Cooper Byron Anderson spent a long time living up to those expectations. He made straight A’s from Kindergarten on. He put in his hours at piano practice, at polo, at fencing. He won awards and trophies and kept them polished and gleaming and in line on his mantle. He came home an hour before curfew every night. He did his chores, said yes sir and no ma’am, and was a good son. A perfectly good son.

And he took care of his baby brother.

Cooper was eight when Blaine Miles Anderson came along - red-faced, dark-haired, and squalling – lungs so full of power from the first moment. He remembers the hospital, remembers his mother in full makeup and a shining pearl necklace, hardly making a sound as she grit her teeth against the pain. He remembers thinking there was no way a baby could fit in someone’s belly, especially his mother’s, who is so small and bird-delicate, but there Blaine was - crying, blood-streaked proof that it was possible.

He shuffled to the edge of the hospital bed, peering over the railing at the tightly swaddled bundle in his mother’s arms. There was a thatch of dark hair peaking out from the blankets and it surprised Cooper, who’d always thought of babies as smoothly bald.

“Cooper, this is Blaine.” His father’s hand had been heavy on his shoulder, holding him in place. “Are you going to be a good brother to him?”

“Yes, sir.” Cooper nodded eagerly and pressed closer to the edge of the bed. “Can I touch him?”

“Just be careful,” his mother warned, shifting the bundle in her arms towards him.

Blaine was so warm, his skin crepe paper thin and slightly sticky underneath Cooper’s scared, tentative fingers. Cooper held his breath as Blaine turned his face, winkled and red, towards the touch. Tiny fingers clenched and unclenched around air until Cooper reached out and slid his index finger against Blaine’s palm and those fingers clamped down around his with surprising strength. All the air punched out of Cooper when Blaine’s eyes opened, already the color of the tea that his grandmother made him when he visited, and sought out his face.

Cooper loved his brother in that moment, loved him fiercely, soul deep, and knew he would do anything and everything it took to be the best brother he could be.

Forever and always.