The Tear Collector (19 page)

I yawn, then say, “Sorry, I guess I’m just tired. We should sleep. I’ll need to go to Mass tomorrow, then work.”

“I can’t sleep most nights,” she says. “You know why?”

“Why?”

“I just lie awake thinking of all the stupid things I’ve done and I’ve said,” she says. “No wonder people equate sleep with death.” I flash to Scott’s grandmother. A coma is not sleep; it is not death. Scott’s grandmother is just like me; another creature caught in between.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, they say when you die, your whole life passes before your eyes,” she says. “That’s me when I try to sleep. My whole miserable rotten life passes before me.”

“Don’t talk that way,” I say, correcting and comforting, if from a distance.

“It is who I am,” she says.

“Samantha, I don’t think you know who you are,” I say, not to insult but to bait. “You’re not Goth, you’re not emo. You should just be yourself.”

She’s doesn’t respond as I tell her all about her life. I rise from the floor, where I’ve been comfortably numb on a sleeping bag. I walk through the darkness toward Samantha’s bed, then lean in as I ask, “Who are you, Samantha? You can tell me. I won’t tell anyone
anything
.”

“Anything?” In just one word, she sounds confused, nervous, scared, but mostly excited.

“Who are you, Samantha?” I ask, then sit on her tiny bed. She is lying perfectly still. For seconds, then minutes, the air is still as all noise vanishes into a vacuum of silence.

“Do you really want to know?” she whispers. “Can I really trust you?”

“Yes,” I say. “I know you have something you want to say. Don’t keep it in. Your uncried tears, your secrets, all of it are just poison. Let it out, and you’ll feel better forever.”

“You want to know about me?” she says, and I’m trying not to salivate as I hear the shaking presobbing sounds choking in her throat.

“Yes, tell me everything,” I whisper. “Whatever pain you bear, let me lift it from you.”

She pulls her two black T-shirts over her head, then brushes her hair away from her back—her cut and scarred back. These are not surface cuts, like the crosses on her arms. The scars are deep, and there must be over a hundred. Their location shows these are also not self-inflicted.

“This is me,” she says, her back still to me. “I’m a scarred freak.”

“Samantha.” I say her name because there’s nothing else to say.

“So, what’s a few crosses on my arms compared to this cross I bear,” she whispers, yet it is like she’s shouting in defiance, I’m just not sure of what or whom. “This is me.”

“What happened?” I ask as she puts her shirt back on, then turns to face me. She’s backed herself into the corner of the bed; I’ve moved to the edge.

“I was four,” she starts. “My mom...”

“Go on,” I say. “You can trust me.”

Her piercing eyes challenge my statement, so I repeat myself. “You can trust me.”

“I’ll tell you this,” she says slowly. “But you have to tell me something.”

“What?” I ask, but she just stares back at me. I think about what I can reveal and what I can’t. I try to imagine what Samantha believes, but mostly I focus on all the hurt she’s hoarding.

“A secret as dark as this one,” is her eerie response. She takes a deep breath, then continues. “We were living in Flint, north end. I don’t remember much of it.”

“Close your eyes,” I whisper, then reach to turn off the lights.

“I was four. Mark, one of my mom’s druggie boyfriends, was over. Maybe he was watching me. I don’t know. There were always people coming and going. I remember I was crying. I was crying about something because when you’re four that’s what you do, you know?”

I don’t respond. I don’t want to lie to Samantha as she starts to reveal her truth.

“So, the druggie Mark got mad at me for crying. Yelled, screamed, hit me, all that. But I wouldn’t, I couldn’t, stop. The more he told me to stop crying, the more I bawled. So, he...”

I stay silent.

“He threw me through a window,” Samantha finally says. I inch closer; I don’t sense tears yet, only sweat and fear. Her heart’s beating as fast as a hummingbird’s wings.

“And he left me there,” she says, then sighs. “He left me bleeding on the ground, lying in a pool of jagged glass cutting up my body. He didn’t call for help. He just walked away.”

“Samantha, I didn’t know,” I whisper.

“Nobody does,” she says. “My mom got one of her dealer doctors to write some bullshit excuse about a heart murmur so I’d never have to take gym, so nobody—until you tonight—ever saw it.”

“Not even Scott?”

“No,” she says. I want to know more about that “no,” but I let it pass. For now.

“Now do you understand me why I cut myself, why I never cry, and why I’m a freak?”

I push closer, one inch at a time. “You’re not a freak.”

“Yes, I am, just like you are,” she says. “So we can be friends now. Freak friends.”

“Yes, we can be friends, but more importantly, your healing can begin,” I say.

“What are you talking about?”

“You can’t heal scars until you admit they are there,” I whisper. “It’s hard what you’ve just done, but it is harder to keep it inside. It’s a scary thing to tell someone your secrets.”

“It doesn’t work like that, it’s not like flipping a switch,”
she says, then flips on the light. I look into her eyes filled with pain, but still without a single teardrop. “What scares
you
, Cass?”

“
You
are scaring me a little right now,” I tell her, then laugh. She doesn’t laugh back.

“No, I’m not. Cassandra, I don’t think you’re afraid of anything,” she says, accusingly.

“You are so wrong,” I tell her the bold truth. The difference between my fear and hers is that my fear has a name—Alexei. Her fears may be behind her; my fate and fear still await me.

“You don’t cry either, but you’re always around when people do. Why is that?” she asks. “You break up with guys but move quickly on to the next. It’s like you don’t feel like the rest of us.”

“You’re talking crazy again,” I say, moving off the bed, but she grabs my hand.

“No, I’m talking truth,” she says. “You can deny what you are, but you can’t hide it.”

I look over at her bookcase, then grab a random book off the shelf. It is, of course, a vampire novel. I point it at her, and say, “You’ve read too many of these.”

She takes the book from my hand, as if it were a precious gift. “I don’t think so.”

“They’re all the same,” I say, then sit back on the bed. “Will your book be different?”

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“Why must every vampire lurk in the darkness hunting for human blood? Why must they all be dark and mysterious?” I ask.

“Because that’s what a vampire story is about,” she says.

“It doesn’t need to be,” I counter. “Why not make your book different?”

“What do you mean?” Her eyes are darting the room, I suspect looking for her notebook.

“Maybe your vampire could be sympathetic,” I say. “Maybe he could be born into a family of vampires. Maybe he doesn’t want to be one, but doesn’t know how not to be. Maybe your vampire could be tired of only surviving and sacrificing. Maybe your vampire wants to be normal and live among humans instead of feeding off them.”

“Go on,” she says, but I can’t. I’ve shown her my secret scars except she doesn’t know it.

“Never mind,” I say, then I turn my back to her like I wish I could turn back time. For Samantha I really do feel empathy; I understand too well how hard it is to hold back a secret.

“Are you going to tell Scott?” she asks after an awkward silence.

“Your secrets are safe with me,” I say.

“You still owe me a secret,” she says.

“How do I know I can trust you?” I ask.

“I’m the only person at Lapeer you can trust,” she says.

“Why’s that?”

“Because I don’t have anybody to talk to,” she says. I want to tell her that every time she says something like that it’s just rubbing more salt in those wounds. But I can’t because I still need those salty tears her self-hatred produces. “No, that’s not it. It’s because I’ve proven it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I learned a long time ago that most things are better left unsaid. Secrets are meant to be kept, not shared. Keeping a secret hidden, that is what locks in a friendship. You say you want to be friends, but how can I be friends with you since I can’t trust you?” she asks.

“I do want to be
friends
with you,” I say. I doubt that Samantha is bi, like her profile says. My guess is she’s not looking for sex; she’s looking for softness in her hard life.

“I already know a secret about you, but I’ve never shared it with anyone,” she says.

“What is it?”

“Can I ask you something first?” she says, and I nod. Conversations with Samantha are fits of stops and starts. “Who do you think started those rumors about Craig and Brittney?”

“I’m not sure,” I say. “Do you know?”

“I think it was Brittney herself,” she whispers, and I lean closer.

“Are you sure?” I ask, because that is what I’ve always suspected.

“Positive,” she says, sounding proud.

“How do you know for sure?” I ask. There is no way Brittney speaks to Samantha.

“I’ve watched girls like her all my life,” Samantha says. “You’re too close to them, too friendly, but on the outside looking in it’s easy to see exactly what they are.”

“And what is that?”

“People who don’t care about anyone but themselves,” she says. “Do I know for sure? No. Do I have a signed confession? Again, no. But am I positive? One hundred percent.”

“Why would she do that?”

“You mean other than steal Craig away and become the center of attention?” she asks, and I nod. “Maybe also to create some drama.”

“Maybe,” I mutter.

“You understand, right?” she asks. “Isn’t that why you chopped down the Goth tree?”

“What do you mean?” I mumble.

“Are you denying it?” she asks.

“No,” I say, then move off the bed and back to the floor. “But how did you find out?”

“This is my secret about you,” she says, a little angry and excited. “I’ll ask the questions.”

“Okay, what do you want to know?”

“I understand what Brittney got out of her actions, although she must regret it now,” Samantha continues. “But riddle me this, Cassandra. What did you get out of yours?”

“I was just stirring up a little excitement,” I confess.

“And why did you need to create more drama?” she asks, assuming my Grand Inquisitor mode. “Don’t you think Lapeer High School has enough of that already?”

“Maybe,” is all I can say.

Samantha turns off the light, then says, “Now we have mutually assured destruction.”

“What do you mean?”

“In history, we studied the Cold War. The reason we never nuked the Russians and they never nuked us is we both knew that if one made the first move, the other would destroy the world. So now, Cassandra, we each have our nukes and secrets pointed at each other. Because we know secrets about each other, we can destroy each other. And so we can be at peace.”

“Always give peace a chance.” I’m hiding a sigh of relief that my real secret remains safe.

“Oh, we’re also at peace because we’re both freaks,” she says, then laughs. I sigh.

“You’re not a freak and neither am I,” I remind her as I pull the covers over myself. She tries to keep talking, but I just pretend to sleep.

I stay silent. I’ve said too much, and yet I’ve said far less than I want to. I glance through the darkness at Samantha,
then turn to look at the shelves packed with vampire novels. One day she’ll learn the truth about vampires; one day, she’ll learn there are creatures who feed off humans in plain sight. One day, she’ll learn more about me, but not yet. Not yet.

CHAPTER 17
SUNDAY, APRIL 12

Why won’t you listen to me?”

My immature-sounding question goes unanswered. It is Easter Sunday evening, and my family is furious at me for my vanishing act. After leaving Samantha’s this morning, I went to church, then to the hospital. I did two shifts at the hospital, then visited Becca and her family. I wanted to finalize plans with Scott, but he’s impossible to reach. His vanishing is more complete than my own. By late in the evening, my choice was to become homeless or face the lash at home.

“Cassandra Veronica Gray!” Maggie answers. I’d started to explain my actions, but they’re not listening. “You embarrassed this entire family. You’ve ruined everything!”

“Where were you?” Mom asks. They’re at the kitchen table looking like hanging judges.

“If you would just let me explain,” I say, then sit at the table with them.

“I don’t know if there’s anything you could say that—,” Maggie continues.

Veronica stops her. “It wasn’t easy for you either. Maybe she needs more time.”

Mom glares at both ends of the generation sandwich, takes a sip from her bottled water, then sits back in her chair.

“I’m not ready,” I start. Maggie looks at me with all the anger of the ages. I tell them where I spent the weekend rather than why I left the reunion until Mom pushes me for details.