Trade Me (Cyclone #1)

There are a lot of things we need to say to each other.

I put my hands on the dashboard. “I know we’re supposed to end this when I go back to Cyclone. But…don’t. Please.” I glance over at her. “Stay with me.”

She shuts her eyes. Her fingers curl around the edge of the steering wheel and she bows her head. “Blake. This isn’t the time to have this conversation. Your life has just been turned around, you—”

“It’s exactly the time,” I tell her. “This isn’t temporary, Tina. I care about you. I care about you a lot. And you know that.”

Her voice breaks. “And I care about you. But—”

“Don’t tell me that this can’t happen.” My heart is beating roughly. “Don’t tell me that this isn’t the time for you to break up with me. Don’t tell me that you don’t fit in my life. Whatever it is you’re thinking, don’t tell me that.”

She raises her head and looks up at me, turning her face to mine.

“All I’m saying is that this is not the time to work out those details. Your dad is sick. Let’s just…”

“No,” I tell her. “If you’re going to come into that hospital with me, I don’t want it to be because you think I’m too fragile to handle the truth. This isn’t hard. If you walk in there with me, if you’re there for me through this, I don’t know how I can make myself let you go. If that’s not okay with you, walk away. I won’t even feel it if I lose you now. There’s too much else that hurts. Don’t wait until tomorrow or the day after. Do it now.”

She doesn’t say anything. Her fingers clench around the wheel. She makes a little noise in her throat. I want to reach out and put my arms around her. I want everything to be okay.

We don’t get everything we want.

She looks at me in mute, pained agony. But she doesn’t reach out to me. She doesn’t say she’ll be there for me. And that means she won’t. One more ache in my heart—I can scarcely feel it.

“That’s that, then.” I open the door.

“Blake,” she says.

“I know,” I tell her. “I know you care about me. We both have to keep ourselves safe. I know you. It’s okay. I’m going to be okay.”

“Blake.”

“Stay in my house as long as you want.” I cast her a glance. “I’m probably not going to be back any time soon.”

“Blake…” The last iteration of my name. Her voice trails off. She looks over at me. There’s a hint of tears on her lashes.

But she doesn’t say anything for a long time. She doesn’t lie. She doesn’t tell me she wants us to keep going.

“Take care of yourself,” she finally says.

“Yeah.” I hoist my overnight bag and look over at her. “Take care of yourself, too.”

Then I’m pushing off.

It’s better this way. My heart aches with an almost physical pain. I feel hollow and empty and bruised. But I would feel hollow and empty and bruised even if she were by my side. I’m half-unconscious as it is.

I raise my chin and walk forward. The hospital doors slide open automatically as I approach, and I step inside.

I don’t look back.

TINA

I don’t know how I manage to get on the freeway. My hands are shaking. My tears give haloes to the streetlights, turning them into avenging angels frowning at me over three lanes of asphalt.

I drive. I can’t do anything else—just drive, drive, and even then, I still can’t push myself to go above forty, even on a deserted highway. When the freeway bends north, I get off. Not because I have somewhere else to be, but because if I continue on, I’ll end up back at Blake’s house in Berkeley and that will break me down.

I don’t have any idea where I am, and I like it that way. I pass signs in Spanish advertising hair salons. There are residences with cinderblock walls and steel gates enclosing modest yards. I punch off the map displayed by the car. I want to lose myself.

The road slips away behind me. My hands squeeze the steering wheel; I stare straight ahead over slick asphalt.

It wasn’t supposed to end like this. I knew it would hurt. I knew I would miss him.

It wasn’t supposed to feel like love.

But it had tonight. It had.

And I don’t know what to do with that.