He covered his face with a pillow and shifted his top half to one side, away from her. It was the best he could manage with Edy on top.
“Hassan, come on! It’s our last day here and—”
She fell back, fell silent, withdrawing in more ways than one.
“And what?” Hassan said, moving the pillow from his face.
He knew ‘what’, even if he couldn’t put it into words. ‘What’ was the thing that happened between Boston and the Cape, between Edy and Hassan alone and Edy and Hassan out there, when the rest of the world imposed.
“Nothing,” she said.
He looked up at her, took her by the arms, and willed her for once, just once, to say the thing that neither of them had been able to.
He imagined pulling her down to him so that their lips met, so that they kissed. What would she do? Pedal away, shocked and confused and trying to figure out how their sibling-like relationship had gone so wrong?
Except they’d never been like siblings. Not to him.
Edy stared down at him, with those gaping, glistening, wide, brown eyes—and inside, he felt his will begin to wilt.
“Look outside,” she said.
Hassan sighed and released her.
She got up so that he could stretch to the window, pull back the curtain, and take in the coastline. What in the world could she want him to see? Sunrise? It was too late for that.
His birthday. Hassan’s gaze skated closer to the house, finally falling on the driveway, where he stopped.
A sable Mustang wrapped with a gleaming red bow—a convertible—beckoned with the top down.
He cursed. “Is that mine?”
“Hell yeah!” Edy cried and yanked him by the arm.
He pitched from the bed, and the two scrambled, hand in hand, sliding on parquet, barreling downstairs, about to smack into the front door.
Hassan shoved it open, and only dimly registered their parents before they spilled out into the front yard. He let go of Edy, to cavort left, then right, desperate to soak up every line and curve of the his beauty, unable to slow for a proper inspection. At the back of the Mustang, he registered the Massachusetts tag with “Hassan 27”, and a howl ripped from his throat.
He bolted to the driver’s side and yanked on the handle. Since it was locked, he turned for the house where Edy and his parents filled the doorway.
“Gimme the keys before I bust through the window,” Hassan said.
Edy’s mother looked at his parents.
“I told you she couldn’t hold water,” Rebecca said.
Hassan’s father held out the keys like an offering, only to have them snatched in a hurricane of movement. Hassan turned away, then doubled back to swallow his dad in a hug. He squeezed first him, then his mother, and tearing off for the car.
“Our gift’s inside!” Nathan called as Hassan pried the door open.
“Are you kidding me? There’s more?”
Nathan descended the stairs. “Well, I know how you young men like sound systems, so . . .”
Hassan shot Edy a look of frightened curiosity. He couldn’t fathom what a sound system from Nathan might look like, and apparently, neither could Edy. She came down and joined him on the passenger’s side. Nathan made his way around to the driver’s side door.
“I’m not exactly sure how it all works. It appeared to be a very complicated process. But the gentleman assured me it’s quite common among young people to place the speakers in the trunk.”
Hassan and Edy turned to each other, wide-mouthed, before diving from their seats.
“Holy crap. This thing is tremendous!”
“Satellite radio,” her father continued, prouder now, posture straighter after his gift’s enthusiastic reception. “Twenty-four hour football commentary on three stations all year round.”
Football. The thing that anchored him, that made sense even when thinking was an ordeal. Only Nathan knew and understood and had felt it for himself.
Hassan swept him into an embrace before remembering Rebecca and going to smother her too.
His gaze turned back to the car, where he absorbed the beauty of it all and the power hidden just beneath the hood. He had no idea how long he should stand there, looking thankful. “So, um, can we go somewhere? Maybe get some bread or something?”
“Bread.” Rebecca hooted and messed up his hair.
“Around the block a few times,” Hassan’s father said. “Mind the posted speed limits, the stop signs, etcetera.” He looked his son over once more. “And when you get back, dress properly.”
Hassan looked down at the tee and pajama pants he wore, noted the absence of shoes, and grinned.
“Bye,” he said and grabbed Edy by the hand.
A few minutes later, the two eased down the unassuming streets of North Truro, wild grass, sand dunes, and slung low houses on either side of them.
“Unreal. Beyond unreal,” he muttered and adjusted his mirrors at a red light. “I don’t think anything could make this day better.”
“Well, I have something for you. I mean, it’s not a Mustang or a sound system, but . . .”
“You do? Why didn’t you tell me?” Hassan pulled over.
Edy reached under her seat and pawed around before returning with a slender, baby blue box wrapped with a sleek white ribbon.
Tiffany’s.
He shot her a look, drawing a blank as to what it could be. Nonetheless, Hassan took it from her and tugged at the ribbon.
“Where’d you get Tiffany’s money?” he said as he unwrapped his gift.
“You know I get a few bucks to spend for your birthday each year.”
“Not Tiffany bucks.” He looked up at her.
Edy blushed. “I’ve been saving my allowance. Walking home instead of catching the bus.”
The walks home with Wyatt. They didn’t mean what he thought.
Hassan lifted the lid, revealing a pair of sterling silver dog tags engraved on one side. He picked them up and squinted at elaborate font.
To Hassan,
My favorite guy,
In this life and the next.
Believing in you even when you don’t.
Edy
He looked at her.
“How could you—”
“My secret.”
Her words meant a million things at once, the way everything between them did. And yet, it surprised him when his vision blurred. Hassan blinked away tears.
“I love it.” He cleared his throat. “It’s perfect. Really.” He closed a fist around the tags and enveloped Edy in his arms, holding her closer to his heart than anyone ever.
Fifteen
Wyatt knew sophomore year would blow. He knew it the moment Hassan pulled into the driveway with the top down on a $32,000 car, name hanging on the back, Jay-Z cranking from the speaker system. He knew it the moment Hassan leapt from said car, sleeves rolled to reveal massive biceps, only to go around and help Edy out as if she were some bruised rose petal. And he knew it the moment the two sauntered into her house, arm in arm, without a look his way.
Her father had been so abrupt to Wyatt. Not rude, but barely tolerating. Didn’t he see what was right under his nose? He was so busy worrying about what might be he couldn’t see what was. Hassan and Edy on the verge of something more. Maybe already there.
Things came easy for Hassan. Looks. Athleticism. Girls. Edy Phelps, however, wouldn’t come so easy.
She didn’t know about the summer, about the wild parties and endless stream of girls. She didn’t know how Hassan had spent his weeks apart from her. But she would. Wyatt would make sure of it.
Monday morning, Wyatt stood curbside before his house as the caravan got organized. And by caravan, he meant the twins in the SUV with Kyle and Lawrence in tow, plus Hassan in the Mustang with Edy. Chloe was absent, though it was no surprise. Two weeks earlier, she’d shouted Lawrence down in the street about skanks, so they were Splitsville. Funny how Wyatt had an ear to all of South End’s drama, right ther
e from his stoop.
Another day of Edy not noticing Wyatt began. On the first day of school she wore this billowing white sundress with spaghetti straps that lifted and accented perfect cleavage. A fuss was occurring on the sidewalk. It appeared that the twins wanted her to change. Edy flipped them off and climbed in the car with Hassan.
Up to this point, Wyatt had had little control over his encounters with Edy. From the last day of school to the first of their sophomore year, her every moment had been scheduled so as not to coincide with him. While he didn’t think it purposeful, it certainly felt as if it was. But a new school year had arrived and with it his day to see and spend time with Edy. Excitement stuffed itself in his mouth and threatened to inflate, carrying him off on a horizon of anticipation. He would see her in an hour, maybe two. Better still, the moment when Wyatt would reveal Hassan for the deceiver he was drew close. The thrill of anticipating that could undo him. So, Wyatt set off to school with enthusiasm in his step, whistling a feisty tune the whole walk there.
~~~
Mrs. Applebaum, Edy’s new homeroom teacher, was a short, pallid woman with heavy-lidded eyes and deep curves, despite the presence of a waspish waist. She was young, no more than thirty, and had a watery, brown gaze that flitted about, unable to sit still. When Edy entered the class, Mrs. Applebaum pointed to a chair in the center.
“There,” she barked.
“Assigned seats? Really?” Welcome to first grade.
Mrs. Applebaum turned to the dry erase board, already on to something else. With a sigh, Edy marched for her chair.
“Nice pair, Edy. I see you caught on that they grow by fondling,” Shane Mitchell said.
She stopped just as he guffawed in that obnoxious way of his, doubling over and wild with the spectacle. But he had no idea how absurd he looked, wedged in the second seat of the second row, knees knocking wood in a desk-chair combo too small for the basketball team’s starting center. “Yeah. Well, from what I hear, fondling doesn’t grow much on you.”
A collective roar was let out from the half dozen present, just as heat crept through Edy’s cheeks. Why had she said it? Lord knows she had endured Shane Mitchell’s crassness since grade school. Never had an outburst been warranted.
“Nice one,” Chloe said from her seat in the center.
“Thanks,” Edy said.
They hadn’t spoken since their walk home with Wyatt. Now that she felt a little saner, an inkling of remorse tickled her.
“If you’re done with your acceptance speech,” Mrs. Applebaum said, “I’d recommend you take your seat.”
Of course.
Edy dropped into her assigned chair behind Chloe and went to work getting organized. She had six A.P. Classes, including human geography, which sounded absolutely nonsensical. But her mother had insisted on it. Homeroom with Mrs. Applebaum would be followed by calculus with Hassan, then environmental science with no one in their right mind. Edy thought to compare her schedule with Chloe’s, which no doubt would have things like drama and art, if for the sole purpose of living vicariously.
“Oh no,” Chloe whispered.
Lawrence Dyson ambled into the room, three inches taller than memory served and rippling with muscles.
“There,” Ms. Applebaum said, pointing to a seat up front near Shane.
Lawrence chuckled and dropped down behind and to the right of Edy.
“Edy,” Chloe said, stiff as her head tilted just so. “Tell your friend not to even try talking to me.”
“Okay,” Edy said. “But—”
“Edy, tell your friend that paranoia is the first sign of drug use,” Lawrence said.
Chloe whirled around. “I am not paranoid!”
Edy lifted a finger. “Personally, I would have denied the drug use—”
“Shut up, Edy!” Both cried.
Edy looked from one to the other. “Have you guys had some sort of fight?”
Chloe faced forward in a huff. Lawrence rolled his eyes. “Moron,” Lawrence said.
“Slut,” Chloe hissed.
Mrs. Applebaum inflated blowfish-style and sputtered as she weaved down the aisle, thick hips bumping empty desks wayward. She stopped in front of Lawrence. “What is your name?”
He sighed. “Dyson. Lawrence Dyson.”
A hoot of cheers rang out from a far section of classroom, no doubt praise for the previous season or predictions for the next.
Mrs. Applebaum opened her mouth and shut it before hastening to the front of the room, bumping desks at double speed in her rush to snatch paperwork from her desk. “You’re not on my roster. You don’t even belong here!”
“Sure I do,” Lawrence said.
She stared at him, trembling, furious with her disbelief. “If you don’t leave, I’ll call security,” Mrs. Applebaum said, eyes wetter than ever.
Lawrence grabbed his backpack and reached inside. She jumped as if she were expecting a weapon. With a half-smile, he pulled out a sheet of paper, printed with a signature at the bottom.
She glared at it as if expecting it to coil up and hiss. “What is that?”
Lawrence held it out but said nothing. Eventually, Mrs. Applebaum snatched it.
Edy turned to Lawrence.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“Letter from the principal. They hijacked her homeroom and decided to put a bunch of football players in there. Good for team moral, they say. Whatever can bring home a second championship.”
Edy pursed her lips. “Special treatment.”
Lawrence shrugged. “Not special. Deserved.”
Mrs. Applebaum looked up from the letter, face doughy and devoid of color. Meanwhile, a crowd crammed at the entrance—a pressing mass of swollen and chiseled out boys interspersed with what had to be the rest of the class. People took any old seat, jocks at the back, geeks at the door, students funneling in to line the walls.
“No, no, no!” Mrs. Applebaum cried. “We will not have chaos! We will not have mayhem!”
She rushed forward, only to get swallowed in the procession, absent in a wave of confused faces. Edy imagined the scene a microcosm of the world, as the bigger, stronger kids pushed through to choice seats and the smaller, kinder ones looked around in wonder. Hassan got through, of course, and found a seat toward the back on Edy’s left. To her surprise, Wyatt found one on her right.
“Edy,” Wyatt said. “I’ve been trying to call you. I—”
Mrs. Applebaum jostled her. Apparently, she’d found a system to combat the chaos, one that required her to bustle up and down the aisles, rudely demanding names and using Lawrence’s letter to insist people go to their proper place.
Edy twisted to see past her rump and caught a glimpse of Wyatt’s arm before Mrs. Applebaum ushered him out. She went through the class that way before turning to the hall. In the end, the room looked drastically different.
“It’s like a team meeting in here,” Chloe said. ‘Yuck.”
Every guy in the room was a tenth grader and player on the football team—Hassan, Lawrence, and Kyle were included, every girl like a random fill-in for normalcy. Except it didn’t quite work.
Mrs. Applebaum gave up on the assigned seats, stopping instead to survey her class. Jason Mann, team quarterback, was hovering over Kendra Robinson, openly begging in his hundredth attempt to win her back since cheating. Onlookers booed her. Meanwhile, Tommy Kent and Kelly Lighthouse made out in the back, as Liam Williams shouted into his cell. Reggie Manning was up and Crip-walking again, undeterred by the gobs of paper that flew his way. Finally, Hassan, Lawrence, and the rest of the boys were arguing viciously over a play from last year. When Kyle went to the dry erase board in an effort to illustrate his point, Mrs. Applebaum rushed to the hall and screamed for security as if she’d been molested.
“Well,” Edy said to Chloe. “This ought to be an interesting year.”
~~~
It wasn’t until third period that Edy saw Wyatt again. She took a seat toward the front of the room, and, when
he entered, watched him take one next to her.
He stared forward momentarily, fingers drumming on the surface of his desk.
“Wyatt?”
He turned to her, mouth flattened. “What the hell, Edy? You haven’t had a word to say to me since Hassan got naked for you.”
A collective gasp stole the air in the room. Fiery embarrassment choking her, Edy attempted to survey the damage, only to find everyone staring straight back at her.
“Wyatt, I—” She shook her head. There was nothing to say. Nothing that wouldn’t feed the rumor mill further, nothing that would make the moment go away.
“I’m sorry,” she said, which sounded like a confession on further thought.
“Whatever.” He faced forward again.
Edy slumped down in her chair. God, they’d come off as some overwrought love triangle. She hadn’t even denied Wyatt’s accusation, and in high school, that was the same as a confirmation. She needed a hole to sink into and a good friend to shovel dirt on top. Never come out again, that good friend would tell her, for the rest of your short, short life.
~~~
Edy saw Hassan just after fourth period, when she slipped her human geography book into her locker, closed the door, and found him standing behind it. Hassan leaned against the metal slab next to hers, arms folded, and winked.
“So. I hear we’re official now.”
“Yeah.” There was no way to explain it, so she didn’t bother. “Sorry.”
“Does that mean you don’t want to have my baby?”
“What! I never said that!”
He grinned at the furious way she stammered. Around them, people slowed.
Hassan glanced over his shoulder, leaned forward, and switched to Punjabi.
“You never said what? That you didn’t want to have my baby or that you did?”
Edy stared at him, too confused to answer his question head on.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were coming on to me,” she said and flashed a nervous smile. “Bad idea, right?”
“And if I was?” he said in English. “Then what?”
Then I’m all in if you are.
Edy swallowed, heart pulverizing her ribcage with the thought. Somewhere, anywhere, she’d find a stray bone of sensibility left in her. Not by looking at those fire-lit eyes, or the lip he bit until it blazed. She’d look at her books, think of her future, and focus on more than fairy tales.
Love Edy Page 17
