Chapter Two

"Next time I want all of it finished. Do you hear me?" Mari's dad screamed from down the hall. He'd been home all of two days, and already he was laying into her as though she'd burnt the house down in his absence.

Mari slammed her bedroom door and flung herself onto the bed, blinking back the tears that stung at her eyes. So she'd forgotten to wash all the dirty bath towels while he was on the road. Big deal. It wasn't as though there weren't plenty of clean ones in the bathroom closet. Why did he always have to treat her this way?

Mari took a deep breath and tried to steady herself; she was determined not to let him upset her. This was her last weekend of freedom before school started back, and she intended to enjoy it, despite the fact that her dad had completely lost all touch with reality. Shelly would be there any minute to pick her up, presumably with Ardeth in tow, and the three of them would be heading into the neighboring town to do some shopping. Mari had wanted to spend this weekend with her mom, but she had to work. Hanging out with Shelly and Ardeth was the next best thing, and definitely better than spending the weekend here battling against her dad, especially sense he appeared to be in one of his moods.

Mari straightened her hair and pulled on a pair of black jeans, topping it off with a white t-shirt that featured a black-and-white screened image of Billy Idol on the front. She checked her reflection in the mirror. Not totally perfect, but as good as it was going to get. She smeared some black eyeliner around the bottom of her eyes and headed outside to wait for Shelly on the porch. As she walked through the house, the windows open so that the cool breeze from outside flowed through each room — her dad thought that running the air conditioner would run up the electric bill too much — she realized that the house was quiet.

After his tantrum, her dad must have collapsed onto his own bed for a nap. Thank goodness, she thought. At least she would be able to leave the house with Shelly and Ardeth in peace.

The air was extremely hot and dry, almost unbearable. Luckily, Mari didn't have to wait long. Almost as soon as she stepped outside, adjusting the strap of her black satchel over one shoulder and across her chest, the big silver Buick pulled into the driveway, the sound of gravel crunching beneath the tires. Mari waited to see if the sound would wake her dad up, but there wasn't a sound from inside the house. Not wanting to press her luck, she rushed to the car and got into the front seat. Shelly backed out before Mari had her seatbelt buckled. She didn't have to tell Shelly that with Victor West home it was best to get out while you could.

"Where's Ardeth?" Mari asked, noticing that her best friend didn't occupy her usual spot in the back seat.

Shelly shrugged. "Her mom made her stay home and finish the laundry. She should be done with it by the time we get back, though. When I left she only had one load left to dry and fold."

Mari suppressed a scream. For months now she'd been urging Ardeth to stand up to her mom over the housework, but she was too kind to say anything harsh to anyone, especially her own mom. It was also just lucky for them, and Ardeth, that the dangerously narrow serpentine road that led to her house was on the way to the mall.

Marjorie Parker and Ardeth's little brother were gone when Mari and Shelly walked through the narrow hall that led from the back door to the kitchen. Though this was the back door, it was the door that everyone used. The livingroom door, which would normally have been considered the front door, was usually blocked by some piece of monstrous furniture that Ardeth's dad was building or refurbishing.

"Right after she told me to finish the laundry, she took Johnny and left," Ardeth said after telling her dad bye and grabbing her small white purse with a bunch of rock band buttons on the front.

"Where are they going?" Shelly asked as they headed toward the car.

Ardeth shrugged.

Shelly let Ardeth pick the music this time, and to Mari's aberration she chose something by Tool. Not that Mari hated Tool. It was just that Ardeth had been listening to the band over and over for months now, making Mari sick of them. By the time they reached the mall, Mari couldn't wait to get out of the car and away from the radio. The tiny mall was one story, with only a handful of stores and only one food spot, a little Itallian joint that had been around since the eighties.

It was never a question of where to go first. Their little trio always hit up the small department store first, mostly because it was the first store in the makeshift mall that was worth going into. Ardeth headed straight for the cosmetics, and Mari assumed she was probably hunting down some weird, neon-colored nail polish. Mari noticed that today Ardeth's long, oval fingernails (which she never cut) were painted a perky shade of yellow.

Mari's nails were either black or bare. She was fully engrossed in hunting down the cheapest bottle of black polish when she heard Shelly utter a low squeal. She immediately snapped her head up, looking up at Shelly through her long, dark lashes. "What?"

"It's him."

Him? That really narrowed it down. Craning her neck to look around Shelly, Mari spotted the new guy across the aisle, looking at a display of Back to School gear that the store had set up. His dark hair, reflecting blue in the flourescent lights overhead, hung thoughtlessly at his shoulders, and his hands were stuffed into his pockets as he examined a row of notebooks. A part of Mari wished that he would turn toward her just a little bit, just so that she could see the sparkling purple of his amethyst eyes. But there was another part of her that cringed at the thought of locking eyes with him again, and she turned her gaze quickly away and resumed scanning over the selection of $1 nail polish.

"Man, he is hot," Shelly said under her breath so that only Mari and Ardeth could hear.

Ardeth rolled her eyes.

"I guess," Mari said, trying to sound nonchalant.

"Oh, yeah, whatever," said Shelly sarcastically as she stooped down to join Mari at the nail polish rack.

Why did they always have to keep the cool colors on the bottom? Mari thought, agitated.

Shelly was grinning. "I know you think he's hot. Don't lie about it."

"I didn't lie about it; I just don't see the point in falling over myself for some guy." Mari snatched up a bottle of black polish and stood up quickly, looking up just as the new guy turned from the row of notebooks.

Their eyes locked again, and Mari was immediately caught in his gaze, entranced by the jewel-like purple of his eyes. He grinned, tossed her a quick nod, and walked off toward the stationary department. Only after he was out of sight did Mari realize that she'd been holding her breath. A sharp pain ripped through her lungs as she sucked in a deep breath, turning away from Shelly's smirking expression.

"Green or orange?" Ardeth asked, completely ignoring the conflict between her two friends.

"Green," Mari said without actually looking. She was looking at Shelly, her lips pursed in a disapproving grimace, one eyebrow raised in defiance. "Come on, Ardeth. I think that we should finish our school shopping." She started for the notebook display. "You coming, Shelly?"

Mari grabbed a couple of three-ring binders, several packs of loose-leaf paper, a pack of pencils, a pack of pens, and some white-out. She would be totally in debt to Ardeth for the rest of the day for pulling Shelly's attention away from her obvious attraction to the new guy; Mari decided to buy her a little present for her unintentional kindness. Making sure that Shelly and Ardeth were distracted with trying to find just the right notebook color, Mari snuck away from the Back to School display and went in search of a little thank-you present for Ardeth.

She found the perfect thing in the jewelry department — a pack of lime-green rubber bracelets. Mari put them in her shopping basket and made her way around to the backpacks. The display took up an entire aisle, and she immediately passed by the cheap-looking backpacks with pictures of cartoons and children's television show characters on the fronts. At the end of the aisle she found what she was looking for. Mari was busy examining a grey backpack with blue piping when she heard a deep, throaty voice behind her.

"Not the color I would pick for you," he said.

Mari froze. He must have stepped closer to her, because she could feel waves of heat emanating from his body, almost stifling in this confined space. She didn't dare look up, though her back was to him. She wasn't ready to see those burning amethyst eyes trained on her, making her feel . . . Well, she wasn't ready to see his face, that's all.

"What's the matter? Don't you speak?" He leaned against the support beam with his arms crossed over his chest, an amused smirk tugging at the corners of his lips.

Slowly, Mari turned to face him. He was leaning against the balance beam, his arms crossed over his chest and a confident smirk tugging att he corners of his lips. His strange amethyst eyes burned right through her, and a fire began to ebb in the center of her chest.

"I can speak," Mari said, thankful that she hadn't stammered. "I just don't have anything to say."

He nodded. "Okay. I can accept that. Still, wouldn't you like to know which one I would choose?"

Mari cocked an eyebrow and shrugged.

He turned and examined the limited selection, then chose a dark-red backpack with black piping and a mesh zipper pocket on the front. "I'd pick this one. It seems more your style than that dull grey thing you've got there. You look like a red-and-black kind of girl."

"Oh, do I?"

Finally, Mari found her breath again, though the first breath was sharp and a bit jagged. If he noticed her shaky breathing, he didn't mention it. He took a step toward her, handing her the backpack. Mari looked at it for a moment. He was right. She did like it better. The color was perfect. She let the grey one drop to the bottom of the rack and took the red one from his hands.

"Thanks." Mari muttered.

He smiled. "My name's Razor. And you are?"

Mari sighed. "Annemari. But I prefer Mari."

"Okay. Mari it is, then."

"Razor? Is that like a nickname or something?"

"No, that's my name."

"It's kind of . . . weird. Kick-ass, but weird."

He smirked again, as though enjoying some private joke that he didn't think Mari would get. "I guess so. An odd name for an odd guy, I suppose."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Mari was totally infatuated with him now; she didn't want him to go, though she sensed an end to this little meeting approaching. Soon she'd be back in the clutches of Shelly and Ardeth.

Razor shook his head. "Nothing. I'll see you in school."

"Yeah, see you," Mari said as he turned and started back down the aisle. She was still a little confused about that "odd" comment.

Mari's head was spinning. She wasn't used to feeling like this, and it was all so new to her that she wasn't sure what to do. She had never flirted with a guy, so she had no intention of starting now. Still, it would have been nice to have had some sort of How To manual to help her out. Her mind was swirling with ways to start a conversation with him again, without sounding like a total idiot.

"Mari? Mari, where'd you go?"

Shelly's voice sliced through Mari's brain, cutting off all thought. Her blissful, serene moment with Razor was lost as Shelly and Ardeth rounded the corner and bounded down the backpack aisle in search of her. Ardeth's arms were full of school stuff; she was juggling it all very carefully in an attempt not to drop anything.

Why didn't she get a shopping basket? Mari asked herself.

"Mari? Why didn't you tell us you were leaving?" Shelly scolded, pulling a long strand of fiery-red hair out of her eyes.

Mari just shrugged. "I dunno. You guys just seemed busy. I didn't want to bother you."

Given the intuitive expression in Ardeth's eyes, Mari knew that her best friend could tell she was lying, but she didn't say anything.

Shelly looked at the backpack in Mari's hands and nodded in approval. "That's perfect for you."

Mari smiled, suddenly deciding to keep her serendipitous encounter with Razor to herself. "Yeah. I thought so, too."

After leaving the mall with a truckload of school supplies and a few clothes, Shelly drove Mari home and then headed back toward town. The house was quiet when she entered, and the silence would have been welcome if the air hadn't felt so ominously thick. Something was about to happen. Something bad.

Mari hurried to her bedroom and closed the door, locking it behind her and letting her plastic shopping bags drop to the floor. A sinking feeling filled her chest, forcing a lump to rise in her throat. Mari dreaded the moment when Dad would wake up, or — if he was already awake and just laying in wait — when he would come stomping down the hall, his face red with some imagined and unexplained rage, bellowing at the top of his lungs.

Several minutes went by and the silence persisted. Mari started to relax a little. Maybe he was just asleep. After all, not every day was a battle. Just most of them.

Her dad had been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder several years ago. But, like many Bipolar patients, he often refused to take his meds because he didn't think that he needed them. The fits of depression Mari could handle. The mania was the problem. Not to mention the paranoia. During those times, there was no telling what he would do. But Mari was all too familiar with what he was capable of.

Or so she thought.

Mari collapsed onto her white, four-post bed and turned on the TV with the remote that usually sat on the bedside table. She found one of her favorite old horror films on Netflix and decided to put it on for some background noise, tossing the remote to the bed and closing her eyes.

Razor's amethyst eyes glittered behind her closed eyelids. Where had he come from? She had never met a guy like him before, not even when she'd lived upstate with her mom. He was completely different from anything she knew. And although he had seemed interested in her at the mall earlier, she couldn't help but feel like there was some catch. She had never considered herself all that pretty, and she didn't think that any of the guys at school thought of her that way, either.

Of course, she could be wrong. After all, she did a pretty good job at ostracizing herself from people so much so that even if a guy thought she was pretty he probably wouldn't approach her out of fear that she might bite his head off or something. And that was just the way she'd liked to keep things.

Until now.

"Mari? You home?" Mari heard her dad's voice echo down the hall. He didn't sound angry or paranoid about anything. In fact, he sounded somewhat pleasant. Maybe a good day's nap was just what he'd needed.

"Yeah," she called back. She reluctantly opened her eyes and slid out of bed, opening the door.

Her dad was smiling, running a hand through his thick, dark hair. "Did you girls have fun?"

"I guess so."

"Did you get everything you needed for school?"

Mari was relieved that he appeared to be in such a reasonable mood, but she also knew that she'd better tread lightly. There was no telling when his mood would shift, or what could provoke it. "I think so. I got everything on the list that they gave us last week."

Her dad nodded. "That's good. Did you eat with them?"

"Yeah, we got something at that pizza place in the mall."

"Okay. Well, I'm going to watch TV in the livingroom. You can come on in there if you want to." Mari knew this was his silent code for telling her that he wanted to spend some time with her.

Sighing, she pulled her bedroom door closed and treaded down the hall, following her dad into the livingroom. He'd turned on both of the table lamps, which rested on end-tables on either side of the couch, and the TV was turned to the very same movie Mari had been watching back in the safety of her bedroom. He sat on the couch, and Mari elected to sit in the big armchair on the other side of the room. Ordinarily, she would have sat on the couch, but she didn't want to sit next to him just now. His behavior was making her skin crawl. She expected things to go to hell any minute.

They spent several minutes watching the movie in silence. Each time Victor West laughed at something funny in the movie his daughter jumped, positive that he was about to snap. Eventually, she became tired of pretending to be a happy little family and returned to her room on the pretense that she was tired from her day of shopping and wanted to rest.

She was astounded to find that she was actually looking forward to getting to school on Monday, although that place made her just as miserable as being home with her dad. There were too many people there who thought they ruled the place, that they were royalty, and they wielded that false sense of power over everyone's heads like the blade of a guillotine. Sleep was difficult, filled with strange dreams that Mari thankfully didn't remember when she woke up the next morning.

In the past she'd had to ride the bus to school. She was the first one on in the morning and the last one off in the afternoon. This morning, however, Shelly was waiting for her in the driveway in her big boat of a used car. Ardeth was in the front seat, a nervous grimace on her face.

Good god, when is she going to learn to relax a little bit? Mari wondered.

Mari looked back over her shoulder and waved at her dad, who was standing on the front porch with his arms folded over his chest, then quickly got into the back seat and closed the door.

"What's his problem?" Shelly asked, watching Victor West as though he were some sort of bad guy in a cheap mobster movie.

Mari sighed heavily. "You know him. He thinks we're up to something. He'll probably call the school later to see if I'm on the absentee list."

She rolled the window down, breathing in the early morning August air. It smelled of cut grass and wildflowers, a clean and wonderful smell that would be replaced all too soon with the smell of burning leaves and freshly harvested veggies. Not that Mari didn't like Fall. In fact, she loved it. It was her favorite time of year. She would just be sad to have to pack away the tank tops and gypsy skirts and break out the sweaters and gloves.

Once they were safely down the road and out of her dad's sight and earshot, Shelly turned the car stereo back on and suddenly Nirvana's Lithium filled the air at nearly top volume. Mari seriously considered ripping the ancient CD out of the stereo and tossing it out the window. She was really getting sick of it.

"Seriously, what's your dad's deal?" asked Shelly.

"He's just being his usually chipper self. I can't wait until he goes back out on the road."

Mari only lived five miles from town, so it didn't take all that long to get to school. They were early — way early — and the only other car in the parking lot was a shiny black 60's model Camero. Thanks to her mom being such a car fanatic, Mari was able to identify it as a '67 Super Sport. Very nice.

"Whose car is that?" Ardeth asked, shifting her backpack over her shoulder.

"Don't know," Mari said, slinging the strap of the black and red backpack the super-hot new guy had picked out for her. "And, to be quite honest, I don't care." And she didn't. She had other things on her mind, the least of which being the owner of a shiny vintage muscle car.

The school felt deserted inside, creepy, like some haunted house in a Scooby Doo movie. They entered through the same rear doors they had used for Orientation, though this morning the auditorium doors were closed and locked, and the only thing that could be seen through the door glass was blackness. As usual, Mari had managed to end up in the front, with Shelly and Ardeth walking shoulder to shoulder right on her heels.

She hated being in front. It made her feel as though she were being watched, and that just made her even more uncomfortable than she already constantly was. Sighing, Mari stopped and waited for Shelly and Ardeth to sidle up on either side of her. With Shelly on her left and Ardeth on her right, they continued down the hall until it branched off. From there one could go forward, up the stairs to the second floor, or left, down the winding L-shaped hallway and further into the school.

"My locker's on the second floor," Ardeth said, flashing Mari her usual grimace.

"Ours are next to the office," said Shelly. "We'll ditch our stuff then come get you."

Ardeth was quiet, thinking it over. Everything was such a life or death decision for her; she took absolutely everything so seriously that Mari was certain she was going to have a stroke before she hit thirty.

"Wait next to your locker and we'll come get you in a minute," Mari said. She grabbed Shelly's arm and turned toward the hall, leaving Ardeth behind. Sometimes the best way to get Ardeth to make a decision was to just make it for her. Luckily, Shelly understood this and didn't argue with Mari as they headed down the hall toward their lockers.

Somehow, Mari and Shelly had always ended up being locker neighbors, which made things somewhat easy for them to share space. They put all of their purses, book bags, and jackets in one locker, and all of their books in another. Shelly had bough space savers to install, giving them a number of plastic shelves to use so that hey could both fit all of their books in Mari's locker with no trouble. It was a system that had worked for them quite well since tenth grade.

They reached the second floor by using the stairs in the center of the hall, across from the office, and as a result had to walk the U-shaped hallway all the way around until they found Ardeth standing against a row half-sized lockers. Ardeth seemed to end up with one of these miniature-sized lockers every year, and was barely able to fit her stuff inside, whereas Shelly and Mari were always given space-saving full-length lockers. She had voiced her opinion on more than one occasion that this wasn't fair.

"I thought you forgot about me," Ardeth said as they stopped in front of her.

Mari gave her a sardonic expression. "Don't be ridiculous. We were installing that space-saver thing Shelly bought."

"Oh."

"I'm hungry," Shelly said suddenly. "Let's go to the caff. They're serving breakfast until the bell rings. We've got almost an hour."

Ardeth made a face — she despised school food, except for chicken nuggets — but followed them down the stairs to the cafeteria anyway. Mari stared out the windows set into the double-doors, a nervous knot forming in the pit of her stomach. It was difficult to forget why she'd been so anxious all morning, but she'd done a good job so far of keeping that to herself. The last thing she wanted — or needed, for that matter — was Shelly teasing her about Razor again.

Mari suddenly realized with a rush of excitement that she was the only one of her little group he'd talked to. Shelly, eat your heart out, she thought as they entered the nearly deserted cafeteria. There were a few kids — eight graders, from the looks of them — sitting around a single table, eating and talking. In the far back corner were the kids from the Special Ed. classroom, eating together before the bell rang. They were often forgotten when it came to school activities, and Mari knew for a fact that she'd never seen them in any candid shots in the yearbook. She made a promise to herself to change that.

Mari headed for their ususal lunch table with Ardeth and watched as Shelly grabbed an orange juice, a milk, and a sealed plastic bowl of Fruit Loops. One of the lunch ladies slapped a couple of pieces of toast on the tray.

"I dread this," Ardeth groaned.

"Dread what?" Mari asked, opening her messenger bag and taking out her compact. She wanted to make sure that her eyeliner hadn't smeared, something she would have cared less about a week ago.

Ardeth let out a long, heavy sigh. "Class. Them." Mari knew she meant.

Mari smiled sympathetically. "You'll be okay. If anyone says anything, just ignore them."

"Easy for you to say." She fiddled nervously with the strap of her backpack. She'd already attached several buttons to the front, all of them brandishing different rock or metal bands. "They don't bother you much anymore."

"Not to my face, but I see them watching me and giggling. They just don't like anything different from them." Mari looked up into Ardeth's eyes and say the stricken expression swimming in them. "It's not as bad as you think it is."

Ardeth rolled her eyes.

Shelly returned with her tray. Mari watched in disgust as she pulled the seal off the top of the cereal and poured the milk inside. "That can't be good," she said, wrinkling her nose as Shelly shoveled a spoonful of Fruit Loops into her mouth.

"I think I forgot my notebook," Ardeth groaned.

Mari rolled her eyes. "It's the first day, it's not a big deal. I seriously doubt you're going to have to take any notes."

Ardeth looked as though someone had punched her in the stomach.

"Here," Mari said. She unzipped her backpack — the red one with black piping — and took out a one-subject notebook. She handed it to Ardeth. "Use this."

"But what if you need it?"

"I brought more than one, Ardeth. Just keep it, okay?"

Ardeth grimaced, but slid the notebook into her own backpack. "Thanks."

"No problem."

"Hey, guys!"

The three of them turned around to see Melanie Harris, another member of their small circle of friends, standing by their table, a huge grin on her face. Her backpack was slung over one shoulder, and her dark hair was swimming around her shoulders. "Hey, Mel," Mari said. "What's up?"

"Why aren't you guys hanging out outside the band room with the rest of us?"

Ardeth wrinkled her nose at the mention of the band room.

"Shelly wanted to eat breakfast, and we just came in here with her, I guess," Mari answered. "Did we miss something?"

"No, not really. Just the usual," Melanie said, sitting down across from Mari. "We have AP English together, right?"

Mari shrugged. "Yeah, I guess so."

"Cool. Save me seat wherever you sit, okay?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever."

"Thanks." Melanie jumped up and headed out of the cafeteria.

Mari and Ardeth both rolled their eyes. Mari wondered how she and Melanie had ended up friends after she'd moved back from Richmond, especially since they'd disliked each other all through elementary school. Still, Melanie had been one of the first to welcome Mari back, and they had become fast friends once Mari had realized that Melanie had done quite a bit of growing up.

When the bell rang, Shelly dumped her trash and slid the tray through the return window, and three of them headed out into the hall. The eerie quiet had been replaced by shouting and echoing footsteps as hundreds of kids rushed to their first period classes. Maneuvering her way through the crowd, Mari felt cramped and claustrophobic.

They stopped in front of the stairs and Mari gave Ardeth a quick hug. "You'll be fine," she said in her best friend's ear. She watched as Ardeth disappeared up the stairs, then pulled Shelly along to their first class.