Cassandra’s Turn / Tear Collector II by Patrick Jones (work in progress)

“What the hell?” I ask Samantha after she drops a note on my desk. The note just says, “He’s back.” She hurries to her seat before I can ask her who “he” is.

All through class, I try to make eye contact with Samantha, but she’s having none of it. While her life shifted a hundred eighty degrees because of the events of spring break, this morning she’s giving me the cold shoulder. Our friendship is new, yet I thought it was strong.

As Mr. Abraham leads the discussion with the skill of a maestro conducting an orchestra, I look for my opportunities to glance at my phone. There are no messages from Scott who is not in class, so I stare back at Samantha’s note. Maybe who is back, is Scott. My love. Maybe who is back, not yet stepped from the shadows, is Alexei. My hate. Or is he my fate?

Although I like Mr. Abraham and this class, it can’t end soon enough. The second the bell rings, I turn toward Samantha desk. But I can’t reach her; too many students with overstuffed back-packs block me. “Samantha,” I yell, but she turns her back to me and exits. She’s quickly swallowed in the controlled chaos that is class change at Lapeer High.

I think about turning back to talk to Mr. A and telling him I’ll stay a peer counselor, but I see he’s talking with my friend / Samantha’s prom date Michael. Even from a distance, I sense Mr. A’s concern and Michael’s distress. Michael seems nervous about the prom, while Samantha – true to fashion – has gone for apathy to obsession. At least, for the moment, it has distracted her from her obsession with me, and learning more about the ways of tear collectors.

As I head to my next class, I’m ache of an odd feeling for a tear collector: loneliness. Robyn’s dead, Scott’s not in school, and now it seems even Samantha is abandoning me. When I broke up with Cody, his clique turned against me. It ends when I feel a hard tap on my shoulder.

“Why are you calling me?” Brittney says, staring at me through her ocean of blue eye shadow. “I have nothing to say to you about anything.”

“I know,” is my weak answer. It’s weak because I couldn’t be strong. No matter how much I love Scott and want to be human, I’m not ready to go through with it. Someone as shallow as Brittney doesn’t deserve to live, but I can’t take action. Tear collectors have stayed hidden from human view for so long because our actions seeking tears are subtle. Humans don’t notice us because through evolution we’ve adapted to each other. But to have Brittney die so soon after Robyn, well, that’s a lot of death in small time in a small town like Lapeer.

“Don’t talk to me or about me ever again.” We’re the same height, but her stuck up nose always seems is looking down at me. Seconds later, her toady Kelsey appears like a shadow.

“I would like nothing better,” I confess, but I need to make her hurt, just once. “Brittney, why should I talk about you? Don’t you know, nobody likes you except the guys that you –“

“You don’t exist in this school.” She’s made this promise before. “You’re dead.”

“No, that’s Robyn,” I snap back. While love is forbidden from my family, anger is not. Anger is just one accelerant that tear collectors use to spark human emotional release.

“Bitch,” Brittney says then flips her hair from her face, second later like a time delay mirror, Kelsey does the same. I tug on the cross around my neck, and turn the other check by walking away. I’m relieved never to speak to Brittney again to avoid the temptation of taking her selfish life. She didn’t mention Scott, so he realized telling her off was a waste of time, just like she’s a waste of space. She’s an imperfect human machine consuming more than she returns.

The rest of the morning blurs past with echoes of “he’s back” from Samantha in my ears, and images of Scott in my eyes. With Scott missing and Samantha’s disappearing act, I head to the library during lunch rather than the cafeteria. Cliques I once joined with ease seem to have closed to me. With these new high feelings of love comes the pain of loneliness. Just like everything in nature, nothing comes without price. Nature demands balance in all things.

As I walk through the cafeteria, I did a quick scan not for people in crisis, but for connections. I find a place in the library, open my book (Hamlet) and pretend to read, but while my eyes are on the page, my mind is elsewhere. Being in the library, I know I won’t run into Brittney. Robyn once told me that Brittney gets some pathetic boy with a crush on her to do all of her homework. In some ways, it might be easy to destroy Brittney. In the past, I would have stolen here boyfriend away, but I can’t do that because of Scott. Maybe I could manipulate her into suicide, but I wonder if Brittney is so both too ignorant and too arrogant to kill herself.

I try not to think about her because I’m convinced that she deserves to die, but I can’t take her life. Not because it is wrong, but because it makes me selfish like her. We serve humans by taking their tears, serve our families by obeying all the rules, and serve the world by keeping nature in balance. The deepest human emotion is love; it also the most selfish.

“Scott, where have you been?” I ask as I feel his touch on my shoulder.

“Rough morning.” I rise, hug him and turn his smile from forced to face brightening.

“Maybe we can make it a better night,” I whisper in his ear as I lean into him.

“You make everything better,” Scott says.

“And you always know the right things to say,” I say. What Scott lacks in some of the areas other girls seek – he’s not hot or super popular – he’s perfect for me. Maybe human love is just another form of co-evolution within humans. Rather than two species adapting to each other in order to survive, it is too of the same kind. Human love is geometry: two lines on a plane intersecting by chance, and then run parallel by choice for the rest of their lives.

“As best as I can through a broken mouth. Now, I have a reason not to talk in class.”

“You still don’t remember?” I ask. Always checking. Always worried he’ll remember how my cousin Alexei kidnapped him. Wondering if – or when – he’ll recall how Veronica saved him by moving his grandmother’s life force into his body like a sponge moves water.

“Not yet, but I have an appointment after school today to see a psychologist,” he says.

“What my peer counseling isn’t enough?” I whisper.

“No, you’re more for sexual healing,” he whispers back, then blushes.

“Be very careful of psychologists,” I say firmly. “They trick you. They make you remember things that didn’t happen so they then treat you for it.”

“But psychologists are scientists. It is their job to–“

I cut him off. “They’re leaches making their living off the misery of others.” He’ll never know how the person he loves is also a leech, although tears, not blood, are my desire.

“Cassandra, let’s not fight about it, okay?”

“But you need to –“ this time he finishes my sentence with his lips.

“I need to see my teachers and get my work. But can I see you tonight?”

My anger deflates in the face of his desire. “I can hardly wait.”

After one last quick kiss, Scott starts toward the door. When the door shuts, I re-open Hamlet. The greatest play ever ends not with happy music and a smiling couple, but a bloodbath. Will the decisions I make lead to happy ending, or bodies hitting the floor?

I’m only a page or two deeper in the Hamlet’s dilemma when I sense tears. At a table near the copy machine are two students. Like a vulture sensing blood, I hone in on salty eye discharge. From his body language, it’s obvious they’re breaking up. Before I get closer, the girl bolts, the boy follows. Later, I’ll find her, fix her, drain her.

I’m glad Scott’s gone so he didn’t have to see the break-up scene. It might be like a crystal ball. I don’t know how to be in relationship, I only know how to start and end them. My past relationships were about sex and tears, not romance and love. So, if I have real emotions for Scott, shouldn’t I want to protect him for things that hard him? Protect him from me.

The rest of the day is just an excuse to stay after school to do a peer counseling session. I won’t tell Mr. A. anything, I’ll just show him that I can think about others, not just myself. We hold the sessions in the counseling office at the school.

“Hey, Cass,” Mary Nyguen says when I walk in the office. Funny she’s doing this, like Kelsey volunteering at the hospital, I’m sure she has some other agenda. Most people only see your actions, so few know your true intentions.

“Do you have somebody today?” I ask, a small sliver of envy peeking out. I want to be the only one doing this; I want everyone to come to me.

“First timer,” Mary says. “It’s that time of year.”

“Who is it?”

“Amanda Wilson,” Mary answers. “You know her?”

“A little.”

I head into the small conference room and wait for Katie Carlson. She comes in, looking unsure. Like so many girls at Lapeer, Katie looks lost and afraid when she’s alone.

After she sits, I explain how peer counseling works, including confidentiality. As I talk about how I’ll never share what we discuss I’m figuring out how I’ll use what I learn. Being a tear collector is exhausting: I need endless tears and the way to do that is by creating teenager drama, but that burns so much energy. I’m stuck in endless cycle of hunting and gathering.

“So, Katie, what can I help you with?” I ask.

“It’s my best friend Charlotte,” she starts. I sense the tears are seconds below the surface. I lean in, open my eyes wide, and let her know I’m ready to take anything she throws at me.

“Tell me your story.” That’s enough. For ten minutes, all I do is nod, hand her Veronica’s handkerchief and echo back her feelings. She pours out through sobs how her former best friend Charlotte pounced on her ex, and how Katie’s questioning everything, even her life.

I stop the deluge when the darkness overcomes her. “You don’t mean that.”

She stares at the floor. “No. It just hurts so bad that seems like the only way out.”

“Listen, Katie, it stops hurting,” I say softly, “All it takes is time and tears.”

“Thanks for listening.”

“If you need anything else, you let me know?”

Katie shakes her head in agreement. “Thanks, Cassandra.”

“You need to promise me you won’t hurt yourself. You need to look at me.”

“I promise,” she says, then raises her head. I hand her back Veronica’s handkerchief to wipe away the last of her tears. This session has helped Katie get through her pain for one more day; this session will keep Veronica off my back for a few days.

“Say it out loud,” I beg this stranger, this tear source, this tortured soul to say the words that weeks ago I wouldn’t make my best friend Robyn say to me. “Say you won't hurt yourself.”

“I won’t hurt myself,” she says. There’s no hug or handshake, but my hard stare seals it.

“Come in again next week, but call me,” I remind her as I write my number on her hand. We’re not supposed to do this, but rules don’t mean much too anymore. “Ok?”

“Ok. Thanks Cassandra. ” Katie forces a smile as she gathers up her bags, then leaves.

Robyn’s death was like the last straw for many girls at school. They’re wondering if somebody like Robyn who was so everything most of them wanted to be could die, then why are they alive. Robyn’s death acts like a mirror, and many don’t like what they see.

As I’m waiting for my next appointment, I scan through a beat-up black spiral notebook. It’s the book of secrets; it’s Pandora’s Box containing all the hurts and hopes of every student I’ve seen since we started this program last year. It’s all here, from girls like Katie who are struggling not just with the loss of friend, but the loss of love. As long as there is love, they’ll be loss. As long as there is loss, they will be loneliness. Wherever there’s loss and loneliness, there are tears. The deeper the love, the more the loss, the darker the loneliness. If I care about Scott at all, if I have these feelings that seem like human love, then I should break up with Scott tonight, rather than tomorrow or the next day. Before it hurts him too much, before it takes me places I’m not sure I’m prepared to go. Is hurt and pain inevitable for humans, and thus for my involvement with them? Tear collectors make human love possible, so why can’t we feel it? Simple: like any useless trait, evolution washed it away.

Even before I leave school, I’ve dialed Siobhan, but she won’t or can’t pick-up. Like some zombie looking for brains, I walk aimlessly in the parking lot looking for answers.

Lost in my thoughts, I find myself exactly where I need to be. I’m near the far end of the parking lot. Although I know it’s not there, I look for a Robyn’s white Malibu. The car’s gone, but the memory lingers. There’s a black pick-up in the space; there’s a black hole in my mind. Everything that happened after I found Robyn sitting in her car crying that first week in March rushes like a vacuum through my veins. I’ve lived a lifetime in less than two months. But Robyn’s death – and my role in it – wasn’t the end, it seems it’s just the beginning.

One minute I think I can kill to avenge anything, but for my advantage, and then in the next minute all my doubts crash on me. I feel Scott lips and I know I’m ready, willing, and able to leave my family behind for him, but I see Veronica’s face, I hear Maggie’s words, and I sense my mom’s crushing disappointment, and know I can’t leave them behind. My doubts are not about Scott; they are about me, my role. I’ve always been a Tear Collector, so how can I live any other way? Like Hamlet, a ghost haunts me as I ponder the question is to be or not to be.