Before You Knew My Name by Jacqueline Bublitz (books to read for teens txt) 📕

‘I … I’ll be eighteen. Tomorrow.’

He looks at me for a second, and then he is up out of bed and across the room before I understand what is happening.

‘Fuck. Fuck. Fuuuuuck. Jesus Christ, Alice. You’re fucking seventeen?’

‘Yes? Why—’

‘I took pictures of you! I filmed you!’

He hurls these words across the room at me, looking like he’s going to be sick, and I still don’t fully comprehend what is going on, why my birthday has caused such a panicked reaction. Then slowly, up through the fog of my brain, I hear Tammy’s voice the last time we spoke, the way she called me jailbait, and I cannot believe I never considered this. The girl so obsessed with the freedom that comes from turning eighteen should never have missed what she was not considered free of, all the days before.

‘Jamie, I’m sorry. I thought you knew. And it doesn’t matter. I mean, I said yes. It was my choice. It wasn’t … you didn’t …’

That strange, unrecognisable look has solidified, he is now staring at me as if he has never seen me before.

‘Jesus Christ! I could go to jail for this!’

‘No! I would never. It would never—’

‘You have to go!’

He is pacing the room now, shouting.

‘No, Jamie. Don’t be silly. It’s just one more day and we’ll be fine. Just one more day and—’

‘Shut up, just shut the fuck up. Get away from me, you stupid little cunt!’

These are the ugliest words he has ever said to me, worse than anything I could have imagined, and when he does not come to comfort me, I know that he means them. I say Sorry! over and over, but he has already left the room, I can hear him fumbling for his car keys in the hall.

‘You need to be gone by the time I get back, Alice.’

Mr Jackson says this from the front door, and then I hear it open and slam shut behind him. His car revs, skids from the driveway. And I am, once again, on my own.

My chest is caving in.

He knows I have nowhere to go. He invited me in, with no real intention of letting me stay. Anger rises up in my throat each time I think of what he offered me, what he held back. This righteousness is a brief respite, before I throw up my sadness all over again.

I can’t go back to Gloria’s. She texted the other day to say she was out of town for the week. When I get home, we’ll need to talk about your plans, she ended the message, and I knew what that meant: she was expecting me to leave after my birthday. I’m going to stay up here with Tammy through the spring, I had texted back, thinking I was creating space for Mr Jackson and me. I’ll let you know when I’m back in town. Her Cool in response was enough for me to know that she wouldn’t bother checking up on me. As for Tammy, we haven’t spoken since she called me jailbait, outside of a few text messages we each take a little too long to respond to. I’ve been preoccupied with Mr Jackson, and she will no doubt have been busy monitoring her father’s sobriety, and keeping her boyfriend Rye on the straight and narrow; I can see her drinking vodka from a can and rolling her messy smokes, as they huddle together by the water, inhaling harder stuff than whatever she could get hold of back home. I know she is as happy as she expects to be, which makes me happy for her.

I want more.

What I need then, if I want to get out of this town once and for all, is money. I can’t believe I let Mr Jackson distract me from the only thing I knew for sure.

I make a decision that will change my life. Quickly, and with the clarity necessity brings. Going to where Mr Jackson hides the cash he makes from selling his art, I grab every last bill stuffed in that old film canister. Next, I throw my clothes into the duffel bags I brought over from Gloria’s house, just the clean stuff. I know I have left underwear and T-shirts in the bathroom, and I am glad. I want there to be evidence I was here. He will have to consciously discard this proof of me. He’ll have to know what he’s doing as he scoops up my belongings, throws them in the trash. To consider his discomfort at this task is a small satisfaction, like an ice cube on a sting.

I have almost shut the door to his house behind me, locked myself out, when I turn back. There is something I want to take with me. A gap I want to create in his world. When I lift it from the box, the Leica is lighter than I expected it to be. Having never held it before, it feels even more precious in my hands.

It was his mother’s camera. I know what this loss will mean to Mr Jackson, and my small satisfaction expands and bursts in my chest. There should be consequences when you hurt someone. I want him to know that I do not care for him, for his art, anymore. He has shown me who he is, and now I will show him the real me, too.

I close my fist around the money. Press the Leica against my chest. A slut. A thief. A liar. Mr Jackson can cast me any way he likes from here. Because I know what I am. I am a survivor. I will turn eighteen years old tomorrow, and I am leaving on my own terms. Nothing—no one—can hold me back now.

Ruby Jones is telling herself this very thing as she weighs her suitcases at the airline counter in Melbourne, scans her passport, prepares to board her flight to New York City.

I’m ready, she thinks, for whatever comes next.

This optimism, despite everything