What If... All Your Friends Turned On You

by Liz Ruckdeschel

  “Congratulations!” He gave her a big hug. “My little girl’s a driver. Want to chauffeur me home?”

  Haley carefully maneuvered her parents’ hybrid from the DMV for the twenty blocks or so to her own street. She was beginning to feel comfortable behind the wheel when, right as she turned into her driveway, she nearly rear-ended a hideous car that was blocking the garage. It was a large, pale yellow sedan covered with bumper stickers like “I Brake for Cookies,” “Lady in a Walker on Board” and “Sunday Drivers = Safe Drivers.” Haley recognized it instantly as her grandmother’s old Lemon, famous for the way it backfired every few feet.

  “Is Gam Polly here for my birthday?” Haley asked enthusiastically. “If that’s the case, I’ll forgive her for parking her giant monstrosity of a car in my parking space.”

  “That giant monstrosity … is your new car!” Perry announced. “Happy seventeenth birthday, Snoodles!”

  “What?” Haley was stunned. She’d been hoping for a car—a new car. Barring that, she’d been hoping for something she wouldn’t be too embarrassed to be seen in. But this—this was a travesty. Her worst nightmare, on wheels. “You say that like it’s a good thing.”

  Her father laughed. “It’s all yours, Haley. You deserve it.”

  You mean I deserve to be punished? she thought. Because that’s what this feels like.

  “Yay,” she said halfheartedly, purely for her father’s benefit.

  Her birthday dinner with the family that night cheered her up a little. Haley knew she shouldn’t sulk about getting Gam Polly’s clunker instead of a cool new ride, like the one Coco got on her birthday or even Annie Armstrong’s tiny electric car. She supposed the Lemon was better than no car at all, and she tried to be a good sport about it.

  However, she absolutely refused to drive the car to the game that night. She wasn’t ready to introduce the Lemon to the world, and she doubted she ever would be. What would Coco say if she saw Haley driving an old-lady car? What would any of her friends think?

  Haley didn’t want to know. Besides, she figured, if she didn’t have a car, she would need a ride home. And maybe that would give her an excuse to approach Reese Highland, her handsome—and lately estranged—neighbor. So she told her parents she didn’t feel ready to drive alone at night yet, and they happily agreed to drop her off at school for the game.

  Haley slipped into the gym in the middle of the first quarter. During their on-again moments, Reese had told Haley many times over that he had one rule about game days: no surprises. He loved having Haley in the crowd, so long as he was prepared to see her there. But he hated the idea of her showing up at a game unexpectedly—it threw off his timing.

  However, Haley just assumed all those silly rules were out the window now that they were no longer doing anything close to dating. After all, she’d barely spoken to Reese since he’d returned from his winter trip to Nevis with Spencer and the guys. Reese had been caught on camera snuggling up to a swimsuit model, and after that, Haley had barely given him the time of day.

  Lately, though, she’d been hearing talk that Reese had been set up by Spencer and the gang on the trip. Apparently, they had spiked his drink and then encouraged one of the girls to cozy up to him. In his inebriated state, Reese hadn’t been able to protest. In fact, he was so out of it he’d barely known what was going on.

  Now all Haley wanted was to have him back in her life, even if that meant just being friends for a while. This game was huge for Reese—Hillsdale was battling it out with Ridgewood, their eternal rival, for first place in the division. The only bigger game would be the following week when Hillsdale went to Ridgewood for a rematch in the play-offs. Haley innocently hoped a show of support would go a long way toward making amends. Wouldn’t he notice if she didn’t bother to show up at all for his big game? Wouldn’t that, more than anything, make the distance between them grow? That was Haley’s line of thinking, anyway, as she sat down in the bleachers, blending into the crowd.

  At first Reese was too busy playing to notice her, and he played a great first half. He scored sixteen points and logged five assists. By halftime the Hawks were up by three. The game was close but Hillsdale was always a step ahead of their rivals.

  Haley cheered along with the crowd but didn’t do anything to draw attention to herself. Then, early in the second half, a Ridgewood player fouled Reese. As he stepped up to the line to take his foul shot—his specialty—Haley couldn’t resist calling out, “Go, Reese!” breaking the silence in the crowded gym. Reese heard her and looked toward her, distracted. He caught her eye and looked wounded, surprised. Her heart sank. Uh-oh. She knew she had made a terrible mistake, not calling first to warn him of her presence.

  Reese bounced the ball, trying to regain his concentration. He took his first foul shot—missed. The crowd groaned. Second shot—missed again. Not like Reese at all. Haley wanted to sink under the bleachers and hide.

  After that, Reese’s game went further downhill. He missed another foul shot and, most embarrassing of all, he completely blew three wide-open layups. He didn’t score another point for the rest of the game. Reese Highland, star hoops player, looked like a klutz out there on the court. His teammates tried to pick up the slack but it wasn’t enough. Ridgewood took advantage and surged past the Hawks. Final score: 68 to 53, Ridgewood. The Hawks had suffered a humiliating meltdown.

  Devastated, the crowd booed the team off the court. As the spectators dispersed, Haley heard them muttering things like “What a joke” and “What happened to Highland? He completely lost it out there.”

  “He played like my grandmother after she’s had a few scotches,” one guy said. “And that ain’t good.”

  Haley felt terrible. She’d meant well. She’d only wanted to support him. Had this big loss really been all her fault?

  Maybe Reese will forgive me, she thought. Our relationship is more important than a basketball game, right? She clung to that thin thread of hope even as, deep down, she had her doubts. Strong doubts.

  Still in denial, Haley waited for Reese to emerge from the locker room. It took a long time. All the other players came out first, wet-headed and dejected, and left with barely a glance in Haley’s direction. At last, Reese came out and headed straight for his car.

  “Reese!” Haley called. “Wait!”

  He kept walking and didn’t look back.

  “Reese!” She ran up and tugged on his arm. He shrugged her off, then turned to face her.

  “Haley, you haven’t even spoken to me in weeks, and then you show up here tonight without telling me? When the one thing I’ve ever asked you not to do is surprise me during a game? There were easier ways of getting my attention.”

  She shrank back, startled. He’d never spoken to her so harshly before. “I—I just wanted to say I’m sorry. About the game. About everything. I should have given you a chance to explain after … Nevis.”

  “Yes, you should have,” Reese said. “But you clearly don’t trust me or have any respect for our relationship.”

  “Of course I do, Reese,” Haley said. “That’s why I came. I wanted to show you how much I care about—”

  “It’s too late,” he said, sounding truly disappointed. “I can’t listen to this right now.” He got into his car and started the engine. And Haley was left in the parking lot without a ride home—and without a boyfriend.

  Haley should have known better. After all that’s happened between her and Reese, and after she saw those very suggestive pictures from Nevis, she should have picked a quieter and more private place to talk things out, rather than surprising him in the middle of a crucial game.

  Go back to page 1.

  DEAD END

  CONFRONT COCO

  Talking sense into a girl on a diet is roughly equivalent to snatching food from a hungry lion.

  Haley’s hand twitched from nerves as she rang the doorbell at Coco’s enormous McMansion. Haley had grown increasingly worried about her friend in recent days. Lately, Coco had ap
peared to be eating nothing at all—or at least not anything beyond a couple of orange slices, some green tea and a hot water/lemon juice/cayenne pepper/dash of maple syrup concoction. The extreme fad dieting had allowed her to shrink from skinny to superskinny in under two weeks, though Coco had also apparently had help from a slew of dangerous diet pills. Haley had caught her popping a handful at school earlier that day.

  Haley had considered reporting Coco to the school nurse for treatment. But then she pictured Coco’s likely response: threats, screams, all-out warfare. She thought better of that idea, deciding instead to have a heart-to-heart with Coco at her house, on her home turf, where she’d be most comfortable.

  Coco’s maid, Consuela, answered the door. “’Ello Meez Aley,” she said. “You want to see Meez Coco? She upstairs in her room.”

  “Thank you, Consuela.” Haley started up the steps to Coco’s bedroom, surprised to have gotten by the first line of defense so easily. Things must have loosened up in the De Clerq household, she thought. Coco usually consigned Consuela to be a bouncer and protect her from unwanted guests. Haley had never before been allowed simply to run up to Coco’s room uninvited and unannounced. This was most definitely a first.

  Coco’s door was ajar. Haley knocked and Coco called, “Come in.” She looked surprised to see Haley but not displeased. She was lounging on her daybed, reading a book about the deplorable conditions at most livestock farms, which Haley recognized since her mother owned at least two copies.

  “Every time I start craving a steak, I just read a chapter about hormone injections or cattle pens,” Coco explained. “Kills the appetite, let me tell you.”

  “Speaking of eating,” Haley said, making herself comfortable in one of Coco’s overstuffed chairs. “I wanted to talk to you about your cleanse.”

  “It’s great, isn’t it?” Coco touched one of her cheeks. “Look what it’s done for my skin.”

  “Your skin does look great,” Haley said. “But then, it always did. It’s your bones I’m worried about.”

  “Ugh, not you too?” Coco said with a sigh of exasperation. “Please don’t try to talk some sense into me, Haley. It won’t work.”

  “Coco, you must have lost at least ten pounds. And you were a thin girl to begin with. Do you know how much damage you can do, to your heart, your kidneys, your skeletal system? Starvation diets can lead to heart failure, osteoporosis, death!”

  “I’ve only lost nine and a half pounds, actually,” Coco said, ignoring Haley’s warnings. “Ten is my goal, then I’ll stop.” But Haley wasn’t so sure.

  “Lots of girls can’t stop,” Haley pressed on, “once they begin starving themselves. Look at all the problems Whitney had with her binging and purging. It took a lot of couseling to get her straightened out. And you know how she follows you around and copies your every move. If only for Whitney’s sake, you should take better care of yourself.”

  “Huh, Whitney,” Coco huffed. “She has no self-control at all, no willpower. Do you think she’s maintained the cleanse? Of course not. Her mother has her eating salads and leafy greens the minute she walks in the door after school.”

  “Thank goodness,” Haley muttered, glad to know at least Whitney wasn’t endangering herself.

  “Look, Haley, it’s not as bad as you think. I like my body. I liked it before I started dieting. I have no interest in starving or exercising myself into oblivion. I’m taking in plenty of calories, I swear. I’ve even been keeping a log.” Coco pulled out a little black book, with dates from the previous two weeks and lists of ingested—albeit liquid—items that added up to nine hundred calories a day.

  “What about those diet pills I saw you swallowing by the handful?”

  “Those are just little herbal pick-me-ups from my trainer,” Coco said. “One hundred percent natural. And if you don’t believe me, you can ask him yourself.” Coco held out her cell phone, which Haley refused to take. “This is all just to get back at Spencer,” Coco continued. “To make him eat his heart out. I know I always looked great, but this winter I want to get down to my ‘sucks for you’ weight.”

  “‘Sucks for you’?”

  “You know—the pound-to-muscle-mass ratio that guarantees every girl at school wants to be me, every guy wants to bed me and Spencer’s brain implodes at the sight of me doing my runway sashay through the halls. It’s not a body-image thing—it’s a power thing. Come on, Haley. I’m only half a pound away from my target, and then I’ll give up the herbal supplements for good. Promise.”

  Haley felt reasonably reassured. “Okay,” she said. “But I’m giving you three more days, and after that, if I catch you popping any more pills, supplements or otherwise, I’m calling Nurse Underhill and then I’m calling your parents.”

  Haley left the house believing she had accomplished something and feeling proud of herself for her efforts. However, that feeling was not to last. By the time she got home, she had several texts on her phone from Whitney, Sasha and Cecily. Coco, in her effort to shed that final half pound in the three days Haley had allotted her, had immediately popped three more “pick-me-ups” and called an emergency session with her Pilates instructor.

  It turned into an emergency session, all right. Coco’s heart rate soared, and her teacher, fearing Coco might be having some sort of cardiac event, called 911. Coco was rushed to the hospital and kept for observation for three days. Her doctors determined that the pills she’d been popping were basically a knockoff of the outlawed diet drug fenphen.

  So much for those herbal supplements.

  Looks as though Haley should have gone straight to Nurse Underhill. Coco could have been in serious trouble, no thanks to Haley. Dieting is one thing; popping pills of unknown origin is another. Haley should have known better than to assume Coco was in control of the situation.

  Hang your head and go back to page 1.

  DEAD END

  CALL THE NURSE

  Sometimes reinforcements are required.

  Haley hesitated on the threshold of Ms. Underhill’s office. She was worried about Coco, who seemed to be eating nothing more than orange segments, green tea and some kind of crazy cleanse concoction that was mostly hot water with a dash of cayenne pepper, lemon juice and a splash of maple syrup. Coco had shrunk from skinny to superskinny in two weeks, and Haley was beginning to worry that she might have an eating disorder, especially since she’d recently caught Coco popping pills of unknown origin.

  But what could Haley do about it? She didn’t really know, but Ms. Underhill, the school nurse, had recently talked to the school about her concerns over the terrible eating habits that were sweeping through the student body. She seemed to know a lot about the subject. She was a medical professional, after all. Still, nobody took pleasure in visiting Ms. Underhill. And Haley was nervous about how Coco would react when she discovered Haley had been the one to turn her in. Luckily, she’d brought along Sasha for moral support.

  Haley took a breath, and she and Sasha walked into Nurse Underhill’s office. “What is it?” Ms. Under hill asked, her manner more drill sergeant than nurse.

  “We’re sorry to bother you—” Haley began.

  “You’re not bothering me!” Ms. Underhill shouted. “I’m here to help!”

  Haley found the disconnect between Ms. Underhill’s helpful words and stern manner confusing, but she plowed ahead. “We’re worried about a friend of ours. We don’t know for sure, but we think she might have an eating problem.”

  “Haley caught her popping diet pills in the lunchroom,” Sasha blurted out.

  Ms. Underhill frowned and grabbed a clipboard and pen. “Name?”

  “My name? Haley Miller.”

  “No, name of the problem eater.”

  “Oh. Coco De Clerq.”

  “Yes, I know the girl.” Ms. Underhill wrote down Coco’s name. “You very well could be right. What other kinds of behavior have you observed?”

  “Behavior?” Haley hadn’t expected this question. Did Nurse Underhill e
xpect them to whip out a log? “Well, we just never see her eating anything, not any solid food anyway. For the past two weeks, she hasn’t been eating breakfast, lunch or dinner, just the occasional orange segment, or green tea, or this cleansing water….”

  “Let me guess,” said Nurse Underhill. “It’s made with hot water, cayenne pepper, lemon juice and maple syrup.”

  “You know the recipe,” Sasha confirmed.

  “She’s clearly dropping weight. I would say close to ten pounds in ten days,” said Haley.

  “That’s good enough for me.” Ms. Underhill slapped the clipboard down on her desk. “Thank you, Haley and Sasha. You did the right thing. We’ll get Coco the help she needs.” She clicked through her computer files until she found Coco’s contact information. “I’m calling Principal Crum. We’re going to get in touch with Miss De Clerq’s parents.”

  “Um, I think Coco’s parents are in St. Barts,” Sasha chimed in.

  Ms. Underhill raised an eyebrow. “Really? All the more reason to bring them back from their little paradise vacation and force them to take a good look at how much their daughter is suffering.”

  Yikes, Haley thought. That’s only going to make Coco more pissed when she finds out who spoke up.

  “Nurse Underhill,” Sasha said, “this is all confidential, right? I mean, Coco’s never going to know who told you she was in trouble, right?”

  “Of course!” Nurse Underhill boomed.

  And all Haley could say was, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  Thank goodness Haley and Sasha went to Nurse Underhill. Now the problem is out of their hands, and Coco will be strictly monitored to make sure she’s getting enough to eat. And if they’re lucky, Coco will never know that it was Haley and Sasha who turned her in. Haley can take a deep breath and move on.