I didn't cry when I got home. Crying was a waste of hydration and time. Instead, I went straight to my room, locked the door, and cleared everything off my desk except my laptop and a giant bottle of water.
Eli had chosen the "safe" path. He had used my brain to sharpen his ideas, then tossed me aside for Claire Dasorman's connections. It was a classic Maplewood move: protect the status quo, keep the insiders on top, and use the outsider until she's no longer convenient.
"Fine," I whispered to the empty room. "Let them have their 'connections.' I'll have the truth."
I opened a blank script. I wasn't going to use the infrastructure data Eli gave me. I didn't want anything of his near my work. I was going to build something entirely new, something so advanced it would make their "collaborative" project look like a middle school science fair entry.
I called the project Sentinel.
Most people write code to react to problems. I was writing code to anticipate them. I stayed up until the sun began to peek through my frosty window. My eyes were bloodshot, and my fingers felt like lead, but the framework was beautiful. It was a predictive engine that used public weather patterns, social media sentiment, and historical traffic data to create a living map of a city's heartbeat.
I wasn't just building an app. I was building a brain.
At school, I became a ghost. I stopped sitting in the back of the lab. I stopped looking at Eli. I wore my headphones everywhere, playing white noise to drown out the whispers that had only gotten louder since the "breakup."
I was in the cafeteria, staring at a screen of raw data, when a shadow fell over my table. I didn't look up. I knew the smell of that expensive laundry detergent.
"Amara," Eli said. His voice sounded tired.
I kept typing. If x > threshold: execute reroute.
"Amara, please. I know you're mad. But you have to understand my parents, the internship... it's the only way I can get out of here."
I stopped typing and looked up. He looked terrible. His hair was a mess, and he had dark circles under his eyes. For a split second, I felt a pang of the old warmth. But then I remembered him sitting next to Claire, silent, while she humiliated me.
"You made your choice, Eli," I said, my voice as cold as the December wind. "You chose a shortcut. I'm choosing the long way. Now, move. You're blocking my light."
"Claire's project is good, Amara," he warned, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Her dad got her a private server. They're running simulations that our school computers can't even handle. You can't beat them on your own."
"Watch me," I said.
He stayed there for a moment longer, looking like he wanted to say something else maybe apologize, maybe explain the kiss but I put my headphones back on and turned the volume up. He got the message and walked away.
Later that afternoon, I was at my locker when Ethan Wells approached me. Unlike Eli, Ethan looked calm.
"He's right about the server, you know," Ethan said, leaning against the locker next to mine.
"Are you here to discourage me too?" I asked, slamming my locker shut.
"No," Ethan said, surprising me. He reached into his pocket and handed me a small USB drive. "I'm here because I hate seeing a fair fight get rigged. Claire is my friend, but she's obsessed with winning. She's not just using the server; she's using a pre-built optimization library that she didn't write. It's technically legal in the rules, but it's cheap."
I looked at the drive. "What's this?"
"It's a recording of their stress-test results," Ethan explained. "I'm the one who had to run the hardware for them. Their code has a massive blind spot in high-wind scenarios. They ignored it because the 'insider' data said it wasn't a priority."
I looked at Ethan, confused. "Why are you helping me? You're on their side."
Ethan shrugged, a small, honest smile on his face. "I like hockey because the best player wins, not the one with the richest dad. I think you're the best player, Amara. I want to see what happens when the 'different girl' actually has a level playing field."
I took the drive. "Thanks, Ethan."
"Don't thank me yet," he said, walking away. "You still have to write the code to beat them. And Claire is already planning her victory speech."
I went back to the library, the drive heavy in my pocket. I had the data. I had the "Sentinel." And now, I had their weakness.
The regional competition was in three days. I had seventy-two hours to turn my heartbreak into a masterpiece.