Trade Me (Cyclone #1)

It’s exactly five days before the launch when I figure this out. My therapist asks me the one question I don’t want to answer. I look into her eyes and I know—I know—why this is a problem, and why I’ve been so stymied. I know why I haven’t been able to find the answer.

I go to Tina’s—my house, I suppose, although I don’t know what it is anymore—afterward. She waves at me when I come in. She lets me kiss her. And then she goes back to reading over the launch script one last time. I can see it over her shoulder. I’ve read it myself a dozen times now.

All this time I’ve been telling myself I can find a solution, that now that I’m seeing someone, I can fake it once I get back. I’ve been telling myself that I can actually be the person that my dad needs me to be and still not disappear. I’ve even been telling myself that maybe I’ll figure this out—figure out how to keep Tina, too.

Tina reaches out and makes a tiny change to the script. I put my hand on top of hers.

“Hey,” I say.

She looks up. “What’s going on?”

“There’s something I need to tell you.”

For a second, her eyes widen. She moves back, ever so subtly.

“It’s about Peter.”

“Peter Georgiacodis?”

At this point, she’s read every launch script. I don’t know how much she’s managed to infer. His comments are all over the scripts before his death. She’s seen our last launch. She knows—she has to know—that he wasn’t just a coworker. That he mattered to me, to Dad.

I sit down next to her. “I must have met him for the first time when I was a kid, even though I don’t remember it. I don’t remember when he started meaning so much. Maybe it was because he never suggested to Dad that I should be in daycare instead of wandering around a major corporation. Maybe it was because he was always there. He would stop whatever he was doing to walk me through my algebra homework when my dad didn’t know the answers. It’s fucked up, I guess, to say that one of the most important people in my life was my dad’s CFO. But…he was.”

She looks over at me. “There’s nothing fucked up about love.”

“No?” I can’t even look at her now. “Do you know what it’s like to run a place like Cyclone? Peter and my dad… I can’t even guess how much time they spent working. Eighty, hundred-hour weeks, again and again without ending. Year after year. Peter was the strongest person I knew. He was the only person who could make my dad back down when he was wrong. Peter was twenty-eight when he took over as CFO.” I take a deep breath. “He died of a heart attack at forty-five.”

“I know.” She stands up and runs a hand down my shoulder. “I know, Blake.”

“Since then, even my dad has begun to lose it. He doesn’t say it, but I know it. There’s only so much he can take.” I look over at Tina. “If this broke Peter, if it’s breaking my dad…what chance do I have?”

She doesn’t say anything.

“All this time, I’ve been telling myself that once I fix this little problem, once I figure out why I’m so fucked up, I’m going back. I’m taking over. I’m going to be there for my dad. But that’s why it’s not going away. Because I can’t let myself go back.” Every time. Every time I thought it was going so well. Every time, I’d talk to my dad, and he’d tell me to come back, and it would all get fucked up again. “If I take over,” I tell her, “I really will be killing myself. At least this way, I choose how I go.”

She folds her arm around me and pulls me close. It’s fucked up. I know it’s fucked up.

Tina inhales. “Blake. You have to tell your father.”

“I know,” I say. I’ve never wanted to tell him the truth I’ve known deep down: that I’m not the person he thinks I am. That I can’t do this. “I know.”

I try to tell him. Really, I do. I plan out what I’m going to say. I write it out. I visualize it. I use every trick my therapist has to get me ready to deliver.

But there’s no time. When I call my dad a few days before the launch, he looks…relaxed, for the first time in months. That edgy energy, crackling around him, has subsided into almost softness.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Hi, Blake.” He smiles at me. “How are you doing? Enjoying your last few days of freedom?”

I can’t make myself smile at that. I can’t make myself joke. I just look in his eyes. I’ve imagined telling him a thousand times: Dad, I have a problem. Dad, we need to talk.

But he’s smiling, really smiling. I haven’t seen him smile like this since Peter passed away. “You know, Blake,” he says quietly, “I’m proud of you.”

That’s the thing. If Vader had really raised Luke Skywalker, this would be the moment when he could have asked anything of his son, and Luke would have done it. No questions asked.

“I know.” My throat hurts.

“I’m proud of you for telling me to go to hell because you wanted to go to school,” he says. “I’m proud of everything you’ve done. I’m proud of the launch you’ve come up with. And I’m really proud of Fernanda. She’s going to make a huge splash. The media is going crazy with speculation.”

“I know,” I say.