Character Analysis
Cody Grainger is blonde, a senior, a hotshot athlete, and he has the attitude to match. What do we mean? He's selfish, conceited, and knows that everyone's in love with him. He's such a twerp, in fact, that though Emma pines for him for a while, it doesn't take spending much time with Cody for her to decide to ditch him and his arrogant ways.
Cody's true colors show when he's giving Emma a ride home from school. At first, Emma notices that "he's such a confident driver, the way he reclines in his seat with one hand loosely on the wheel" (54.8)—but the cool quickly shatters when he almost hits a cyclist, throwing him off of his groove. After flipping off the poor guy on the bike he tells Emma that she "should chill on the screaming, it didn't exactly help" (54.26). It's a quick little moment, but in it, Cody shows that he's not only not suave, but not particularly kind.
If Sydney offers up a twist by being nice and the hottest girl in school, Cody falls into all the bad stereotypes about hunky jocks who are jerks.