Cormier - Tenderness

After the First Death

Beyond the Chocolate War

The Bumblebee Flies Anyway

The Chocolate War

Eight Plus One

Fade

Frenchtown Summer

Heroes

I Am the Cheese

In the Middle of the Night

The Rag and Bone Shop

Tenderness

Tunes for Bears to Dance To

We All Fall Down

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright 1997 by Robert Cormier

Cover photograph by Nikos Chrisikakis/Getty Images

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Ember, an imprint of Random House Childrens Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Childrens Books, New York, in 1997.

Ember and the E colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

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The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition of this work as follows:

Cormier, Robert.

Tenderness: a novel / by Robert Cormier. 1st ed.

p. cm.

Summary: A psychological thriller told from the points of view of a teenage serial killer and the runaway girl who falls in love with him.

[1. Serial murdersFiction. 2. PsychopathsFiction. 3. MurderFiction.

4. RunawaysFiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.C81634Te 1997

[Fic]dc20

96003110

AC

eISBN: 978-0-385-72987-1

Random House Childrens Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

v3.1

In memory of the teachers

who changed the course of my life:

Sister Catherine

E. Lillian Ricker

Florence D. Conlon

To know the pain of too much tenderness.

Kahlil Gibran

A part of the body that has been injured is often tender to the touch.

Me, I get fixated on something and I cant help myself. Sometimes its nice and I let myself drift to see what will happen. Like with Throb. Sometimes its not so nice, but I still have to go with it and can do nothing to stop. Thats the scary part, when its not nice at all. But even when its nice, its scary. Anything that takes over your life is scary, although there can be pleasure in it.

With Throb, it was nice in the beginning, the music, and his voice on the CDs and, of course, the words, and the way he sang them, his voice rough, like gravel in his throat, but the words, thrilling:

Pluck my heart

From my flesh

And eat it

Dark music, I call it. Music that speaks to me. Dark and black from the pits of night:

Call my name

From the grave

Of your rotting love

I had to listen hard to make out the words, closing my eyes, pressing the earphones tight against my ears, thinking at first that he sang rotten love instead of rotting love, which is another thing altogether.

Anyway, it was nice sitting in the library next to the CD player, the earphones on, people coming and going at the circulation desk and me listening, like on a private island in the middle of all that activity, and I would close my eyes and listen to him, his voice filling my ears and the inside of my head:

A hole in my mouth

To match the hole in my heart

Through which your love howls

I didnt get fixated on Throb until I saw the actual hole in his mouth on Entertainment Tonight, the missing tooth, his spiky hair the color of salmon, his freckles and that terrible clown outfit: baggy pants and green plaid suspenders and no shirt, his nipples like old pennies stuck on his chest. But most of all that missing tooth, like a black cave in his mouth. And that was when I got fixated on him, staring at the black cave and knowing that I had to press my lips against his lips and put my tongue through that hole in his mouth.

I copped the CD at Aud-Vid Land at the mall even though the CD player at home is broken, like everything else in the place. I didnt exactly cop the CD, which would be impossible because of the security gate, but I didnt pay for it, either. Theres this guy, the assistant manager, whos like forty years old, and he opens the door of the stockroom and I slip inside and wait for him. He likes to look at me. I close my eyes. He tells me to stand this way, then that way. I hear him breathing. Finally, he says, Okay. I open my eyes but do not enjoy looking at him. His complexion is terrible, and he wears bright yellow socks.

At home I remove the CD and look at Throbs face spread across the entire booklet, which opens out like an accordion. I Scotch-tape it to the wall, after taking down the picture of me and my mother posing in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Lincoln is my favorite president. I feel bad for him because he looks so depressed all the time and his face is on the penny, the cheapest coin of all.

Gary watches me from the doorway.

Lori, he says. Your mothers gonna feel bad, taking that picture down.

Ill put it up someplace else, I tell him, stepping back to look at Throb there on my wall, with the hole in his mouth.

Garys not like some of the others my mother brings home. Hes been with us for, like, six months. He doesnt use bad language and he works steady, the night shift at Murdocks Tool and Die. He drinks too much sometimes, which makes him fall asleep all over the place, which is a nice change from Dexter, who got mean and nasty when he drank and hit my mother once in a while.

Gary looks at me as I look at Throbs picture. I can feel him looking at me, something hes been doing lately. He also rubs close to me when he meets me in the hallway on the way to the bathroom. Its nice to have him look at me like that but I dont want to do anything to hurt my mother, even though shes a pain in the ass sometimes. She has enough problems. She was always a beauty but lately she seems to be fading right before my eyes. I see the grooves in her face where her makeup cakes, and the eyedrops dont always obliterate the red anymore. Shes also beginning to sag. I caught sight of her getting out of the shower one night and was surprised to see her drooping. She was always proud of her figure and says that was her best gift to me, a good figure, although we both have to worry about gaining weight and I am sometimes embarrassed by how big I am on top.

Gary comes and stands beside me in front of the picture. We are alone in the house, my mother at work for the lunchtime rush at Timsons. Its hot, early June, and heat seems to be radiating out of him, his arm pressing against my arm and the perspiration, like, gluing us together. I hear his sharp intake of breath, or maybe its my own. Suddenly his arm is around me and hes caressing me on top and I lean against him. His aftershave lotion is sharp and spicy in my nostrils and his hand feels good, tender, and I want him to continue but I pull away from him, thinking of my mother.