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.
As impossible as it sounded, when she was most depressed, the only thing that helped
was hurting herself. She didn’t know why that was; she didn’t care. Bleeding was better
than crying or screaming. Cutting allowed her to carry on.
On Christmas morning, Marah woke early. Her first dreamy thought was,
It’s Christmas, Mom,
and then she remembered. Mom was gone. She closed her eyes again, wishing for sleep,
wishing for a lot of things.
Downstairs, she heard the sounds of her family coming together. Footsteps thudded
on the stairs; doors banged shut. Her brothers screamed for her. They were probably
already running around like crazy, grabbing for Grandma’s hand, pulling presents out
from under the tree, shaking them so hard they rattled. And Mom wasn’t here to calm
them down. How would they all make it through today?
It helps
.
You know it does, and it only hurts for a second. No one will know
.
She got out of bed and went to her dresser, to the pretty Shrek box. Her hands were
shaking as she opened it.
There it was, her knife. She eased it open.
The tip was so sharp, so pretty.
She stuck the tip into the pad of her fingertip and felt her skin slice. Blood oozed
up, a perfect red droplet, and the sight of it sent that thrill moving through her
again. The pressure that had been building in her chest disappeared, like steam released
with the turn of a wheel. A few drops slid down the back of her hand and plopped onto
the hardwood floor.
She watched the red stream form and fall in awe.
Her cell phone rang. She backed away, looked around, found her phone by her bed. Picking
it up, she answered. “Hello?”
“Hey, Marah. It’s me. Tully. I wanted to call you before your big present-opening
day started. I know how much time that takes your household, with all that opening
one at a time.”
Marah grabbed a sock from her top drawer and wrapped it around her finger.
“What’s the matter?” Tully said.
Marah squeezed her bleeding finger. The cut throbbed. It should have comforted her,
that pain, but with Tully listening to her every breath, all Marah felt was shame.
“Nothing. You know … Christmas without her.”
“Yeah.”
Marah sat down on the edge of her bed. She wondered idly what would happen if she
told someone about her cutting. She wanted to stop doing it; she really did.
“Have you made any friends yet?” Tully asked.
Marah hated this question. “Lots.”
“They’re mean girls, aren’t they?” Tully said. “The Beverly Hills crowd.”
Marah didn’t know how to answer. She hadn’t made any friends at BHHS, but she hadn’t
really tried to, either.
“You don’t need tons of friends, Marah. You just need one.”
“TullyandKate,” she said dully. The mythic friendship story.
“I’m here for you, you know that, right?”
“So help me. Tell me how to be happy.”
Tully sighed. “Your mom would be better at a time like this. She believed in happy
endings and life getting better. Me, I pretty much go in for the life-blows-and-then-you-die
school of thought.”
“Believe me, life
does
blow. And then you die.”
“Talk to me, Marah.”
“I don’t like it here,” she said quietly. “I miss her every day.”
“Me, too.”
After that, there was nothing to say. Gone was gone. They had both learned that lesson.
“I love you, Marah.”
“What are you doing for Christmas?”
There was a pause. In it, Marah thought she heard her godmother draw in a breath.
“Oh, you know.”
“It’s all changed,” Marah said.
“Yeah,” Tully said. “It’s all changed, and I hate it. Especially on days like today.”
That was what Marah loved about her godmother. Tully was the only one who never lied
and told her it would get better.
* * *
The first few months at Beverly Hills High were a nightmare. Marah stumbled in all
of her classes; her grades dropped. The curriculum was difficult and competitive,
but that wasn’t the problem. She couldn’t concentrate in class and didn’t care. In
early 2007, she and her dad had a meeting with the principal and a counselor. There
were sad looks all around, and an excess of clucking noises, and the words
grief
and
therapy
were offered repeatedly. By the close of the meeting, Marah understood what was expected
of her in this new, motherless, irrigated world of hers. She almost said she didn’t
care.
Until she looked in her father’s eyes and saw how deeply she’d disappointed him.
How can I help you?
he’d asked quietly. Before, she’d thought that was what she was waiting for—that
offer—but when he said it, she felt even worse. She’d known then what she hadn’t known
before: She didn’t want help. She wanted to disappear. And she knew how to do it now.
Make no waves.
After that, Marah pretended to be fine. At least fine enough to pass muster for her
dad, which was depressingly easy to do. As long as she brought her grades up and smiled
at dinner, he looked right through her. He was too busy working. She had learned her
lesson: she needed to act normal. The boys’ nanny, Irena (a sad-eyed woman who never
missed an opportunity to say that her own kids had grown up and moved away, leaving
her with too many empty hours on her hands), barely spent any time with Marah, either.
All she had to do was pretend she was on some sports team, and she could be gone as
much as she wanted, and no one ever asked to come to one of her games or asked her
if she was okay.
By senior year, she had it down to a science: She woke on time every morning, bleary-eyed
from bad dreams, and stumbled into her bathroom. Rarely did she bother showering or
washing her hair, even on school days. It was too exhausting. And it wasn’t like it
mattered if she was clean or dirty.
She’d given up all hope of making friends at BHHS—and good riddance to the shallow,
hair-tossing set who thought the right car proved your worth.
Finally, it was June of 2008. Her graduation from Beverly Hills High. Everyone was
downstairs, waiting for her. Grandma and Grandpa and Tully had flown in for the Big
Event. They were buzzing with enthusiasm, playing Ping-Pong with words like
exciting
and
accomplishment
and
pride
.
Marah didn’t feel any of it. As she reached for her graduation robe, she felt a cold
dread descend. The cheap polyester fabric rustled in her grasp. She put on the robe
and zipped it up and then went to the mirror.
She was pale and thin and had puffy lavender-colored shadows beneath her eyes. How
was it that none of the people who supposedly loved her had noticed how bad she looked?
As long as she did what was expected of her—did her homework, applied to colleges,
and pretended to have friends—no one really looked at her. That was what she’d wanted,
what she’d chosen, and yet it hurt. Mom would have seen how unhappy she was. That
was one of the truths Marah had learned: no one knew you as well as your mom. She
would give anything for one of the oh-no-you-don’t-young-lady looks she used to hate.
Her dad yelled up from downstairs, “Time to go, Marah.”
She walked to her dresser and stared longingly at the Shrek music box. Anticipation
quickened her heartbeat.
She opened the lid. Inside, she found the knife and dozens of tiny pieces of gauze,
stained brown with old blood; relics she couldn’t release. Slowly, she opened the
knife and pulled up her sleeve and made a quick, pretty slice on the inside of her
forearm, where it wouldn’t be seen.
She cut too deep. She knew it instantly.
Blood rushed down her arm, splatted on the floor. She needed help. And not just to
stop the bleeding. She was out of control somehow.
She went downstairs. In the living room, blood splattered the stone floor at her feet.
“I need help,” Marah said quietly.
Tully was the first to respond.
“Jesus, Marah,” her godmother said, tossing her camera onto the sofa. She swooped
forward and grabbed Marah’s other wrist and dragged her into the nearest bathroom,
forcing her to sit on the closed toilet.
Dad rushed into the bathroom behind them as Tully burrowed through drawers, throwing
out bars of hand soap and hairbrushes and tubes of hand cream.
“What the hell happened?” her dad yelled.
“Bandages,” Tully snapped, kneeling beside Marah. “
Now!
”
Dad left them. He was back in no time with gauze and adhesive tape. He stood back,
looking confused and angry, while Tully applied pressure to stop the bleeding and
then bandaged the wound. “There,” Tully said. “But I think she’ll need stitches.”
Tully stepped back, allowed Dad to move in. “Jesus…” he said, shaking his head. He
bent down to be eye level with Marah.
He tried to smile, and she thought:
This isn’t my dad, not this man who can’t straighten his shoulders and rarely laughs
anymore.
He wasn’t himself any more than she was the daughter he remembered. He was even going
gray—when had that started?
“Marah?” he said. “What happened?”
She was too ashamed to answer. She’d already disappointed him so much.
“Don’t be afraid,” Tully said. “You asked for help. You mean therapy, don’t you?”
Marah stared up into her godmother’s warm brown gaze. “Yes,” she said softly.
“I don’t understand,” Dad said, looking from Tully to Marah.
“She did it on purpose,” Tully said.
Marah could see how confused her father was. It made no sense to him that cutting
herself
helped
. “How could I not know that you were hurting yourself?”
“I know someone who can help her,” Tully said.
“Here in L.A.?” Dad asked, turning to look up at Tully.
“In Seattle. Remember Dr. Harriet Bloom? From my show? I bet I could get Marah in
to see her on Monday.”
“Seattle,” Marah said. It was a lifeline being thrown to her. How often had she dreamed
of going back to see her friends? But now that the opportunity was here, she found
that she didn’t care. It was more proof that she was sick. Disturbed. Depressed.
Dad shook his head. “I don’t know…”
“She did it down here, Johnny, in Los Angeles,” Tully said. “Today of all days. I
may not be Freud, but I can tell you this is a cry for help. Let me help her.”
“You?” he said sharply.