The Enemy Hypothesis: A Brazos High Novella

on the table. “Things.”
I roll my eyes. “Of course you did. Things to earn kudos, no doubt.”
He grins. “Something like that.”
A waiter brings out our entrees and suddenly my appetite is back. This alfredo pasta smells so good, there’s no way Mark’s gorgeous smile could make me too nervous to eat it. There isn’t much to talk about while we eat, but that’s okay. This food is so good I don’t care about awkward silence.
My phone makes a weird sound. It’s a notification chime unlike any one it’s ever made before. Frowning, I set down my fork and reach into the side pocket of my leggings. “Sorry,” I say. “I know it’s rude to be on your phone while you’re eating but I’ve never heard that sound before.”
“You’re not offending me,” he says. “I’d probably enjoy your company even if you were on your phone the whole time.”
“Look at you,” I say sarcastically. “You’ve gotten so used to giving out stupid compliments for kudos that you forgot to turn them off in front of me.”
He winks at me. How my entire body doesn’t turn to mush right here, I’ll never know. I swallow, try to regain my composure and wipe the goofy grin off my face. Then I check my phone.
CONGRATULATIONS, ABBY!
My eyes widen. It’s a notification from the Un-bully app.
“What the…” I open the app and turn the screen so we can both look at it. A cute little confetti-filled animation dances across the screen. When it finishes, my name is inside a huge gold medal on the app’s dashboard. I am in first place.
“How is this possible?” I say, noticing my points on the app. It’s about the same as it was this morning. I haven’t gained the five thousand I would have needed to surpass Annabel.
“What’s the top ten look like?” Mark asks, casually shoving another bite of food in his mouth.
I click on the Top Ten list. My name is first, followed by Mark Caputo. I scan all the way down and I don’t see Annabel’s name at all.
“She’s gone,” I breathe, hardly able to believe my eyes. “Annabel isn’t on here.”
When I look up at Mark, he just grins. “That’s what I did today. You’re welcome.”

Twelve
MARK
The algorithm is working. Now that Annabel has been kicked out of the competition for cheating, every day there’s a new person in first place. Abby never drops below second or third place, and she’s frequently at the top, but occasionally someone will do some big gesture at school and they’ll get bumped up to the top for a few hours. There is less than a week left in this month, and the pressure is on. But at least it’s an honest competition now.
After seeing how stressed Abby was, I decided to take matters into my own hands when I saw the assistant principal playing tennis at a park near my house. I asked him if we could have a meeting “off the record” and he agreed. Then I told him about Janelle’s secret meeting with me, and how I was worried that it could be a trick. He assured me it wasn’t a trick, that the Un-bully people specifically didn’t allow tricks in this competition and he said he’d look into it. Rumor has it, Annabel has been suspended. No one has seen her in school all week.
Now the competition is fair. I am still in the top five, and I could win this thing and help my parent’s financial situation get a little bit better. Lately, they’ve been fighting nonstop. I’ve actually spent more time working at the restaurant just so I can get away from their arguing. Every time a student from my high school comes in to eat, I give them the employee discount of 50% off. I know it’s not exactly great for business, but it’s great for my Un-bully score. Word has gotten around, and now I’ve been waiting tables for dozens of my peers every day this week. Unfortunately, none of them have been Abby.
Every time the hostess seats a new table, I get my hopes up just a bit. And every time, it’s never her. I know she likes our food because she told me so, and thanked me several times for getting her free food last Sunday. Even if the food wasn’t free I would have bought it for her just to spend time with her.
In school on Wednesday, I decide to give fate a little push in the right direction. After our lesson in accounting class, I walk up to Abby’s desk then kneel down so that we’re eye level. The rest of the class is talking with each other, so it’s not like this stands out or anything.
Abby looks over me, one eyebrow lifted. “Hi.”
“Hi,” I say. Nerves swell up in my chest and now I’m all nervous, wondering why I walked up here like this. Now I have to talk to her. Being so close that I can smell her flowery perfume makes the term “butterflies in your stomach” seem like nothing. This sensation I feel in my stomach is more like…dragons.
“So anyway,” I say, trying to regain focus. “I don’t know if you heard, but I’ve been giving out fifty percent off at Caputo’s to everyone who is a student here.”
“I have heard,” she says, giving me a sardonic grin. “That’s very clever. Too bad I don’t have a family restaurant to bribe everyone.”
I chew on the inside of my lip. She’s somehow even cuter when she’s being mean to me. “Well… I just wanted to let you know that the food is free to anyone in the top ten. So you should come by sometime.”
She peers at me through those long, beautiful eyelashes. Several seconds pass. “Maybe,” she says. “Maybe I will stop by.”
“You should.”
“The week is almost over,” she says, turning back to her accounting assignment. “I might not have any free time to stop by