Before You Knew My Name

by Jacqueline Bublitz

The chance to speak for herself, to be known for more than her ending.

I will not be like my mother, who forgave any man who said sorry.

That when a man discovers where to hurt you, the way he touches you changes. He won’t be able to stop himself from pressing hard against that spot, no matter how many times it makes you cry.

She has stood in the middle of too many summers and winters, too many dance floors and other people’s parties, and simply woken up the next day older than before.

A little arms-out-wide moment at all the freedom ahead of her.

‘You’re going to be all right, Alice Lee,’ I say out loud to the towels and the hangers and the chocolate-coloured dog. And it’s nice, in this moment, to believe it.

I think she is beautiful, the way an old-time beauty queen is beautiful, all silver sparkles and sash and crown.

you’d understand why it’s a place, not a person, I have given my heart to this time around.

damage gets packed in your suitcase, people stay on your skin.

(Are we ever the same person with someone else? And if we’re not, what happens when one of you leaves, where does that version of you go? This is something I have thought about a lot since my mother left me.)

The idea that truth is hurtful puzzles me. Seems like lying to a person does all the damage.

Stardust, then, is both the end and the beginning of things. A galactic reminder that birth and death are not so very different.’

I am tired of beautiful things making me sad.

It begins, in fact, with nothing and therefore can always begin,

It isn’t always, only ever, bad. That’s mostly why she had to leave him.

But that’s not how we do it, is it? When a man punishes us for our resistance, we scramble to make it right.

I have learned he often shares pieces of himself inside other truths.

This last light, bright morning of my life.

We think in years—How was this year, what’s your New Year’s resolution, I’m so glad to see this year gone—but it’s really the hours that change us.

Surely, some people find their person, and stay with that person, and make babies and a life with that person. Not just some people, in fact, but most people. Ruby is the odd one out, here.

Her body was discovered by a jogger. Why did they never say what happened to the jogger after that?

She wants to tell Lennie that normal feels like a foreign country these days.

‘I’ve come to think that intensity, not time, is what connects us.

The only rule of Death Club, therefore, is that a hard question is more important than a simple answer.

How easy is it, Ruby will think later, back in her studio, to assume you are the cause of another person’s discomfort or disdain, when the reality is, we all show up with our night befores, our midnight hours and too-early mornings.

She hadn’t read nearly enough books, and she was busy falling in love with the world, when she was yanked right out of it.

Every riddle has an answer. No matter how long it takes to solve, the answer was created at the exact same time as the question.

It seems impossible—but then, it’s always unfathomable, isn’t it. What we don’t know of the future when a happy picture is taken.

How many times does politeness keep us rooted to the spot? We stand on the brink, making a choice whether to tip over into trust or disgust, and we remember all our training, the lifetime of it. The doctrine of nice, the fear of hurting someone’s feelings.

That being seen and known is better for you than being someone’s enduring mystery.

Turns out the past sticks to whatever it touches. You cannot simply wash it away.

Safety comes from moving with the current until you are free of it, and then, only then, can you turn and swim like hell for the shore.

Writers who mapped the world and its sorrows with their words.

I stop somewhere waiting for you.

these young girls can’t understand you sometimes say yes as a means of survival. Not until it is their turn to say yes, some day.

We do get wearied. Girls like me.