It's My Life • Shawn Hunter

92| It's Not You... It's Me

"...And that, Mr. Hunter, is how babies are made." Mr. Feeny explained once again, looking up from the passage he'd been reading.

Shawn shook his head with a suspicious expression. "I still don't believe him."

"Uh, before I forget, uh next Friday will be College Recruitment Day. Representatives will be here from, USC, NYU, and Rutgers." Mr. Feeny announced. The bell rang and everyone began filing out. "Oh, and Mr. Matthews, your interview with Stanford has been rescheduled from 3:00 to 3:30."

Shawn furrowed his eyebrows. "Stanford? What's that all about?"

"Oh, it's just an interview." Cory simply said, shrugging his shoulders. "It's nothing from nothing."

Zoey followed the boys into the hall as she wondered how much of a blow up this was going to be.

"Cory. When we were little kids, you promised me that we'd go to the same college together." Shawn reminded him pointedly, clearly feeling hurt over this.

Cory chuckled sheepishly. "Did I say that?"

"Yes." Shawn answered, nodding vehemently. "And you also told me that if I graduated High School, you'd take me to Vermont to watch the leaves change."

"Right, Vermont. October." Cory reassured him. "Write it down."

"You know I could never get into Stanford." Shawn said as they walked over to their lockers.

Cory sighed. "Well, Stanford's just one of the many schools I'm applying to, Shawn. I'm also applying to Wisconsin, Penn."

There it was.

Shawn gasped dramatically. "Wisconsin and Penn? We never discussed those!"

"Here we go." Zoey groaned as she leaned against the lockers.

"Well, it doesn't have to be Wisconsin or Penn, Shawnie." Cory reassured, trying to calm him down. "It cam be a school from your list. What's on your list?"

Shawn narrowed his eyes heatedly. "You want to know what's on my list? Number one, I don't need a list because my best friend Cory wouldn't apply to any school that I couldn't get into."

"Your list makes me feel bad." Cory muttered. Shawn huff and opened his locker. "Shawn, it... it, you know, it's early. I have no idea what my plans are."

Shawn slammed his locker shut and glared at Cory. "Oh, interesting. Your plans, not our plans. Hmm."

"Don't you take that tone with me, Shawn Hunter." Cory demanded like a parent would.

Shawn shrugged nonchalantly. "I'm not taking any tone. If you want to go to college at Stanford, then go. In fact, go now. Give you plenty of time to start making your new college friends." He then wrapped an arm around Zoey's shoulders. "Let's go, Zo."

"But-but I don't want to make new friends." Cory mumbled.

"You know what?" Shawn questioned, turning to face Cory. "Maybe I should start making new friends, too, huh?"

Cory frowned. "But I don't want you to make new friends."

"Well, you need to, Cory. What did you think? That I was always going to be here? Is that what you thought? Well, I'm not." Shawn responded.

••••

Zoey slugged her bag strap over her shoulder as she walked through the school hall with Shawn. As they were walking, Shawn was complaining to his girlfriend about Cory's college application decision.

"You know he didn't mean it like that, right?" Zoey said.

"It doesn't matter how he meant it, I should've seen this coming." Shawn responded bitterly.