Free Who Am I Without Him? by Sharon Flake

tell my friend Winter when she sits down in the seat next to me.
    â€œWho doesn’t know that?” she says, rolling her eyes, then sticking two fingers in her mouth and pretending to throw up.
    I slide my chair closer to hers. “I especially like Johnny,” I say, looking over at him.
    Winter pats her own cheeks. “I only like boys that look like me. Brown. Black. Sweet as cho-co-lat.”
    I ignore Winter and take another long look at Johnny, leaning on the wall, holding hands with his girlfriend, Wendy. Wendy’s got strawberry-blond hair, blue eyes, and a big chest. Boys at this school like girls like that. And there are more Wendys here than girls like me and Winter.
    â€œHe’s so cute,” I say, closing my eyes and pretending it’s me he’s holding.
    Winter pokes me in the side with her elbow. “Forget it. You ain’t his type.”
    I get on Winter’s case about the way she speaks. “Don’t say ain’t .”
    â€œ Ain’t ain’t a bad word,” Winter says. “Anyhow, that’s how we talk in the ghetto. Right?”
    Me and Winter both come from the other side of town. Ghetto girls , the kids around here call us sometimes behind our backs. They know we don’t really belong. That we’re on scholarship at this private school, just like most of the other black and Hispanic kids that go here.
    I lower my voice so Johnny can’t hear when he takes his seat next to me. “I’m just saying. You know how to speak good English.”
    Winter shakes her head and tells me that “ Black English” is good English. “But maybe it ain’t good enough for a girl like you. A black girl who only likes white boys.”
    I don’t get mad when she says that, because it’s true. Ever since I was five, I’ve liked boys that look like Johnny better than the ones that look like me. I never told anyone, though—until I met Winter.
    I didn’t tell her either, not exactly. She figured it out. Said all she ever heard me say is how cute the blue-eyed boys were. Or the ones with blond hair and extra-white skin. “What about the brothers?” she asked.
    â€œWhat about ’em?” I said. Then I told her that when I was little I’d kiss the blond-haired boys right on the lips when they came on TV. Winter talked bad about me after that. But she never stopped being my friend.
    Winter points to Johnny. “How can you like him?” she says louder than she should. “He’s got donkey ears.” She frowns. “Skin like rice paper. And eyes that turn red as blood when you take pictures of ’em.” She reaches around me and taps him on the shoulder. “Hey, Vampire Boy. You. . . .You!” she says, snapping her fingers like he’s a waiter taking too long to bring her food.
    Johnny opens his mouth to say something to her, then shakes his head.
    â€œYou do your homework?” he asks me.
    My smile is extra big. “Yeah. You?”
    â€œMost of it,” he says. Then Wendy asks him something, and it’s like he was never talking to me in the first place.
    When Mr. G walks into the room, he points to me, Johnny, and Winter, and says we’re in group one. He wants the class to come up with a new ending for the story we’ve been reading for a month. “Come up with something creative. Unique,” he says.
    I sit as close as I can to Johnny. I check out his long platinum hair and sea-green eyes. I think about us being married one day, and having real pretty babies.
    â€œHigh-yella babies, that’s what I want,” I told Winter once.
    She looked at my arms and face, which are exactly the same color as hers: raisin-black without the wrinkles. “High yella’s fine, but this is better,” she said, rubbing her arm.
    I didn’t tell her, but I want my babies to be pretty. To have hair you don’t have to relax, and skin that burns in the