20. Tom Cobalt
TOM COBALT
If I could clone myself, I would. Just so I don’t have to choose between working on the album and watching a movie with Ben. I’m supposed to be meeting Phoenix at a rehearsal studio in Midtown so we can smooth out the kinks to a new song we’ve been arranging.
It’s not like there’s a drum kit at my apartment. So inviting Phoenix over isn’t even an option.
What’s worse is Ben asked me—literally asked—if I wanted to watch Dante’s Peak with him.
The skies parted. A rainbow shot over a cloud.
The sun bathed me in its golden light. Because this is one of those rare times where I’m not wedging myself into his life like an overbearing older brother.
I am being invited to spend time with him.
With Ben, who’s been panicked about being an inconvenience to my life—to the point of removing himself from it completely.
Progress.
I’m about to light it on fire.
“I’m gonna have to take a raincheck, dude.” I shut my guitar in a case and watch him clean out his cockatoo’s cage. The bird hasn’t left his shoulder in the past hour. He head-butts Ben’s cheek every so often, and Ben gives him a gentle pet.
I hate thinking that a cockatoo is a better companion than I am. When really, I should be thinking, at least he has Mister Feathers.
Harriet named the bird MFer.
Laughter bubbled out of me when she said it, but I tried to steel my face to say, “Lame.”
She said, “You would know. It’s what you are.”
“That explains why you’re as obsessed with me as you are your lame bird.”
She smacked me with a pillow so I would roll off Ben’s bed. His bright laugh set me on a high for literal days.
So did the night Ben and I recorded a thirty-second lip-sync video to a viral song. All while Harriet littered his quilt with popcorn and made quippy commentary that I volleyed back between each take.
I posted the clip on my social media and didn’t tag him since he’s not trying to gain too much notoriety to where it’d affect his girlfriend. The video has over a million views. I’d love to take credit, but most of the comments revolved around his hockey abs.
Speaking of hockey, I attended his first game where his skates touched the ice.
Only a tad bit distracted since Phoenix couldn’t go after I took a risk and invited him.
He landed some orchestra thing after an audition, and the performance was that night—Star Wars, he said.
But I was physically (and mostly) mentally present at Ben’s game.
Enough that I witnessed my brother scoring the game-winning point for MVU.
No one was louder than Eliot and me in the stands.
Then there was the night Ben couldn’t sleep. “Tom?” he whispered after I let out a frustrated groan over a text from Phoenix. “You all right, man?”
“Oh good, you’re awake.” I flung myself out of my black silk sheets, my humidifier humming softly, and I slipped through the privacy curtain to find Ben wide awake. His bent knees tented his checkered quilt, a phone loose in his hand like he’d been texting or scrolling.
I collapsed at the foot of his bed and complained about how Phoenix was practically edging me at this point. “Like I should be edging him. I am the one who fucks with people. This is just…” I huffed at my phone, then dug it into my forehead with another agonized groan.
Ben had the biggest grin on his face.
“Don’t say it, dude.”
He raised his hands. “I’m not saying you like him.”
“Thank you,” I said sincerely. We shared a smile, and I rolled onto my elbow, facing him more as I asked, “What are you doing awake? Don’t think I didn’t notice.”
“Honestly?” His baby blue eyes seemed to laugh before a smile appeared. “I’m so fucking hungry. Coach Haddock had us doing suicides for an hour today.” So then we raided the fridge at 3 a.m. and ate oven-baked vegan pizza bites around the kitchen counter.
I burned the roof of my mouth with the hot, stringy fake cheese. “Dammit. Traitor.” I spit it onto a napkin.
“You have to blow on it.” He ripped the pizza bite with his teeth, then blew on the inside before popping it into his mouth. “Don’t you eat Hot Pockets with Luna?” Growing up, the Hales’ freezer was stuffed with ham Hot Pockets, strawberry Toaster Strudels, Eggo waffles.
Unlike where we grew up: the Cobalt Estate, a mansion down the street from the Hales. Our freezer contained wild caught salmon, the best cuts of beef, and puff pastry sheets. All for our private chef to whip up gourmet meals.
Most of us loved going to the Hale House for junk food. I think our parents liked it too. They’ve always encouraged us to be close to our cousins.
I swallowed three swigs of water. “I’ve gone down on many Hot Pockets, which is like twice the size of this little thing.
” I’ve also eaten pizza bites before, but I just wasn’t thinking.
My headspace has been a yo-yo between my brothers and Phoenix, and most of the time, it gets stuck on Phoenix like the string is knotted around him.
Ben pinched another pizza bite off the baking sheet. “I have a favorite of the songs you’ve recorded so far.”
I stood up straighter. “‘Nuclear Winter?’”
He shook his head. “The one called ‘Territorial.’” He rotated the bite between his fingers as silence fell a little heavier. The song is about fear of failure, about how it feels trying to control situations that are so far out of your control.
“What do you like about it?” I asked him.
A smile hooked the corner of his mouth. “The guitar riffs. Harriet called them nasty too. In a good way.”
“She is my number one fan,” I said, thankful she wasn’t present to sling back, I’m your only fan. Which she did yesterday.
Ben got more serious as he eyed the pizza bite.
“It’s not just the guitar riffs.” He scanned the dimly lit living room, the harmless quiet of our shared apartment, all our brothers tucked away in their beds.
“It’s how I feel sometimes. Your lyrics.
” His reddened eyes rose to mine. “I want to be better so badly, Tom. I’m so scared that I won’t ever get rid of this fucking voice in my head that says I shouldn’t be here, that says it’s what’s best for all of you, and I’ll let everyone down. ”
My voice came out so hushed. “Dude, I don’t think there’s a way you could let us down. Our love for you isn’t measured by your mental state. You could be spiraling out, and we’d still want you here and care about you and pick you back up.”
I added fast, “But I’m not trying to make it easy for you to leave either. Please don’t do that.”
“I don’t want to,” he whispered. “I’m not going to.” It sounded like a mantra, like something he often repeated in his head.
I’d never considered one of the songs Phoenix and I wrote together could deeply resonate with my little brother. After that night, “Territorial” became my favorite we’d recorded so far.
So, I might not be the worst brother in the world.
I’ve clearly made enough strides for Ben to want to spend two hours watching a volcano disaster flick with me, but I naturally want to be the best. Being the best brother means being here for more than a handful of moments.
It means keeping this great streak alive.
All it takes is one bad grade to tank your GPA. It’s the same thing.
I feel like I’m about to receive a C+. The plus is being generous on my part. I pick up my guitar case and slip my wallet in my front pocket. “I can cash in the raincheck tomorrow.” Please ask me again. Please let this not be a one-time thing.
“No worries,” Ben says, tying a trash bag. My face must be telling him something. “Really, Tom, it’s okay. You have way more important shit to do.”
“You are the most important thing to me, dude.” I say it, yet my actions are not demonstrating this today, and it’s a blade in my gut.
Ben drags a hand against his neck. Mister Feathers squawks out, “My home! My home!” That bird has serious co-dependency issues, and he’s been with Ben for like a month or two. That’s how easy it is to fall in love with my brother.
I wish I had that power.
He strokes the bird with two fingers before telling me, “I don’t want to be more important to you than your music.”
That hurts.
I set my guitar case on the ground. I open my mouth, shut it, my emotions too scrambled to speak. I never want my ambitions to supersede my brothers, but music has become synonymous with Phoenix, with another person who has bled into the lyrics, into every beat with me.
I’ve never considered, not for a moment, choosing a dream over a brother. Even contemplating it now feels like a betrayal so guttural, I lose oxygen in my lungs.
Is there a way to have it all? There has to be a way.
Because I’m terrified the cost of success is my little brother.
Ben says so quietly, “I don’t want to be the reason you don’t complete your album. I can’t be the reason, Tom. It will destroy me. Do you get that?”
I nod a few times, trying to process this. “Yeah, yeah. But it wouldn’t be your fault—”
“I’ll feel like it is. So when stuff like this arises—you needing to rehearse a song with your drummer—you need to go and not feel like you have to be here with me. Please.”
“Okay,” I relent, but I don’t want to leave him alone. “Hey, I bet Charlie’s around—”
“There is absolutely no way Charlie would watch Dante’s Peak with me,” Ben cuts in.
“What if you let him pick the movie?”
“It’s not the movie that’s the issue,” Ben says. “It’s me. I think he would rather break his other leg than be alone with me for two hours.” He blinks, then covers his face. “Fuck, I didn’t mean—I don’t want him to break his leg. He already broke the first one because of me.”
“Because of a car crash,” I emphasize. “You make it seem like you stepped on his tibia and weren’t just behind the wheel.”
Hands on his waist, he takes a constricted breath. “It feels like I did do that.” He stares hauntedly at a spot in the floorboards. “I know it’s dumb, but now I feel like I spoke another injury into existence and it might happen. You know?”
I’m trying to understand. “Let that shit go, dude. Breathe.”