I won’t be friends with her imposter anymore.”
Adam
Libby’s friends were brutal. They obviously cared about her, but their anger ran deep and they didn’t hold anything back. Guilt pinched Libby’s expression with every accusation laid at her feet, but mostly she sat there looking shell-shocked and hurt.
I sympathized with her, but I didn’t feel bad about being the mastermind behind this ambush. After listening to the letters her friends had written, I realized Libby’s problems were a lot worse than I’d thought. Hopefully she would take this intervention to heart. I agreed with Brandon. I missed the real Libby Garrett, and I wasn’t even friends with her.
The night was heading for disaster, though. I’d been through an intervention before. I’d once given the same ultimatum to my mom that Libby’s friends were all giving her now. The look of denial and resentment shining in Libby’s eyes was nothing new to me.
Libby listened through Levi’s and Brandon’s letters, too shocked to respond. Then, a part of her spirit crumbled when Tara talked about being left alone at the science fair. But when Avery read her letter, something inside Libby changed. She stopped feeling guilty and sad, and let anger take over. She became a ticking time bomb just waiting for the right moment to explode.
If I had to guess, I’d say that she took Avery’s letter the hardest, because Avery was her best friend and this was the ultimate betrayal. Avery was fighting her own anxiety as she read her letter, but she was determined to help her friend and she wasn’t going to quit no matter what, because she loved Libby that much. Avery’s compassion was one of the things I admired the most about her. I just wished Libby saw Avery’s persistence as compassion instead of an attack.
“I am here tonight,” Avery said in a voice one hiccup away from breaking, “because I love you, Libby. You’re like family to me, and family helps one another even if the help comes in an unpleasant form. After Aiden broke my heart, I wanted to give up on life, but you wouldn’t let me fall apart. You were there for me when I needed it most. I would be an ungrateful friend if I didn’t do the same for you.”
“You think this is being there for me?” Libby shouted. “All you guys are doing is sitting here
telling me how you think I’m a bad person! That’s not support!”
I tried not to sigh. I hadn’t expected Libby to accept the truth and agree to the demands of her friends, but I’d hoped for it. Her defenses were every bit as high as my mother’s had been, her denial just as solid. “Libby, you are not a bad person. No one here has said that. In fact, each of their letters spoke about how great you are and how much your friends care about you. They’re pointing out your mistakes hoping that you will see what you’re doing to yourself.”
Libby’s eyes narrowed on me, burning with anger and hatred. “What the hell do you know about it, Coffee Man? You don’t know me. I’m not doing anything to myself.”
“Yes, you are!” Avery cried. “You’re pushing us away. You’re hurting everyone who loves you. Your grades are slipping. You’re making horrible choices—choices that affect more than just you. You’re my friend. You could have gotten me fired the other day. You could have been thrown in jail. You’re hurting yourself, and you just can’t see it.”
Avery’s eyes finally spilled over with tears, and she leaned into Aiden’s shoulder. Libby sunk back into the couch, frowning at Avery, but some of her rage calmed down. Aiden wrapped his arms around Avery and kissed her temple, whispering something to her that I couldn’t hear. My heart broke seeing them. I’d once held my sister, Kate, the exact same way when our mother refused to get help.
I needed to step in; I just didn’t have any clue what else to say. I could barely think straight. This was all too real, too familiar. Too close. This was going to end the same way the intervention with my mother had—being a waste of time. Libby needed help, but she wasn’t going to accept it. “Libby.” My voice rasped a little as I fought my own inner demons. “Your addiction to Owen is every bit as harmful as an addiction to a dangerous substance. It may feel good now, but it will destroy you in the long run.”
