CHAPTER Nine

In November of 2006, less than a month after Mom's funeral, they moved to California. The two weeks before their departure were terrible. Horrible. Marah spent every waking hour either pissed at her dad or inconsolable. She stopped eating, stopped sleeping. All she cared about was talking to her friends, and when the four best friends got together it was just one endless goodbye, broken down into parts. Every sentence began with, Remember when.

Marah's anger could hardly be contained. It was a thing inside of her, pushing against her ribs, making her blood boil. Even her grief had been consumed by it. She stomped around the house and slammed doors and burst into tears at every memento that had to be packed. She couldn't stomach the idea of just locking up the house-their home-and driving away. The only slightly good news was that they weren't selling it. Someday, Dad promised, they'd return. The big things-furniture, art, rugs-they left behind. They were renting a furnished house. As if different furniture would make them all forget losing Mom.

When the day finally came to move, she'd clung to her friends and sobbed in their arms and told her dad she hated him.

None of it mattered. She didn't matter. That was the dark truth. Mom had been a reed; she would have bent to Marah's will. Dad was a wall of steel, cold and implacable. She knew because she'd hurled herself against him and fallen in a heap at his feet.

On the two-day drive to Los Angeles, Marah said nothing. Not one word. She put her earbuds in and listened to music, texting one message after another to her friends.

They left green and blue Washington and drove south. By Central California, everything was brown. Stubby brown hills huddled beneath a bright autumnal sun. There wasn't a decent tree for miles. Los Angeles was even worse: flat and endless. One freeway after another, every lane jam-packed with cars. By the time they pulled up to the house Dad had rented in Beverly Hills, Marah had a splitting headache.

"Wow," Lucas said, drawing at least three syllables out of the word.

"What do you think, Marah?" Dad said, turning in his seat to look at her.

"Yeah," she said. "You care about what I think." She opened the car door and got out. Ignoring everything, she texted Ashley, Home Sweet Home, as she walked from the driveway to the house's front door.

It was a house that had obviously been remodeled sometime recently-an old seventies rambler had been punched up to look modern and boxy. The yard out front was flawlessly clipped and carefully manicured. Flowers grew where they were supposed to; their blossoms were supersized because of the sun and the sprinklers.

This wasn't a home. Not for the Ryans, anyway. Inside, everything was sleek and cold, with floor-to-ceiling windows and a stainless steel kitchen and gray stone floors. The furniture was defiantly modern, with sharp edges and chrome accents.

She looked at her dad. "Mom would have hated this." She saw how her words hurt him, and she thought, Good, and went upstairs to claim her room.

On her first day at Beverly Hills High School, Marah knew that she would never fit in here. The kids were like beings from another planet. The student parking lot was filled with Mercedes-Benzes and Porsches and BMWs. The carpool lane actually had a few limousines in between the luxury cars and Range Rovers. Not every kid was dropped off by a driver, of course, but the point was that some were. Marah couldn't believe it. The girls were gorgeous, with expertly colored hair and purses that cost more than some cars. They clung together in well-dressed pods. No one even said hi to Marah.

On her first day, she moved through her classes on autopilot. None of her teachers called on her or asked her questions. She sat alone at lunch, barely listening to the commotion going on around her, not caring about anything.

In fifth period, she took a seat in the back and put her head down while the other students took a test. The loneliness she felt was epic, overwhelming. She kept thinking how much she needed her friends-and her mom-to talk to. It hurt so much she felt herself start to shake.

"Marah?"

She looked up through the curtain of her hair.

The teacher-Ms. Appleby-had stopped at her desk. "Come see me if you need help getting up to speed. I'm always available." She set a syllabus on the desk. "We all know how hard it is, with your mom..."

"Dead," Marah said flatly. If adults were going to talk to her, they might as well say the word. She hated all those pauses and sighs.

Ms. Appleby couldn't move away fast enough.

Marah smiled grimly. It wasn't much of a defense, having to say the word, but it was effective.

The bell rang.

The other kids jumped up and immediately started talking. Marah didn't make eye contact with any of them, and no one made eye contact with her. She was dressed all wrong; she'd known that when she stepped onto the bus. This wasn't a school where Macy's jeans and a fitted blouse were going to cut it.

She loaded up her backpack, making sure that her books were in order and facing the right way. It was a new obsession, one she couldn't shake. She needed her things to be orderly.

Alone, she walked out into the hallway. A few kids were still out here, roughhousing and laughing. Overhead, a big yellow banner hung limply, pulled loose from one of its moorings. It read: GO NORMANS. Someone had scratched out NORMANS, written TROJANS, and drawn a penis beneath the words.

It was the sort of thing she would have told her mom about. They would have laughed together, and when they were done, Mom would have launched into one of her serious talks about sex and teenage girls and appropriateness.

"You do realize you're standing in the middle of the hallway, staring at a penis, and crying, right?"

Marah turned and saw a girl beside her. She had on enough makeup for a photo shoot, and boobs that looked like footballs.

"Leave me the hell alone," Marah said, pushing past the girl. She knew she should have made a smart-ass comment, loudly enough to be overheard. That was how to get some cool cred, but she didn't care. She didn't want new friends.

She skipped last period and left campus early. Maybe that would get her dad's attention. She walked all the way home, but it didn't help to be in this cold house that sounded echoey when she walked through it. The boys were with Irena-the older woman her dad had hired to be a part-time nanny-and Dad was still at work. She walked through the big, impersonal house, but it wasn't until she got to her room that her resolve started to crack.

This wasn't her room.

Her room had pale, striped wallpaper and wooden floors and lamps instead of an interrogation-bright overhead light fixture. She walked over to the sleek black dresser, imagining the one that should be there-her dresser, the one her mom had hand-painted all those years ago. (More colors, Mommy; more stars.) It would look absurdly out of place in this austere room, as peculiar as Marah at Beverly Hills High.

She reached for the small Shrek jewelry box she'd packed so carefully and brought down here. She'd gotten it from Tully on her twelfth birthday.

It seemed smaller than she remembered, and greener. She turned the key to wind it and lifted the hinged lid. A plastic Fiona snapped erect, spinning in time to the music: Hey, now, you're an all-star.

Inside was a tangled collection of her favorite things-an agate from Kalaloch Beach, an arrowhead she'd found in her own backyard, an old plastic dinosaur, a Frodo action figure, the garnet earrings Tully had bought her for her thirteenth birthday, and at the bottom, the pink Space Needle pocketknife she'd gotten at the Seattle Center.

She opened the knife, stared down at the small blade.

Johnny, I don't think she's old enough.

She's old enough, Kate. My girl is smart enough not to cut herself. Right, Marah?

Be careful, baby girl, don't stab yourself.

She pressed the squat silver blade against the flesh of her left palm.

A tingle moved through her. A feeling. She moved the blade just a little and accidentally cut her hand.

Blood bubbled up. The color of it mesmerized her. It was unexpectedly bright and beautiful. She couldn't remember ever seeing such a perfect color, like Snow White's red lips.

She couldn't look away. There was pain, of course; it was sharp and sweet and bitter all at the same time. Better somehow than the vague sense of losing what mattered, of being left behind.

This hurt, and she welcomed the honesty of that, the clarity. She watched blood slide down the side of her hand and plop onto her black shoe, where it almost disappeared, but not quite.

For the first time in months, she felt better.

In the weeks that followed, Marah lost weight and marked her grief in small red slices on the inside of her upper arm and at the tops of her thighs. Every time she felt overwhelmed or lost or mad at God, she cut herself. She knew she was doing something bad and sick, but she couldn't stop. When she opened her pink pocketknife with its now reddish black crusted blade, she felt a rush of empowerment.