The Tear Collector (14 page)

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 got 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.

“This isn’t easy for me,” Scott says. “I have certain beliefs, but around you—”

A kiss cuts him off. He doesn’t know it’s not my faith, but my nature, being challenged.

“You’ll call Samantha, right?” he says as we move inside the car. He finds a scrap of paper on the Cobalt’s messy floor, then writes down her cell number.

“As soon as I get home,” I say, which is only a minor lie. The bigger lie when I get home will be explaining where I’ve been to my family, who can’t know about Scott.

Scott kisses me one last time before we drive back toward my house. Along the way, we listen to Beatles songs from Robyn’s iPod as I rest my head on Scott’s shoulder. As the epic, almost symphonic, sounds of John Lennon singing “Across the Universe” wash over us, something else is washing over me. And if I’m not careful, it might just wash me away.

“Thanks for meeting me,” I tell Samantha. We’re sitting at the Tim Hortons donut shop down the street from me. It’s mostly old guys who don’t quite know what to make of Goth Girl and
Swimmer Chick. Their tired midnight-hour eyes examine us like rubberneckers passing a car accident.

“Any excuse to get out of my house.” She sips her coffee. Bitter black, nothing sweet. Like herself, like her outfit. Dressed as always in black, Samantha’s a daily funeral procession.

“I feel bad that we’ve had trouble between us,” I confess. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for dating my ex?” she asks. “Or sorry for making fun of me?”

“Samantha, listen, I’ve never made fun of you. But let me say, I’m sorry if you think I did. Other than Scott, I think we have a lot in common. I’d really like us to be friends.”

“Really?” she asks. Her eyes pierce me through her thick black eyeliner.

“I thought about being a writer,” I say, trying not to lock eyes. “But I don’t know now.”

She sips some more coffee; she bites some more bait. “Why’s that?”

“Because you’re already so good, compared to me.”

“Bullshit,” is her unexpected response. Her defenses are layered like her clothes, with one shirt piled atop another. “Just knock that shit off and tell me what you really want.”

“Why do you assume that—?”

“Cassandra, everybody wants something,” she says. Her MySpace profile lists her as bi, so I’m wondering what she wants from me, and how far I’ll go to get what I need from her.

“What do you want then, other than to be a writer?” I ask, then sip from a bottle of water.

“I want you to talk to me like a person, and stop asking me all these questions,” she says. “I’m not some guy you’re trying to make out with. Just be a normal person, okay?”

“Just like you,” I say with the best smile I can summon at midnight in a Tim Hortons.

“You got me,” she says, then laughs. When she laughs, her facade momentarily fades.

“Okay, I’ll make you a deal,” I say, then flash quickly to my family. The only way to “deal” with the world is to make deals. “No more probing peer counseling questions from me.”

“Good, thank you,” she says.

“In return, you need to stop saying strange things like what you said to me the other day,” I say, tapping the table for emphasis. “I’m like any other person. Nothing more, nothing less.”

She laughs, smiles, then says, “You doth protest too much.”

My fake smile vanishes as I say, “I’m serious.”

There’s silence at the table as we stare each other down again. I suspect her motive for knowing me better is to fulfill her vampire fantasies; my motive is darker—keep your enemies closer than your friends. I’ll let her into my world just enough to keep her from the truth.

I break my stare and frown. She laughs, then says, “I guess we can’t fight our natures.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, unable to break my question-asking addiction.

“I mean however or whoever you are, I guess you can’t change all that much,” she says. She’s staring at the old donut eaters who are staring at me. “I’ll always be this way. I can change my clothes, my hair, all of that stuff on the outside, but I can’t change my basic nature.”

“Maybe,” I say, thinking that mainly what I want to change is the conversation, so I add, “You have a great sense of humor, and … “It’s pitch-black outside, but I stop speaking with a blinding-light revelation.
I don’t know how to talk to people.
I can flirt with boys, ask questions of strangers, and help other girls with their problems. But I don’t know how to have a simple, genuine conversation like a normal human being. She’s right; my nature is that I’m abnormal.

“And?” she asks. She’s not asking for flattery, just for me to finish my thought.

“And nothing,” I say. “Just that I think you have a sense of humor, that’s all.”

“Scott was funny too,” she says, then sips her coffee. “Let’s get this out in the open.”

I nod, then sit up in my seat. She leans in closer; her clothes smell of stale smoke.

“Scott and I broke up for lots of reasons, none of which I want to talk about,” she says, struggling with words. This conversation resembles a baby’s awkward yet excited first steps.

“I don’t need to know, that’s okay,” I reassure her.

“I need to say this. I was mad at you. I’m sorry for that day in the library.” I give her a sympathetic “it’s all good” nod, so she continues. “Then it hit me. I liked Scott. If you like somebody, you want them happy. If being with you makes him happy, then that’s what’s best.”

“That’s mature.” I don’t say that it’s because Scott feels the same that I’m sitting here.

“That’s real life,” she says, then takes her final sip of coffee.

“You want some more coffee?” I ask.

“Sure, where else do I have to go?” she cracks.

“I avoid my house all I can too.” I take the cup from her. It’s smudged with auburn lipstick. “You see, we
do
have a lot in common.”

As I get up to get more coffee for her, and another bottle of water for myself, I sneak a peek at my phone. There are several messages from Mom, but even more from Scott.

When I get back to the table, Samantha says, “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” I say as I sit back down.

“Did you ever find out for me who chopped down the Goth tree last fall?”

I pause, take a sip from my water bottle, then say, “No. Why do you ask?”

“You act like you know everything about everybody,” she says.

“Maybe.”

“Well, except you don’t know shit about me, but that’s for another day,” she says.

“Is that a promise or a threat?” I ask, then laugh.

“It’s whatever you want it to be,” she says in a nervous, almost flirting, voice.

“I’ll let you know what I find out.”

“Once you find out, would you mind if I use it?” she asks in an embarrassed tone.

“Use what?”

“The thing about the Goth tree,” she says, hiding a smile. “It’s for a book I’m writing.”

“You’re writing a book? Tell me about it,” I say. She smiles as she swallows the hook.

Samantha drops me at home an hour later. We’re breaking the law, as well as the rules of both our houses, but we don’t care. I give her a simple good-bye wave, then walk as quietly as possible into the house. Samantha doesn’t help my stealth entrance by blasting death metal from her beat-up Honda as soon as she pulls out of my driveway. I learned a lot about Samantha tonight, and even more about her epic vampire fantasy. But mostly, I think how out of place she is at school and how awkward our conversation was. No wonder she wants to believe in vampires; like her, they don’t fit in with the human race. No wonder we’re becoming friends.

I check my cell as I climb the stairs up to my bedroom.
There’s another message from Scott, and one from my cousin Lillith, whom I’ll see at the reunion on Friday. She’s calling to make plans; she must be forgetting that plans have already been made for me. I get online and check the weather for the weekend. The forecast is for mostly clear blue skies. But I check my news alerts and know, for me, there is nothing in store except heavy black clouds.

NEWS REPORT #5

Police have now confirmed that the series of child abductions in mid-Michigan is the work of the same person. While police are holding back many details due to the age of the victims, it is clear that one person—the gender is still unknown—has abducted eight male children in the area over the past six months. In each case, the young person was walking home alone. They were attacked and then dragged into a van. Inside the van, the young people were blindfolded and gagged. The police have yet to release more information other than that they allude to the “bizarre” details of the case. One police source said that the young people were not only “terrorized” by their abductor, but in several cases, they were also physically injured.