Hoodie by S. Walden Page A

heart gave a small jolt.
    “Yes he was. I’m so grossed out right now,” Morgan replied.
    Emma watched Anton joke with his friends. There were four of them. He said something and they laughed, one of them smacking him in the back of his head. He retaliated with a light punch to the arm. She watched them walk down the hallway, turning the corner until they were out of sight.
    “Are you listening to me?” Morgan asked.
    “Yeah. You said you have to go to the dentist this afternoon,” Emma said. She grinned at her best friend.
    “No, actually I didn’t say that at all,” Morgan replied. “Listen to me, Emma!”
    “Okay, okay. I’m sorry,” Emma said, closing her locker and falling in step with Morgan as they walked down the corridor.
    “What am I gonna do about Brian?” Morgan asked. “He’s starting to act all jealous about me, like he doesn’t want me going anywhere without him.”
    “You want my honest opinion?” Emma asked. She didn’t wait for a reply. “I think he’s a loser.”
    “Hey! That’s my boyfriend you’re talking about!”
    “Morgan, you said yourself he was a loser,” Emma pointed out.
    “Well, I know,” she said thoughtfully. “God, he’s such a freakin’ loser.”
    Emma chuckled. “You know, we all just put up with him because we love you.”
    “What, Aubrey and Sarah think he’s a loser, too?” Morgan asked.
    “Um, yeah,” Emma said bewildered. How could she not know that? “Listen, you’re so pretty and smart and funny. Why are you with him?”
    “I don’t know,” Morgan said shrugging. “Because he’s there?”
    Emma laughed as they made their way into history class, the only other class she shared with Anton. She was careful to avoid looking at him. He shared this class with two of his friends, and while in the past she had never given any of them a single thought, she now felt slightly nervous being in a room with them. She had even decided to avoid speaking up in class so as not to draw attention to herself or give his friends reason to snicker at her. The laughter that ensued after her confrontation with Anton a few days back was still fresh in her mind.
    She walked past them and heard one of them ask teasingly, “How yo’ project goin’, Anton?”
    “It’s fine,” Anton replied. He knew she could hear them.
    “She bein’ nice to you?” the other asked.
    “Man, everything fine. She fine,” Anton said. He shifted nervously in his seat at the back of the class.
    “You makin’ her do all the work? Shit, I’d make her do all the work. She so fuckin’ smart and all.”
    “Will you shut up, man?” Anton said.
    His friends moved on to another topic of conversation as he watched Emma take her seat on the opposite side of the classroom. She was engaged in a conversation with her friend, and Anton realized that her friend was really the uptight bitch. He caught her giving him dirty looks on occasion in the hallway between classes, and he tried to understand that it was her way of being protective of her friend. Still, it pissed him off thinking of all the things she was saying to Emma about him—feeding her mind with hateful prejudices. He scowled watching her play with her long blonde hair while she listened to Emma talk. How could Emma be friends with her, he wondered?
    The bell finally rang, and he settled himself for a fifty minute mind-numbing lecture on U.S. law. He stole glances in Emma’s direction, watching her take notes. She was always so diligent in class. He was amazed by her fervor. She acted like she genuinely cared about school. He only worked as hard as he had to. He knew what grades he needed to get into a community college. He realized he’d have to start there and not at a four-year university. He screwed up those chances in ninth grade. Once he recognized that he needed to get his act together, it was too late. But he figured that there was nothing wrong with community college. He knew a lot of other students starting there