100 Ways To Love Her

Winner

Outside the campus, Mya and Andie are sitting in the waiting shed. Andie is accompanying Mya, in waiting for her mother, “We have a lot of things, to do later, quiz in math and science the project in history is due next week, it’s stressing me out!”, Mya grumbles, 

“It’s fine, just carefully plan your schedule”, 

“Wait, isn’t your contest already tomorrow?”,

 Andie then just nodded, 

“Oh my gosh, good luck tomorrow, I know you will win”, she holds her hands, “I hope so, but I am more worried about Josh”, she said, but Mya, just sighs after hearing her.

“Especially, we have a lot of school works, he already excused him to all of our teachers, yet my mind wouldn't be at rest by helping him with only in this way, I wish I could do something more”, Andie uttered 

Mya fell silent for a second, with her face turned expressionless, “You really are close friends”, she said Andie smiles at her, “Yeah, we’ve been together for almost eight years now”, 

 “Eight years! Wow! That’s a pretty long time”, Mya gasps

“I know”, Andie giggles, 

“How did you guys meet?”, 

 “We are in the same neighborhood before, I was riding a bike at that time, I accidentally bumped into him, he got a sprain, then I brought him to our house, for my mom to give him some first aid”, she told her,

“By the way, I haven’t seen or heard of your mom, how is she?”, Mya wondered

Andie looks away and didn’t say a single word afterwards,

“I am so sorry, did I say something offensive?”, she asked, 

Andie sighs deeply, “It’s fine, my mom already passed away two year ago”, 

Mya then pats Andie’s back “I am so sorry to hear that I shouldn’t have asked, inconsiderate me”, 

“It’s fine, it was sudden, she was driving back home, when I received the news”, Andie told her, and all of a sudden they heard a car beeping, Mya’s mother is waving at her, “You should cherish her”, she added, Mya nodded and walks away, as she was getting farther she turned her face to Andie and smiles, “See you tomorrow”, she then gets inside their car. Andie now picks up her bag and rides on her bicycle, she biked towards Josh’s house.

Andie goes to someone's house and knocks three times on the door, then after a few seconds it opens. “Hello, Mr. Hawkins”, she greeted him warmly

“Andie!”, he hugs her, while she tries to peek inside the house 

“Is Josh here?”, 

“Josh!” Kam Hawkins, Josh’s father shouted, 

“Oh sir, he might not go down, because of injury, would you mind sir If I go in?”, she asked, 

“Sure come!”, he opens the door widely, and Andie steps inside, “This way”, Kam told her and goes upstairs, while Andie followed him. 

Josh door was open, but still, his father knocks on it, “Josh, your friend is here”. Josh smiles from ear to ear when she saw her, “I will leave you two”, Kam subsequently went downstairs. 

Andie gets herself inside, “How are you?”, she sits beside him at the bed, 

“It is still painful, even though it is just a sprain, the doctor said, it will take three weeks to heal”, he told her. She then touches his ankle gently “It will be ok, as long as it will heal, you have nothing to be worried about”, 

“But how am I suppose to practice? The game will be next month!”, he uttered, 

“Hey listen to me”, she holds his hands, 

“Even though you can’t make it, there will still be a next time, what is important is you get well, and I can see you are good enough, on it, you shouldn’t worry”, Josh becomes speechless and just nodded slowly, “By the way how is school?”, he asked, 

“about that, I already excused you to our teachers, there will be an exam, but I will help you with everything”,

“Thank you very much, I don’t know when I will come back, maybe two weeks from now”, he told her, suddenly they heard a phone chirped, Andie gets her phone from her pocket, and a text from her auntie appeared on her screen, “I got to go now, do you need anything?”, 

“I am fine”, he said, afterwards Andie immediately leaves the house.

When she arrived, Andie quickly walks towards the door, but when she is at the front of the house, she hesitated to come in, her heart beats very fast, and her hands are sweating, she slowly opens the door. Inside Wilma and Amy are waiting for her, “Hi”, she said shyly, 

“Where have you been?”, Amy asked her, 

“It’s my last training for the quiz bee”, she told her, 

“But you have a new chore waiting for you! Do it now!”, 

“Wait”, Wilma uttered, 

“There is something you need to know as well”,

 “What do you mean?”, Amy asked,

 Wilma gets closer to her, “She stole my necklaces!”,

“What! I will never do that!”, Andie uttered,

 Wilma then slaps her, “Liar!”, 

Andie stares at her, “What if you just lost it”, she rushes upstairs to Wilma’s room and opens her drawer, “What are you doing?” Wilma followed her at her room, Andie searched through it then she picks up something, “then what is this? she holds up the necklace and shows it to her, Wilma can’t say a single word, “You just put it right there, now”, she goes inside, and grabs the necklace from her hand, “Go out of my room now!”, she shouted at Andie.

Andie straight away goes to her room, locks it, lies against it, and cries, she covers her entire face and sits on the ground, “Mom”, she sobs, “I miss you so much”, she uttered. Few hours had passed, Andie regains herself and does all of the chores at the house, she sleeps early for her contest tomorrow.

The next day, Andie was waiting outside the campus, “Let’s go now”, her teacher and coach told her, and they get in on her car, to go to the venue of the contest. Upon arrival, Andie registered first at the table in the entrance of the school venue of the contest, inside she saw different students all around the city, which makes her feel quite overwhelmed.

 Andie sits on the nearby chair, she wanders her eyes around, and saw other contestants are holding a paper reading, but most of them are with their teachers and parents, she spotted a student, talking to her mom. The mom gives her a drink and caresses her daughter’s cheek and kissed it. Andie’s heart melted when she saw it, she got teary-eyed, but she wipes it immediately with her handkerchief. 

“Are you ready? The contest will start in a minute now,”, her teacher approached her, 

“All the coach and the parents can wait outside the room,”, the proctor goes in the middle holding a mic, Everyone leaves the room except the students and contest personnel. All of the participants have a whiteboard, a marker, and an eraser on their table, they were also sitting apart from each other. “There will be three rounds on this quiz bee, easy, medium, and the difficult round, each participant who got three or more wrong answers will be eliminated in each round”, the proctor uttered. For now, there are twenty participants but as the questions are drawn, answers have been raised, five people are eliminated from the first round, Andie’s heartbeat is so fast that she can almost hear it, she’s biting her fingers while listening to the questions, while sweat runs down on her forehead even though there is an air conditioning in the place. Medium round is done, only eight students are left including Andie, “You can do this”, she whispered to herself and sighs deeply. When the difficult round is done, Only three students remained, “It seems we will have a tie-breaker question, you three will immediately have a place, but this question will decide what will be your place”, the proctor told them. 

As the proctor announces the question, the two other students haven’t written a thing on their whiteboard one of them is staring at it, and the other tries to look around and move closer to peek at Andie’s answer as she writes her answer.

“No cheating!” the proctor shouted, making the student drawback on his seat. 

“Raise your answers”, the proctor announced. 

Andie exhales and closes her eyes for a second, then raised her whiteboard. The proctor looks at their answers, “That is correct!”, he points at Andie, “You’ve got the first place, congratulations”, the people inside applauded.

“You can now wait outside”, the proctor smiles at her, Andie picks up her things, she feels her heart would jump from her chest, she covers her mouth with her hands and wheezes silently, her teacher is waiting for her outside, 

“How did it go?”, she asked her,

 “I won!”, she told the teacher and hops lightly, 

“That’s awesome, what place?”, 

“First!”, Andie spoke with enthusiasm. 

Her teacher hugs her tightly, “I know you wouldn’t let me down, congratulations!”, she grins from ear to ear, 

“Come on, let’s celebrate after the awarding, where do you want to eat?”, her teacher asked her,

“Thank you ma’am, but I don’t think it is necessary”, she declined thinking her aunt would get furious when she goes home late,

 “Nah, let’s eat don’t be shy it will be my treat”, her teacher uttered, Andie smiles and laughs awkwardly, “All right, thank you very much”, she said. 

After the awarding, Andie texted her Auntie that she might come home late, while at the car, she heard her phone ringed, “Ok’, her auntie replied, “at least she answered” she thought on her mind.

At their home, Amy opens the refrigerator, “Honey!”, she yelled, Speer comes down, 

“What is it?”, he asked,

 “I think we need to buy groceries”, she told him, 

“Let Andie do that!”, he uttered, “

I know, but at least make a list, I don’t trust that girl, she might be stealing from us!”,

 Wilma opens the door, “Hi mom”, she puts down on the ground her shopping bag, “Where is that girl?’, she asked because no one comes down to pick up her bag,

“She will be late”, Amy told her, 

“What a brat only thinking for herself, doesn’t she know she has chores here!”, she added while getting the last pieces of bread from the fridge. 

Wilma goes to his father, “Thank you, Dad”, she handed Speer’s card to him, 

“No worries dear”, he smiles at her, then Wilma goes upstairs leaving her shopping bag at the entrance door. Suddenly Speer’s phone ringed, “Hello”, he opens the door and goes outside. 

After a few minutes Speer goes back inside, expressionless and staring at nowhere as if a ghost appeared in front of him. Amy was still eating she was about to go to her room, but saw her husband, “What happened?”, she asked, Speer fell silent, and emotionless, “

Honey!”, she yelled to gain his consciousness back making him look at her and their eyes locked at each other, “I was fired” he said in a soft voice, 

“What! How!”, Amy’s face frowned, 

“The company needs to lessen some staff”, he then sits on the couch. 

“What are we going to do now?” 

“I don’t know!”, he shouted,

 “but at least I have some savings we can use for now”, he added,

 Amy moans and puts her hands to her forehead, “I can’t believe it!, Please tell me that this is all a joke?”, “No! Why would I joke about something serious!” he said, 

“This is stressing me out!”, she then goes upstairs.