If you peek into my closet, you will find something different among all that is neat and tidy; Something with its cuffs frayed and tattered; its once bright red color faded to a pinkish haze. At school, I’m known as Simba Li to most, but for those I have never met, I am known as the boy with the red hoodie.
            At first, I could’ve been known as the boy with the black or green hoodie. In fact, when my mother first purchased the red hoodie from a Chinese shopping mall four years prior, I cast it aside without a second glance. However, when I transferred from my Chinese school to a British boarding school, I threw the hoodie in my suitcase and took it with me overseas. 
            It turned out that the English winter that year was devilish and the only warm clothing I brought was the hoodie - a piece of thin, red fabric that kept the cold knife of the wind from cutting through me. It was there, in England, 5,000 miles away from family, that I found home in this hoodie; that I found something that would hold me close and keep me warm. 
            Thus, I showed up at school in my red hoodie every day until people started pointing, and people started calling me “the boy with the red hoodie.” Soon it became iconic; when I wasn’t wearing red, many would ask me, “Hey, what happened to your hoodie?” 
Once, I helped my friend shoot a scene in the movie, where I, wearing red, was the protagonist against the ‘evil lord’. As I defeated my enemy, my line was, ‘even the darkest of souls could be saved by the brightest of lights.’ This film was watched hundreds of times by my friends in school. Amidst all that was snow and rain in the English winter, I guess the reason why so many idolised my hoodie was because - just like my protagonist’s endeavour - the color of bright red united us: it symbolized the hope in all that was futile, the light in all that was dark. 
            Sometimes, I made jokes with my friends, saying that I would wear my red hoodie on my graduation day. Writing this four years later, however, that famous hoodie sits silently in my closet. Over washed and overused, it had grown with me. Although I’ve worn it less and less because of its wear and tear it’s still waiting for my graduation day - waiting for that one last dance. 
            I guess I’ll never know what it would be like without my hoodie. Perhaps I would wear another color; however, there are just too many if’s, but’s, and maybes. Nonetheless, I do know that I can’t live without it, as my red hoodie exemplifies the thin line that holds together my past, present and future, so I’ll enjoy it while I still have it - I’ll enjoy being “the boy with the red hoodie.”