Except, she stared at him. And he stared right back, assessing, weighing, drinking her up as if thirsty for every drop. She felt the tug, always his irresistible tug, and felt she might plummet without moving a muscle or taste his smile, well, because. That last thought brought an inferno to her cheeks, stoked when he brushed fingers to her face.
“Think of me,” Hassan said and headed off to class.
Edy’s heart went into retirement. It packed its bags, headed for the door, and flat lined at the exit.
The last class of the day, seventh period was American History, antebellum era to present. On approaching the door, Edy spotted Lawrence standing outside it with Kyle. With a few minutes to spare, she decided to join them.
“I don’t know where the twins’ll go,” Lawrence said. “And I’m tired of people asking me.”
Edy frowned. Matt and Mason were seniors, blue chip players already neck deep in the college selection process. Despite playing on a mediocre team for their first two years, they’d been among the top defensive players in the state, coveted by some of the best teams in the country, which meant going south. Edy wished they had options closer to home.
“Everyone knows where they’ll go. Georgia’s come sniffing, end of story,” Kyle said.
The University of Georgia was the alma mater for two generations of Dysons. A few years ago, the school retired his father’s number. A flicker of irritation crossed Lawrence’s face. It deepened till Edy followed his gaze.
Talk of Georgia wasn’t the problem. It was Wyatt.
“Edy.” He stepped up to her, with his back to Kyle and Lawrence. “We really need to talk.”
“No,” Lawrence said. “You don’t.”
She shot him an impatient look.
“You put her on blast in front of the whole class and now you want a private audience?” Lawrence said. “Get lost before I smash you.”
Edy gave Wyatt a once over. Red blotched his cheeks and rimmed his eyes. She took a step to one side and shot Lawrence a silent warning. He raised a brow but said nothing. Wyatt came to her, shifting his back for the illusion of confidentiality.
“What is it?” she said.
“I’m sorry. For what I said and for the way it was taken. I know you wouldn’t give yourself away so cheaply just because a guy is good with a football.”
“Wyatt.”
“Sorry. That’s all I wanted to say.”
“All right. Then thanks, I guess.”
She wasn’t sure if it was much of an apology, or even if she deserved one. As far as she was concerned, people took his words the wrong way, as people liked to do in high school.
“All right?” Wyatt said. “Is that really all you have to say?”
Edy blinked in surprise. His hostility had blindsided her. Wasn’t it her name stuffed into everyone’s mouth on the first day of school? “I, uh, don’t know what you want from me,” she said “Or why you’re being so loud.”
He touched her arm, delicately as if afraid she might break, fingers brushing. “Edy . . .”
There was something too intimate about that touch, too foreign, too not Hassan. She flinched. “I should go. I have class.”
He grabbed her by the arm. “A second. I only want a second to—”
“Buddy? You have a problem?” Lawrence stepped forward.
Wyatt dropped her as if she’d burned him. “No. Of course not.”
“Then don’t touch her. Ever.”
He was overreacting, of course, and drawing a crowd while he did so. For Lawrence, the ever silent one, this was out of character. It spoke to Edy in a way that no one else’s anger could have. It meant that the verdict on Wyatt had been rendered. Her friend would never be accepted by the boys.
Lawrence stepped up, close enough for them to draw the same breath.
“Lawrence, please,” Edy said. “Quit being a jerk. He didn’t hurt me, he only—”
“Grabbed you,” he said.
She decided to try a different tactic.
“You’re making a scene,” Edy said softly. “You hate to make a scene.”
It was as if she hadn’t even spoken.
“Come on,” Lawrence said, nose to nose with Wyatt. “I’m in your face. Let’s dance.”
Wyatt said nothing.
“Leave him alone,” Edy said. “You know he doesn’t want to fight.”
Lawrence smiled. “Touch her again,” he said. “And I’ll peel your face back from that mug you call a head.”
No motion, no movement. Satisfied, Lawrence disappeared into a class across the hall. Wordlessly, Kyle followed.
“They’re just protective of me,” Edy said in a rush of breath. “They’ve known me so long and—”
“Yeah. I know,” Wyatt said. “They don’t let me forget. Ever.”
It was true. Everything that flowed from Hassan and the boys to Wyatt had been off putting, on the offensive from the start. It had never been about Wyatt as a person, or Edy for that matter. No, it was about protecting their girl—from him.
She brooded on it all through history, but tried to shove it from her mind by the end of the day. Their protectiveness was irksome, meddling, but borne of love she knew. Doing without them wasn’t a viable option; getting them straight would take a century. Perhaps she bore some of the blame for them being insufferable. After all, she relished every dirty stare she got from the “it” girls when one of the Dyson boys or Hassan fussed over her. In some ways, she might have encouraged this world she lived in.
After history class, Lawrence waited in the hall.
Kids streamed by like two rivers running in opposite directions. Cheerleaders, dancers, football players, all on their way to practice. Edy dug in so as not to get swept up.
“I don’t like that dude,” Lawrence said in greeting.
“I noticed,” Edy said. “But I don’t think that has much to do with him.”
Lawrence cocked a brow.
“Anyway, you were bullying him,” Edy pressed on. “You were bullying a kid that you know is harmless. Not cool.”
“Who’s harmless?” Hassan asked as he appeared behind Lawrence.
“Wyatt,” Lawrence answered. “Though you couldn’t tell it by the way I had to defend her.”
He slung his backpack on and slipped into the flow of rushing kids. Halfway down the hall, Lawrence shouted, “Practice in fifteen!” and disappeared around the corner.
“Defending you? What’s he talking about?” Hassan took a step closer.
Wow. This thing just escalated.
“It’s not like it sounds. Lawrence is the one who flew off the handle. I was talking to Wyatt and thought we were done. He sorta grabbed me when—”
“Grabbed you? Grabbed you how?”
“Not ‘grabbed me’ grabbed me,” Edy laughed nervously. “More like . . . took me by the arm. I don’t know how else to put it. It wasn’t rough or anything. I—”
“You what?”
His coldness froze her.
“Nothing. Can we drop this?”
“No. I need to know what’s up with you and this dude. Is there something between you?”
“What? No!” she looked around, horrified, only to find that the day’s end crowd had begun to peter out.
“Why would you even say that?”
“Because he feels like he can touch you!” He took a step closer. “Tell me if he’s done it before.” Voice low.
“Done what?”
“Touched you.”
Her tongue thickened in astonishment.
They were not having this conversation.
His eyes darkened. “Edy. You haven’t done something with this guy, have you?”
Wounded. He had the nerve to look wounded. After Sandra Jacobs climbed out of his window. Well, that was it. The tip top of her freaking limit.
“No. You don’t get to . . . not after you—” She broke off, choked by frustration. “Get away from me.”
Edy shoved Hassan, only to find it worthless, h
im unmovable and absorbing the blow. He stared down at her with that same hurt and demanding expression. Him with the gall to want answers, after all this? She rounded him in her rush to get away.
“Edy! Wait.”
Quick strides brought him to her in an instant, despite the distance she’d made. When she didn’t stop, when she refused to stop, he grabbed her by the arm.
“You see that?” She whirled on him in impatience. “That’s what he did. That’s the way it was. But according to you, it means there’s something between us. It means there’s everything between us, since you feel like you can touch me.” She snatched her arm free.
“And that’s the same to you?” Hassan said. “When he touches you and when I do? It feels the same?”
“No,” she whispered, the word escaping in a breath.
“No,” he echoed. Uncertainty made such a tiny word swell to gigantic proportions.
“Fine,” she snapped. “To know me so well, you’re as blind as a horse’s ass when it comes to my feelings!” Edy said. “Now get out of my way. I have ballet.”
Hassan did get out of her way, and when she cautioned a look back, he stood where she’d left him, looking dumbfounded.
~~~
Dinner was a silent affair that night, with only Rani, Edy, and too much food. Ali had a late night on campus for an event he was speaking at, while Edy’s father and Hassan had their food holed away in the study. Apparently, footage of the West Roxbury middle linebacker had been found, and the two were eager to dissect it. Meanwhile, Edy’s mother was busy with some focus group. She planned to announce her bid for a senate seat in the coming days.
Edy ignored Wyatt’s text messages and faked small talk with Rani. All those seemingly innocent questions about the first day of school were loaded, so Edy feigned stomach cramps and stayed clear of anything that included Hassan.
Hassan. They were having his favorite that night, barbecued chicken. He could take almost anything barbecued, an old hat, he once said, so long as the sauce was right.
Any thoughts she was capable of having circled back to him and their moments together in the hall. His touch. Damn him for telling her to think of him. Edy already floated on daydreams, warmed on fantasies, and heated with words she delivered in her dreams. Dinner felt like rubber on her lips. She stared more than ate and glanced down the hall.
When Edy’s cell phone buzzed for the umpteenth time Rani let out a sigh. She hated phones at the table, newspapers, or anything that took away from family life. Sometimes, Edy found her warm, comforting, like one of the surest reminders of home. Other times, she thought Rani needed an introduction to the twenty-first century.
Edy excused herself with a claim of too much homework. She went upstairs to her room and called back the only boy who ever dialed her phone frantically.
“Yes, Wyatt?”
“You’re angry with me,” he said. “About the way things went at school. About people thinking you and Hassan are together now.”
“It’s all right,” she said. “It was bound to happen.”
Did she really just say that?
“I mean . . .”
Nothing. Not a single word came to her rescue.
A muzzle. She needed to invest in one.
“Edy.” Wyatt hesitated. “Is there something between you two?”
Is there something between the sun and the moon? Between the stars? “No.”
“I don’t want to see you hurt,” Wyatt said.
Hurt. Oh shut up, already.
“This summer,” Wyatt said. “You weren’t the only one who had fun. Hassan spent his time with a lot of girls.”
Edy’s lungs stilled. For awhile, she heard only his tortured breathing.
“Edy?”
Girls. Of course. Why would that stop? What was she, stupid?
No doubt, he could hear it in her silence, the hurt that clouded with even the insinuation of there being someone else. In this case, a million someone elses.
It was out before she could stop it.
“Tell me what you know,” she said.
“There were parties,” he said “Three, four, five times a week. The Dyson brothers, Kyle, and Hassan, they went everywhere. And they always had girls with them. Beautiful girls. Hardly ever the same ones twice. I mean, these were the sort of girls who—”
“Never mind,” Edy said. “Please stop.”
There was no way she’d cry. She had the thought even as the tears started. She was not his girlfriend; she was his friend and a victim of her own foolishness. So, he was close to her. He may or may not have flirted with her—it wasn’t the equivalent of a blood oath. If anything, his reluctance to pursue her—assuming he wanted to—had everything to do with the importance of their family and friendship. They could never look forward to a forever. Any romance they attempted came stamped with an expiration date: the date his parents selected his bride.
“Edy. You deserve—”
“I should go,” she said. She wasn’t up to the “better boyfriend” talk when she hadn’t a boyfriend to begin with. “Homework, then bed. See you tomorrow.”
She hung up on his response.
~~~
Edy climbed into Hassan’s Mustang the next morning with a backward glance at the twins’ Land Rover She wondered why the Dysons even bothered to stop by, if the conclusion had already been reached that she would ride with Hassan everyday. The year before, the boys made a point of peeking their heads into Edy’s kitchen or Hassan’s to grab leftover breakfast before school. Now, their sole purpose was to honk and tell them to hurry, like a pep squad ensuring they weren’t late.
“What is it?” Hassan said, catching a glimpse of her looking their way.
Her mind went to the summer and to the girls she never saw. How many could there have been, when time and fatigue were the only constraints? What had they done? How often had they done it?
“You never told me about your summer,” she said. “I told you all about mine, but apparently, you left out some crucial moments in yours.”
He stared at her. She waited for annoyance, defiance, anger. After all, they were nothing to each other in the throes of love. She had no right to question him. Right?
Hassan’s head fell back, hands grasping the steering wheel, and he sucked in all the air.
“I spent the summer running from myself. I made stupid choices. Constantly.”
“What does that even mean?”
He looked at her. “Just say it, Edy. Please. Say what you want and it’s yours.”
He couldn’t do that to her. Not once he’d dumped three thousand girls in the mix and she didn’t know how to feel. He made her want to snatch her hair out in patches, or better yet, choke him out until he slumped.
“Drive, you bastard,” was what Edy said.
“Fine,” Hassan spat. “Let’s just go to school.”
They peeled off in silence.
Sixteen
Fall at other schools in the city meant a bunch of things, depending on the point of view. But at South End, fall had only one meaning: football. All else was a derivative of that.
Football season had officially begun. The season opener against Brighton was a massacre worthy of intervention. Big numbers for Hassan and the Dyson boys meant bragging rights for Steve, who claimed credit through the summer regimen he’d put them through. Big numbers for Hassan meant more time huddled in the study with Edy’s father, who analyzed football with the same passion as he did political conditions in a developing country.
West Roxbury barreled toward them too fast, but only Hassan seemed to feel it.
At the start of the year, the papers argued that Leahy was stronger, maybe even faster than Hassan. But hadn’t they seen Hassan against Eastie? Brookline? Charlestown? Everyone? He was far from the hopeful freshman vying for a few minutes of limelight. He was force and fury, fire forging steel, welding outcomes in their presence. He was bigger, stronger, faster, better than Leahy and more so every day. But that wa
s fine. All adversaries—all—fell quick and hard to Hassan and his teammates. And as they stood amid the crux of a fierce winter, Hassan knew that Leahy would find domination like the rest. That was what he told himself until game day actually arrived.
“You can do this.” Edy a ran hand through Hassan’s hair. “It’s just like all the others. It’s yours already.”
Hassan heaved into the toilet in response.
The vomiting was nothing new. He saved it for big games and that night was the biggest: he would face Leahy in what promised to be a sold out stadium. Scouts would be there. Hassan’s rise—or fall—would be legendary.
He chucked his blueberry pancakes into Edy’s toilet and hovered, face hidden.
“God,” he moaned. “You’d think I’d be better than this by now.”
Edy tucked away his hair, dangling near danger, and returned to rubbing his back. Slow, concentric circles, ran heat through his body, soothing away even thoughts of the game. When she ran fingers through his hair, Hassan leaned into them, ever tamed by the ebb and flame of her touch. A new weakness found him, one that had nothing to do with his game.
“I could let you do that all day,” he said, voice echoing in the bowl.
“Then you should,” she said.
He ruined it by heaving again, a violent lurch that raised him from his knees and forced him to clutch the toilet, though little more than spittle emerged. Edy’s hand drifted lower, to his back, where her hand found bare skin under his shirt. Eventually, Hassan’s ragged breaths eased, finding all the calmness he could with her touching him there. Edy stood and ventured over to a linen cupboard.
“You’ve got an extra toothbrush in the medicine cabinet,” she said.
Hassan used the toilet to get to his feet but rose only so far as the edge of the tub, where he took a seat. Edy wet the towel and handed it to him. He washed his face and handed it back.
“You okay?” she said.
Hassan looked up. “I can’t stop thinking of all the ways I can lose the game.”
Love Edy Page 18
