Bittersweet by Shewanda Pugh

knees high, fists punching the air. She came off a little high strung, enthusiastic even. Now that he thought about it, Dr. Dhumal and her husband liked to challenge his dad’s every idea. Dinners with them were always the loudest. 
    “My field is Sociology,” Dr. Dhumal corrected. “Funny you should ask about it. You probably don’t recall, but my primary areas of interest are gender, sexuality, family processes and inequality. At the moment, I’m researching family life and its influence on intimate relationships. It’s within the context of personal ideology. Fascinating stuff, really.”
    “Yeah?” Hassan said. He exchanged a look with Edy. They could tell her how family life influenced intimate relationships. It smothered it. End of story.
    Dr. Dhumal jabbed the air with enthusiastic fists, feet frantic in her stationary run. “Well, it was good chatting with you. Tell your dads to contact me on return. Maybe we can do dinner sometime.”
    Right. So she could gush about seeing them kiss out by the Charles River. That message would be delivered promptly the day after never. Hassan only hoped Dr. Dhumal was the forgetful sort.

Fourteen
    Wyatt liked roses, Edy told herself. Or maybe he liked them because she did. Edy pinched the wilting peach petals and scowled at the indent left there, before swiping up the vase and bringing it to the gift shop counter. Next to her, Hassan scowled in silence. They’d exchanged hot whispers over the message of the flowers; with him thinking they’d trigger hope and her saying they were a sign of decency. Roses purchased and a short ride up the elevator later, they made it to Wyatt’s door and stared.
    Edy swallowed a boulder of apprehension, gave Hassan a nod, and knocked on the door. A girl told her to come in.
    Bright lights. Stark white painted the floor, wall, and ceiling, while steady beeps drew the eye. They drew the eye to tubes, monitors, machines, machinations, all droning and concerting in a miniature symphony of life. At the center of it all lay Wyatt. His gaze lifted slow, weighted, and the door slammed behind Hassan.
    The frail, ghastly, gown-draped figure was and wasn’t her old friend. No, this Wyatt Green resembled old bleached bones, with flat brown eyes, concave cheeks, and frost-white chapped lips. Hadn’t she been told he was on the mend physically? He looked in need of a blood transfusion, an organ donation, a resuscitation, something.
    His cousin Sandra sat in the corner.
    “Hi,” Edy said.
    “Hi,” Hassan said.
    Sandra offered a tight-lipped smile. Wyatt continued to stare. Edy, suddenly remembering the flowers, set them down on the side table near him. She took a step back, then another, before realizing she moved as if she’d just planted a bomb. A steady rise of nerves tickled at her belly, climbing, gaining strength as it spread through every pore. Why had she come? What did she need to prove? That she was human? That she was sorry?
    Well, she was.
    She should say something, she knew. Someone should say something. Yet the silence gaped on for millennia.
    “So,” Hassan said an octave too chipper. “How’s the recovery coming?”
    Wyatt turned dead eyes on him. He looked Hassan over once and closed them.
    Pain. It pinched and rolled his features, slicing the corners of his mouth down in a haunt of a grimace.
    “Wyatt—” Edy tried.
    “Go away,” Wyatt said.
    Edy froze, certain she’d heard wrong.
     “I hate you, Edy,” Wyatt said and eased down a swallow. “I hate what you to do to me, what you make me feel. Stupid. Poor. Desperate. Worthless. Like I’m a bookmark for him, nothing better.” His eyes flooded, bordering, then spilling with the angriest of tears. “I wish it were you lying here on morphine, not me.”
     Edy gasped.
    “Yeah well,” Hassan said and put a hand at the small of her back. “On that note, we’re out of here.”
    He steered her toward the door.
    “No wait,” Edy said. “I want to say