The Tear Collector

by Patrick Jones

  “How long have you been writing for the paper?” I ask.

  “Just this year,” she says, almost in a mumble.

  “I’ll have to go back and look at some of your stories. Which one is your best?”

  “I guess the story about the Goth tree,” she says. All the Goth kids used to hang out by this small tree by the parking lot. People called it the Tree of Doom and Gloom. Somebody chopped it down over Thanksgiving break. The Goths blamed the jocks, the jocks blamed the stoners, and the stoners blamed the preps. For days, the school overflowed with drama going on between the groups. “I wish I could have found out who did it. Do you know?” she asks.

  “I’ll ask around for you,” I say, all cool and calm. “Is that okay?”

  “Thanks, Cassandra,” she says like she’s lost in a fog.

  “Cass,” I say.

  “Samantha, did you have some questions for us?” Mr. A asks, sounding much annoyed.

  “So, about the peer counseling service, how long has it been going on?” she asks.

  I stay silent, so Mr. A takes over telling the story of how I came to him in the spring last year and suggested that students needed a safe place to talk about their problems with people who could understand. He goes into detail—he’s a science teacher and prone to give way too much information—about what we do and how many students we’ve helped. All the while, I’m looking at Samantha. She’s more of a puzzle than a person. Ever since that day in class when she spoke up about not believing in God, I’ve tried talking with her, but she’s been resisting. We’ve made an online connection, but it is a long way from a friendship. She doesn’t know that I suggested this story to the newspaper editor and asked that she write it.

  “Did Robyn ever talk to—,” Samantha starts, but I cut her off.

  “I’m sorry, but that’s confidential, Samantha,” I say sharply, but with a smile to cover my rudeness. “Every student needs to know what they tell us will never, ever leave the room.”

  “Then how do you explain all the gossip?” she says, trying to act the part of reporter.

  “Because it’s high school,” I say, then laugh.

  Samantha laughs too, probably out of nervousness, then says, “So true.” Samantha is not a source or spreader of gossip; rather, she’s a subject for rumors about every aspect of her life.

  “The hardest thing for people is admitting they need help,” I say with cold calculation.

  Mr. A nods and tells Samantha more about the service. As she writes, she’s looking at her notebook, not at Mr. Abraham. Most days in class, that’s her style. Head down, not asleep, but certainly not engaged. No eye contact. Mr. A pauses after he mentions Robyn’s death.

  “Don’t write this,” I tell Samantha. “But most people never heard about or used the peer counseling service until Robyn died. Be honest, had you ever heard about it?”

  Samantha shakes her head so she doesn’t have to speak a lie. I know she made two appointments and no-showed both. She’s aware, interested, but like many students, too afraid.

  “The students are not professionals, but we give them tools to help students going through a difficult time,” Mr. Abraham says in a tone that I imagine a proud father would use.

  “Like this.” I pull out a small pamphlet from my bag. “It’s the stages of grief.”

  “Stages of grief?” she asks.

  “Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and then acceptance,” I rattle off, then hand the brochure to Samantha. “It’s by a woman named Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. You can keep it.”

  He nods again, then tells Samantha more about how well the school as a whole handled Robyn’s death. I didn’t see Samantha at Robyn’s memorial service. I need to know why.

  “Cassandra, anything else you want to add?” Mr. Abraham asks.

  “Maybe later. I hope this helped,” I say. Mr. Abraham smiles at me, then offers his good-byes to both of us, and exits. He and I will talk more about this later at the pool. I gather up my heavy bag, but before I can exit, Samantha asks, “How did you do that?”

  “Do what?” I reply.

  “I was supposed to interview you, but somehow you ended up asking me questions.”

  “I’ll answer more questions if you have them,” I say, and she starts flipping through her notebook. She starts to speak, but I cut her off. “I have a better idea.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You want to be a writer, don’t you?” I ask, but she doesn’t answer.

  “Not just for the school paper, but write books?” Again, she doesn’t answer.

  “I read when writing exposition you shouldn’t tell, you should show,” I say as the noose tightens. “Let me show you what peer counseling is like. Come in for a session.”

  “I don’t think so,” she says, slamming her notebook shut. If it were a door, the hinge would have broken. “No offense, Cassandra—I mean Cass—but you can’t handle my shit.”

  “Just try me,” I say, but there’s softness in my eyes and voice. It’s an offer, not a dare.

  “I’m sure Scott told you everything anyway,” she says, then gets up to leave. When she bends over for her bag, I snatch her notebook. I leaf through it hyperquick. There’s page after page of poetry, mostly written in small letters in red ink. There are drawings on many of the pages, lots of coffins, crosses, razor blades, and roses. “Give that back!” she shouts.

  “Samantha, you have so much to say; talk to me,” I say, handing back the notebook. When I pass it to her, a piece of paper falls out. It is the paper from Robyn’s memorial service. I touch her wrist with my free hand, then whisper, “You were there.”

  “Look, I have to go,” she says, but my hand now clutches her long black sleeve.

  “I looked for you there,” I say. “Where were you hiding?”

  “I have to go,” she repeats, but she’s not moving.

  “Samantha, it’s okay to be upset. It’s okay to let it out.”

  She takes the paper from my hand, then shakes her head. Her long black and green hair falls in her eyes. She pulls out some cheap MP3 player and puts in her buds to drown me out.

  “When you’re ready to talk,” I say, my voice escalating to match the speed metal band now shouting in Samantha’s ears. Words may not be enough, so I’m mulling a drastic act.

  “You wouldn’t understand!” she shouts.

  “Try me!” I shout back.

  “No,” is all she says, but I notice what she does: she turns down the music.

  “You can’t do this,” I say firmly. “Friendship isn’t MySpace. Life isn’t about vampires. This is real shit you are living. I get that. Just tell me. Let me help so you can heal.”

  “Fuck you!”

  “You think this helps?” I grab her arm with one hand and pull up the sleeve with the other. There are more crosses on her arms than are found in most churches.

  She gets her arms free, takes a step back, then rips the buds out of her ears.

  “You don’t know what it’s like being me,” she says, her voice choking with an emotional thunderstorm of rage, sadness, and desperate longing. It’s all thunder, but no rain, no tears.

  “Why do you say that?” I ask, then motion her to sit back down. She obeys.

  “Everybody likes you,” she says, pulling down her sleeve.

  “Not true,” I correct her.

  “Nobody hates you.”

  “Wrong again.”

  “Never mind.”

  “What do you want to say?” I ask, toning it down. “What’s your story, Samantha?”

  She stares at me, in me, through me, and out the other side. Her eyes are not wet with tears; they are red with rage. “You’re not an outsider like me. How could you understand?”

  “Everybody’s different.”

  “You don’t understand! Nobody fucking understands a fucking thing about me!”

  “I understand more than I can tell you,” I say, then mutter “shit” under my breath.

  “I don’t
believe you,” she says, now sounding tired, defeated, yet still defiant.

  Soft won’t work on her; her walls are too hard, so I yell, “You don’t believe in anything!”

  She starts to say something, then pulls it back. She clutches the sheet of paper and then places it back in her notebook of sorrow-filled psalms. Somebody knocks on the door, but neither of us turns around. For a girl who rarely makes eye contact with others, Samantha stares at me without flinching. Just as a medical examiner looks over a corpse, her eyes travel over every inch of me. There’s another knock at the door. Samantha breaks her stare to turn around and flip off the two goofy-looking boys standing by the door.

  “I believe you now,” she whispers, but I don’t respond.

  “I was at Robyn’s ceremony,” she says. “I sat in the back. I kept my head down so nobody could see me, but I saw you. I watched you. I watched you the day after she died too.”

  “This is about you,” I say as the urge to flee overwhelms me. I grab the doorknob.

  “And you never cried. You never shed a single tear for your good friend.”

  I turn the knob a notch.

  “Brittney, Kelsey, Bethany—they all cried, but not you. Not you.”

  I stop, as if time had frozen this instant.

  “I see how kind you are to people and just now, how you’ve made me—me—open up to you even though we’re not really friends,” she says, and I want to disappear. “By all rights with you dating my ex, we should be enemies. But I won’t let that happen.”

  “Good.”

  “Do you know why?” she asks.

  “Probably because you seem more mature than most other people and you—”

  “There you go again.” She cuts me off. “You turned this back on me. It’s about you.”

  “I just thought you might want someone to talk to, that’s all.”

  “I don’t need your pity, but it’s something else,” she whispers. “It’s not natural.”

  “It’s just the way I am,” I say, then sigh. “I’m curious and I like to help. It’s my nature.”

  “No, this is different. It’s almost supernatural,” she whispers even softer.

  “Don’t go Goth on me,” I say, but she takes out a mirror. She stares at my reflection in it, even as I pull out the cross around my neck, then joke, “Do you want me to eat some garlic?”

  “You knew all the things to say to get me to open up,” she continues, while I try to stare her silent. “I know you do this peer counseling so people can tell you their secret pain.”

  “I do it to help people,” I say, trying to sound credible.

  “Cassandra, I do believe you,” she says slowly, each word pounding like a nail in my hands.

  “Believe what?” I say with one foot out the door.

  “That you do know what it’s like to feel different from everyone else. And I know why.”

  I take a step back inside, then close the door hard, and look at her even harder. “Why?”

  “You’re not like everyone else, Cassandra, and I know your secret.” I pull in my breath and hold it as if I were underwater as Samantha whispers, “It’s because you’re not human.”

  CHAPTER 13

  WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8

  Are you sure?”

  “Of course, Cass,” Scott says, then smiles at me. We’re bathed in beautiful early spring twilight and sitting on the bumper of Scott’s car parked out at the Holly Rec area. We’ve spent most of our time in the car, mainly in the backseat, but we’ve come up for air.

  “I’d love to go to prom with you,” I say. It’s not much of a lie. Proms and the like don’t mean anything to me, other than that they’re often ripe for high-pitched high school drama.

  “It won’t be fancy,” he says, sounding ashamed. “We’ll be in my no-volt Cobalt rather than some limo.”

  “I bet my mom could help,” I say, although that’s wishful thinking.

  “I’ll find the money,” he says. “I will work for your love.”

  “What did you say?” I ask, pretending not to hear, trying not to shout, desperately aching inside with conflicted feelings. The feelings themselves are the conflict.

  “Nothing,” he says, sounding like a totally different person. “I hate limos.”

  “I don’t need a limo. I just want whatever you want,” I say, staring into his suddenly sad eyes. There was a limo for Robyn’s funeral, just like there was one for Scott’s grandfather. I imagine he’s wondering if his next limo ride will be to the prom or to the cemetery.

  Scott finds his smile, then whispers like he doesn’t want to be heard, “I do love you.”

  I want to reply with those same words, but I’ve said them before to the Codys of the world. I’ve never meant it, not once. I only want to say it again when it’s not a lie. But I must say something: “Scott, you’re so sweet.”

  Scott looks more confused than sad. “I shouldn’t have said that,” he says.

  “Don’t take it back.” I’m wondering what took him so long to say those three words.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I don’t want to mess this up.”

  I’m silent again, focusing my energy on shutting down this tingling in my body. I’ve never felt it before, so I can’t name it. It’s a feeling no one in my family could understand, except Siobhan; a feeling as forbidden as the apple in Eden. All I can do is enjoy the ride, wherever it takes me. I speak with actions, not words, and kiss Scott on the mouth, sucking his bottom lip.

  This is how I’ve spent the last two and a half weeks: attached to Scott’s lips. While I go to school, volunteer at the hospital, and do peer counseling, Scott is what matters. I still see Becca; I need her as much as she needs me. We talk about Robyn. It makes us feel good, even if Becca does cry. I’m making progress with Samantha, but Scott commands my attention. I find myself smiling for no reason, but, of course, there’s a reason. He’s attached to my lips.

  “You’re sure you want to go?” he says when we break the kiss. Like Samantha, it seems that Scott almost invites rejection. No wonder they came together; no wonder it didn’t last.

  “If that’s what you want, Scott.”

  “I knew you’d say that,” he says, stifling a laugh. “What do you want, Cass?”

  I’m stuck because Scott’s so unlike all my exes. He’s not stuck on himself and his own wants. It’s true now sitting on the bumper of his car; and it was true in the backseat.

  “I want whatever you want,” I whisper.

  “I want to know what you want,” he whispers back.

  “Scott, I want you.”

  “I just want to be happy for once,” he says, then sighs. “God, I hate when I whine.”

  “It’s okay, Scott. Everybody hurts. Didn’t Samantha teach you—”

  “Please don’t make fun of her,” he says, sounding hurt himself, even vulnerable. I move closer, ready to take advantage, but I can’t do it. It’s like I’m playing a video game and my controller is broken. I know what to do and say, but I can’t pull the tear-inducing trigger.

  “That’s so nice that you don’t talk badly about her,” I say instead.

  “It just didn’t work out,” he says, then mumbles, “She wasn’t my type.”

  “Really?” I ask with an arched eyebrow. “So who is your type?”

  He pauses, then says, “Someone like you.”

  I don’t know what to say; I only know what to do, so we kiss again.

  After I break the kiss, Scott says, “The thing is that Samantha’s very complicated.”

  “I don’t know her that well.”

  “That’s what I want.”

  “What?”

  “I want you to know Samantha better. Be her friend.”

  “I want to know her better, but she doesn’t like me,” I say. I feel vulnerable around her, but I can’t admit that to Scott, and barely to myself. She doesn’t know about me, I tell myself. Like so many rumors, her “you’re not human” statement was a guess. A guess she go
t right.

  “Give her a chance,” he says. “Make peace with her. Become her friend.”

  I don’t tell him that I’m already working toward that goal. “Can I ask you something?”

  He nods, and I ask, “Why do you want me to do this?”

  He leans closer. “I’ll tell you something, but you can’t tell anyone.”

  I try not to lick my lips. “Don’t tell anyone” are the most seductive syllables ever.

  “She said she was afraid that when the yearbook gets published, she wouldn’t have anybody to sign it,” Scott says, sounding very sad. “It’s sad to see someone so lonely.”

  “What about all her Goth friends?”

  “Are all the people we go to church with our friends?” he asks. Scott and I went to church together last Sunday. He’s the only guy I know who considers going to Mass a date. “Believing in the same things and believing in each other, well, it’s not the same.”

  “You’ll need to help me,” I say, sealing the deal with a kiss. This is another tightrope I’m used to walking: getting people to reveal themselves while keeping myself hidden. It’s almost never a problem with guys, even rarely with girls. Samantha already thinks she knows something about me, so I’ll need to make it all about her. The best way to do that isn’t always to get people to talk about their problems; the best way is to get them talking about their dreams.

  “I’ll do anything for Samantha. I feel bad for her,” he says. And I know he means it.

  I just smile at Scott; he’s the anti-me, filled with raw empathy and complex emotions. He’s everything I’m not. It’s not that he’s my polar opposite; he’s the other half of the circle.

  “I’d better get home,” he says, and then starts walking us back to the car. As he opens the door for he me, he says, “I’ve never done this before.”

  I look oddly at him. There’s a lot Scott’s doing for the first time with me, although not as much as past boyfriends. His strong faith and fumbling inexperience seem to hold him back.

  “I’ve never lied to Mom about where I was going,” he says.

  “These are not normal times,” I say, trying to reassure him.