Free Bittersweet by Shewanda Pugh

him if everything was all right.  His tongue would knot and his mind would curl battling his next course of action. Tell her she’d been crying, terrified in the dark, or leave her to blissful ignorance? Ignorance he’d settle on every single time, watching her slide off to sleep in the hopes she’d find peace.
    Edy wasn’t the only one who had nightmares sometime. Wyatt visited Hassan, a bleeding Wyatt, with terror stricken eyes, pleading to his last breath. He’d accuse Hassan of wanting him dead and finally finding happiness now that he’d get his wish. He lay rasping in the dark, begging Hassan to move, to help him, to care, to be human. Never a footstep was managed, not a word of comfort, nothing, but the same bleak stare, a look of expectancy. Wyatt without Edy sobbing beside him left Wyatt ugly when stripped bare. Wyatt stripped bare left Hassan cold, dreading, but willing to wait out nature’s verdict. When the last rattling breath was managed, and all the dying was done, Hassan exhaled in quiet relief, woke up, and vomited. That was the first dream. With time, the throwing up got easier. 
    “You okay?” Edy said.
    Hassan smiled and hoped it was enough. “I’m good,” he tried and made an effort to bully himself off the dark tangent he’d veered on. He was with Edy; after all, having kidnapped her away from punishment, and even for him, getting away had its merits. Getting away from mom and her drama definitely had its merits. She’d taken to praying loudly at their home altar for the nonstop pardons he now required. When that wasn’t happening, the phone chatter was, with her chatting up aunts from Chandigarh to Chino to discuss every wedding in recent and remote history.
    Her other favorite pastime was doling out advice. Let it be on in-laws, parenting, or growing the perfect tulips, whatever the topic, his mother would relate it all to raising him right. “Ah,” she’d say and make a point of looking at him. “You mustn’t be so old fashioned. It’s as I am with Hassan, giving him the chance to see reason and fail. It is inevitable, yes. Which is why the hard shove may not be the way.”   
    Yeah. Mom escapes definitely had their merits.
    Not for the first time, Hassan wondered how his dad would take the news of his relationship with Edy. He was a hot tempered sort, a run-out-in-the-street-and-see-the-car-later kind of guy. His dad loved hard first and sorted out facts only later. There could be no denying how much he loved Edy, who he called his daughter, his princess, his dear. No amount of reasoning could make Hassan forget that the old man’s marriage had been arranged though. He would expect the same of his son and make no apologies for it either.
    Wind blew in insane currents, blinding with tufts of white. They walked side by side, Hassan and Edy, alongside the Charles River, trekking prints along the way.
    “I’ve been thinking,” she said and pressed into his side. “Try to hear me out with this, okay?” Her hair fluttered from a purple knit cap, dark, twisting locks against a snow white backdrop. Tendrils of beauty.
    “Okay,” Hassan said and wrapped an arm around her overly padded, goose down waist, warming her, warming them as best as he could.
    She shot him a hesitant look. “You see, it’s all so confusing—the right thing to do—but seeing that he’s alive, I can’t get him out my head.” Edy swallowed. “I need to visit Wyatt.”
    No. Not even. Never. He didn’t want her in the same city limits as the perv. And what had Wyatt done to his cousin, anyway? Everything? Almost everything? Enough to scare her into silence? Hassan could smash and spit on a guy like that. He could rev his Mustang and contemplate some kind of murder. Yeah, his conscience would kick in somewhere between ignition and gas, but still, he’d give the act some thought. Especially if they were talking about reintroducing Wyatt into Edy’s life.
    Hassan threw her a brick-heavy look and