The Tear Collector (18 page)

I start laughing and gagging. She rescues me by putting down the windows and music.

“Where do you need to go?” she asks as we drive away from the park.

“I need to see Scott. We had a fight.”

“You’re asking me to take you to see my ex-boyfriend,” she says, then sighs. “Well, at least you have someone to fight
with.” I resist my urge to sigh or slap her. It is exactly the cage of self-loathing that bars Samantha from love and happiness, yet it is also what draws me to her.

“So what were you fighting about?” she asks.

“Nothing,” I mumble. Then with forced enthusiasm ask, “So, were you working on your book?

“How did you know?” she asks, trying not to smile. As we drive farther away from the park, Samantha dives deeper into the details of her story. I pretend interest. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the story, but it is like Samantha herself: one cliché on top of another. Like the layers of dark clothes she wears, these clichés hide the real person buried under the poses and pretensions.

“What do you think?” she asks.

“You’ve got a vivid imagination,” I reply.

“So are you saying vampires are imaginary?” she asks.

“You believe they’re real and that’s what matters,” is my misdirecting answer.

“You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” she asks.

“Not this again,” I say, trying to laugh it off. “You still think I’m a vampire?”

“I know you’re something,” she says, not laughing at all.

“I am trying to be something. I’m trying to be your friend,” I say.

She pauses, unsure how to respond. “Well, where is Scott?”

“I don’t know yet, can I borrow your phone?” I ask.

“Well, you’ve taken my boyfriend, and you’re using my car, so …,” she says, then flips the phone my way. As I expected, Scott’s numbers are still in her phone, but it’s useless. He’s not picking up. I make one more call, reaching the nursing home. “Avalon Care,” the voice says.

“This is Cassandra Gray. Is my grandmother there?” I ask, knowing that she’s miles behind me and probably looking for me with the rest of my family.

“No, Cass, she’s not,” the woman says. I want to ask more, but I can’t think of the woman’s name. “She’s not on the schedule today. Do you want me to leave a message?”

“That’s okay, no message,” I say, then add in a very small voice, “Can I ask a favor?”

“Sure, Cass,” the still nameless woman replies.

“I know you’re not supposed to tell me, but I can’t get ahold of my friend Scott,” I say. “I just need to know if he’s there visiting his grandmother, Lenore Parker.”

“Cass, you know the rules about confidentiality.”

“Please, one time,” I say, trying to sound like a desperate child. “I won’t tell my grandmother. You won’t tell her. I won’t tell Scott. Nobody gets hurt, so what’s the harm?”

There’s a pause as she either sorts through my logic or searches for Scott. A few moments later, she returns to the phone. “Mrs. Parker has a young male visitor, okay?”

“Okay,” I say. “Thank you, thank you.”

“Have a blessed day,” the woman says, and I finally recognize the voice.

“Thank you, Mrs. Johnson,” I say, her blessed expression clicking the connection. I give Samantha back her phone, although I hope she doesn’t use it. I’ve noticed she’s a terrible driver even while paying attention to the road; I can’t imagine her driving while distracted.

“Who was that?” Samantha asks.

“I know where Scott is. He’s with his grandmother at the nursing home.”

“How sad,” Samantha says. “I know his grandmother means a lot to him.”

“Are your grandparents still living?” I ask, searching for more clues.

“No,” she says, quickly, defensively, instinctively. I don’t respond. She reaches to change the music but instead says, “I don’t know. My mom, well, she doesn’t really...”

Samantha stops in midrevelation. I remain silent, hoping she will continue, but she’s not biting.

“Where is this place?” she finally asks.

I give her directions, then probe about her grandparents and her mother, but Samantha’s not speaking. We’re rounding a big turn on the south side of the lake when I say, “Pull over for a second.”

She brings the car to stop on the side of the road. “This is it,” I say. “Where Robyn—”

She cuts me off, “I told you, I didn’t want to see this!”

“You need to see it, Samantha,” I say firmly.

She turns the music up; I turn it down. She rolls down the window; I turn up the heat.

“I know you weren’t close to Robyn, but you still need to express your grief,” I say.

She stares me down, then says. “Cassandra, I don’t cry in front of people, so give it up.”

I grab Samantha’s hand as she starts to put the car in drive. “It’s okay. I’m your friend.”

She pulls her hands away and stares harder. Death metal fills the car; the spot on the road where Robyn died fades into the distance, but she doesn’t crack. Samantha’s emotional calluses are too thick even for me. We drive the rest in the way in loud silence thinking about all the things we probably want to say. She wants to talk; I want to listen. It’s just a matter of timing.

She drops me at Avalon Convalescence Care, then speeds away. The staff at the nursing home lets me pass and I move as quickly as if I were swimming for the Olympic gold. I see Scott standing at his grandmother’s bed. The glare he gives me holds all his hurt in two eyes.

“What do you want?” he says. Before I can answer, he adds, “I want you to leave.”

“No,” I say, then walk toward him. “That was my cousin Alexei. He’s insane.”

“Just leave us alone,” he says angrily, almost shouting over the beeping and gurgling machines.

“It’s true,” I tell him, feeling desperate for the first time ever. “Please believe me.”

“I can’t take any more of this,” Scott says. I can tell by the look in his eyes that “this” refers to
pain,
but he knows that even the word “pain” falls short of describing the hurt within.

“I would never do anything to hurt you,” I say, praying that I can make the words true.

“I don’t need to hear it,” he says.

“Listen to what I just said. I would never do anything to hurt you.” To my shock, a tear begins to roll down my cheek. “Let me explain—”

Scott is just as surprised by my tear as I am. He cuts me off, saying, “No, Cass, you don’t need to explain. I guess I believe you.”

“Alexei is evil. He is—”

Scott cuts me off again as he wipes away the tear. “I said I believe you. You know why?”

“No,” I say.

“Because I have to. I believe
in
you,” he whispers. “Because I love you, Cass.”

Scott softly touches my hand, unaware that inside me a battle rages. Every ounce of who I want to become pushes against every pound of who I have been. I desperately want to fight my nature and change my fate, but it feels like I’m struggling to change the rotation of the earth itself.

“I have to tell you something,” I say as my eyes focus on the floor to hide my confusion and pain. “I don’t know if I’m strong enough to fight my family so we can stay together.”

I owe him the truth, so I say, “You’re what I want, but obeying my family is part of who I am.”

“That’s why I love you, Cass,” he says.

“What do you mean?”

“You are who you are,” he says.

“You’re not like Samantha, Cody, or even Robyn trying to be something they’re not. You’re real. You care about people other than yourself.”

I just stare back at him, hoping my eyes will reveal what my heart is starting to feel, because there’s no way I can open my mouth and tell him the truth, my truth. I’m real. I am my nature. And I am not human. “Scott, you’re wrong about me. Maybe we should just end this.”

“I won’t let you do that. I know you want this.” Like his grandmother next to us fighting against death, Scott fights for me with the same courage, faith, and strength. “And I want you.”

“What I do is break boys’ hearts, you knew that about me,” I remind him.

“You broke up with all of those other boys because you weren’t ready,” he says.

“Ready for what?”

“To find me.”

As if I’m struck deaf, the world goes silent at his words. If the machines were hooked up to me instead of his
grandmother, the flatline of emotion that runs through me would spike. Ever since I met Scott, my heart’s been on a journey to become human, filled with not just blood, but with emotion. And now I’ve come to a threshold. As with Siobhan before me, love can end my familiar life and allow me to start a new one.

“I will do anything to stay with you, Cass,” he whispers. “Will you do the same for me?”

“If I can do it, I will,” I say, as my eyes flood with tears. I reach out and he opens his arms to receive me.

As he holds me close, he says, “Other than you, there’s only one thing I want.”

He turns us so we’re staring at his grandmother. I expect a kiss, but instead, under the din of beeping machines, he whispers, “What I want more than anything is something you can’t do.”

“What is that?”

He’s not looking at me; he’s looking at his grandmother before us. Or rather the woman who used to be his grandmother. She’s not a monster, but she’s not really herself anymore, and Scott knows it. He fights through tears, then says, “All I want is her suffering to end and for her to die in peace.”

“Are you asking me to—?”

“No, of course not,” Scott says. “Just pray with me that she finds peace.”

Again, I go silent. I look at his grandmother, so near death.
I think of Robyn wanting to trade lives with Becca. And I think about myself, not a human but wanting desperately to become one. Finally, I think of Veronica and the powers possessed by the family elder. The power to transfer energy. The power to restore life—but only by causing a death.

CHAPTER 16
SATURDAY, APRIL 11

Samantha, you awake?”

Her bedroom is very dark; the only light is from the red letters on the unset alarm clock telling me it’s just a few minutes before midnight, the start of Easter morning.

“Wide,” Samantha answers.

“What a tough few days,” I say, then sigh. After leaving the nursing home, I spent Friday night at Scott’s house. While his mom reluctantly agreed to let me stay, she locked me in a guest room—much to his dismay. In the middle of the night, Scott knocked gently, but I turned him away. I couldn’t risk his mom catching us, kicking me out, or cutting me off from Scott if she found us together. Even still, I must have upset his mother terribly. Because after I left his house this morning, it was as if Scott disappeared. No one answered the phone at his house, he didn’t pick up his cell, and Mrs. Johnson told me (once you get someone to bend a rule, breaking it is easy) that
he didn’t visit his grandmother other than briefly on Saturday morning.

To my family, it’s also as if I’ve disappeared, and I’m sure my mom is just as upset. Without my cell, they couldn’t find me. I left a message on the machine at home letting her know I was safe, but that I wasn’t ready to come home yet. I need some calm before facing that storm. So once again, I turn to Samantha to bail me out.

She picked me up after my hospital shift today, then we spent the night watching scary movies. I spent Friday afternoon with evil no longer lurking in the shadows, but instead actually touching my skin in the form of Alexei. My movie monster is too real.

“Well, tonight was fun,” Samantha says and I’m at a loss for words. That word—“fun”—like so many other words, has never been part of my vocabulary. It’s just a word, not a feeling.

“Better than yesterday,” I say.

“I guess,” she says. Samantha doesn’t realize I’m a better writer than she’ll ever be, with the story I made up to explain why she needed to rescue me Friday afternoon. The fabrication involved my family being cruel to me; I sensed it was the kind of story that she’d believe.

“Thanks for letting me stay over,” I say. “Sorry to keep you up so late talking.”

“It’s okay, I’m used to being up late,” she says. “Why do you think I’m always almost asleep in school?”

“I just thought you were like me,” I offer.

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“Just bored to death by it all,” I say.

“Well, a lot of it is pretty boring,” she says.

“Well, not like Bio,” I say. “Like a few weeks ago with you and Scott going at it, that wasn’t boring at all.”

“I kinda lost it,” she says. “That’s not like me.”

“What happened?”

“I’m just really antireligion. Maybe that’s yet another reason Scott and I didn’t last, since he’s so religious,” she says. “You believe in God, right?”

“I believe in Jesus,” is my hairsplitting answer.

“I don’t, and it’s not because of science or anything,” she says. “Or the absurdity of an invisible wish-granting giant in the sky. There’s just too much hate and hurt in the world.”

“Maybe it serves a purpose,” I say, very carefully. I never got close to conversations like this with Robyn, old boyfriends, or other friends. But something about this night, something about this girl, seems different. Maybe it’s coming in contact with Alexei that has me feeling closer to her, closer to just
feeling
. Alexei used my cell phone to call Samantha several times today looking for me, but she’s lied for me, like a true friend would.