The Enemy Hypothesis: A Brazos High Novella

by Sparling, Amy

  I can’t believe I was so stupid.

  Obviously a guy as cute as Mark would ever like me. I let the thrill of seeing my name in first place override my rational brain. I should have known better. And yet, I made a total fool of myself instead.

  The day is hell. Every single person in my classes just stares at me or tries to talk to me. Some tell me they’re sorry. A lot of people think it’s annoying that someone who is already rich got the free car. Unfortunately, hearing other people call Mark names doesn’t help my mood at all. No one else gets it like I get it. They weren’t this close to getting a new car.

  I was.

  The worst part of the day is when people try to goad me into blowing up or saying something bad. They get all up in my face and ask if I’m pissed off that I lost at the last minute. In fifth period accounting class, I’m so nervous to walk inside I actually contemplate just walking out of the building and hiking back the several mile trip to my house. I just want to leave. Just walk away. Never come back.

  But it’s like ninety degrees outside so the long walk would suck, and I’d get an unexcused absence, and Abuela would be mad at me, and she’d tell my mom and then Mom would be mad at me. Ditching class would make my home life just as miserable as my school life. So with my tail between my legs, I walk into class trying to decide if should be nice to Mark or be a vicious witch to him.

  I choose the second one and stand a little straighter. Only he’s not here. I don’t even have to look around the entire classroom to know he’s not here. There’s just something about his presence that always makes my heart skip a beat. And my heart is beating just fine right now.

  “Hey there everyone,” Mr. Jovanni says from the front of the classroom. “I know it’s been a crazy weekend but the competition is over and we have work to do.”

  “Thank God,” I mutter under my breath.

  “Mr. Caputo has the day off,” he says and maybe it’s my imagination, but even my teacher seems annoyed about it. I think he secretly wanted me to win. “They’re doing an award ceremony for his new car, or some crap I don’t really care about. I’m sure the app will update you. Anyhow, let’s get to work.”

  Mr. Jovanni dims the lights and turns on the smartboard where the day’s lesson is already queued up. He meets my eye and I give him a small, grateful smile. He winks back.

  * * *

  Abuela meets me at the front door when Jules drops me off after school. “Hola,” she says, wrapping me in a hug that smells like the cinnamon coffee she loves so much. “I made you some cookies. And I sent your sisters to their friend’s house for the afternoon. Come on, get some cookies. They’re still warm.”

  I know what she’s doing, but I’m not about to object. “Thanks, Abuela.”

  The cookies are artfully arranged on a blue and white platter and a fresh pot of cinnamon coffee is waiting on me. I take a deep breath, sit down, and grab a cookie.

  “This day sucked.”

  “I know, honey. But we grow stronger from the trials we endure.”

  I give her a soft smile and try really, really hard to let her words sink in and give me some kind of meaning. All I’ve felt today is shame, anger, resentment, and mostly just life-ruining mortification. I’m upset that I lost out on the new car, but most of all, I’m really embarrassed about how much I liked Mark. I let myself get this epic crush on someone who doesn’t like me at all.

  The only thing to be grateful for is that I didn’t tell anyone about my crush. Now I can just wallow in my own secret shame.

  The doorbell rings. I stand up quickly because we get a lot of door-to-door salespeople and Abuela is so bad at telling them we don’t want to purchase whatever they’re selling. “I got it.”

  I walk over to the door, a half-eaten snickerdoodle in my hand. When I pull it open, the last person in the world I expected to see is standing there.

  I stiffen. “Where’s your new truck?”

  Mark’s hand twists the watch around his wrist. He meets my gaze. “I didn’t get a truck. I actually got a Jeep.”

  “Right,” I say, swallowing back my rage. “Makes total sense.”

  “Well—”

  I cut him off with a lethal glare. “Look, I don’t know what I ever did you to, Mark. I barely even knew who you were before last month, so I don’t know why you made me such an enemy but—”

  He holds up his hand. “Wait.” He sucks in air between his teeth. “I think you’ll want to hear what I have to say before you finish what you were saying.”

  I fold my arms across my chest in an effort to avoid punching him right in his handsome face. My jaw is set. For some reason my lower back is hurting. I guess all the anger I feel is building up in my bones.

  He takes a breath. Scratches his neck. “So, yeah. I got the Jeep. And the paperwork is at the dealership. It’s not finalized yet.”

  “So why the hell are you on my porch?”

  His tongue flicks across his bottom lip. “Because I came to give you a ride to the dealership. I, uh, I told them you deserve the car, not me.”

  “I don’t believe a single word you say.”

  He reaches into his back pocket, pulling out a long blue and white paper. He unfolds it and hands it over. I’ve never bought a car before but it looks pretty legit. It’s a bill of sale from the dealership for the red Jeep, and my name is filled out as the owner, not his. I look at the paper and then up at him.

  “There’s a slight catch,” he says, scratching his neck again. “The Un-bully people lost their minds when I told them I wanted to gift the car to you. So they got their cameraman and they want it on film. I know it’s going to be cringey and awful but… the car is yours. They’re waiting for us now.” He glances at his watch. “Well, in thirty minutes.”

  “Who is that at the door?” Abuela calls out.

  I fold the bill of sale and take a deep breath to try to slow down the rapid beating of my heart. “Do you want to come in for cookies first?”

  His nervous expression bursts into a grin. “Sure,” he says, smiling at me. “I’d love a cookie.”

  Sixteen

  MARK

  It’s been two weeks since I gave my winning prize to Abby. Our ordinary small Texas high school has mostly returned to normal. The Un-bully people have moved on to another town and another school, and most students have long forgotten about the competition and last month when we were all extra nice to each other. The cliques are still cliquey, the jerks are still jerks, and the nice people are still nice people.

  The biggest thing that’s changed is my dating life. I no longer care to flirt with girls. I only care about one girl. And we’re going on a date tonight.

  This will be our second official date, but we’ve been pretty much inseparable since the day I drove her to the car dealership to get her car. Luckily, the Un-bully people didn’t keep us there too long, but they absolutely loved the twist of having me, the winner, give up my car to the girl in second place. They’re making such a big deal out of it online, and the video clip of me telling the camera why I did it has gone viral.

  Ironically, they haven’t disclosed the Annabel situation online. I guess the Un-bully app people want the rest of the schools to think that their system can’t be hacked, because then their whole system of honesty and being kind to one another blows up and becomes useless.

  Julian thought it was pretty cool that I gave up my car, and he agreed to help me keep it a secret from our parents. My mom and dad would not be okay with the kind act of giving away a thirty thousand dollar payday, so I told a huge lie and said I didn’t win. Luckily, they’re so busy with the restaurant that they haven’t found out the truth. I don’t think they’ll go looking for it, either. They recently started going to couples counseling and seeing a financial advisor, so hopefully they will be getting their problems sorted out soon.

  I take one last look in the mirror to confirm that I look pretty good tonight. The other day at school Abby said I looked cute in green, so I immediately w
ent to the mall and bought a dark green button up shirt which I’m wearing with my black jeans. I look sharp. Hopefully she notices.

  I’ve visited her house a few times, usually just to pick her and her sisters up for dinner at Caputo’s or to hang out and watch TV with her while her grandmother does this thing of peeking in on us randomly while trying to make it look like she’s not peeking in on us. Her sisters are nice to me but Abby says they’re just putting on a show because they like me. She swears they are little monsters when I’m not around. Abuela is nice too, and she’s always giving me this sweet look of approval. My parents never give me that look. So I can get used to it at Abby’s house.

  I turn down her road and almost miss her house because I don’t see her Jeep in the driveway at first. It’s blocked in by a black car. I guess it’s a friend or something. But when I walk up to her front door I realize the horrible mistake I’ve made.

  It’s not a friend.

  It’s her parents.

  “Well, hello there.” A tall man with dark brown skin and graying black hair answers the door. He looks me from head to toe and then grins. “You must be the boyfriend?”

  “I, uh—” Did Abby say I’m her boyfriend? I want to be, don’t get me wrong, but we haven’t officially become official or anything. I don’t know if I should confirm this or deny it. Is this some kind of Father Trick designed for me to fail?

  Abby appears behind him. “Please tell me you’re not scaring him away, Dad.”

  He steps backward and frowns. “Aw, come on! My oldest daughter has a boyfriend now. It’s a rite of passage. I’m supposed to be mean!”

  Abby rolls her eyes. “Mark, just ignore him.”

  I know better than to ignore a girl’s dad. I extend my hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Sir.”

  After surviving the parental introductions, I walk Abby to my car and open the door for her. “You’re such a gentleman,” she says, giving me a cute grin. “But my parents aren’t watching us through the window or anything.”

  “I don’t care if anyone is watching,” I say, reaching up and sweeping a few strands of hair across her forehead. “You’re my girl and I’ll always open the door for you.”

  With the sun setting in the distance, it’s hard to tell if she’s blushing or if it’s just the sun making her face glow. I grin as I walk over to my side of the car.

  “So where are we going?” she asks as I drive out of her neighborhood.

  “It’s a secret.” I give her a wry smile. “You look beautiful, by the way.”

  This time I know for sure that she’s blushing when she smiles and looks out the window.

  “So I’m guessing when you had to get off the phone earlier, it was because your parents got home?”

  “Yep,” she says, looking back at me with wide eyes. “It was unexpected. They weren’t supposed to come home until Thanksgiving, but they got a last minute flight for cheap and decided to come see my new car.”

  We’ve only talked a little bit about how her parents have been in Mexico, so I don’t know many details about it. “Now I feel bad for taking you out. Should we go back?”

  She shakes her head. “They’re cool. They mostly just want to rest and hang out. They’re staying all week because my mom’s sister had a week off work so she went down to Mexico to help out while my parents are home.”

  “That’s good.”

  “It’s only been a few months since I’ve seen them but my parents look so different. My dad’s hair is going gray and—” She stops suddenly, looking back out the window. “Sorry, that’s boring.”

  “No it isn’t,” I say, sneaking a glance at her while I’m driving. “I like hearing about your life.”

  “It’s just dumb family stuff,” she says.

  “So? I want to hear it. I want to know everything that’s on your mind.”

  I can feel her looking at me. I glance over and she’s smiling up at me. I wish I could lean over and kiss her. Or run my hand through her hair. Or pull her close to me. But I’m currently driving so that’ll have to wait until we get to the ice skating rink. The owner is friends with my dad and he’s letting me have access to the rink all night. If all goes according to my plan, it’ll be pretty romantic.

  We talk about her family and how she and her siblings are living apart from their parents for the foreseeable future. It’s easy to see that Abby loves her sisters, and it’s also easy to see that she’s exhausted of taking care of them. Hopefully hanging out with me is a welcome distraction. I know I sure enjoy the time we spend together. When I’m with Abby, I don’t stress about my parent’s problems. I don’t think about Julian and his immature antics. I’m just happy. Every single second I spend around Abby, I’m happy.

  “That app has buried itself into my soul,” I say with a snort of laughter. “Every time you do something cute I get this weird urge to take out my phone and give you a kudos.”

  She laughs, a long genuine sound that lights up my insides. “It’s too bad you didn’t feel that way during the competition.”

  “Psh. I did. That’s why I gave you kudos.”

  Her head tilts to the side, her soft eyes studying me as if she’ll find the answer in my expression. “You really gave me a kudos?”

  I nod. “Just once…A day.”

  She balks. “You gave me kudos every day?”

  “Yep.”

  “Why? Ours scores were pretty close for a few days. You were just sabotaging yourself.”

  I shrug. “I guess I always knew you deserved to win. I couldn’t help myself. I liked seeing your score go up, especially after Annabel got kicked off the app.”

  I turn into the parking lot of Brazos City’s Ice World. Abby’s eyes light up. “We’re going skating? I love skating!”

  “You’ll love it even more tonight,” I say as I park right at the front.

  “How so?” she asks. I get out of the car and walk over to open her door. Just to be silly, I hold out my hand like I’m a butler or something and she grins and takes it, letting me help her out of my car.

  I slide my hands around her waist, pulling her forehead to mine. “We have the place all to ourselves.”

  “No way!” she says, bouncing on her toes.

  I grin. “Yes way.”

  Abby’s hair smells like apple shampoo. I breathe her in and close my eyes, enjoying this moment.

  “You are not at all what I expected,” she says softly, her head pressed to my chest.

  “Better, I hope?”

  She looks up at me, her dark eyes glittering under the neon lighted sign above us. “Much better.”

  * * *

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  Don’t miss Book 3, The Theory of the Boy Next Door. Coming soon!

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  About the Author

  Amy Sparling is the bestselling author of books for teens and the teens at heart. She lives on the coast of Texas with her family, her spoiled rotten pets, and a huge pile of books. She graduated with a degree in English and has worked at a bookstore, coffee shop, and a fashion boutique. Her fashion skills aren't the best, but luckily she turned her love of coffee and books into a writing career that means she can work in her pajamas. Her favorite things are coffee, book boyfriends, and Netflix binges.

  She's always loved reading books from R. L. Stine's Fear Stre
et series, to The Baby Sitter's Club series by Ann, Martin, and of course, Twilight. She started writing her own books in 2010 and now publishes several books a year. Amy loves getting messages from her readers and responds to every single one! Connect with her on one of the links below.