100 Ways To Love Her

Little Freedom

Andie was walking towards her locker, she’s bringing some books with her on the way home, after that she puts her bag down to the floor, and slowly picks up a little cage with some mini bowl, and places it inside her locker, “I hope you will be ok there”, she then closes the locker. She was walking outside the school when suddenly someone grabs her wrist, “Andie”. She quickly turns her face towards him, “You are terrifying me!”, she holds her chest and chuckles, 

“Oh I am sorry”, Josh giggles too, “I have been waiting for an hour here!”, he uttered, 

“Shoot! I am really sorry, I forgot, I had a training for my science quiz bee”, she told him, 

“Come on let’s go home now”, she drags her bike with her, but Josh has a different idea, “hmm, I don’t want to go home now, besides, we don’t have classes tomorrow", he said

“I don’t know, wait let me call my aunt”, she picks up her phone from her pocket. 

“Hello”, Josh was standing beside her, doing nothing as the call was going on.

 “Yes, I understood, bye”, and the call ended. “What did she say?”, he asked, “All of them are not at home, since it will be a weekend tomorrow, they have decided to go for a short vacation”, she wheezes and quite jumped, out of strong excitement bursting inside her,.

“That’s awesome!”, he told her, 

“I know! I have almost the whole weekend alone!”, 

“Let’s go to the park”, he said, 

“Come one”, both of them hopped on their bikes.

As they reached the park, in the fountain outside they saw an ice cream man, “Want some ice cream?”, Josh asked, “sure”, she uttered and they walk towards it, 

“Hi, how much for an ice cream?”, Andie asked the vendor, 

“Five dollars each”, the man told them,

Josh gets his wallet from his pocket and sees it only has eight dollars in it, “Oh no!, Uhh, my money is not enough for both of us, but if you want the ice cream I will let you have it”, he told her, 

“No worries, I got it”, Andie gives the vendor ten dollars, 

“One chocolate and one strawberry please”, she told him, after getting their payment, the vendor starts scooping ice cream, 

“How did you have money? I thought you don’t have any allowance”, he wondered,

 “I don’t, I got them from doing other student’s assignments, I earned a hundred dollar, this week”, she told him, 

“Wow! Great” he uttered. 

The vendor gives them their ice cream,  and afterwards they start on walking around. “Let’s sit there”, Andie points at a bench with a table under the shade of the trees. Both of them sit on it, and then she brings out her books, on the table, 

“Eat your ice cream first, before it melts”, Josh told her, therefore she quickly licks and bites her ice cream, “Done!”, she uttered,

 “What! Already? It’s so cold how did you eat it so fast”, he asked, 

“I missed eating ice cream so much, I can’t remember when was the last time I ate that”, she told him, “Sorry to hear that”, Josh uttered, 

“Don’t pity me, it’s fine, there are some other kids who got worse” she said, 

“How’s your review going?”, he asked, 

“It’s ok, I hope I win this competition”, 

“You have won on almost all of your contests”, he chuckles, 

“my mom always there to support me, but now..”, 

“but, you won on your math contest last year”, he interrupted.

 Andie just sighs, “By the way, I have something to show you”, she pulls something from her bag, and gives him a mini canvas, “Is this me?”, he asked with a delight on his face, “Yup, doesn’t it look fine?”, 

“No!, it looks so beautiful, when did you learn how to paint?”, he wondered, while mesmerizing the painting, 

“Just a year ago”,

 “Really? Why didn’t you tell me?”, he said, 

“I am still practicing”, 

“I don't know what to say, but thank you very much for it”,

 “Now let’s start reviewing”, she told him 

Upon her arrival at home, Andie looks around the house, “Is anyone here?”, no one answers, so she sits on the couch slowly, closes her eyes, and exhales deeply, “I hope they will always be on vacation” she uttered. 

It took her months before finally doing it again as the Cook's barely goes to a family outing, but now she  can watch the television again, Andie can only do this when the Cook’s are not in the house, She opens the television, then goes to the kitchen, opens the refrigerator, she was about to grab the milk, but she hesitated, “I can’t still eat the food I want, they will notice it”, she thought, so Andie closes the refrigerator and goes back to the couch.

She draws, study, play music out loud using her cousins' piano that Wilma never use, and sing the whole weekend, but now it is already Sunday the Cook's will come back within an hour so she cleans up the entire house so as not be scolded. When she is done, she sits on the couch, suddenly someone knocks on the door, Andie gets up immediately and opens it.

 Amy enters the house first, straight away then Wilma and lastly her uncle Speer goes in, all of them leaves their bag at the entrance, 

“Take care of our things”, Speer told her, 

“Yes”, she opens up the bags, some of it contains souvenirs like vases, and foods, but the other bags are all clothes. Andie picks up all of it and places on the top of the couch. She puts some snacks into the cabinet and some on the refrigerator, while the souvenirs are hanged or used as decor all around the house. Finally, she puts all of their dirty clothes on the hamper and washes them right away. After all the chores are done, including cooking dinner for them, Andie goes back to her room, and locks the door, she smiles and sits on the chair nearby, “That was fun”, she recalls how bad she sings last Saturday and the loudness of music all around the house, she lies on her bed and picks up her phone.

The next morning, Mya walks towards her locker suddenly she heard someone scream, Bethany runs with her friends after they opened Andie’s locker. Then she felt  a touch on her shoulder, “Hey..”, Andie uttered however stopped and walks to her locker, Mya comes near her, “Bethany opened your locker again”, she told her, “I know, that’s why I need to have it fixed again”, she sighs, “but they scream as they opened it”, Mya said. 

Andie opens her locker again, “Here, see”, Mya peeks inside of it, and there saw a white mouse “Oh that is so cute”, she uttered, 

“I know” Andie smiles at her, “

Why did you put it in there?”, Mya asked, 

“To scare them away, so they will no longer open my locker”, she told her, 

“but I also always make sure she has food and water”, 

Their chattering was suddenly interrupted by the bell ringing, and both of them goes to their first class.

At lunch, Mya and Andie sit together because Josh was called by his coach.

 “Math is so hard, I feel like my brain will bleed any minute”, Mya complained

 “No worries, I will teach you”, Andie gets her notebook and a pen, when out of nowhere someone approaches them, “A newbie and nerdy” Bethany said, but both of them were silent and just ignore her, “They only have each other, because no one wants to be friends with them”, Bethany’s friend scoffed. Mya, couldn't control her fuming emotion causing her to stand up, “Stop, That’s rude”, she said firnly.

Bethany comes closer to her, “What are you gonna do newbie?”, she pushes Mya. 

Andie gets up and helps Mya to stand up, she looks at Bethany, “Would you stop bothering us? We don’t even care about you”, she said to her, suddenly Bethany picks up the cup of juice from the table and pours it all over Andie, all of the students in the cafeteria looks at them, few of them laugh but some of them were speechless. 

“Bethany Marsh!” someone shouted, all of them looked from where it came from. “You will go to the principal's office right now!”, one of their teachers yelled at her after seeing the situation. Bethany was still standing there, “she started it!”, she points at Andie, “I said go to the principal's office right now!”, the teacher shouted, Bethany, has no choice but to obey her teacher.

Mya and Andie go straight away to the bathroom, “Here, luckily I have spare clothing my mom and I will go somewhere later, that’s why I brought extra clothes, but you can use it, and tell our teachers what happened when they asked why are you not wearing a uniform”, Mya handed the clothes to her. Andie sniffs while washing her hair, a few tears falls down to her cheeks, 

“I am sorry, and thank you for standing up for me”, Mya uttered, 

“No, they are always like that to me”, she told her, Mya rubs her back gently 

“but now they will pay for what have they done to you”, 

“I think they will give me more troubles next time, they will seek revenge on me” she wipes her hair, afterwards she changes her uniform.

A few hours later at the school's court, Josh and his teammates are doing some warm-up before the game starts, one of his closest teammates, Fred was beside him, “Drink some water first before we get started!”, their coach told them.

The two of them sits on the nearby bench, “Is Andie your friend?”, Fred asked, 

“Yeah why?”, Fred chuckles, 

“Your friends with that, she was like the biggest nerd at school”, he told Josh, 

“So?”, he uttered, 

“Listen to me, don’t you know, Mike is making fun of you, he’s telling everyone that you are a nerd too”, Fred told him,

 “Mike? Our teammate?”, Josh asked, 

“Yeah who else, I really don’t advise you hanging out with her”, Fred added,

“That snake! I will confront him..” he was about to stand up but Fred grabs his wrist, 

“Then what? Just ignore it, or else it will just get worse”, he told him, J

osh sits back down and picks up the bottle of water beside him, and sips from it, “If you want to be with someone intelligent, why not choose Bethany, besides she was also very cool”, “

Bethany?” Josh scoffed, 

“The whole school knew, that she only gets ahead by cheating”, he added.

“Everyone, gather here now!”, their coach suddenly shouted, and all of them comes to him. As they start playing, they begin practicing like this was a real game, for their tournament next week so they were divided in half. Andie enters and sits there to watch. After a few rounds, Josh managed to shoot the ball three times, and every time he did it, Andie applauds.

 Mike looks sharply at Josh, as he was blocking him from shooting, Mike dribbles the ball, then he pushes Josh aside, moves forward and shoots the ball. The coach whistled, “Foul!”, Josh was lying on the ground, holding his ankle and grunts. Andie quickly comes to him, “Oh my gosh!”, she uttered, “Bring him to the clinic” their coach ordered.

At the clinic, Andie was beside him, “Are you not going home yet?”, Josh asked, 

“I will stay here by your side”, she touches his hand, 

“I called for your parents and they will be here any minute now”, the nurse told him, and Josh nodded, 

“I hope it’s not that serious”, 

“Don’t worry, everything will be alright”, 

After a few minutes Daniella enters the clinic, “Oh dear!”, she dashes towards her son. Andie and a nurse help him get up without moving his right leg while Andie carries his bag. At the car Josh was on the backside, she gives Daniella his bag, “Thank you”, she told Andie, “No worries, Mrs. Hawkins”, she closes the door, and the car leaves.

The moon shines, up in the night sky again. After all of her chores were done, she keeps on texting and texting Josh, “How are you?”, “Is it still painful?”, “Is everything ok now?”, it was already nine in the evening, she piles up her books after studying. Andie was just sitting on her bed, with her phone in her hand. Her phone suddenly buzzes, “Sleep now! you need to do chores at four in the morning, Speer has a meeting and will leave early”, Amy couldn't bother to go to her room therefore she texted her.

“Seriously? Four!”, she moaned, and lies on the bed, while still holding her phone, “I wonder how he is right now”, she told to herself, then her phone rings, 

“Hello”, 

“Hi, Andie”, Josh said to her, 

“How are you?”, she asked, 

“I am ok, but it still hurts, that’s why we will going to the doctor tomorrow, would you mind taking notes for me”, 

“Sure, and it’s better if you will get checked up” she told him, 

“I gotta go now, I need to sleep early, thank you and goodnight”, 

“Bye, goodnight”, and he hangs up the call.