The Tear Collector Page 19

“How do you think it happens?” Siobhan asks. “To become human, you must …,” she continues. “Cass, you have to know what comes next.”

  “To become human, I must … I must take a human life.”

  “You drain all the human energy into your body,” she says. “And then you are transformed.”

  “Are you saying that you killed—,” I start, but it is a question I don’t want to ask, one that I know she doesn’t want to answer, and one that shows me whatever I thought the stakes were, they just got a great deal higher.

  “Listen, Cassandra, I can’t tell you what to do,” she says, words racing out of her. “I’m telling you the risks, you already know the rewards. And I’m telling you the heavy, heavy cost.”

  “Who was it? Who did you kill?” I ask, but I’m left listening only to the silence.

  “Siobhan?” She doesn’t answer; she just hangs up.

  I wanted to know how she did it, but now I wish I didn’t. I knew it couldn’t be as easy as just falling in love. I saved Scott’s life, but to be like him and with him, I need to take away someone else’s life. I don’t know if I’m that strong. I’m not sure who is that weak.

  “Does it still hurt?” I ask after pulling away from Scott’s kiss. I climb into his car.

  “A little,” he says, then smiles. “But it makes it better. I’ll need a daily dose of your kisses.”

  “Can we make a stop at Becca’s on the way?” I ask. Scott and I are going out tonight to look at prom dresses. We’re meeting Samantha at the store; she’ll be going with her theater pal, Michael—a last minute fix-up, another high school relationship of convenience and coincidence.

  “Anything for you,” he says as we drive off toward the mall. “How was school today?”

  “Interesting,” I respond, smiling like I do all the time now, it seems. Smiling at Scott and at the Beatles music he has playing for me. But mostly smiling at how far short the word “interesting” falls when used to describe my life since the day in early March when I first saw Robyn crying in her car.

  “I’ll be back at school tomorrow, but you might want to skip,” Scott says.

  “Why’s that?”

  “It’s not going to be pretty. I might be getting the crap beat out of me,” Scott says, then actually laughs. “I mean my mouth is already broken, so I figure now seems as good a time as any to get my ass kicked. When you’re already in pain, I say pile it on.”

  “What are you talking about?” I ask. “Who is going to kick your ass?”

  “Probably Craig,” he says.

  “Why? What did you do?”

  “It’s what I’m going to do,” he says with pride. “I’m going to tell his girlfriend Brittney off. If he’s a man, he’ll stand up for her. Not that she deserves it or will appreciate it.”

  “Why would you do that?” I hope he can hear the worry in my voice.

  “I thought about the rumors, the lies she spread about you and Robyn,” Scott says. “I know the Christian thing to do is forgive her, but I just can’t. Her sins are unforgivable, at least by me. But it’s not just the rumors. It’s more than that. In fact, it is everything about her.”

  “I don’t understand,” I say. That’s the last lie that I’ll ever tell him, I promise myself.

  “Everything I can’t stand in a person is embodied in Brittney,” he continues. “I know it is wrong to be so judgmental, but Brittney’s shallowness, her lack of caring about others. It’s all so wrong.”

  “That’s not the worst of it,” I start, and then I stoke the fires, telling Scott about Brittney spreading rumors and using people like Kelsey to do her dirty work. I remind him Brittney had Kelsey lie to him about me cheating on him with Craig. I tell him about her fake tears when Robyn died and her threat to me when I wouldn’t take down Robyn’s Facebook profile. I tell him about Brittney’s role in Robyn’s death. Maybe Robyn killed herself, but if she did, she didn’t just jump—she was pushed, with Brittney’s fingerprints all over her back. Just like my knife is in Brittney’s back now.

  “I think about her, your friend Becca, and wonder if maybe Samantha was right,” he says.

  “What do you mean, Scott?”

  “Maybe there isn’t a God. How could a just God let someone like my grandma or Robyn die, while people like Brittney don’t just live, they seem to thrive.”

  As I watch Scott’s face tighten, I realize I’ve gone too far, probably because it’s a path that I’m so used to taking. “That was wrong. Don’t say anything to her,” I whisper. The old me was trained to stir up drama and trauma—and I still can’t resist those impulses. Every day will be a struggle against my nature.

  “No, it’s like that night of our first date in the restaurant. You gotta stand up to people like this,” Scott says. “If you get hit, you just turn the other cheek, but you don’t turn a blind eye to bad behavior.”

  “Bullies like Brittney, they’re not that strong,” I say. “Deep down, I know she’s weak.”

  “Yet another reason you don’t let the Brittneys of the world win without fighting back.”

  “This is why I love you,” I say. The words roll off my tongue easily now. It was much harder to say to Cody when I didn’t mean it. That drained my energy, but saying “I love you” to Scott brings me more. My family finds energy in tears; humanity finds it in love. I wrap my arms around Scott as the sound of “Across the Universe” fades out. I let the silence surround me. There’s no sound now except the beating of two hearts in perfect time.

  “Becca’s sleeping,” Mrs. Berry tells me soon after Scott and I arrive at their house.

  “I should have called first,” I say, looking down.

  “You never have to call,” she says, opening the door wider, allowing Scott and me to enter. It’s been a month since Robyn died, but nothing’s changed. Pictures of Robyn hang on the walls. It’s like they’re still waiting for her to walk in the door. They’re stuck on stage one: denial.

  “This is my boyfriend, Scott,” I say proudly, loving how those five words sound together.

  “Any friend of Cassandra’s is welcome here. Nice to meet you, Scott,” Mrs. Berry says, then ushers us into the house. “John is still at work. He needs his work now more than ever.”

  “I understand,” Scott says. And I know he does. Loss creates new connections.

  “I’m not working right now,” she volunteers as Scott and I sit down. “I’m spending as much time as I can at home with Becca. I want to cherish every minute that I have with her.”

  “How is she doing?” I ask. “I’m sorry I haven’t been here more.”

  “It’s been hard on her,” Mrs. Berry says. “Her spirit is strong even if her body is growing weaker every day.”

  “How are you doing?” I ask, almost in a whisper. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “It’s not easy, Cassandra,” she says, very slowly. “It was just such a shock. With Becca, we know what is coming, but that still doesn’t make it any easier.”

  I lean closer. My hands reach out to her, not into my back pocket. I left Veronica’s handkerchief at home. Whatever tears I take will be just enough to survive until I find strength to take a life and transform myself. Mrs. Berry pulls herself together, then says, “It’s just so hard.”

  “Mrs. Berry, if it were easy, it wouldn’t be love,” I say to her, but I’m looking at Scott. I remember his words from that first time we talked, and I think about how they’ve come true. Yet, to feel fully human love, I know that I must still do something very hard to someone very weak.

  Silence invades the room; memories of Robyn attack my mind. I feel like crying, which I’ve always wanted to do, but stop myself. Mrs. Berry doesn’t need my tears and I don’t want hers.

  “Scott, come help me fix iced tea for the two of you,” she says, then rises. “Cassandra, why don’t you go look in on Becca. Maybe she’s awake now. She’ll want to see you.”

  “Sure thing,” I say. Scott gives me a soft kiss on the cheek. He goes into t
he kitchen with Mrs. Berry, while I go upstairs. It’s stupid, but with just a few feet and seconds between us, I feel a sense of separation from Scott. It proves we belong together, now and forever.

  As I walk upstairs, it’s as if each step is the beat of a drum. I want to be with Scott; I want to be a human. I want to live on love, not on tears. To be human, I must take a human life.

  Becca’s asleep, and my opening the door doesn’t change that fact. Becca’s near death, maybe six months to live, but I could open a door for myself and change that fact. Robyn wanted to trade her life for Becca, but it is not going to work out that way. Instead, Becca could trade what’s left of her life for me. Within me, Becca could, in a sense, live on. I’d be honoring Robyn, I’d be helping Becca, but mostly I’m just trying to convince myself.

  My humanness grows deeper; even thinking about this action overwhelms me with guilt. The guilt is compounded by Becca’s innocence and the purity of her brave struggle this past year and a half. A struggle she will not win; a struggle that I could end to solve my own problems.

  I’m near her bed. Next to the bed on a table are the tools of a vibrant youth: a phone, a PSP, an iPod. On another table are the tools of sickness: pills, needles, medical gloves.

  Downstairs I hear Scott talking to Mrs. Berry. It seems cruel to know that by the time they’ve moved somewhat past Robyn’s death, the grieving will start all over again when they lose Becca. If she died now it would probably be more merciful.

  As I stand next to her, my hands are shaking. Why did this innocent child have this disease inflicted upon her? There are so many guilty people in the world—people who are cruel, selfish, and uncaring—who get to live while this innocent child has to die.

  Samantha said the unfairness of the world proves that there’s no God. If the world became fair, would that prove there is a God? Or is fairness as random as fate?

  All of these thoughts swim in my head, but they’re crashing against each other. Every thought stands alone and against another. I close my eyes and listen to the silence.

  I know what I must do to become human. Siobhan did it, and I must do it too.

  This is what I want. This is what I need.

  I know what I need to do to make it happen.

  There is no turning back; there is only one road stretching before me.

  But there will be guilt—guilt that feels worse staring into the sleeping face of this innocent dying child. I watch her sleep, breathe, dream—but mostly I just listen to the silence.

  Finally, the answer emerges: to be transformed into a human, I cannot act inhumanely and steal the life force from someone I care so much about.

  I stare at Becca sleeping. She looks more peaceful in sleep than she does awake.

  Reaching over to the table, I make my move. I place the object in my hand. The weight of it feels right as I softly speak these words into the phone: “Hello, Brittney, it’s Cassandra. I need to see you.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The core story of The Tear Collector came to me driving from Fort Wayne IN to Flint MI. During those three hours in March 2008, the basic elements of the book emerged. I immediately began testing the idea out “on the road” during school visits in Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin, to great response. So, thanks to all those students in schools from spring 2008 who asked questions or commented on the basic idea. In particular, a special thanks to teens I met on the road who read the book in manuscript. Without the input, ideas, and energy of Gabby Anderson, Zac Fink, Larissa Grundmanis, Katie Jo Jerzak, Tara Kane, Heajin Kim, Andi Lemons, Tiana McAllister, Kelly McCarten, and Lauren Morris, there’d be no Tear Collector. A special thank-you to Elizabeth Straub and Sara Misgen from the YA Galley group in St. Paul MN, who showed off their reviewing skills with detailed comments on the manuscript.

  The poem “I hurt, hurt, hurt” in Chapter 17 was written by Andi Lemons.

  A special thanks to Dr. Ann Albrecht from Tarleton State University in Texas for information on school counselors. As always, thanks to Amy Alessio and Patricia Taylor for reading and commenting on an early draft, and Erica Klein for her support for two decades.

  But mostly, thanks to the nameless teen girl at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne IN who, when asked by a librarian if she’d like to read my novel Things Change, answered, “No. I only read vampire books.” It was that anonymous Hoosier girl—and the music of Van Morrison—that inspired me to cry these Tears.

  ALSO BY PATRICK JONES

  Things Change

  Nailed

  Chasing Tail Lights

  Cheated

  Stolen Car

  Copyright © 2009 by Patrick Jones

  First published in the United States of America in 2009 by Walker Publishing Company, Inc. Visit Walker & Company’s Web site at www.walkeryoungreaders.com

  Electronic edition published in October 2011

  All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Walker & Company, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Jones, Patrick.

  The tear collector / Patrick Jones.

  p. cm.

  Summary: As one of an ancient line of creatures who gain energy from human tears, seventeen-year-old Cassandra offers sympathy to anyone at her school or the hospital where she works, but she yearns to be fully human for the boy she loves, even if it means letting her family down.

  eISBN: 978 0 80272 818 0 (ebook)

  [1. Supernatural—Fiction. 2. Sympathy—Fiction. 3. High schools—Fiction. 4. Schools—Fiction.

  5. Identity—Fiction. 6. Family life—Michigan—Fiction. 7. Michigan—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.J7242Ted 2009 [Fic]—dc22 2008055868