Page 268 of Silver Sweet
The message keeps going. “Ever since you left, the odor is pure piss and trash. You were making it smell like heaven onEarth here. You think eucalyptus is the scent of the gods? Just don’t come back right away, dude. Like I will suffer endlessly in smelly Manhattan. I am already full-on thriving. So…” I hear him swallow a knot in his throat. “And I…” He intakes a sharp breath. “I really love you, Phoenix. It keeps building and building every day. My love for you grows so powerful in your absence, I wonder if it’s to torment me or to protect me.” He pauses for so long.
My chest aches while I hear his unsteady breath. I reach for my journal, biting off the cap to my red pen.
“Probably to torment me, right? Anyway…” He clears his throat. “I’m not fucking crying. I know, I know, you really want to see me finally shed a tear, but it’s like a shooting star, dude. Okay. Jerk off to this later. Bye.” It ends.
I jot some lyrics, his words crackling and flaring inside me like sparklers in a dark end-of-summer sky. Then I answer with a quiet voice memo. “I’ve already seen you cry, nepo baby. When I railed you so hard, you came.”
He responds about twenty minutes later. “I professed my undying love to you, and you talk about fucking me. Love is dead. BYE.”
I laugh under my breath, doing my best not to wake up the band and crew sleeping on the bus. I send him another audio message. “Guess your love wasn’t so powerful after all, Cobalt god.” I pause. “And I hope you never doubt how much I love you, Tom.” I rub my red-stained fingertips together. “I like what you said earlier. To torment or to protect. Think it’d make good lyrics. I know we agreed to hold off on the second album until I get back, but maybe we make music like this.”
Music has always welded us together. It has the power to fold all miles between us, shrinking them down to nothing. Until his heart is where it’s meant to be. Beating against mine.
“Second album material?” I ask. “What do you think?”
His response comes in the morning. “I thinkyes.Send me the lyrics you’ve written. Listen to this guitar riff. See if you like it.”
The sound is sad and melancholy.
I just want to hold him.
61
TOM COBALT
SEPTEMBER
Ising a slow, soft rendition of Petula Clark’s “La nuit n’en finit plus” on my bed. Another night without him, I feel emotionally suspended as love travels and I remain. Nothing captures the desire and yearning burrowing in me as well as this song.
I strum my guitar and look up at my phone, recording this for Phoenix.
My cell is propped against a bunch of Harriet’s science textbooks I borrowed from Ben’s side of our room. When I reach the last verse, my voice breaks a little on the French, but I keep singing to him.
Finishing, I stop the recording, and I text the video to my boyfriend. Then my chest tightens at the several emails stacked in our inbox from our publicist, manager, and music label.
I just glance at the subject lines.
PRESS! Rolling Stone long-form interview request [prioritize please]
Spotify Session: “Killer Ultraviolet” (Stripped) request for November
Forest Hills Stadium Show in Queens, NYC – HIGH DEMAND!
PRESS! GQ Photoshoot request
It goes on and on.
Even ifRolling Stonewas willing to just interview me solo, I’d hate it. The Carraways isn’t just about me. It’s us.
It’s been us.
So I confidently reply to Sheela and Jeremy in email, reminding them that we’re not doing any press or events until next year.
Jeremy is quick to call me. Even at 10 p.m.
“Sheela will work her magic. Some of these outlets could agree to wait,” he says. “But the Forest Hills show can’t. Riot wants to market it as a December holiday pop-up concert.” Off my silence, he adds, “This would be your first stadium show.Forest Hills,Tom.”
Salt, meet my wound.
