Ryan Atwood was sick of playing the game. Sick of pretending he fit in with the preppy, high-social-classed family that had signed the paper of his rights not a week ago. He didn't belong here. He didn't belong in a pool house that was nicer than anywhere he'd ever stayed before- a pool house. He didn't belong in a private school where the only worry was whether or not there would be sufficient booze at the next rager. He didn't belong in the town where alcoholism was practically a right of passage, and the houses were all the size of his old school. Ryan Atwood belonged in Chino. He belonged with drunken bastards, jail house brothers, and negligent mothers. He belonged in the dingy, abandoned house, practically leveled without the proper maintenance.
But the Cohens apparently felt differently. The told him he belonged in their family. They told him he belonged on the beach, at the pool, in the spacious pool house. They told him that eating was mandatory. They told him not to get into any trouble. They told him that he mattered.
Dawn had never said that to him. Dawn had told him that he was stupid, and useless. Dawn and her latest boyfriend would hit him. They would never bring food, or at least not enough for him and Trey to eat as well. There was always only spoiled milk and the occasional moldy bread in the fridge. He hadn't known about real food until - ironically enough - he had been in jail. His room was miniature, and he could hear everything that went on in the house, including his mother and brother's fights. Trouble was OK in the Atwood house. Just as long as it didn't involve Dawn in any way, she didn't care. She told him that he never mattered anyway. That he was just a stupid, drunken night that turned into a huge mistake. She told him that he was all his dirty bastard of a father's fault.
So that he would stay, until the Cohens could change his mind.