Free Bittersweet by Shewanda Pugh Page A

inhaled the length of the atmosphere. She’d do whatever felt right about Wyatt and he could stand by or not stand by all that.
    “Hassan? Are you listening?”
    He laughed.  “Uh yeah. Definitely listening. And you’re ready to visit Wyatt Green.” As for him, he was looking forward to the spring. When the flowers came out and the Charles River thawed. Wow. Also, he could use a drink of water. Maybe a thousand drinks of water. Then a summer vacation. He’d never been to The Cook Islands before. How about that for a goal? 
    “Hassan.” Edy touched his arm. “I know this is hard. I’m just—trying to do the right thing.”
    “Which is what?” he cried and snatched free of her.
    Whoa. Talk about finger on the trigger. That outburst surprised him as much as her. He dragged a hand over his face and tried for calmness. An even keel, cool smoothness: all that was within his grasp. Forget that his father ran hot as habanero when pissed; forget that his mom preferred to scorch dissidents with a thousand tiny match burns. Hassan decided what he did and what he didn’t do. And at that moment, he would breathe. Relax. Reel it in. He thought of Cook Islands, warm weather, and Edy in a bikini. 
    Edy stopped to stare at him and wrapped both arms around herself; so she looked fragile and tiny with her purple scarf flying like a flag in the wind. Hassan opened his mouth, thought better, and closed it. He wanted her forgiveness for yelling. He wanted his arms around her. He wanted a time machine to go back and be the friend she needed before Wyatt filled her void.
    “Don’t,” Edy said. But don’t what? Don’t care? Don’t love her? Don’t hate Wyatt?
    Hassan shook his head slow.
    “We can look at things the black and white way and say he was shot for being stupid, for standing up instead of lying down,” Edy said. “But that’s not right. It’s not fair. It isn’t even the whole story.” She took a step toward him, crunching snow underfoot before she took Hassan’s gloved hand in hers, enveloping it in warmth. “Reggie Knight is responsible for shooting Wyatt. But the two never would have met if it wasn’t for us.”
    Yeah? So? Wyatt had been veering into some strange territory with Edy when he got shot. Him showing up in the middle of the night the way he did proved that he was way off in terms of gauging boundaries. But that meant what? That he deserved what he got? No, of course not.
    Then there was the other matter plaguing his conscience. It came as a rough reminder that Reggie Knight had been gunning for Hassan. Hadn’t Wyatt saved Hassan’s life by going to the window and becoming an unwilling victim? Who might have been shot if a guy of Hassan’s approximate height hadn’t shown up and taken bullets meant for another? Maybe the whole house would have sprayed. Maybe Rebecca would have died.
    Maybe Hassan would have lost Edy that night.
    “Do you … don’t you think he’s been at the hospital long enough?” she said. “I’m beginning to get worried.”
    Hassan sighed. What was ‘long enough’ for a person riddled with bullets? In his mind, no amount of time could be ‘long enough.’ What could they know about gunshot wounds and recovery time, anyway? The only doctors that visited their dinner table had social science degrees, with one or two variations for literature. Therefore, Hassan would say he’d been at the hospital however long he needed to be. No more, no less.
    “Edy …” he said.
    “I know, I know.”
    No, she didn’t. She didn’t know what it was to love someone who insisted on riding the rough waves of uncertainty and crashing the cliffs of Wyatt Green again and again. It churned his stomach. It wrecked him as worry for her consumed everything. That police report from Chaterdee placed evidence where only a hunch had been before. He was wiser now, more certain, and sadder for it, too.   
    Another thought occurred to him; Hassan tried to shove it away even as he spoke.