Page 108 of If Not for My Baby
“There’s nothing you can say to change my mind.”
He’s really crying now. “Clementine.” He sniffs once, shaking his head with a weak laugh. “Clem, you’re breaking my heart.”
We stand under the faint buzz of light in the front lounge. I realize at some point Salvatore’s abandoned us and we arealone. Tom runs a hand down his beard and more tears slip over his fingers.
I can’t watch this man who I love so fiercely suffer in this way. I wasn’t built for it, or I don’t have the constitution, I don’t know. But whatever feebleness it is, I stand on my toes and wrap myself around his neck.
“Jesus,” he says, one hand leaving my back to wipe his eyes. “I’m not even doin’ another record. I’m taking time off. None of this matters to me as much as you. I’d give all of it up. You can—”
“Tom,” I say, pressing my face into his neck. “Can you just hold me?”
And he does. We stand there in the dim front lounge for longer than my feet can stay pointed. I let the tears flow and I wonder if years of stored sorrow are using this moment as their exit strategy. Tom lets me cry, brushing a hand over my head.
I think of every single thing I wish I could say to him. That he shouldn’t stop making music even if it means a relationship could be simpler—with me or anyone else. That I’m as scared to leave my mom and Cherry Grove behind to follow someone else’s dreams as I am for him to follow me. That I wish he’d just told me the truth about him and Cara, even if it would’ve reinforced everything I’ve always known, instead of being so guarded about his past.
When I let him go and grab my bag, there’s only one thing I know I’ll regret never saying. “Tom?”
He nods, wiping his eyes once more and stuffing his hands into his pockets.
“You opened my eyes to a lot these past two months. I think I was watching the world pass me by in black and white before I met you. But one thing you showed me”—I take a quick breath—“is that allowing myself to fall for someone takes even more courage than hiding behind walls of cynicism in hopes of never getting hurt.” Inside my chest something is breaking, but I push onward. I’ve come this far. “So I need to tell you that I lied to you back in New York.”
He doesn’t respond and I wonder if he knows he won’t be able to speak without crying. The thought guts me clean through the center.
“I said I wasn’t going to fall in love with you.” A sad smile cuts my face as the tears drip down. My voice breaks as I tell him, “But I did.”
He nods, though he’s welling up again. “I love you, Clementine.” He wipes at his eyes. “So fuckin’ much, it’s killing me.”
And that’s the last of the courage I had stored up. I was someone else these past eight weeks. A braver, bolder, happier Clementine. One filled with new dreams, and confidence, and hope for the future, and a real, tremendous love. But I can’t live in a fantasy anymore.
I leave Tom there on that tour bus with the last bits of her. And I don’t look back.
Thirty-Six
“Order up…”
The new teenage waitress and her hefty mouthful of braces move for the steaming fajitas. “Careful,” I warn. “That plate is piping hot.”
New girl recoils just in time to spare her finger skin. I use a well-worn pot holder to maneuver the dish to a serving platter and then hand it to her. “It’ll cool off by the time you get to table eight.”
“Thanks so much.” She beams, metal and colorful rubber bands on full display. “Mike was right, you know everything about this place.”
It’s hard to keep a pleasant expression. “You’ll get there one day.”
Braces only shrugs. “Probably not. I leave for college in September. I’m going to NYU.”
“Congrats,” I tell her, my voice a little tight. “If you ever miss all the green, Sheep Meadow in Central Park is a good spot.”
She flashes those braces at me again and I think about them the whole drive home. How young I was when I got my braces off. How my future sprawled wide-open before me back then. Like a summer pasture, rich with possibility. And all the nothing I did with it.
At the ancient stoplight on Barrow and Vine my phone dings.
Molly Moreno:Hey. Can we talk?
The words buckle my stomach and I toss the phone into my bag. I don’t need to hear from her how shitty it was that I left LA without saying goodbye or how Tom and Cara are or aren’t back together. I’ve left that world behind for good. What I need to do is move on.
But when I turn on the radio to drown out my thoughts, I’m assaulted by Tom’s voice.“Lay yourself bare beneath my hands so restless,”he croons. “Or just hum in the kitchen as I make us breakfast. Anything to know that you’re still there.”
The rush of profound sorrow is a physical thing I could hold in my hands. Tom is out there somewhere, laughing, reading, strumming softly. He’ll be everywhere I’m not. He’ll live an entire life, light the whole world up in Technicolor, and I’ll be here, in Cherry Grove, without him.
