Page 107 of If Not for My Baby
“I took the liberty of having Lionel pack your bags and book you a flight to Austin tonight.” She squeezes my hand. “My treat.”
“What about the party?” My voice comes out small.
Jen’s pity is the tense kind. “I don’t think that makes a lot of sense. Do you?”
I shake my head. I just want to go home. I miss my mom and my bed and Willow. I never want to see any of these people again. I’m baffled at how thoroughly I’ve humiliated myself. They’d likely all known, all along, that we were playing ourselves. That I was falling for some heartbreak-addicted serial monogamist.
And that’s why they call itfallingin love, right? Because while I’d had my stupid head in the clouds, romanticizing a halo of sunlight around Thomas Patrick Halloran, I had forgotten that flying always leads to free fall—to plummeting down through reality until you’re mere rubble and wreckage.
The walk back to the bus is a relief because I’m finally numb. The heat’s died down outside, but I can’t feel thewindchill. My headache’s become a full-blown migraine and I debate sitting down on the curb to cry, but think better of it. I just need to get home. My phone buzzes in my pocket and I ignore it. There isn’t one person on earth I want to speak to right now.
I can just make out Salvatore tapping his fingers on the bus’s oversized wheel. I trek up to the stairs, intent on grabbing my bag and calling an Uber to the airport. But inside, like I’ve stepped back in time, is Tom.
“There you are.” He puts down his phone. “I called you about nine times.”
I could live a thousand years and never forget the horrible way his face changes when he gets a good look at me. He stands and crosses the front lounge in two long strides. His thumb is under my chin a second later. “What’s happened?”
Tears pool in my eyes. “I’m going home.”
He nods, a bit of relief smoothing his brow. He thinks I’m sad about the tour ending. I fucking wish.
Tom tucks me into his chest and I let myself cry. He smells like soap and rain and the manufactured fog from tonight’s show. My heart breaks, knowing I’ll never smell him again. I’ve become the kind of person who would ask for one of his shirts to remember him by. I don’t even recognize myself.
“Hey,” he says. “Shh.” He kisses the top of my head so gently the tears come harder. “Ending a tour is always hard. And you and I—”
“There is no you and I,” I say, peeling myself from his shirt. “This thing…it has to be done.”
Tom’s hands slip from my back. “What’s making you say that?”
And I have a moment here to reroute. To tell him Jen is a psychopath and doesn’t want us to be together and to drag him back into his suite and ask him to make love to me until morning. The thought is so tempting I have to clench my teeth against it.
Because psychopath or not, Jen was right—Tom and I have no future. Even if he didn’t live in a different country, and he was a bartender, not a rock star…all things come to an end. They did with Cara. They did for my mom. They will with us. Love leads to heartbreak. Jen was right, my mom was right, and I was right—all along. I’d rather end it now on my own terms than tumble further down the rabbit hole and realize, too late, I have no way out of Wonderland.
“I cannot uproot my life to follow you around, Tom. On tour, to Ireland. I have to take care of my mom. You’ll get sick of me one day. We just…none of it makes sense.”
He’s thought about this, of course. That I might say this. “This is what you wanted to tell me? Earlier?”
I nod, holding my breath. I can’t lie to him—he’s too clever and already knows me far too well.
“I could never grow sick of you, Clem. Every minute I spend with you, I’m happier for it. And the distance won’t matter now that I’m done touring.”
“And what? You going to leave County Kerry and move to a town in Texas with six thousand people? You’re not going to leave your family, Tom. Your friends. Conry. I don’t want to take you from everything you love.”
“You aren’t. You—” He opens his mouth, then must think better of it, because he closes it again. But his urgency is mounting. “Don’t do this. Don’t make this about miles between us. I know you’re scared, but—”
“That’s not it.”
“Isn’t it, though? You’re scared nothing this good can last. That eventually I’ll abandon you or need you too much or not enough. That one way or another you’ll end up hurt, so you’re cuttin’ free now. You’re just scared, Clementine.”
It hits me in the solar plexus, the truth in his words. He’s looking into my psyche, stripping me bare and marveling at my fears. Understanding me in a way I’ve worked hard to make sure nobody ever can. It’s a primal thing, being known like this. It’s a miracle and I want to set fire to it.
“I’m just being rational, Tom. The tour is over…This was always how it was going to go.”
His eyes are wet. Harrowing green and bloodshot red, like a forest ravaged by wildfire. “I can’t promise you a life free of sorrow. Nobody can. But I can swear to shelter the heart of ye with all I have.”
“I don’t care.”
“You do.” A tear slips down his cheek and he wipes it away. “I know that you do.”
