Free No More Us for You by David Hernandez Page B

knew where they were going.
    â€œWhere’s Suji?” Snake asked.
    Will hawked another loogie onto the blacktop and said nothing.
    â€œDid you guys break up, too?”
    Will scratched the side of his head. “Something like that.”
    I looked at Will. His eyes were somewhere on the basketball courts, perhaps on the soda can that rocked silently on the blacktop, flashing its dull light.
    Snake leaned back on the bleachers, his elbows resting on the aluminum slat. “What happened?”
    â€œNone of your business,” Will said coolly.
    Snake stretched out his legs, crossing them at the ankles. He was wearing his red Converse with the flames he drew on them with a Bic rising from the white soles.“Whatever,” he said.
    The school bell rang, a harsh sound that sent the seagulls back to us, white wings against the charcoal sky. They sailed down and landed on the courts, their heads jerking left and right. One snapped fiercely at another. The bird sprung up, squawked, then landed beside the same gull as if nothing had happened between them.
    â€œI can’t wait to graduate and get the hell out of here,” Snake said. “I’m sick of Millikan.” He uncrossed his legs and stood up. “Milli can’t , more like.”
    â€œI take it you’re going to your next class,” I said.
    â€œThere’s some chick I dig that sits next to me. She has blue-ribbon tits.”
    â€œI think you should tell her.”
    â€œYeah, right.” Snake climbed down the bleachers and lifted his middle finger. “Later, bitches,” he said. As he crossed the blacktop, he veered to the right and stomped down on the soda can. It curled around his heel, clamping onto his shoe, and Snake continued to walk with it across the basketball courts, limping slightly, his right foot clanking each time he brought it to the ground.
    â€œWhat an idiot,” Will said.
    â€œYou think he’ll graduate?”
    â€œIn five years.”
    â€œI say six.”
    A plane roared in the sky, but I couldn’t see it.
    A breeze hit us and Will shivered.
    Before I could figure out if he wanted to talk or not, he said, “She’s ignoring my calls.”
    I scooted down so we were sitting on the same row. “What happened?”
    â€œShe didn’t want to go to Christopher’s thing. She wanted to be together, just the two of us, and talk about what we were going to do.” Will paused and looked at the track houses on the other side of the soccer field. “I said I needed to get hammered, and she got pissed and said I didn’t care about her. I told her that wasn’t true and to calm down, but I really needed to cut loose and not think about it for one night. She said I shouldn’t be thinking about anything else.”
    â€œI feel like it’s sort of my fault,” I admitted.
    â€œDon’t be stupid,” he said. “I did it to myself. I mean, we did.”
    I turned to Will. “We did?”
    â€œMe and Suji,” he clarified.
    Another breeze. This time I shivered.
    â€œThen what happened?”
    â€œI told her maybe we should take a break from each other and then she hung up on me.”
    The whole time he was talking, I pictured Suji and him arguing in a room or a parked car, somewhere private and face-to-face— not over the phone. I figured it out then that Will had probably instigated the fight, that he’d wanted to break up with Suji rather than deal with their situation.
    â€œNow she won’t return my messages,” he continued.
    â€œDid you try calling her today?”
    â€œThis morning I did. I got her voice mail again.” Will’s right leg began to bounce nervously. “She must hate my guts now.”
    Will obviously felt guilty for what he had done. Hewas glum-faced and slouched as if gravity pulled on him harder than anyone else. I felt sorry for him, but at the same time I thought he was an