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

she could tell them, especially after coming back to the park today. It is a week since she learned about Josh. At first, they sent messages about the next meet-up, which she didn’t reply to. Then individual ones, to her. And now, the unanswered messages have stopped coming, and Ruby is unsure how to reach across this newly created divide. Something, she fears, has been irretrievably lost in the distance Josh’s revelation has opened up between them.

She is sipping at her latte, trying to put Death Club out of her head once and for all, when Tom puts down his coffee cup and looks out across the water, appears to weigh something up before he speaks.

‘You know, Ruby. A girl was murdered here in the park. Just a few weeks ago, back in April.’

Ruby feels her cheeks grow hot.

‘I did know that, yeah.’

Tom is still staring into the distance, his eyes squinting against the sun.

‘Such a terrible thing to happen. And it’s usually so safe around here. I only bring it up because you said you’re here in New York on your own.’

He turns, looks into her eyes. ‘As a woman on her own, you need to be careful, Ruby.’

(They want you to be grateful. When they show off their care in this way. Ruby understands this, and she bristles at this man’s concern, no matter how well-intended she thinks it might be.)

‘I’m careful enough, Tom,’ she says, her smile stopping half-mast. ‘Most women are, actually. I can only assume Alice was trying to be careful, too.’

‘I wouldn’t say being alone in a city park in the dark is careful,’ Tom responds, an arch in his voice, as if Ruby has offended him, but then he sighs, shakes his head. ‘Sorry. What could I know about such things? About what it’s like to be a woman. It’s just—I have sisters, nieces. And I feel sick thinking of anything like this happening to them. At any rate’—Tom shakes his head again, as if reshuffling his thoughts—‘what a terrible conversation to have on such a nice day. Tell me more about why you decided to come here. Like I said, I’ve always wanted to go to Australia. I think Sydney first, then …’

And he’s back to his sunny side up conversation, just like that.

For Ruby, however, the spell has been broken. He knows about the murder. There’s no way he wouldn’t, when it’s still all over the news. She had thought, hoped, she could escape it, even for an hour, but what did she expect, coming down to the river like this. She scolds herself for her optimism, even as she feels that sense of prickling unease return. Tom, so light and breezy just moments before, now settles on her skin as an irritation. How can he be so blithe, so unaffected by the things going on around him, she wonders? He has not even noticed the change in her mood.

Ruby knows she is being unfair. Understands she shouldn’t resent this cheerful man’s lack of complications, but the absence of her Death Club friends feels even more stark, as he launches into another glib story, this one about the time he met Mel Gibson at a bar downtown.

‘Top bloke,’ Tom is saying, mimicking an Australian accent poorly, and Ruby forces a smile, but all she can think of is excusing herself, getting away from this failed attempt at normalcy as soon as she can. Back home in Melbourne, they used to say there could be four seasons in a day, temperatures dropping rapidly, sunshine giving way to hail with no warning. She thinks now that she has become the weather.

Her reprieve comes when Tom’s phone, face down on the table, buzzes.

‘I might have to get that,’ he says.

‘Please go ahead,’ Ruby nods. ‘I need to get going myself, anyway.’

Tom looks disappointed but makes no effort to stop her when she pushes her chair back, stands up.

‘I think,’ she says, ‘I lost track of time.’

‘Well, I’m very glad you did,’ Tom replies, before waving away the cash she attempts to put down on the table.

‘Absolutely not, Ruby. A gentleman always pays. Though perhaps next time we meet in the park, you’ll let me buy you a real drink.’

The suggestion is playful, implicit. He wants to see her again. Ruby feels something pull tight in her chest. The weight, she will think later, of being wanted by the wrong man. For now, she smiles her practised smile and takes Tom’s hand, offered to her across the table.

Strong, warm fingers wrap around hers, squeeze tight.

‘Until we meet again.’ Tom presses down on her hand one last time before letting go. ‘And I meant what I said before. Be careful, Ruby. It’s not as safe out there as it might seem.’

He looks back at her once after they part, turns and offers an exaggerated wave, before taking a set of stairs two at a time, up out of the park, and away. Instead of following him, heading home, Ruby finds herself walking back down to the water, following the winding path until she comes to that little curve of beach again, water slapping up against the rocks.

Lowering her head against the metal rail, Ruby struggles not to cry.

A girl was murdered here in the park. Just a few weeks ago.

I know because I found her.

This is what Ruby could have, should have, said. She should have told Tom the truth about this nice spot down by the river.

But where on earth do you go from there?

She isn’t the only one who has been avoiding the scene of the crime until now. The push-pull for Ruby all these weeks, the coming to the edge of things and then backing away, was me. I kept my hands on her chest, pushed back hard whenever the river called. Because I know how it calls him, too. I see the trail of blood he follows, can hear the rush of it in his ears. He’s careful, of course.