The Tear Collector

Other animals howl when they are in distress,
but only humans weep tears of sorrow—or joy.
—Chip Walter, “Why Do We Cry?”
Scientific American,
November 2006

Jesus wept.
—John 11:35

NEWS REPORT #1

Michigan State Police have issued an AMBER Alert for eleven-year-old Robert Sanders. Sanders, a fifth-grade student at Bay City Elementary, was last seen leaving school on March 4. According to witnesses, he was walking home alone. Law enforcement officials are on the lookout for a black Ford van seen in the area earlier in the day.

CHAPTER 1
FRIDAY, MARCH 6

Are you crying?” I ask as I tap on the driver’s side window of the white Chevy Impala. Inside the familiar car, I see the unfamiliar sight of my best friend, Robyn Berry, crying.

“Robyn, it’s Cassandra,” I say. It’s a wonder she can see or hear; she’s drowning in tears. She takes a second to collect herself, then opens the window. With her perfect makeup smeared, it’s as if she’s wearing a monster mask instead of her always-smiling cheerleader face.

“Hey, Cass,” she forces out through sniffles.

“Let me in,” I say, gently enough so she knows I care; hard enough to make it happen.

Robyn clicks the lock, and I walk over to take my usual seat next to her.

“Are you okay? Why didn’t you call?” I ask as I climb in. It’s odd to see Robyn without her silver phone in her hand or white buds in her ears; both are almost part of her.

She doesn’t answer as I sit down, then lean close to her. I offer a sip from my water bottle, but she passes. I take a big slurp, parched from a hard hour of swimming, thanks to Coach Abraham opening up the pool after school. After a quick stop to print something at the library, I was on my way home when I saw Robyn’s car at the back of the school parking lot.

“It’s okay to cry, Robyn,” I say softly, encouraging another emotional outburst. She listens, letting loose a torrent of tears. I slip off my jacket—actually my soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend Cody’s varsity jacket—then pull her close, letting her tears fall on my bare left shoulder. I’m wearing a simple gray tank top set off by the tie-dyed bandanna holding back my long multicolored hair. My hair is like my life: mostly dark, but with a few streaks of light and color added in.

I don’t say anything; instead, I let her cathartic tears soak into my skin. After a few minutes, she pulls herself together and retreats toward her side of the car. Lapeer High School runs on rumors, and someone seeing two girls hugging in a car is inviting gossip, lies, and drama. Who is and isn’t pregnant, gay, bi, or hooking up keeps the rumor tides ebbing and flowing.

“Thanks, Cass,” she says, then sniffs to signal an end to this round of eye rain.

“Like that Beatles song says, you get by with a little help from your friends,” I tease. I turned Robyn on to the Beatles, while she’s always trying to get me to listen to the latest big
thing. That’s why Robyn and I are such good friends; we make up for each other’s deficiencies.

She still doesn’t say anything, so I ask, “What’s wrong?”

“Everything,” she answers, which sets off a few more drops of liquid despair.

“Something with Becca?”

“No, she’s fine,” she says, even as her brief nervous laughter dissolves into almost mandatory tears. Becca is Robyn’s younger sister. She’s eight and she has cancer, so she probably won’t turn nine.

“She’s a fighter,” I say. Robyn forces a smile; there’s a lot of faking in the face of death.

Becca’s the glue that holds together our friendship. I didn’t know Robyn well until last spring, when I learned about her sister through my volunteer work at the hospital. I knew Robyn would need a friend like me who could comfort her rather than all those selfish hanger-on types who feed off her, like Brittney and Kelsey. Like me, Robyn’s popular. She cruises easily among everyone, but as a cheerleader, she’s got her main crew. I’m all over, like a sponge soaking up friends from all cliques. But I’m always there for Robyn, to listen to her problems or babysit Becca so Robyn can hang with her superficial friends. She’s again learning—as have others at Lapeer High since ninth grade—that I’m the soft shoulder that anyone can cry on during hard times.

“Craig dumped me,” she says, each word pulled out of her with great pain like a tooth extraction. He’s the perfect jock
boy for the cheerleader Robyn. Craig’s just like her: attractive, outgoing, and admired. Robyn would be popular without Craig, but he’s the icing on her cake. They’re not just students; they’re stars, but Robyn’s the falling one. I’m here to catch her.

“Robyn, I’m so sorry,” I say, trying not to stare at the small photo of the once-happy couple hanging from the Impala’s rearview mirror. Like that mirror, the photo reflects the past.

“I don’t want your pity,” she says. “I don’t want to be pitiful.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Kelsey told me he was cheating. He denied it, we fought, then he ended it. He said we were over,” she says. “Craig is the center of my world. If he’s gone, then it all falls apart.”

“I’d heard rumors too,” I mumble. She mouths the word “what” as if she doesn’t have enough energy to produce any sounds other than sobbing. “It was true. He was cheating on you.”

“Tell me what you know.” She’s pleading now.

“I heard it was Brittney,” I whisper, since that’s the tone for spreading a rumor. While I’ve got experience breaking hearts—as cute but clueless Cody’s soon to learn—I couldn’t tell Robyn what I’d heard. It is one thing to watch someone suffer; it is another to be the direct cause.

“How could she do that?” Robyn asks. “She’s one of my best friends.”

I don’t correct her. At school, Robyn mostly hangs out
with Brittney, but it’s different away from Lapeer High. From babysitting her sister to eating dinner with her family, I mean more to Robyn than Brittney does. Brittney’s all smiles and surface. Brittney clings to Robyn’s spotlight and shadow while I’m the drain for the despair and doubt that Robyn hides.

“How could Craig dump me for her?” Her wet eyes stare into mine, but the question isn’t aimed at me. It’s like she’s asking a higher power to explain the unfairness of the universe.

“She’s supposed to be your friend,” I say.

“How could he?” she mumbles. “How could she?”

“I’m your true friend, not Brittney. Have faith in me,” I say, then move closer. I finger the three necklaces pressing against my skin and that signify my beliefs. Except when I swim or take a quick shower, I’m never without my trinity of faith: a peace-sign button on a hemp string, a gold crucifix hanging from a gold chain, and a silver necklace with a crystal teardrop charm.

“Craig said he loved me,” she says while avoiding my sympathetic eyes. She doesn’t know that’s all I offer: sympathy. I have no empathy for her, or for anyone else suffering from a broken heart. I can no more understand love than a blind person can comprehend color.

“I guess he lied,” I say.

“How could he not want me?” Robyn asks the universe through me. She’s struggling with her words like a rookie actor onstage. Words of rejection and failure are new to Robyn.

“Everybody knows you’re wonderful and he’s a jerk,” I remind her.

“Once people hear, they’ll be laughing at me,” she says. “People want me to fail.”

“Come on, Robyn, nobody will laugh at you,” I say. “Everybody loves you.”

“No, people hate me, I know it,” she says with a hiss. “They’re jealous.”

“Don’t say that,” I say, but I don’t deny it. People
are
jealous of her outwardly perfect life, including me. Envy, anger, and fear are the only emotions I feel deeply; others I only fake. Yet, even as I see Robyn suffer because of love, I know it’s the one emotion I want for myself.

“It’s not my fault I’m pretty,” she says. With her blond hair, blue eyes, and faultless figure, every straight guy wants her. Yet because she’s nice and never stuck-up, most girls envy her, but none outwardly hate her. “I didn’t ask to be popular.”

“I know, it is just who you are,” I say. She’s popular because she’s pretty and good at talking to people; I’m popular because I’m pretty enough and great at listening to people.

“I work hard in school and everything else,” Robyn says through more tears. The breakup has broken down her self-control. “I have to be the best. It’s my nature.”

“Do you want me to drive you home?” I ask, very tentatively. As one of the few juniors at Lapeer High School without
a car, my time behind the wheel is limited. I have a license indicating Michigan trusts me to drive, but I have a mom who doesn’t share the state’s faith.

“I don’t want to go home,” Robyn says, still whispering like there’s no energy left in her body to speak. “I can’t take another thing. Everybody there wants so much of me.”

“I understand,” I say. While I identify with family obligations, it’s not the pressure to succeed that Robyn feels from her engineer dad and lawyer mom. Her parents want their daughter to succeed, but what Robyn hears, I think, is she isn’t allowed to fail. Add in cheerleading, honors classes, and being the perky popular girl, and it’s a mix that would break most normal human beings.

“And I can’t tell anyone how hard it all is.”

“You can tell me,” I say, then remind her of my mantra. “You can trust me.”

“I want to be able to tell my parents that it’s all too much. With Becca, they have so much to worry about,” she says, and the tears start to fall again. “Sometimes I think it would be better if I were dead.”

I don’t respond; instead, I let more drops soak into my shoulder and I feel a rush from the energy in the tears, probably the way an addict feels getting his fix from his drug of choice.

When I’m so full that I’m almost disoriented, I take a monogrammed white linen handkerchief from my back pocket. I gently transfer the tears from her face to this old-fashioned yet
invaluable family heirloom. I pull her close, so she can’t see the smile forming on my face as a waterfall of tears continues to cascade from her eyes. Robyn needs to cry, but what she doesn’t know—and nobody outside of my family could imagine—is that I need her to cry even more. Just as a vampire needs to suck blood to live, I need to collect tears in order to survive.

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