You look down into the red duffel bag, your hands trembling and heart beating, beating, beating. It tells you that you’re afraid. It tells you that you’re ready. You feel like you’re on the edge of Before and After. A line once crossed can never be uncrossed. For the third time you run through the list of things you’ll be taking with you into your new life, as if that will steady you.

1. Four pairs of cotton underwear from Target. The tan and bloodstained pair, the white and bloodstained pair, the light blue pair speckled with stars, and your personal favorite—the lavender pair with lace trim.
2. Two bras, each with bent underwire and frayed straps.
3. Three shirts, chosen carefully. A Lorde T-shirt you bought two years ago at the Roseland Ballroom which no longer exists, a tie-dyed Ben and Jerry’s T-shirt with a hole in the armpit you got with your favorite cousin in Saratoga Springs. A V-neck with a corgi print.
4. A red flannel that once belonged to your sister. Sometimes you think you can smell her perfume still clinging to it.
5. Three pairs of jeans.
6. An envelope of crisp, newly cashed money you earned lifeguarding in the sweltering heat while tolerating the leering gaze of older men and crushing summertime ennui. Four-hundred fifty dollars in all.
7. A stack of tarot cards bought at a new age shop in the city which were, according to your mother, of the Devil.
8. A Swiss army pocketknife filched from your older brother in the dead of night as he slept.
9. Three paperback books: Just Kids, The Communist Manifesto, and The Art of War. Each one a symbol of the parts of you that wanted to be an artist, a revolutionary, and a warrior, respectively.
10. The sweater you wore on the night you first connected with Him. Halloween. It was black, red, and thick, and he said he liked it. You were sure of yourself, giggly and drunk, and he said he liked you.
11. A box of Annie’s Macaroni and Cheese.
12. A half diary half-filled with messy rambles and lamentations. I want to be free, they read. And I want to be loved. But are the two mutually exclusive? Idk idk idk. You liked to pretend they were for your eyes only but secretly wished someone would read them and finally understand you in the way you desperately longed to be understood.
13. A letter scrawled on loose-leaf paper which read: Fran—Meet me at the station at 6:30. Pack light. Love you.
14. A train ticket for the coast.

You inhale. Zip the duffel bag. Exhale.

—By Mary Kate C., 17, New York