“Take your time.” Bo took hold of my arm again and pulled me away, toward the bonfire. “Here’s a chair,” she said, guiding me into a half-broken lawn chair. “Can you see at all?”
“A little bit,” I said, folding my cane up and putting it in my lap. “The light from the fire helps some.”
Bo flopped down on the grass at my feet. “Can you see me?”
“Sort of. Mostly just your outline. It’s too dark for me to see your face. Oh, and I can see your hair.”
Bo laughed. “Even a blind girl can see Dickinson hair.”
I smiled. “It’s true. That’s how I recognize you most of the time. Your hair and your voice.”
“You know my voice?” She sounded excited by this.
My face felt warm all of a sudden, and I didn’t think it had much to do with the fire. “Yeah,” I said. “I mean, it’s how I recognize most people. I have to spend a little time with them before I can really remember it, but—”
“Agnes?”
It took me a second to put a name to that voice. I’d heard it before, I knew it, but I wasn’t sure it had ever spoken directly to me. It was a voice I’d heard in passing—in the hallways, giving an answer in class—a thousand times, though. And I figured out who it was about half a second before Dana Hickman was standing in front of me, blocking out the light from the fire.
“Holy shit. It is you!” Dana was talking way louder than necessary, and she smelled like beer. A lot of beer. “The hell’re you doing here?”
“Am I not supposed to be here?” I asked.
“Nah. I didn’t say that! Just surprised is all. Christy said she never brings you to parties because you’re always clinging to her—you know, ’cause you can’t see? It’s gotta be so annoying for her. Nice that she helps you out most of the time, though. Where is she, anyway?”
“Um …” I swallowed, not wanting Dana to see the tears I felt coming on.
No. Fuck it if Dana saw. Bo. I didn’t want Bo Dickinson to see me cry. Not over something stupid like Christy calling me clingy. I wanted her to think I was tough. A badass, like her, not a weak, weepy crybaby.
“She didn’t come with Christy,” Bo said from the grass. “She came with me.”
“Oh shit. Bo, I didn’t even see you down there,” Dana shouted. “Now, I knew you’d be here.” She laughed, her whole body swaying, and I felt a splash of something cool on my feet. Beer, I realized. “You’re always at the party, ain’t you? Always fucking somebody. Who’s it gonna be tonight?” She didn’t say it mean, the way Christy would have, but like she was actually curious. Still, her words made me cringe.
“Ain’t decided yet,” Bo said, voice cold and flat.
“Hey, Dana,” Colt said, next to me all of a sudden. “Somebody’s looking for you over by the cooler.”
“All right. I need another beer anyway.”
“No, you don’t,” Colt muttered as Dana stumbled away.
“You know Dana?” I asked him.
“Yeah. Her brother’s my age. He ain’t got much filter when he’s drunk, either.”
He sat down on the grass and started talking to Bo. Well, I guess he was talking to both of us, but I wasn’t really listening. I was still thinking about what Dana had said. Of course Christy had called me clingy. She’d said it herself, that guiding me around a party when she had other things to do was a burden. I couldn’t really blame her. Who wanted to lead a blind girl around all night? I felt a rush of guilt, of shame, because Bo might have insisted I wouldn’t be a burden, but now that we were here, I was sure she felt different. Sure she wanted to be free of me.
“Hey,” I said, cutting Bo off midsentence. “If … if y’all wanna go do something, I can just sit here.”
“What’re you talking about?” she asked.
“You know. It’s a party. I’m sure just sitting here isn’t much fun. Y’all can go dance or talk to other people or—”
“If just sitting here ain’t much fun, why the fuck would we leave you here?” Bo asked.
“I just—”
“And if you’re bored sitting, we can fix that,” she said.
“I’m not— That’s not what I was—”
“This is one of your favorite songs, ain’t it, Colt?”
“Sure is,” he said. “Gotta love Hank Jr.”
“Well, then. Maybe y’all should dance.”
“Oh, I can’t—”
“I think that’s a great idea,” Colt said. He took a long swig of beer, then tossed the cup aside before standing up. “Come on, Agnes.”
“No, really. I’m fine. You don’t have to dance with me, Colt. Besides, you can’t really dance with a cane.”
“I know I don’t got to,” he said. “But we’re gonna dance anyway.”
“And you don’t need the cane,” Bo said, swiping it from my lap. “I’ll hold on to it.”
“But—”
“Don’t worry,” Colt said. His hand was on mine, pulling me to my feet. “I got you.” I was about to open my mouth again, but he squeezed my hand and repeated, this time almost a whisper, “I got you.”
He was careful as he led me away from the fire. The farther we walked, the less I could see, until the shadows all melted together and darkness swallowed everything whole. But Colt’s hand stayed around mine, warm and reassuring.
I was being led into darkness by a Dickinson boy. A voice in the back of my head—which sounded an awful lot like my grandma’s—told me this could not end well. But I didn’t feel nervous. Not the way I should’ve. And when Colt stopped and pulled me toward him, his other hand resting on my waist as he eased me into the beat of the music, I let myself relax, trusting that, even though I couldn’t see a thing, he had me.
“This isn’t so bad,” I said.
“Well, thank you.”
I laughed. “I didn’t mean it that way. Just that … I haven’t really danced with anyone before. Except my daddy at his cousin’s wedding, but I was about six and he let me stand on his feet. And it wasn’t this dark.”
“I’m glad to be your first real dance, then,” he said. “So, you ready?”
“For what?”
“This.”
He dropped his hand from my hip and spun me around. I squealed as my hair whipped around me and my feet stumbled. But just when I thought I’d trip, his hand was on me again, catching me, pulling me back toward him.
And I was laughing.
“Warn me next time,” I said.
“I thought I did.”
“I hope no one’s staring.”
“And I hope they are,” he said. “Here’s your warning.”
He spun me again, but that time I kept my footing. So he threw me another curveball, swinging me out, away from him, then pulling me in again. I was laughing so hard that I did trip that time, and he caught me by the elbow.
“Sorry,” he said. “Should I stop?”
“No,” I choked. “You shouldn’t.”
We danced like that through a few more songs, Colt singing along to the lyrics about honky-tonks and whiskey while he swung me around. I laughed until I could hardly breathe, but I kept my feet moving, barely able to keep them on the ground. I loved the way my dress twirled around my thighs, the feel of the cool, late-summer air on my skin. It felt like I was flying.
“Incoming!” Colt called.
I didn’t have time to ask what he was saying before he flung me away from him again, but this time he let go. I sailed away from him, my body still spinning, until I crashed into something slim and solid. I toppled to the ground, my legs and arms tangling with the person I’d spun into.
I wasn’t sure how I knew—the smell of her skin or maybe just her size—but I was sure even before we fell into the grass that it was Bo I’d collided with.
“Shit,” Colt said, standing over us. “I’m so sorry. I thought you were gonna catch her and—”
But Bo and I were both laughing too hard to hear him.
She was stuck half-beneath m
e, and I rolled off her so we were both sprawled in the grass, laughing so hard it hurt.
“Are y’all okay?” Colt asked.
“Think so,” Bo said, panting. “Jesus, Colt. I was coming over here to tell y’all you looked crazy. You didn’t have to throw Agnes at me, though.”
“If you were gonna be an asshole, I did. What about you, Agnes? You all right?”
“Never been better,” I said.
And I kind of meant it.
“Shit!” someone yelled from across the yard. “Cops!”
“Fuck,” Colt said. “We gotta go.”
“Yep.” Bo hopped up, then she pulled me to my feet. “Run.”
“What?”
She answered by taking off at top speed, her hand still gripping mine. My feet scrambled at first, startled by the sudden movement, but I caught my balance.
It’s hard to make yourself run when you can’t see. Your brain tells you to stop, that it’s not safe. I hadn’t run in years. I’d barely walked outside my house without a cane. And a cane wasn’t much use if you were sprinting.
My legs were longer than Bo’s, and it wouldn’t be too hard to keep up if I could just push past my instincts, if I could just let myself run with her. I kept my legs moving, kept my fingers locked with Bo’s as we ran into the cornfield. I stumbled over the terrain, shocked by the brush of stalks against my bare legs. I focused on the rhythm of my feet slapping against the ground, trying to keep it and my breathing steady instead of thinking about the fact that I was literally running blind.
And, eventually, I fell into it. The panic faded away, replaced by exhilaration. I hadn’t moved this fast in maybe my whole life. The air was rising past me; my dress and my hair were blowing behind me. For once, I wasn’t focusing on navigating my way through the dark, on what was ahead of me.
I thought dancing with Colt had felt like flying, but I was wrong. This was flying.
“Not much farther to the truck!” Colt hollered from behind us.
“We’re almost there,” Bo told me.
But I didn’t care. I didn’t care how far the truck was. Or that I was running from the police—with two Dickinsons, no less.
None of that mattered because, for that moment, running through the cornfield, holding tight to Bo’s hand—I felt alive, I felt wild, I felt …
Free.
“What the fuck were you thinking, Bo?” Colt yells so loud it makes Agnes jump beside me. He’s pacing the tiny living room of his apartment, and I worry for a second the neighbors might hear the shouting.
“Cut the shit, Colt,” I say, keeping my voice low. “You’d have done the same thing, and you know it.”
“I sure as hell wouldn’t have dragged Agnes into this, though,” he snaps.
“Excuse me,” Agnes says, sitting up straighter on the couch. It’s the first time she’s spoke since we got here. “It was my choice to come with her. Bo didn’t make me do anything.”
Colt sighs and runs his hand through his mop of hair while Utah rubs against his legs, desperate for attention now that he’s stopped yelling. “All right. So … what? Y’all steal a car, cut off your hair—”
“It wasn’t really stealing,” Agnes argues. “It was my sister’s car.”
“And we bought the car we got now.”
Colt ignores us. “So now what? What’s your plan? Where’re y’all going? Don’t tell me you’re thinking of staying here. I love you, Bo. More than anything. But I just got my shit together, and if the cops come looking for you here and I get in trouble—”
“Relax,” I say. “We ain’t asking to stay. Except maybe for tonight. We ain’t even asking for money.”
Colt sinks down into the battered old armchair across the room. Utah hops right into his lap, like she’s some sorta prissy toy poodle, not a full-grown German shepherd. He strokes her ears while he talks. “Then why’re you here?”
“I’m looking for Dad.”
“Your dad?”
I nod.
“Bo, I ain’t got a clue where he’s at.”
“But Uncle Jeff might.”
Colt groans. “Bo …”
“Come on. Please?”
“I ain’t talked to him in over a year.”
“But you got his number, right?”
“Wait,” Agnes says, looking between us. The living room is bright enough that I figure she can probably see okay. “Who’s Uncle Jeff?”
“My dad,” Colt says.
“Oh.” She looks horrified. “You still have his number? I thought he was awful to you and your mama before he took off.”
“Yeah. He was.”
“But he’s the only one my dad would keep in touch with,” I tell her. “They were real close growing up. After Daddy left, he’d still call Uncle Jeff. Tell him to say hi to me. Sometimes he’d even send him money to give me for Christmas. Just, like, twenty dollars or something. He’d never send it to Mama because she’d just spend it on … Anyway, I know Uncle Jeff’ll be able to get ahold of him.”
“So you need me to call my dad.” Colt sits back in the chair, and Utah whines when he stops petting her. “Why’re you looking for Uncle Wayne anyway? What’s he got to do with y’all running away?”
I stare down at my lap. At my dirty, bare knees. Because I can’t look at his face. Or Agnes’s. “He’s got money,” I say. “And that’s what we need right now.”
“And you think he’ll give it to you?”
I nod.
“This is a dumb plan, Bo.”
I grit my teeth and look up. “Colt—”
“The whole thing is stupid. Running away, looking for Uncle Wayne—it ain’t gonna end well.”
“And you think me turning around and going home will end much better?” I ask. “You know what would’ve happened if I stayed. I ain’t going through that again, Colt.”
“Bo—”
“And it’s only gonna be worse now that I done took off,” I tell him. “You might think it’s a dumb plan, but I can’t go back.”
Colt nudges Utah off his lap and stands up, walking toward the kitchen. “Agnes?” he asks. “You wanna beer?”
“Uh …” She glances at me, then back toward the kitchen. “Sure. Thank you.”
“Does that mean you’ll call Uncle Jeff?” I ask.
“I guess.”
“And we can stay here tonight?”
He walks back into the living room, two cans of beer in his hands. He gives one to Agnes, then pops the top on his own. “Fine,” he says to me. “Y’all can stay tonight. But that’s it. I’ll get in a lot of trouble if the cops come looking for you here.”
“They won’t,” I say.
And I sure hope I’m right.
They think I’m asleep.
I’m curled up on Colt’s ugly couch, a blanket pulled over me. The TV is on, turned down low, while The Tonight Show plays. But Agnes isn’t on her pallet on the floor. She got up a while ago and went to Colt’s bedroom.
They think I’m asleep, but I can’t sleep. And these walls are real thin.
“I’m sorry,” Agnes says. “About your dad. I didn’t know that was Bo’s plan.”
“My dad’s not what I’m worried about,” he says. “Agnes, I know y’all are close, but—”
“But nothing. I couldn’t let her go alone. I know you think I’m stupid.”
“I don’t think you’re stupid at all,” Colt says. “I’m glad you love Bo. For a long time, I’ve been the only one looking out for her.”
He’s selling himself short. Colt didn’t just look out for me growing up, he practically raised me. Especially after Daddy left. Colt was the one I ran to when the rumors about me got too mean. Colt was the one who remembered to tell me happy birthday when Mama didn’t. Colt was the one who brought bread and cheese to the trailer so I’d have something to eat.
For a long time it was just me and Colt against the world. Or at least against the town of Mursey.
“I can’t take care of her anymore,” he s
ays. “Now that I’m here … she needs you.”
“And I need her.”
“But, Agnes … what about school? What about graduation? You’re smart. You could—”
“I’m probably not going to college anyway,” Agnes says. “I’d graduate and then, what? Be stuck in Mursey? Live with my parents until I marry some redneck I went to school with? What’s the point? What’s the point if Bo’s not there?”
“But what’re you gonna do?” he asks. “Y’all gotta make money somehow, right? How’re you gonna do that?”
“I … I don’t know. Maybe I could teach braille somewhere? I don’t know. I’ll figure it out. Bo and I will figure it out.”
“I just … I don’t want you getting hurt.”
“Bo would never hurt me.”
“She’d never mean to,” he says.
My fingers knot in the thin blanket as a weight sinks down onto my chest. Utah grumbles in her sleep and shifts her position on my feet.
“I like you, Agnes,” Colt continues. “I don’t wanna see you dragged down by the Dickinsons. You’re too good for that. Too good for us.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s true.”
“It’s not,” she says. “Besides. It’s too late. I’ve made up my mind. I’ve gotta go with her, Colt. No matter what happens from here, I’m with her.”
He sighs. “I know. But I couldn’t just say nothing.”
“Thank you, though,” she says. “For worrying about me.”
“I warned you before. Dickinsons ain’t easy to love.”
“It didn’t stop me then, either.”
There’s a long, heavy pause before Colt says, real quiet, “I missed you, Agnes.”
Then they stop talking.
I turn my head and bury my face in the flat, smelly pillow.
Because the walls are real thin. And if I could hear them talking, then they might be able to hear me crying.
“Sorry the party got broke up,” Bo said.
Colt had just dropped us off in my driveway. He’d also handed me my cane, which he’d managed to grab before we took off into the field.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I still had fun … Maybe more fun than I’ve ever had.”
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