Love Edy (24 page)

“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, him 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 was 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.