If Not for My Baby

by Kate Golden

I just bit my phone in half.

TXmom007: What a cool guy! I narrow my gaze at my mom. “Was that one you?”

whatever her burden I’ll bear the brunt.”

“Inspirational. What next? Are you going to tell me ‘They may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom’?”

Halloran laughs again and I’m hit with the strangest urge to store all his laughs somewhere safe. Cram them into a little treasure box and bury them in my backyard.

Does anyone call you Clem?” I shake my head. “No, actually.” His brows raise slightly and he nods to himself. “Good.”

I want to crawl inside his head and take a look at the machinery. What’s worthy of that big laugh? What makes him feel depleted? How much space is occupied by soil and sunlight and trees and bogs? I just want to know everything.

“Don’t diminish your awe. The world’s a fine place; there’s plenty worth bein’ moved by.”

It’s my own fault—at some point I decided it was easier to be a dreamless person than a disappointed one. Except somewhere along the way, I became both.

“I’m actually quite indebted to her for that,” he says. “Remind me to send your Everly an Edible Arrangement.”

“I like your literature professor clothes.”

“I won’t,” he murmurs, “just for you.”

But then I realize I’m not Zen, I’m just eager to get this over with and leave. No—eager to get Halloran out of here.

“All right,” he mutters. “There ya go.” Did he just console a mic stand?

Those are the sorts of things my mom still says about my dad—If he wasn’t at the party, it wasn’t a party worth being at—all these years later. I cannot fathom a fate worse than hers.

Footage of Halloran singing to me like I’m the only thing standing between him and a ruthless apocalyptic wasteland? Don’t ask to see it. Do not ask to see it.

Oh, jeez. Those words. That concern directed at me. I’m a goner.

I am not fighting to swallow a squeal of he thought about me?

“I could show you.”

“A walk along the sea. A chaste kiss while the waves crash. A text once you’re home.” You’re. My heart speeds.

“Is it very foreign to let someone look after you?” I’m surprised by my own slow nod.

“Does it bother you?” he asks, voice rough. “I’ll shave it.”

“We aren’t.”

“Because I think of you nonstop. You’re legging it through my mind daily, Clem. You were long before I kissed you.”

“What?” I think I physically stumble backward. “You’re not interested in me.” “I’m not?” A slight smile twists at the corner of his mouth. “You should tell my dreams that.”

“Just because you don’t let yourself dream doesn’t mean you don’t have any.”

“The songs will write themselves.”

“He’s not a knight, he’s just from Ireland,”

“In any other instance I’d give Molly a token of my gratefulness. My house. Perhaps my firstborn.”

Molly’s silky dress is damp and hanging over the shower door. Oh God, I definitely puked on it. And I doubt I had the wherewithal to wash it, meaning Halloran…I

“You weren’t in a right state to be left behind. Not on your own, at least.”

“You’re just a better rock star than I am.”

“Conor told Jen I had a few too many and that you stuck around to keep me out of trouble.” “Why did he say that?” He seems to weigh his possible answers before admitting, “I told him to.”

Tom nods his head and I think it’s to the wistful song warbling out of the radio, until he takes an unexpected right turn off the freeway and up the hill toward the lookout point.

I have come to crave the feeling of my small hand wrapped in his large, calloused one. I’d trade this entire view for one more minute of that simple closeness.

“You think I’d stop looking out for you just because you don’t feel the way I do?” He sighs, but his eyes remain on the road. “I hate to think of the kind of lads you’ve known.”

“So many it might be fracturing my brain. It’s definitely driving me to drink.”

I’m constantly dying to ask him every question I can think of and scribble his answers into a notebook that I’ll read each night before bed like a zealot, but it’s chill, it’s so casual, and how have you been?

Agreed. Inappropriate for you to even suggest such a thing.

Oh no. Tom Halloran: That bad? Clementine: No…That’s the hottest answer

“But I think they’d be disheartened to learn I’m a person just as they are.”

“Dreamland is over at SummerStage, just down that way.” He dips his head behind me. “I asked a favor of our security team.”

“They cried. Said I’d be fiercely unhappy and back within the week, but they’d give me their savings to go and try anyway.”

“It’s okay, though, it’s not like I was going to go to college for theater.” “That’s what you want to do?” “Wanted,” I correct. “The way children want to be astronauts or pony trainers.” “You know there are astronauts and pony trainers, Clementine.”

“She’s just…she needs me, you know?” “I don’t blame her,” he says, brushing his knuckles over my cheek. “You’re very easy to need.”

He could ask me to meet him in an industrial incinerator. I’d show up in my lucky black jeans. “Anywhere.”

I think I hear the music differently when I’m sitting next to you.”

“This is the easiest it’s been for me, talking to you. Usually I don’t speak about her at all.” Her. Now, that hurts.

“Don’t worry,” I manage. “I’m not going to fall in love with you.” “Clem”—he sighs like I’ve pained him—“that’s just what I’m afraid of.”

“Folklore, Midnights, Reputation.”