Page 40 of Burn Bright (Cobalt Empire #1)

BEN COBALT

I expect my dad to lead me to his office, the den, or the library, but we never go inside.

Once we reach the patio, he chooses the wicker-cushioned couch.

I loved swinging on the hammock by the pool as a kid, but this couch was consistently one of my favorite spots.

Because of the iron pergola. Vines of purple wisteria crawl up the four posts and hang down the iron slats overhead.

I’d stare up at the bees for hours and whistle at the birds.

I wonder if that’s why he chooses this place, the outdoors. Or am I reading too much into this?

Yeah, fucking doubtful.

My dad’s IQ surpasses most. Even my mom—who is viciously smart. He ranks high on every scale. Deduction. Memory. Ambition. His brain is an encyclopedia of random information, and he can speak even more languages than Charlie.

Not a day goes by that I don’t think how astronomically different I am from this man. We’re not different sides of the same coin. He’s an archaic Roman provincial coin and I’m a standard American penny.

“Let’s hear it.” I sink down on the cushioned chair across from him. “You’re so worried about me. I didn’t cry for Theodore. Something must be wrong, and I need to ditch Dr. Wheeler and see your therapist in New York.”

He arches a brow, leaning back casually.

His ankle is propped on his knee, arm extended over the top of the couch.

Everywhere Connor Cobalt goes, he has an aura as if he owns the earth, the air, the water—all of life’s necessities, and it’s easy to believe it’s true.

And I don’t understand how I was born from him.

I’m confident, but not even remotely in that way.

He’s nonconfrontational and calm as he says, “You’ve already told me you don’t want to see Frederick. I’m not going to press you further.”

“Then what?” Baseball cap in my hands, I curl the brim in a tightening fist.

“When you were three, Tom stepped on caterpillar and you cried,” he tells me.

“The next week, you stepped on an ant, and you were inconsolable for days. Even when I explained that an average garden ant would live around a year, when I gave you the rundown of their life cycle, it didn’t change your despair.

When you were seven, you made sure no one squashed the spider in Jane’s room.

Instead, you captured it in a cup and released it outside?—”

I let out an annoyed breath, cutting him off. “Yeah, I don’t like needlessly killing things. It’s not a revelation. I shouldn’t be the only person who wants to protect the fucking—” I stop myself, trying not to drop a thousand fucks around my parents—“the planet and the things inside of it.”

“It’s not a revelation, Ben,” he says. “It’s who you are. The depth of your compassion has never waned over the years.”

Compassion. It’s not something my dad actually values. It’s like a genius telling you you’re good at finger painting. So I’m not deluding myself into thinking this is some grand gesture to tell me he’s proud of me. I don’t need that.

He has a son who’s his replica in mind. Charlie.

He has a son who’s his replica in body. Eliot.

He has a son who’s his replica in ambition. Tom.

He has a son who has surpassed him in raw talent. Beckett.

And then he has me.

I’m not a disappointment in his eyes. I know that. But I’m nothing special either.

I don’t have a reply for him, and I choose to let the silence eat the air.

He takes a moment before he speaks again. His fingers slide through his wavy brown hair, then fall to his knee. “We haven’t talked about that night, Ben,” he tells me, his concern slipping over me.

There it is .

It always comes back to me attacking Tate.

He knows the full rundown about the drugs and Winona.

I confessed about the Adderall last night to my dad since I let the cat out of the bag to my brothers, and he was extremely concerned—specifically about how I obtained the Adderall in the first place.

It’s now another reason he wants me to change therapists so badly.

“Yeah, we did talk,” I reply. “I told you why I did it.”

“And I’m supposed to believe you’ve become Niccolò Machiavelli overnight?” he asks me. “When have you ever believed the ends justify the means?”

“Beliefs change,” I tell him. “Shouldn’t you out of everyone understand that?

I’ve read about how you didn’t believe in the concept of love before Mom about a billion times in the press.

And you’ve talked about it to us .” He’s been very open and honest, and when he tells us that he loves us—a man who loves few and sparingly—I believe him.

Because even among our differences, I’ve felt my dad’s love. We wouldn’t be having this conversation if he didn’t love me even a little bit.

“That didn’t happen overnight, Ben. I didn’t meet your mom and magically fall in love. I thought I was incapable of certain emotions. Believing I could love—that was work . That was therapy and investment in myself.”

I say nothing. I’m not sure what to say, to be honest. A current of panic and agitation move through my bloodstream, and I’m having trouble even sitting still. He can’t find out I’m broke. My knee tries to jostle.

I want to lean back, then forward.

It’s taking everything in me to remain rigid.

His expensive sole drops off his knee and lands on the stone. He cups his hands, and his soul-burrowing gaze never leaves mine.

He might be this godly Zeus-like figure, but right now, I’m not intimidated by him. At the end of the day, he’s my dad.

He continues, “You hurt someone, and the Ben that I know wouldn’t care if the other guy deserved it or not, it’d affect him. It’d crush him.”

It is crushing me, but not in the way he thinks. I’m not crying like Tate is that dead caterpillar. I’m not devastated. I don’t even regret it.

But I am terrified of retribution. Of the universe course-correcting pain that I caused. It feels inevitable that my family will get hurt. How can I even explain that to him ? He won’t understand.

“Do I look crushed?” I ask.

“No, and that’s what scares me,” he says. “You’re hiding your feelings, burying them, or avoiding them?—”

“And this is your expert opinion, seeing as how you’re a master of emotions since you have a total of five of them.” I immediately regret my words for how callous they are, but I shove that guilt so far down.

He slowly blinks, but he’s not looking at me like I’m a stranger he doesn’t know. He stares at me with deep, unbridled worry. If I was determined to cast his concern into the ether today, I’m doing a fucking awful job at it.

“I’m not a therapist, you’re right,” he says. “But I think you should see someone other than Dr. Wheeler. I don’t think he’s a good fit for you.”

The truth is, I don’t believe any therapist would be good for me. If my brilliant dad doesn’t understand me, then how the fuck would a professional? I already know I’m being irrational—they don’t need to tell me that.

I fit my ballcap on and rise to my feet. “He’s my choice. You’re going to have to live with it.”

He follows me to my feet. “Something has to change.” He holds out a hand for me to wait because I’m facing the house. “I know you’re hurting?—”

“Something did change,” I combat. “I moved to fucking New York.” My voice rises with my frustration. “Is that not enough?!”

“Ben—”

“You want to reminisce?” I ask him, my chest rising and falling with heavy, uncontrolled breaths.

“You remember when I was really little? Remember how Mom said she was going to cut out your lungs in your sleep and you told her she can have them—but it’d be a mistake because she’d miss breathing your air?

I wept in my fucking bed that night for hours thinking my parents were going to murder each other.

I called Uncle Ryke so distraught I could barely form words.

I was seven. ” Tears try to burn my eyes.

“It took me too many years to even understand what my brothers and sisters understood from day one—the exaggerations, the banter, the wit—I am not like all of you. I don’t think like you. ”

“You can always talk to Ryke. Just because Winona?—”

“Dad, I can’t do this.” My pulse is out of control.

A knot is contracting painfully in my ribs.

I am crawling out of my skin, and I wish Harriet were here.

I wish I could divert whatever’s rattling me for a second.

I want the panic to just fade. “I just need you and everyone else to just stop .” Please.

Let me go.

We both aren’t blinking.

“Tu nous repousses,” he says in a gentle whisper. You’re pushing us away. “Pourquoi?” Why?

I shake my head, about to lie and say I’m not.

I have been distancing myself from everyone, and their biggest triumph in bringing me closer has been me moving in with my brothers. Even that, though, I am one foot out the door.

“Tu n'es pas obligé,” he whispers. You don’t have to.

“Nous pouvons t’aider.” We can help you.

He reaches out, and partly to pacify him, partly because I crave my dad’s embrace more than even conceivable—I let him draw me into his chest. I grip his shoulder like I’m hanging on to a jagged cliffside, not wanting to let go.

Scared to fall. Scared to meet what’s below.

But for their sake, I feel like I eventually have to. Courage. I’ve never lacked the courage to race after the dangerous, terrifying thing. Especially when I know it’ll save someone else.

He hugs me, his hand rising to the back of my skull. The same way that I comforted Audrey at the funeral. I notice it, a subtle similarity between me and him, and my heart skips.

Breathing out the tension in my body, I just hold on to my dad for a long moment. When we pull back, he cups my jaw and nods to me. “It doesn’t matter which direction your mind takes you, you’re still a Cobalt. You’re still my son.”

It almost breaks me.

And for the first time this morning, I cry.