56. Phoenix St. Pierre #3
We all thank Jere, and for the most part, Scally and Steffi’s excitement overshadow the sea of uncertainty in the green room. I can’t tell who’s more stressed out: my brother or my boyfriend.
Birdie has one foot in the orchestra. He can’t please our parents while he’s an ocean away. Good. Maybe they’ll finally accept he’s choosing his dream and not theirs.
Thirty minutes before The Carraways are called onstage, I talk with Tom and realize his stress is about the second album. The question is: How do we finish this on a rigorous four-month world tour when we’re struggling now?
“We’ll figure it out,” I tell him.
“I know we will.” He hooks his pinky with mine.
We do our pre-show ritual, and I hold him a little longer until his body relaxes.
Then I whisper in his ear, “Nine-point-two.”
I hear his emotion and see his smile spread as he says, “One of the best.”
Like most nights, being onstage centers us. Everything makes sense when we play our music together. Nothing feels off. We’re on. In sync.
So when Tom scales the lighting truss during “Level Headed” and leaps to the stage—I do not see it coming. I just hear the sickening crack against his microphone and the gasp from the crowd.
He’s crumpled on the stage when he should be on his feet.
I push out from the drum kit so fast that my stool crashes, and I run—I run over to Tom while he lies there.
Is he moving? Please fucking move.
“Tom!” I yell, my pulse in my ears.
Tom.
He starts to pick himself up with one hand. He gets to his knees.
“Hey, hey, hey,” I crouch down to him. “Tom. Wait.”
He’s trying desperately to contain the pain on his face. It flares in his eyes and between his gritted teeth. Our crew has cut the sound from his mic.
“I’m okay. I can keep going,” Tom tries to assure. “We’re not stopping, Phoenix. They paid a lot of money to be here—”
“Slow down. Breathe.” Our backs are to the morbidly quiet crowd. Tom is cradling his forearm against his chest. He looks like he’s about to puke. I stroke the back of his head, then motion for Hannah and Stan.
They rush out to block us from the audience.
“Let’s figure this out backstage,” I tell him, wrapping my arm around his waist to lift him up.
The crowd claps and cheers for Tom. It hurts him more when he has to hobble away. He wants to just pick up the mic and act like nothing fucking happened.
His wrist is really, really fucked up. The bone is bent out of shape. Thankfully there isn’t blood or a puncture.
Tom vomits in a trash bin backstage. I rub his back and see Birdie sprinting toward us.
“The light didn’t turn on,” my brother says in a heavy pant.
“What?” I frown.
“Spotlight never lit up where he usually lands. It was pitch black.” His concern sweeps Tom, then me. “Show over?”
“No,” Tom spits in the trashcan. “Just get me a T-shirt or something to make a sling.”
“Is he for real?” Birdie asks me.
I smear a hand down my face. “Tom. You broke a bo—”
“I know, dude. But I’ll go to the hospital after we finish our set.”
Birdie looks impressed. “Rock and roll.”
“Not helping,” I snap.
“Fine, I’ll get him a shirt.” He’s quick to nab a Carraways long-sleeved merch tee.
I rig up a makeshift sling for Tom. His bone is not in the right spot.
He’s squeezing his eyes shut. “I can feel you glaring at me, and it’s not nice,” Tom says with a wince. “I’m in pain, dude. You should be kinder.”
I try not to smile. “Let’s just get through this set. Then you can whine about it later, nepo baby.”
“We’re so good at compromising,” Tom muses like these ego-boosts are a morphine drip. Whatever makes him feel better, I’ll take it.
One problem. Several songs are still left in the set where Tom is meant to play guitar. Now, he can’t. But Birdie can. My brother has heard the full album enough that he nails every intricate riff when he goes onstage with us.
We finish the set without skipping a single song, and later, after a trip to the emergency room and an X-ray—Tom learns he has a distal radius fracture.
His wrist. No surgery, but he’ll need to be in a splint for six weeks.
After a short back-and-forth with our label, we’ve agreed to cancel four shows.
Just four.
Tom would opt for one. Not just for our fans, but because he feels like he’s hurting Scally and Steffi. Nothing Personal is being told to pull out too.
During the car ride to the jet, I hear my brother speaking French to our Papi, telling him that he’ll be in the city for the next week.
And then, like clockwork, Birdie agrees to play cello for the New York Ballet Company’s summer benefit performance.
Tomorrow.
Feelings are conflicted, but I want to see him play. Birdie’s been under too much stress for me to be anything but a supportive big brother right now. I might hate it—but this is his choice.
In the backseat beside me, Tom wears a blissed-out gaze, doped up on painkillers. He babies his splinted wrist. “Want to go to the ballet?” I ask him.
His smile says yes. He rests his temple on my shoulder. “I miss my brother.”
It’s one of the few times I’ve heard him mention Beckett.