Chapter 32: Cold Feet

Eric rubbed his palms together briskly. He could feel his fingers growing numb. He cupped his hands around his mouth and blew in a puff of air to warm them.

It must be one hell of a cold front blowing in, he thought. The temperature had plummeted by 20 degrees in the ten minutes since the sun had sunk below the horizon. A stiff wind blew steadily across the parking lot, whipping up the tumbleweed and forcing Eric to lean slightly to his left to keep his balance.

He longed to return inside the shelter of the club. Maybe someone in there had a warmer coat that he could borrow. Maybe Maury? Eric could hear the faint sound of his manager's voice from just on the other side of the door, yapping away on his cell phone.

But he couldn't quite bring himself to peel his eyes away from the abandoned two-lane highway that ran in front of him. Not even for a moment. He didn't want to miss her.

Eric blew into his hands again and stamped his feet against the cold.

"Feet," he muttered to himself. "Cold feet."

The words had just come to his mind, unbidden, and he winced as he stamped again. She should have been here by now. It must be after six. Was that what had happened to her? Cold feet?

"Come on, Tessa," he whispered. "Don't back out on me now."

He'd spent all day planning in his head exactly how this meet-and-greet would go, but he hadn't particularly worried that she wouldn't show up at all. Not after the talk they had last night.

He hadn't meant to tell her just how much he felt until today. He'd wanted to say it in person, standing face to face. But he couldn't hold back in the end. He simply hadn't had the strength to keep the words inside for a single second longer. It must have been the song request that finally did him in.

"I'll be happy just as long as he does Snowflake."

He couldn't even explain the burst of giddy happiness that had made him laugh out loud with joy when she said it. She had no idea what it meant to him, just to hear her say she liked the song.

And not just that she liked it. What else had she said?

"I wish someone would write a song like that about me."

A crooked grin sprang onto Eric's face again as he remembered. Oh, the irony. It was probably the most perfect thing she possibly could have said. So perfect, in fact, that it had nearly been his undoing.

"Tessa, I DID write that song about you."

He'd tapped those words into his message bar, and then he'd sat there staring at them for a long moment with his finger hovering over the Send button. So tempting, just to tell her. Just to come clean and get it off his chest. Put them both out of suspense once and for all.

She thought she knew what that song was about, but she still had no idea. Sure, it was a love song like she said, but it was more than that. In the end, that song had become a kind of chronicle of the whole journey he'd undergone these past six months, since that day at the end of August. That horrible day when he'd been at his absolute low, and he'd first written those lyrics filled with barely concealed bitterness and loathing.

I watch the snowflakes falling

Too many for me to see

But I know each one is beautiful

Special and unique.

He'd written it the very day when he first became aware of her existence.

Not that the original version had been about Tessa. Not specifically. She'd been nothing to him back then. Just @TessaHeartsEric, with her annoying hashtag and her 30.1K followers. Just one more twitter handle out of millions, following his every move and ruining his life. The song he'd written that day was a love song to his entire fandom - cynical words, calculated to tell them what he knew they wanted to hear, even if it was the exact opposite of what he truly felt.

Insincere, the label had called it. They'd sent that version back to him in December with a big angry red "X." And for once, Eric had to admit that his label had a point.

Maybe he even owed the stuffed suits over there a thank you. As much as he hated to admit it, they'd forced him to look at the song again with fresh eyes. They'd led him to see the truth that had been staring him in the face for months.

The truth.... The reason he'd felt so lost and upset, those four days in September after she unfollowed him. The reason he'd kept tweeting at her, over and over and over, begging her to forgive him and follow him back. And the reason he'd scraped together every moment of spare time in the months since, and spent every single second of it talking to her.

Because Tessa was the special one. Not the rest of them. Just her.

The re-write had been a piece of cake after that. He'd handed a brand new version off to Maury the very next day.

I watched the snowflakes falling.

Too many for me to see.

Each one just like the others.

Not special or unique.

Then I opened up my window.

One snowflake fell inside.

I saw that it was beautiful.

It melted and I cried.

Just one snowflake

Come on and melt with me.

Perfect snowflake

My love will set you free.

Just one snowflake

You thought that no one cared.

Perfect snowflake

I'll catch you, don't be scared. . . .

Maybe he should have told her the truth last night. "Tessa, I DID write that song about you." Maybe then she would be here now.

He hadn't gone through with it, though. He'd deleted the message unsent, and settled for telling her how he felt instead.

Coward.

But just that confession alone had been terrifying enough - especially when the moment wore on and on without any reply. Honestly, that might have killed him, then and there, if she hadn't written back. That might have been the final nail in his coffin.

But then she said it. "I'm crying because I love you too."

God, he would have given anything to be with her then, right at that moment. He would have given every single cent he had, and every last breath in his body, and every drop of blood running through his veins. Just to be there, wherever she was. Just to be able to put his arms around her and cry with her, instead of what they had to settle for: Two solitary souls, crying in the artificial glimmer of their phones.

She'd talked to him for hours afterward. They'd both been up half the night. He'd finally found the magic words to make her trust him, and then the real breakthrough happened. The whole story had come pouring out of her. That awful story. It only made him want to wrap her in his arms even more, and take that ugly memory away so she never had to think of it again. He'd felt so powerless, sitting there in silence, watching as she sent him DM after DM. Every last sordid detail of her college freshman year.

Now he finally understood. It all made sense. The phobia, and all those triggers that she'd mentioned over the months . . . .

Crowds.

Being followed.

Eyes watching her from behind.

Eyes watching her while she slept.

He'd realized, at that point, that the concert might not be such a good idea after all. It might be more than she could handle.

"Tessa, are you sure you want to do this thing?" he'd asked her. "We could skip the concert. I could come to your house instead. I'm sure no one would even miss me."

"But you don't know where I live," she'd answered.

"That could be rectified."

"No.

"Really? After everything you just told me, you still won't trust me with your address?"

"No, no, it isn't that. I just need to do this for myself. I need to go to you. I need to leave my house."

"But it doesn't have to happen tomorrow. Small steps, right?"

"Small steps aren't getting me anywhere. If I can't leave my house for something as big as this, then I don't know that I'll ever get out of here. . . . "

She'd seemed so certain. So bound and determined to come. But now here he was, all alone again. Just a pathetic, lonely guy with a girlfriend who said she loved him, but who didn't love him enough to let him see her face.

Could she really have gotten cold feet? After all of that?

A sudden flicker of movement caught Eric's attention, pulling him out of his thoughts. Maybe he wasn't alone out here after all. He squinted into the darkness. There was definitely someone out there. He could just make out the silhouette of a figure, about 100 feet away.

Facing toward him or away? Eric couldn't tell. Just a human figure, standing still, with one foot in the parking lot, and one foot in the shoulder of the road.

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