Page 118 of If Not for My Baby
“Clem, let me get you warm.” I know he’s genuinely struggling, watching me like this. “Your teeth are chatterin’.”
But I need some answers first. “The whole time we toured…I thought you’d dated Cara. That she was your muse.”
Tom’s hand abandons me. “No, never.”
“Jen said—”
“Conor told me what she said. All of the horseshite.”
Oh, Tom is pissed—narrowed eyes, tensing jaw—and that murderous expression coupled with the unceasing torrent of rain drenching his shoulders and hair makes him look like a thundering god.
“You knew what she told me and yet you never called me? Never texted?”
“I didn’t think Jen’s lies were really why you left. Were they?”
He’s got me there. I shake my head slowly. We stare at each other, battered by the downpour. Thunder growls again. “Who is Eden?”
“She was my first serious girlfriend. At Trinity.”
“She’s who the songs are about.”
Tom’s nod might as well be an uppercut.
“Why didn’t you just tell me about her on tour? You had so many opportunities to.”
“I don’t know, honestly.” His eyes well with regret. “I should’ve.” He draws a hand over his soaked beard. “I just knew what you’d think. Another tally for your scorecard. Heartache prevails and all that.”
It’s a fair answer, and it only makes me angry with myself. Just another reminder that my data’s been biased for years: always looking for proof that relationships were a waste of my time.
“Why did it end?” It must have been horrific for him to think the story would prove all my fears true.
Tom sucks in a breath between his teeth. “Can I please get you inside? I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
But I’m too scared. “We both have exes. I don’t see—”
“She died, Clementine.”
The word sinks down, low into my stomach.Died.
“I met her in the same poetry class as Cara. The three of us and Conor were going to start a band together.” I touch hishand, and he pulls my entire palm into his grasp. “That accident I told you about, the one where my friend was killed…” His voice is low enough that I can hardly hear over the rumble of rolling thunder overhead. “She was coming home from a gig we played together. Stopped to help an animal out of the road. A fox, apparently. She’d had a few drinks with me after the show, but she wasn’t drunk. The guy that hit her was, though. He was plastered.”
“Oh, God.” All I can do is squeeze his fingers. “I’m so sorry.”
“Cara and I wrote ‘If Not for My Baby’ about her.”
The way Cara sings that song like she’s still in mourning…I wonder if Tom’s ever considered that his friend may have been in love with Eden, too. Or maybe he’s known all along, and they’ve just left it unsaid. Less painful that way.
“I had half a mind to quit singing altogether after her death. But the work sort of demands to be written. It’s all the more insistent when you’re in pain.” He releases my hand and rubs his beard. “We never expected it to be a hit. Cara’s and my careers took off, but based on the loss of her. The guilt was…Every piece of press, every photo shoot and music video felt like I was spittin’ on her grave. She didn’t have an ounce of ego in her. She would’ve hated the lot of it.”
“She’d probably have been overwhelmingly proud of you.”
“Even if. Still feels wrong sometimes.”
“Does dating someone else feel wrong? That’s why you haven’t, right?” I’m steeling myself for the end. It’s coming and I know it.
“No.” His resolve takes me by surprise. “Maybe backthen—I’d tried to date after. It was like you said—women I knew would hurt me. Maybe I thought it was what I deserved. The drinking came along with that…too many months on the road, too much pain unresolved. After that first tour I cut all of it out. The dating, the drinking…” He wipes the rain from his knotted brow. “But, Clementine…I fell in love with you that night in Raleigh. Right there beside that vending machine.” He shakes his head. “It never felt wrong.”
The memory brings a flush to my cheeks despite the rain whipping at my face.
