“Thanks.” She pauses. “Asshole.”
“Ha. He told you about that?” My dad laughs. “God, I corrupted such a nice kid.”
“Shut up, Adam. We’ll see you tomorrow.” She cuts the connection. “There.” She presses her lips together and looks at me.
I should be mad. I should tell her she has no right to interfere. And I would—except that what I feel is not anger, but the complete absence of weight. For the first time in a year, I’m experiencing the unbearable feeling of not being crushed, of seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.
It’s dim, but I can see it. If I can tell my father the truth, I can tell her. There are a lot of things Tina and I haven’t said to each other. With the end of the relationship assumed, there’s no point in saying them. But there are a lot of ways that you say you care about a person. And that? That was definitely one of them.
I take her head in my hands and kiss her.
I don’t know what she’s thinking. I don’t know what she’s feeling as our hands caress each other, as we strip to nothing. As she climbs on top of me.
I can only guess from the clench of her fingers on my shoulders, from the catch of her breath, from the way she looks at me.
From the bedroom window, I can see the scattered grid of the city lights below. They spill out onto bridges, stretch into distant buildings across the water.
She takes me and I hold her. I pour out everything into her. And I think about the stars.
18.
BLAKE
My father has conquered the world.
It’s all I can think about when he hugs me at the door. He’s conquered the world and I’m not even master of myself.
“Hey,” he says roughly, punching me on the shoulder. “It’s good to see you.”
He won’t be saying that for long. I punch him back. “Good to see you, too.”
I know my dad loves me. I know he’s proud of what I’ve done. I know he thinks the world of me—and I know I’m not worth a quarter of the value he’s assigned to me. But somehow, I manage to operate on autopilot. I joke. I shove him out of the way. I let him and Tina carry the conversation, and I remark that whatever it is in the oven smells good.
“It should,” Dad says smugly. “I had Fred make your favorite.”
It’s easy to fall into our old routines, even with Tina here. It’s like nothing is wrong, and I almost want to keep up the pretense forever. Almost.
I’m setting plates and forks on the table. Tina is shuffling through cabinets, finding glasses. Dad takes a dish out of the oven, looking surprisingly domestic with a cherry-red oven mitt. He sets it on the counter, a polished black marble that could double as a mirror, and then spoons pork, apples, and shredded, buttered Brussels sprouts onto plates. It smells amazing, and I can’t do this. I can’t sit here. I can’t eat. I can’t tell him.
He’s as neat as ever, fastidiously wiping up a drop of gravy the instant it hits the counter, rinsing out the dish and setting it in the dishwasher, putting the oven mitt back in place. I’ve missed him so much.
And yet, if I could, I would walk out the door and just leave. But Tina takes my hand, as if she knows I want to escape, and she anchors me down.
She pins me back to reality: I can’t let tomorrow happen. I can’t take over for him. I’m about to let him down—but I have to do it.
I find napkins and fold them under the silverware. Dad brings over three plates, balancing them like a waiter.
We have no ceremony. Dad sets the plates down. “Eat,” he directs.
Tina glances at me, but she sits.
I can’t eat. My throat is dry. The back of my throat tickles with incipient nausea. My hands curl.
“Dad.”
He pauses, fork halfway to his mouth. That was the easiest word. I can say that and still not spill my secrets.
But I take a deep breath and force the issue. “We have to change the back end of the launch.” I don’t know how I’m managing to get these words out, but they’re coming. “I can’t take over for you.”
I brace myself for the coming storm. Sometimes employees joke that Dad named the company Cyclone because he’s like a tornado: you never know quite where he’s going to land or how much damage he’ll do. He might rip the entire house off its foundation. He might leave a feather untouched on a windowsill.
I don’t know what will happen.
Dad slowly sets down his fork. It’s coming. I can feel it coming. It would be okay if he just yelled at me. That, I could stand. But once I tell him the truth, once he knows how weak I am, how fucking ridiculous this is…
“What’s going on?” His voice is quiet.
I spread my hands. “I can’t do it.” I won’t even look at him. “I keep thinking about…Peter.”
His nostrils widen and he glances at Tina.
“Peter was the strongest person I knew aside from you. But he couldn’t do it. And you can’t do it. And you’re both stronger than me.”
He makes a disapproving noise. “You’re stronger than you think,” he says.
It won’t be over until I say it. “Dad.” I take a deep breath. I feel raw all over, like I’ve been dragged through gravel naked. “I’m not.” The words I’ve imagined saying for so long slide out. “I have a problem.”
I feel like I’ve entered dreamspace. I’m lightheaded.
“Go ahead, Blake.” My dad’s voice is even. “It’s okay.”
It’s not okay. It’s so not okay. After this, after he knows he can’t rely on me, it’s never going to be okay again. That thing my dad and I have… I’m about to break it for good.
“What kind of problem?” he asks.
And I make myself look into his eyes across the table. I make myself stone inside. I may be weak, but I can be strong enough to tell him.
“I have an eating disorder.”
He lets out a long breath. His hand clenches on the tabletop.
“It’s complicated,” I say. “I run too much. I’m not eating enough. If you want to read more about it…”
“Fuck.” The word out of his mouth is almost a primal growl, and I flinch away. “Fuck,” he repeats.
But I can’t stop talking now. “I’m going to be okay,” I say. “Eventually. I’m seeing someone.” I can’t look away from his eyes, no matter how much I want to. “I have a nutritionist. There hasn’t been any permanent damage. But I need to get away from everything that sets me off until it’s better. And—I’m sorry. I never wanted to let you down. But I can’t do this. Cyclone makes it worse.”
Dad pushes his chair back from the table and looks up at the ceiling. His face is white, and I can see all the lines that age has left in his visage. They seem suddenly dark and deep.
“Fuck,” he says for a third time.
“I’m sorry,” I say again.
He slams his fists on the table. “Fuck me.”
“I know I’m leaving a hole in the launch,” I say. “I know my timing couldn’t be worse. I’m sorry. And I know this just makes it worse for you. I’ve been telling myself I can do this for weeks. But I can’t. I just…can’t.” I start to stand up.
Dad points a finger at me. “Sit the fuck down, Blake. Sit down and eat.” His pointing finger falls slowly, clenching back into a fist. “Shit. You’ve been telling me for months and months that you can’t do this, and did I listen? No. I was so fucking self-centered that I never let it register. I didn’t see it.” His voice is shaking.
“I wanted to be someone you could rely on,” I say. “I wanted it so badly. I’m just not. I’m sorry, Dad.”
“Why the fuck are you sorry?” He looks at me. “Goddammit, I know I’m an asshole. But I never, ever wanted to be an asshole to you. It’s just… I’ve been stuck in my head, seeing only my own shit this whole time.” He inhales. “No. No excuses.” He stands and crosses over to me. “Blake. I’m so sorry. I never, ever wanted to…”
He bows his head and clears his throat.
And that’s when I re
alize he’s choking back tears. My dad. I’ve only seen him cry once before in my life, and that was horrifying.
“I should have realized,” he says in a low voice. “I failed you.”
I thought nothing could hurt worse than my dad being disappointed in me. But he looks ravaged right now.
It turns out I was wrong. There is one thing that’s worse: the look on his face when he’s disappointed in himself.
I stand up. “No.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “Don’t you dare. You’ve been the best dad I could have asked for. It’s not your fault. I didn’t want to tell you. I just didn’t want to disappoint you.”
He puts his arm around me, pulling me close. “Never,” he whispers. “Never, ever, ever, Blake. I’m proud of you. Now and always.”
“Don’t fucking lie to me.”
“Hell. You think I’m lying? It took me until I was fifty to realize I needed to get out. You figured it out at twenty-three. Good for you.”
He squeezes me hard and I squeeze him back. We hug each other like we’re afraid to let go. I’m afraid that if I look at him, this will all disappear.
“What are we doing to do?” I finally ask.
He sighs. “Well. Let’s break this down. I obviously have to rethink tomorrow.”
“You mean, we have to—”
He holds up a hand. “Not your worry now, Blake. I’ve got it.”
He says it so calmly, so precisely, that I know it’s true. He’s got it.
“But—”
“This is why God invented caffeine,” he says. “Don’t worry. I’ve made bigger changes on less notice. Only wusses need twenty-four hours to craft a major international announcement. I’ll manage this one.”
“But—”
“But for now...” He gestures to the table. “For now we’re going to sit. And we’re going to eat. And we’re going to have a normal fucking conversation like a normal goddamned family. Because I’m still trying to convince Tina I’m not a complete fucking barbarian.”
“Give it up,” Tina says. “It will never happen. I know too much about you.”
Dad sits. He picks up his fork again. “Tina. Did you—were you—” He stops short, shaking his head. “Never mind. Stupid question. It’s obvious you knew. And that you helped him…get here.” He picks up his fork, cuts off a piece of the roasted tenderloin. “Thank you.”
That’s all we say about it for the rest of dinner. Dad tells a story about a hilarious translation issue that arose in our Singapore office, and we all laugh—a little too hard, more than the story deserves, as if the universe has earned our mirth. As if we’ve had one too-close escape, and we have to smile in the teeth of the future that could have been.
The food has grown cold, but I don’t pause between bites. I don’t have to ask myself if I want this food to turn into me. For the first time in months, I know the answer.
I don’t want to vanish. It’s going to be okay.
I look over at Tina, and I let myself feel all the wistfulness that I’ve been holding onto. God, I just want it all to be okay.
TINA
After dinner with Blake’s dad, after a leisurely dessert and coffee where we sit in the living room and Adam Reynolds tells me stories about Blake that embarrass him, but which I can’t help but find adorable—Blake stands.
“Still have something you want to show Tina tonight?” Adam asks.
Blake glances in my direction. “Yep.”
Adam waves a hand. “You kids have fun.”
“Are you sure? Because I can—”
“Fuck off, Blake.” He says it with a smile. “Seriously. I can handle this. I’ll have it figured out by midnight, tops.”
“Well, then. Wait here, Tina.”
Blake disappears. I glance at Adam, who shrugs as if to say that he has no idea what his son is up to. I don’t either. We had agreed that once Blake took over at Cyclone, this would end. Now he’s not going back, and I suddenly don’t know what we are. Where we are. I don’t even know what I want to happen. The future is an unknown, looming frighteningly over us.
When Blake returns, he has our coats. He hands me mine, takes my hand. “Come on.”
He leads me outside. Blake’s father’s house is near the top of a hill in a wealthy residential neighborhood. Palatial houses with wide windows line the streets, separated by fancy gates and stone walls. It’s dark out, but the night is lit by the golden glimmer of street lamps, of welcoming windows shedding warmth onto dark streets. Indirect lights catch the curve of a neighbor’s statuary, illuminating a dark silhouette corkscrewing up to the sky. Little LEDs embedded in walkways down the street scatter their own warm glow.
“Where are we going?”
“We’re going to look at constellations,” Blake says. He takes my hand and starts to walk down the road.
“That sounds…” Awful. I glance at him. But I already know what he’s going to say. I can almost imagine.
He doesn’t want this to end. He’s scoured Greek mythology and found me the one tale out of a thousand that doesn’t end in girls being turned into trees or chained to rocks. He’s going to show me that constellation, as if it will make everything better.
In other words, he wants to sell me a lottery ticket—and I’m so crazy about him at this point that I might be stupid enough to buy it at these long odds.
But instead of getting in his car, Blake starts walking down the street.
“We’re not driving?”
“Nope.”
I don’t know what we are. I don’t know what will happen. But I know one thing: for tonight, we’re still together. And so I take his hand and I follow him.
“Are you honestly expecting to see anything?” I look up. A thready overhang of clouds shifts dark blue against the heavens. That close cloud cover makes patches of dark against darker. Even in those spots where the night sky comes through, I can’t see any stars.
The swiftly-moving, blinking lights of an airplane. A bright glow that’s almost certainly a satellite. Maybe a few dim pinpricks that might be from another galaxy.
“I think there’s too much light pollution.”
“Oh ye of little faith.” He just keeps walking. The street twists and turns, undulating with the contours of the land. A patch of darkness opens to my right—a park, I see, as we come closer and the shapes of picnic tables resolve themselves.
He enters and pats a picnic table. “Come here.”
I sit, and he slides next to me, putting his arm around me.
“There. You see?” He gestures with his arm.
The view is magnificent, even at night. From this hill, the signs of civilization are spread out before us—streets, houses, laid out in a net of sparkling lights, interrupted by the dark emptiness that is the Bay.
“It’s beautiful,” I say, “but I think I can see exactly one star.”
“I never promised you stars. I promised you constellations.”
I don’t know what he means until he points down, to the right. “There. You see that, right there? That round thing and those things coming off it?”
I examine the twinkling lights. “Is that a stadium?”
“No,” he says with mock solemnity. “That’s Grood the zombie, the mightiest of all his kind. He ruled this place once, eating the brains of all who dared defy him. But one day, Pebble, the giant centipede dared defy him. Long did they battle. Epic was their fight.”
I tilt my head toward him. “Reversed was their word order.” But my heart has begun to thump.
“Reversed word order is a time-honored story telling device that makes everything sound more epic.” Blake’s fingers twine with mine.
“I see.” I squeeze his hand back. “Then apologetic I am for interrupting.”
“When Grood finally slew Pebble with a shard of bone, loud were the shrieks of the legged worm. But Pebble had managed to lash him with his tentacles—”
“I thought he was a centipede. Where did he get tentacles?”
; “The tentacle store. Stop interrupting.”
“Sorry.” I subside and lean against him.
“As everyone knows, no venom is more fatal than the poison let off by the many-suckered tentacles of a mighty worm.”
“Wait. How can everyone know that if he got his tentacles from a store? Is this a tentacle store with only one kind of tentacle? What is the point of having a tentacle store without a diverse selection?”
Blake sighs. “You know what you are?” He hasn’t let go of me. “You’re a story interrupter. A no-good, dirty…” He pauses, and his voice deepens. “…Sexy, clever, amazing story interrupter.”
“I’m sorry,” I say in a smaller voice. “I’m sensing a real market opportunity here in the tentacle-selling retail world. That’s all. Carry on.”
It’s more than that, though. I’m afraid to let him tell his own stories. I’m afraid to write mine.
“As I was saying, the zombie got smacked with venomous tentacles. I mean, smacked was Grood with tentacles of venom. Even as Pebble lashed the earth in his death throes, Grood knew he could not last. So he drove his shard of bone deep into the earth, deep into the marrow of time itself, thus pinning himself and Pebble in a timeless struggle. Now, every night, they battle it out.”
I look at the lights he’s indicating.
“Before you ask me about that,” Blake says, “yes, if you puncture the earth’s crust deep enough, you do find a store of time. Not magma. That’s a myth started by the great geology conspiracy. And before you start making snarky comments about how companies are going to start mining it and using it, I want to point out that Cyclone is already doing just that. How do you think we stay ahead?”
I take a breath. He doesn’t tell me why he’s telling me this story. He doesn’t have to. My mouth feels dry. “Sounds legit.” I try to sound unaffected. “It’s not any less plausible an explanation than a hunter and a scorpion.”
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