Dear Teen Me: Authors Write Letters to Their Teen Selves (True Stories) (7 page)

Joseph Bruchac

Dear Teen Me,

You didn’t believe that what your grandmother kept telling you would ever come true. You couldn’t. But when you hit your growth spurt you
really
hit it. Suddenly, you were bigger and stronger than all of the guys who used to bully you. You’d been fired after your first day as a caddy because you couldn’t lug a golf bag, but now you’re the right tackle on the football team, and a varsity heavyweight wrestler.

However, I’m sad to say that despite the growth spurt that transformed you from a bullied brainiac into a major jock, you’re still not about to get the girl anytime soon. Partly, yes, because you lack smoothitude, but also because you’re not willing to settle for just anybody. Your grandmother taught you to respect women as actual human beings (and not to look at them as objects), and you learned that lesson well. Your grandmother was one of the first women to pass the bar in New York, and even though she never worked as an attorney, she definitely knew how to “lay down the law” on your behavior.

In the eternal meantime, you’re on your own, and you are not getting it on.

It’s senior year after a big game. You’re eating pizza at DeGregory’s Restaurant with your football buddies. Someone comes in and says in an excited whisper: “Linda S. is in a car out back. She’s drunk and willing to make out with anybody.”

Linda S. is a pretty blonde girl two years younger than you, a shy country kid who lives only a mile from you. You don’t remember getting up or going through the door, but the next thing you know you’re in the alley beside that car. You push past two other guys, grab skinny Sammy Carson by his belt and toss him to the side. But then, instead of climbing into the back of that wide-seated ‘58 Buick, you take Linda S. by the arm and lead her, her on unsteady legs, to your car. Other guys step aside when they see that look in your eye.

She’s crying now. You give her your handkerchief. As she leans against the car door you remember what she looked like five years ago when she was playing hopscotch, all skinny-legged and gangly, on the sidewalk outside School Two.
You drive her home. The light outside the old farmhouse reveals the fact that her mother’s been waiting up for her. You walk her to her door, and she kisses your cheek and whispers, “Thank you,” before she goes in. It’s your first kiss—although you won’t realize that or even value what it means until a lot later.

What I like about you in that memory is not just what you did, but the way you did it. You didn’t think of yourself as a hero. You didn’t do it to prove anything. In fact, for many years afterward you wonder what was really going on in your head back then: Did you have the urge to climb in that car with Louise yourself? (You didn’t.) Did you do the right thing? (You did.)

If you had to define what you were feeling at that moment, it was probably sadness, more than anything else. Until this letter you’ve never mentioned what happened that night to anyone—not to the guys who avoided you as you walked down the hall on Monday morning, not to Linda S., not even to your grandmother (even though you know she’d have been proud of the way you followed the path she put you on). But you didn’t do it for her approval. You did it for the person you wanted to become.

Jessica Burkhart

Dear Teen Me,

You’re eighteen, and you don’t trust anyone. Your father—an abusive con man—taught you that lesson. His fraudulent investment schemes, in which he used you and your family as bait, made you profoundly suspicious of other people’s motives. But hold on: An opportunity to escape is coming. The thing is, it depends on something you don’t really have—trust.

The next year, your life gets both better and worse simultaneously. You get a book deal. Your editor, Kate, becomes your best friend—she becomes the big sister you never had. The connection is immediate—one you’ve never had with anyone before. Soon, you love each other. You never question this. Even though Dad swore no one would ever love you, someone does.

Every day he talks about how your only responsibility is to “the family.” He says that nothing is more important; nothing should make you want to leave. And frankly, it seems impossible to you that you could ever manage to get away from him.

But Kate’s going to tell you something unbelievable: She wants to help you escape.

You have one opening. You say yes to Kate’s offer. You’re supposed to go from Florida to New York with just a single suitcase. No Mutzie (the stuffed puppy you slept with every night); no dog-eared copies of your precious Black Stallion books; no photos of your brother.

I know that this decision will seem to be the hardest part, but I’m afraid it’s not. You wobble—and the fear almost destroys you. You won’t be able to eat or sleep for weeks.

You try to act like nothing’s up. You write around the clock, watch
General Hospital
, and play video games with your brother. Dad continues to snatch your paychecks from the mailbox before you even see the envelopes.

When you call Kate, you tell Dad it’s for business. From your closet, you whisper into the phone, hoping she won’t detect the doubt that’s in your voice.
But of course she does. Kate knows that you want to leave with all your heart, but she also senses that you may still back out at the last second.

Days before your scheduled departure, Kate calls, and her voice—which is usually so warm and gentle—is chilly now, and the words she speaks are even colder. If you don’t follow through, she says that she will still be your friend, but she won’t listen to complaints about your father anymore. She won’t subject herself to accounts of how a person she loves has credit cards in her name that she’s not allowed to use, how she can’t drive anywhere alone, and isn’t allowed to speak to the neighbors—not after she gave you a chance and you didn’t take it. She will love you, be your editor, and support you, but it won’t be like it was before. You swear you’re going to leave. Promise profusely. Kate says that she’ll believe you when you get on the plane.

You cry. Hard. Hot tears. You hate her for saying those things. Support was what you needed. Or at least, that’s what you thought then. Now you know that she gave you exactly what you needed. Kate terrified you in a way that no one else ever had—not even Dad. Losing her wasn’t an option.

That phone call gets you on the plane. Months later, Kate tells you how she agonized over that awful call, cried when she hung up, and hated every second of speaking to you that way. But threatening your friendship was the only way to ensure your safety.

One terrible phone call saved your life. And now, you’ve gotten away. You are no longer kept.