Hoodie (23 page)

She was wet and ready for him. Little tease, he thought chuckling, and he held her hips still, watching her face as he slid in and out of her. She was trapped between lust and anger—it was evident by the look in her eyes—and it made her that much more desirable. He neither went slowly nor fast with her. He knew that he must find a perfect balance in between or he would lose it before making her yield to him. And he wanted her to yield to him. He wanted to prove a point, prove her a liar, humiliate her sweetly. He was focused on reading her, pushing away the thought of his own sensations, watching her intently. Her face went tight with rage and then relaxed to submission. She was the pendulum swinging between two emotions, and he wondered which would win out.

He kissed her mouth softly then, and to his surprise and delight she kissed him back. So submission would win out, he thought, drawing away from her lips to smile at her victoriously. She wouldn’t smile back; she had to hold on to some vestige of pride still even as he had her pinned, opened to him, with no chance of escape.

His eyes never left hers as she came. She was terribly beautiful, caught in between the humiliation of defeat and the rapture of physical satisfaction. Even when her climax was through, he continued stroking her. It was payback, she knew, and while she begged him to stop, crying that she couldn’t bear to feel it anymore, he continued unmoved, watching her eyes, falling into them as he came for her. It was intense, hard and quick. He felt in that moment like a star that imploded, collapsing within, debris and wreckage everywhere inside while the outside remained intact.

He leaned his forehead against the wall, feeling the beads of sweat dropping off of his face to hit her shoulder. He felt drained of everything: his anger at her earlier, his will to fight, even the constant nagging fear of their blossoming relationship and what that meant for him as a black man and her as a white woman. He found the tiny bit of remaining strength within him and carried her to the bed, laying her down gently.

He crawled in beside her and felt he could sleep for a hundred years, thinking absurdly of Rip Van Winkle and his fate. What would be Anton’s fate, he thought? Would he wake up in a hundred years to see her still lying beside him, face flushed and shining, hair tumbling about, still the young beautiful seventeen-year-old whose love he stole away? Or would she be old and gone, perhaps someone else’s lover, and he would be in a desperate search for the rest of his life to find her and win back her love? He turned to face her. She was staring at him. Had she been staring the whole time?

“I love you,” she said softly. “I love you and I don’t know how to handle that.”

“I love you, too,” he said.

It was so easy to say. He loved hearing it. He had never said it to a girl, could not, for he never understood it until he laid eyes on her for the first time, touched her arm, felt her breath on his shoulder.

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

“We’re gonna stop bein’ scared,” he said. “We just scared of everybody and what they think. We have to stop carin’ what they think.”

She nodded.

“But I don’t wanna think about that right now,” he continued. He sighed deeply and contentedly. “I just need to lay here with you.”

She saw him truly vulnerable then, watching the slow rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, the flutter of his eyelashes as his eyes moved behind closed lids. She put her hand on his chest and he instinctively closed his over hers. It was strong and warm, no longer demanding from her. Simply thanking her for giving to him. She did not know until then how much he needed her.

She could feel the slow and steady beating of his heart. Hers was beating wildly still, but now from the realization of his intense need for her. She would give him everything, she resolved. Turn herself inside out for him if he wanted. It was a dangerous feeling, but she was not afraid of it. It was her assurance of his love for her. She had gotten her assurance.

CHAPTER 15

WEDNESDAY, MAY 5

Emma froze in the doorway staring at the group of boys gathered in Anton’s bedroom. They were laughing about something, but it petered out once they realized she was there. They stared back at her, studying her as if she were an alien specimen, something they’d never seen before. She was uncomfortable and quickly grew angry. Why did he invite her over if his friends were there?

“Okay, so I brought you all together for a reason,” Anton said.

No one said a word, so he continued.

“You my crew,” he said looking at his friends. “So I wanna be straight with you about what’s goin’ on. I didn’t want you caught off guard or anything at school. And how you feel is important to me, know what I’m sayin’?”

His friends nodded, uncertain.

He took a deep breath and looked at Emma. “So I like this girl. And I know she white. She the whitest girl I ever met. But I’m workin’ on some things. At least now she know how to shoot a ball right.”

He was nervous, playing with his fingers while looking back and forth between Emma and his friends.

“But she a good girl. She good to me. She good for me. Can you understand that?” he continued.

There was a moment of silence before one of them finally spoke.

“Man, I don’t care who you date.”

And then another: “She that same girl who yelled at you at the lockers?”

“Yeah,” Anton replied.

“I thought you said she was a bitch?”

“I was wrong. I assumed it, and I was wrong,” Anton said.

Another moment of silence. And then the largest of the four friends got out of his seat and walked over to Emma.

“I’m Kareem,” he said, extending his hand. She took it tentatively. It was large, soft and warm. It matched the way he looked, like a giant teddy bear.

“Oh shit, I ain’t even made no introductions,” Anton said. He looked at his friends. “So this is Emma.”

He took her purse from her shoulder and placed it on his bed.

“Emma, this is Kareem the Dream, Johnny D in the white T-shirt, Nate Dog on the bed—you met him already—and Lazy L at the desk. His name Lamar, but we call him Lazy L ‘cause he never do anything.”

“Man, not true. I do things. I do important things,” Lamar argued. He spoke with a drawl so that even his words sounded lazy.

“Bullshit, man. You so fuckin’ lazy. You ain’t even get up today ‘til three,” Kareem pointed out.

They laughed.

“How you gonna graduate, man? Can’t even get yo’ ass outta bed,” he continued.

“Man, don’t you worry ‘bout me. I got plans,” Lamar replied, completely unaffected by Kareem’s teasing. “Don’t you never stay in bed late, Emma?” he asked.

Emma began feeling a bit more relaxed listening to the conversation around her with detached curiosity until she was addressed directly. Her nerves jumped.

“I . . . sure, I guess,” she replied.

“See, now you gonna say she lazy and give her all kinda shit about not graduatin’?” Lamar asked.

“She actually go to school,” Johnny D said. “That’s the difference, you dumb fuck.”

“Fuck you, man. I ain’t even tryin’ to be upset by any of y’all. And I ain’t sharin’ my weed later, neither,” Lamar said.

The friends groaned and argued, cajoled and entreated until Lamar agreed to share his weed for a small price. Each had to buy him lunch sometime the following week. Emma noticed one friend who remained quiet during the conversation: Nate. He looked her over, sizing her up, scowling from time to time as the others gently teased her and peppered her with questions. His silence was unnerving.

“Girl, you ain’t never did weed?” Johnny D asked bewildered.

“No,” Emma replied. Oh God, were they going to make her smoke weed, she thought with panic?

“And she ain’t gonna,” Anton said. “Don’t even be axin’ her ‘bout doin’ drugs or nothin’ like that.”

“Relax, papa, I wasn’t offerin’. I just ain’t never met no one who hadn’t tried it,” Johnny D said. “I am genuinely amazed.”

Emma smiled at that.

“What you see in this dumbass nigga anyway?” Lamar asked, pointing at Anton.

“Um, I don’t know,” Emma replied. “I see a lot.”

“I see a lotta bullshit,” Kareem said, playfully punching Anton in the stomach.

“Whateva nigga. You mad ‘cause you ain’t eva had my skills on the court,” Anton replied, forcing Kareem into a headlock.

“Who the fuck cares? I got mad skills on the mic,” Kareem argued.

His head was still locked in Anton’s arm as he addressed Emma. “See Emma, that why my name Kareem the Dream. I flow on the mic like Biggie. I got the dreamlike flow, see?”

“I think so,” Emma replied.

Finally Nate spoke up.

“What you mean you see?” he asked aggressively.

Emma did not reply.

“Do you even know what the fuck he just said?”

“Hey man, take it easy,” Kareem said as Anton released him from the headlock.

All eyes were on Nate.

“I am takin’ it easy. I’m just axin’ our little friend here a question.” He looked at Emma. “You know what he meant by what he said? You eva heard of Biggie Smalls? You know who he is? Has you eva listened to rap music before? You undastand what it mean to flow on a mic?”

“Chill out, Nate,” Anton said.

“Nah, man. This is bullshit,” Nate said. “How you gonna bring this bitch up in here talkin’ ‘bout you datin’ her? Then she gonna stand around actin’ like she know what the hell we talkin’ about.”

“I said chill out,” Anton said evenly.

“Man, whateva,” Nate said and stormed out of the room. Anton followed being careful to close the bedroom door behind him.

Emma, Kareem, Johnny, and Lamar could hear the argument clearly. Kareem tried to start up a fresh conversation to distract Emma, knowing that she would undoubtedly hear words that would upset her, but she put her hand on his arm to signal silence.

“Don’t call my girl a bitch,” Anton said.

“Man, you called her a bitch! Remember that?” Nate spat.

“I told you, that was a mistake. What’s yo’ problem, anyway? She ain’t eva done nothin’ to you,” Anton replied.

“She not our kind, man. What you doin’ datin’ some white chick?”

“I like her,” Anton said pointedly.

“Nigga you lost yo’ mind,” Nate said.

“She a nice girl. A good girl. Give her a chance, Nate.”

“Fuck that. I don’t care if she nice and good. It ain’t about that. It’s about you rejectin’ where you come from,” Nate explained.

“That’s crazy, man. I’m rejecting my blackness ‘cause I gotta white girlfriend? You hear how retarded that sound?” Anton said laughing.

“I ain’t laughin’, nigga,” Nate replied. “You a black man. You date black girls. That’s how it is.”

“Maybe for you,” Anton said. “Why it always gotta be about color anyway?”

“Because it is! That’s the world we live in! And we from the projects, man. We ghetto. Thug. Weed and K’s.”

“What the hell, Nate? Nobody gotta damn AK-47,” Anton said, trying not to laugh. “Crazy nigga.”

“Fuck you, man. You know what I mean. How you gonna make yo’ world and her world happen together? It can’t. Unless you plannin’ on bein’ a sell-out.”