The opening band was onstage by then, and before their set was over Wyatt came in and told everyone to follow him to the section of seats he’d reserved for Cal’s guests. I got in the line behind Thomas, but Wyatt put his arm out to stop me and said, “You can stay.”

Wyatt shut the door on his way out, and then it was the three of us, and I was so anxious my skin itched from the inside. Fortunately, Cal was too preoccupied to pick up on the energy in the room. He concentrated on his vocal warm-ups, singing them just like Mr. Collins had taught us, while I sat on the arm of the couch, as far away from October as I could get, and scrolled through the Redwood National Park Instagram page, because I thought looking at trees might calm me down.

When Wyatt came back, he told me and October that he’d cleared a space on the left side of the stage for us to watch the show away from any other people, and then he told Cal it was time to go.

Cal took October’s head in his hands and kissed her forehead. Then he grabbed me by the shoulders, caught me with his pointy eyes, and said, “This one’s for you, brother.”

Most of the music Cal and I listened to when we were kids was what Bob Harper used to call the music of whiners and wallowers. But Cal doesn’t whine or wallow—neither in life nor in music. His voice is like smoke at a campfire, but his presence on stage is energetic, affable, and charming. Watching him perform is like watching someone palpably releasing tension. The sonic counterpart to cracking your knuckles or jacking off. Nothing he does is showy or over the top. It’s simply good. Cal is a star, but for people who don’t like stars.

Nevertheless, watching the show was a roller-coaster ride. The culmination of everything Cal had done and everything I had not, each moment was a forensic study, viewed through a microscope, of Cal’s successes and my failures, his bravery and my fear.

Emotions dipped and swelled inside of me as if they were dancing to the beat of the drums. I experienced everything from respect to resentment, jealousy to pride, anger to overwhelming affection, with a steady stream of saudade and desiderium above it all.

The most crushing moment came after I spent an entire song studying the guy playing lead guitar. While he wasn’t dog shit, he was hardly remarkable, and for the first time in my life I knew for a fact that it really could have been me up there, and the despair that overtook me then made me sick to my stomach.

I still hadn’t spoken to October. By then, I’d convinced myself that our relationship had been a mistake. I was going to call the whole thing off. I didn’t want her. I didn’t care.

And she could feel me crashing, I was sure of it, because she took my hand—to comfort me, to glean information, or both—not minding that Cal was just a few feet from us.