Trade Me (Cyclone #1)

She turns to me. “I don’t know if I should be shoving chocolate bars on you or getting you a food tube. I’m completely unqualified to deal with this.”


It takes me a moment to respond. “I haven’t exactly managed to deal with it well, either. When I came up with the circumference scrolling solution for Fernanda, it took me months. We looked at hundreds of possibilities. We’d actually decided on something else. And then I just had this idea when I was driving after a run—it just popped into my head. I thought this would be like that time. That if I got far enough away, I’d just figure it out one day.”

“Not all problems get solved in an instant of understanding. This is completely over my head.”

“I know.” I take her hand. “Just…don’t let go of me yet, okay? I have two weeks. That’s all I can ask for.”

Her fingers squeeze mine. “I think you should see someone.”

A sudden panic takes me. “Ah, well,” I joke. “Since I have five dollars and sixteen cents, that’s not exactly happening right now.”

“Blake.” She sits up. “No.”

I’m not looking at her. “We had an agreement. A deal. If I break it, this ends now, not just two weeks from now. Besides, I don’t have time to see anyone. Mr. Zhen is counting on me.”

“Blake.” She turns to me and puts her hand on my chest. “Don’t you dare use me as an excuse to avoid getting help.”

I shut my eyes. That’s exactly what this is: an excuse. There’s another reason I’ve never wanted to see anyone. How could I look my father in the eyes, knowing that I’m keeping this from him, and yet telling a stranger? If I find a therapist, it’ll be real. Right now? Right now, at least I can pretend. I can pretend it’s a distant visitor, hanging out at my place for a short spell, but one who will be leaving any day.

My heart is beating hard against her palm. But she reaches up with her other hand and turns me so I’m looking in her eyes.

You know, all along, deep down, part of me thought that if we ever got to this place—if Tina ever found out what was truly, deeply, most screwed up about me—that she’d know that our lives aren’t any different. Mine’s not any harder or easier than hers. Everyone has problems.

And this is the moment when I realize that’s complete shit. Yeah, everyone has problems. Somewhere else on this planet, there is someone just like me—someone who’s fucked up and confused and who doesn’t want to tell anyone. Someone who needs help. Someone who wants out of his head. And the only difference between me and him is that I have the money to do something about it.

There never has been a trade. I’ve never been able to give away pieces of myself. I carry them all with me no matter what path I take.

“I don’t know what is going on with you,” Tina says, “but I think anyone who can do this…” She runs her finger down my tattoo. “…Can do this.” She sets her finger on my forehead.

And maybe that’s what I needed to hear, because this time when I kiss her, there’s no urgency. No overwhelming need. For now, there’s no danger. There’s just me and her. Just a silent stillness, a space where there’s room for both of us.

17.

BLAKE

It takes three days, but I do it.

First, I tell Mr. Zhen that I have to quit. He sighs heavily, and tells me to come back and say hi any time I have a chance. And then he calls one of the twenty applications he’s been storing and replaces me in fifteen minutes.

I find someone who specializes in athletes who have eating disorders. I call. We set up an appointment. I go to her office and shake her hand and sit in the comfortable chair in front of her desk. By the time I’m sitting there, I must have had this conversation with her a million times in my head.

“Hi,” I tell her.

She doesn’t act like she knows all about me, even though she probably does. She doesn’t raise an eyebrow. She just folds her hands and tells me about patient-client confidentiality. And then, even though I already filled out a lengthy intake form, she asks me, “So, Blake. Why are you here?”

I take a deep breath. “I’m here,” I say, “because I have a problem.”

By the end of the day, I don’t just have a therapist. I have a nutritionist. A food diary. And I have something else from her: a promise that this has happened to other people, but that they have gotten better.

For the first time, when I tell myself that I have a problem but that I’m going to fix it, I believe it.

TINA

I try to call my mother. I figure that I can tell her that Blake’s my boyfriend now, that she was right and I was wrong. I want it to be an olive branch. Something to try and put us back where we used to be.

But she’s stiff and formal when she answers the phone.

“Tina.” Her voice sounds disapproving.

“Hi, Ma. How are things going?”

“Well,” she says. “Very well.”

“How is work?”

“Fine,” she says. “No need for you to worry about it, okay?”

I exhale. “And is everything okay otherwise?”