Fly Away (Firefly Lane 2)

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.

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.