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The first time she lets a boy touch her is in December, just before her 18th birthday. The day the rain starts. It usually doesn’t begin until January or February, but this year the rain comes early. Buckets and buckets of water dump down against the cement, against the strip malls, against the freshly painted stucco homes. In Southern California, the further you get from the ocean, the less interesting it becomes. The beach boardwalks and bronze-colored beauties from the TV shows are replaced with high-desert heat, dust storms, and barren foothills. The annual precipitation is laughable, but for two weeks each year, the skies cloud over, and it rains with vengeance. The sandy soil can’t absorb the water fast enough, so the streets become rivers, hill sides become hill slides, and then, as quickly as it comes, it goes away.

For a moment, Sara considers just staying home, but she hasn’t missed a day of school in two years so a rainstorm doesn’t seem like much of an excuse. Reluctantly, she zips up her parka, tucks her chin to her chest, and plunges out from under the house’s front awning. With every step, her hair gets wetter and wetter. She died it Simply Red a week ago, and when she catches sight of her reflection in the side mirror of a parked car her hair looks as dark as blood against her skin. Read the rest of this entry →