I regretted saying it the second the words left my mouth. Damn it. Now Bo was gonna think I was a loser. Or some kind of hermit who never left the house and never had any fun. She’d never want to hang out with me again and—
“Good,” she said. “I had more fun tonight than I usually have at these things.”
“Good.”
“Well,” she said, after a second. “I better be getting home, I guess.”
There was something about the way she said it. Something tired. Or like there was a touch of dread in her voice. Like going home was the last thing she wanted.
I asked before I could stop myself. “Do you wanna spend the night?” When she didn’t answer immediately, I quickly added, “I know that probably seems like a little-kid thing. Not even sure if people our age still have sleepovers. I mean I sleep over at Christy’s on New Year’s Eve every year, but that’s different, so—”
“I’d love to,” Bo said.
“Really?”
“Agnes.” Mama’s voice came from the front porch. “Honey, why are y’all just standing out here?”
“We’re just talking. Can Bo stay the night?”
“Oh … Um …”
It probably wasn’t real nice to Mama, putting her on the spot again. But after today, I knew for sure that, no matter what she thought of her so far, Mama was way too polite to say no with Bo standing right there.
“Well, uh … sure. Of course,” she said. “Y’all come on in. I’ll make a pallet for you, Bo.”
“You should probably call your mama and ask if it’s okay,” I said as we made our way up the steps and through the front door.
“Nah. It’s fine. She won’t care.”
I tried not to react to that. I asked my parents’ permission for almost everything. I wasn’t even supposed to walk home from the bus stop alone. But Bo went to parties and stayed at friends’ houses without even calling her mother. She went where she wanted, when she wanted.
I wondered what that sort of freedom felt like.
“How was the party?” Daddy asked after muting the ten o’clock news.
“Good,” I said. I was worried that if I said much more than that, I’d accidentally let it slip about the police being called. And there was no way my parents would take kindly to that.
“Really?” Daddy asked. “Because you’re home a little early. I thought maybe it ended up being kind of boring.”
I glanced over at Bo. “No. Not boring at all.”
We headed upstairs to my bedroom. But just as we rounded the corner, I felt the heat of shame wash over me. Earlier, I’d been too focused on the party to worry about what Bo might think of my room. But now, staring at the yellow walls and the menagerie of stuffed animals, I saw it through Bo Dickinson’s eyes. And it was humiliating. It was the bedroom of a little girl. Not a sixteen-year-old who’d just gone to a parentless, cop-busted party.
“Perfect timing,” Mama said when she noticed us in the doorway. “I just finished the pallet. Hope it’s comfortable, Bo. I can always get a couple extra blankets if you need them.”
“I’m sure it’ll be great. Thank you, ma’am.”
“You’re quite welcome. Let me know if y’all need anything else.”
“Thanks, Mama.”
“Thanks, ma’am.”
I shut the door behind Mama as she left the room. “I’m sorry,” I said.
“What for?”
“My room. It’s been this way since I was five … That’s why it looks like a little girl’s room.”
“I like it,” she said. “I never really had a little girl’s room. I was gonna ask this afternoon—are all those stuffed animals yours?”
“Yeah.”
“Do they all have names?”
“Of course not.” I laughed. But they did. All seventeen of them.
We turned on the TV and watched for a while before we both got tired. I lent her a pair of pajamas even though they were way too big, but she didn’t complain.
“Can we leave the TV on?” she asked after I shut off the light. “You can turn it down. I just … I sleep with it on at home.”
“Oh, sure,” I said. I’d never slept with the TV on before, but I was a heavy sleeper; sound never bothered me, and I didn’t think the light from the screen would, either.
We lay there for a while, listening to an old episode of The Andy Griffith Show before Bo whispered, “Agnes?”
“Yeah?”
“Tell me something.”
“What?”
“Anything. Tell me something I don’t know about you.”
“Um …” I tried to think of something interesting. Something she’d find impressive. It was crazy. A few weeks ago, I didn’t even like Bo Dickinson. Now I was constantly worried about making her like me. I was too tired to come up with anything good, though, so I said the first real thing I could think of. “I really wanted to have a beer tonight.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I don’t know. Chickened out, I guess. I’ve never drank before.”
“Never? Not even a sip?”
“Nope.”
I was worried she’d laugh or tease me, but she didn’t. She stayed quiet.
“Your turn,” I said. “Tell me something I don’t know about you.”
“Well … I had a crush on Dana Hickman when we were in ninth grade.”
“Wait.” I rolled over to face her, even though it was too dark for me to see. “You … like girls?”
“Boys, too.”
“Oh” was all I could say as I tried to wrap my head around what she’d just said.
“Is that … okay?”
“Yeah …” But I wasn’t sure if it was or not. I’d grown up my whole life in the church, been told it was only all right for girls to like boys. Anything else was wrong. Then again, I’d been told being friends with a Dickinson was wrong, too. But I’d just had the best night of my life with Bo and Colt.
I didn’t know how I felt about what Bo had just told me. But I did know, with great certainty, that I wanted to be her friend, whether it was wrong or not.
“Agnes?” she asked. “What’re you thinking? Are you mad?”
“No!” I said, real quick. “Of course not. It’s just …”
“Just what?”
“It’s just … Dana Hickman? Bo, you have some awful taste.”
She burst out laughing. “Don’t I know it. In boys, too.”
“I wonder what else Dana would have said to us if Colt hadn’t chased her off.”
“God only knows. She doesn’t shut up when she’s drinking.”
A few seconds later, our laughter died down and we fell silent again.
“Agnes?”
“Yeah?”
“I ain’t told nobody that before,” she said. “Not even Colt.”
“Why’d you tell me?”
“Dunno. I just … I felt like I could.”
I smiled, unable to hold back the joy her saying that gave me. Bo Dickinson had just shared something private with me, something she’d never told anyone else. It didn’t matter how I felt about her secret. All that mattered was that I was the one she told.
I’d spent my whole life forced to trust others—trust them to guide me, to see for me—but no one had ever put that kind of trust in me. Not Christy. Not my sister. Not my parents.
Only Bo.
After a while, I whispered, “Thank you.”
But she didn’t answer, and I knew she’d already fallen asleep.
And, not too long after, I was, too.
She was gone when I woke up the next morning. The pajamas I’d lent her were folded neatly on the pallet where she’d slept, and she’d turned the TV off before she’d gone.
I wasn’t sure what to make of it. First I worried I’d done something wrong, that maybe she’d gotten upset with me and left. But then I remembered our whispered conversation the night before. Bo trusted me. I was special. Knowing that eased some of my worry, and I just figured maybe
she had to go home. Maybe she had plans that day. I could ask her on Monday.
But Monday felt lifetimes away.
And before I could get to school and to Bo, I had to deal with church.
And Christy.
“I heard you were at Dana Hickman’s party on Friday.” Christy had been waiting for me on the front steps, and after a few hellos, my parents had left us there. “I heard you showed up with Bo Dickinson and her cousin. And that you danced with him. That can’t be true, though, right?”
But by the way she asked, it was clear she knew well and good that it was.
Still, I had no clue what to say. I couldn’t lie, and didn’t want to. But if I confirmed, told her it was true, I knew she’d never let it go. I knew she’d grab my arm in that way she did, so tight it hurt, and tell me she was worried about me. And maybe she should be.
So I didn’t say anything. Just nodded and started for the door of the sanctuary. It was almost time for Sunday school after all.
But Christy followed. She stuck close to me in the sanctuary, her hand grasping my upper arm, so anyone else might think she was guiding me. She wasn’t, though. She was holding me back.
“What were you thinking?” she whispered, her mouth close to my ear, flecks of spit hitting my cheek.
“She invited me,” I said. “And I wanted to go.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? I’m your best friend, Agnes.”
I was surprised by how sad she sounded when she said this. Like I’d really hurt her. It wasn’t the reaction I’d expected from the girl who told Dana Hickman I was clingy.
“You weren’t at school,” I said. “And I didn’t think it mattered. You never invite me to parties.”
“Of course I haven’t. Parties are dark and you’re blind. You wouldn’t have fun anyway.”
It wasn’t as if Christy had never said these things before. But for the first time, I felt a twinge of annoyance.
I was starting to realize that I’d spent years letting people tell me what I could and couldn’t do, what I would and wouldn’t enjoy because of my vision. And I let them because they were looking out for me. But since meeting Bo that day in the woods, my feelings had slowly begun to shift and tilt.
And after Friday night, going to a party, dancing in the grass, running through cornfields—things people would tell me I shouldn’t or couldn’t do—I didn’t want people like Christy making those decisions for me anymore.
“Maybe you’re right,” I said. “Maybe I wouldn’t have had fun with you. But I sure did with Bo.”
She gasped, about as surprised as I was that those words had just come out of my mouth. I’d never said anything like that to Christy. Never had the nerve. Even when I’d disagreed with her in the past, I mostly kept it to myself, scared of making her mad at me. Even now, I felt a weight settling on my chest, an old, anxious feeling I always got when I did something wrong.
Christy dropped my arm with a huff. “Find your own way to the classroom,” she said before stomping off.
Despite my unease over what I’d said to her, I nearly laughed. I’d been going to this church since I was a baby. I could find my way around it in the dark without a cane, just like my own house, if I needed to. Getting to our Sunday school class without her wasn’t a problem.
Unfortunately, the only seat left when I got to the room was the one right next to hers.
“Good morning, everyone,” Miss Kelly, our Sunday school teacher, said once I’d sat down. “Let’s get started with a prayer. Anyone have prayer requests today?”
“Can we pray for my aunt Georgia?” a younger boy, Eli, asked. “We just found out she’s got cancer.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that, Eli. We’ll all pray for her. Anyone else?”
A few others requested prayers for friends and family members going through hard times. Then, I felt Christy’s hand brush my shoulder as she raised it.
“Miss Kelly,” she said, using her sweet, candy-covered voice. “I have a prayer request, too.”
The weight pressed harder on my chest as dread piled onto the anxiety.
“Of course, Christy. Go ahead.”
“I know there are some among us who might be struggling,” she said. “Who’ve lost their way. Aligned themselves with sinners. I just pray for those people. I hope they can find their path again.”
My cheeks burned. She hadn’t said my name, and I couldn’t see anyone’s faces just then, but I was sure everyone was looking at me. Sure they knew Christy meant I was the one aligning myself with sinners. And she was right. Bo Dickinson was a sinner if ever there was one. Between the fights and the boys and—after what she’d told me last night—the girls, too. Maybe I needed their prayers.
But, God help me, I didn’t want them.
I took a deep breath, knowing I should just stay quiet. Bite my tongue.
“Well, all right,” Miss Kelly said, sounding a little confused. “Sure. If that’s everyone, let’s join hands and—”
“Wait.”
I knew I ought to be quiet, but I was tired of doing what I ought to.
“Yes, Agnes?”
“I have a prayer request, too,” I said.
“Oh. Okay. We have an awful lot today, it seems. Who do you want us to pray for?”
“I want to pray for people who eat shellfish,” I said.
“Excuse me?”
“Shellfish. According to the Bible, that’s a sin.” I turned to face Christy. She was staring right at me, so close that even I could tell she was scowling. “Christy, didn’t you say you and your boyfriend went to Red Lobster on a date not too long ago?”
“That’s enough, Agnes,” Miss Kelly said.
But I was feeling mean now. I’d never been mean before, and it felt better than it ought to have.
“And didn’t you get a haircut, too, Christy? I think that’s also a sin, if I recall,” I said.
“Agnes!”
“And we’ve talked a whole lot about premarital sex being a sin, but just the other day, you—”
“That’s it. Agnes Atwood, get out of my classroom,” Miss Kelly demanded.
“I’m just pointing out what the Bible says. If we’re gonna talk about sinners …”
I glanced back at Christy, and I was surprised to realize that she wasn’t scowling anymore. Her head was down, and I couldn’t see her face. I did, however, hear a soft sniff.
“Go sit in the sanctuary until services start,” Miss Kelly said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
I stood up, unfolded my cane, and headed for the door, regret and guilt already starting to seep through and put a damper on that meanness I’d reveled in a second before.
“You know, Agnes,” Christy said, and I thought I heard tears in her voice. “You have fun with Bo Dickinson. Y’all might be perfect for each other.”
“I think maybe I’m starting to like it,” Agnes says, running her fingers through her short hair.
I rinse my toothbrush and put it back in the plastic bag I’d packed it in. I move aside and Agnes steps in front of the sink, wetting the washrag she’d been given to wash her face. In the next room, I can hear Colt on the phone, but with the water running, I can’t make out a word he’s saying.
I pour some dog food into a bowl Colt had lent me and set it on the floor. Utah lunges at it, tail wagging. She don’t know that it’s the last of the food. That I’d been too anxious about getting out of the trailer the other night to think about how much I was packing.
“I think maybe it makes me look kinda badass.” She scrubs the rag along her nose and forehead. “Like a rebel. Don’t you think so?”
“Sure.”
She frowns in the mirror. “You okay, Bo?”
I nod. Then, because I ain’t sure she saw, I say, “Fine. Just … tired. Didn’t sleep too good.”
Agnes wrings out the washrag and sets it on the edge of the sink. She opens her mouth, like she’s gonna say something, but in the next room, I hear Colt hang up the phone. I turn
and yank the door open real fast.
“What’d he say?” I holler.
He don’t answer, so I run out of the bathroom and down the short hall, to the kitchen. He’s standing at the counter, looking tired and running his fingers through his hair.
“Well?” I ask.
“You owe me.” He sighs and shakes his head. “He asked me for money. Can you believe that?”
“ ’Course I can,” I say. “You ain’t gonna give it to him, though.”
“Got to. He made me promise I’d send him a hundred bucks. Was the only way he’d give me the address.”
“Jesus. Colt … I’m sorry.”
“Like I said. You owe me.” He rips a piece of paper out of the notepad next to the telephone, then he hands it to me. “Here you go. Uncle Wayne’s last known address. Dad ain’t talked to him in a while, though, so who knows where he’s at now.”
I look down at the address, but I ain’t heard of the city or street. “Any chance you got a map?” I ask.
He does. One of those big books of maps that people keep in their car on long trips. He bought it before he moved to this place, just in case he got turned around.
I sit down with the book open to the map of Kentucky, carefully looking at the names of every city and town.
“He’s way out east,” I tell Colt and Agnes, who’re sitting on the couch across from me. “Out in the mountains.”
“That’s a long drive,” Colt says.
I take a black marker and, real careful, trace the route from Colt’s apartment to the street where Daddy lives. Or, where we think he lives. The thick black line is long and curvy, part highway, part city streets. Best I can figure, it’ll take nearly four hours to get there. Longer if we hit traffic.
“Can I take this?” I ask, pointing to the map.
“Might as well,” Colt says. “You done marked it up. It’s yours now.”
“Thanks.”
“We’d better get going, then,” Agnes says, getting to her feet. “Want me to take Utah out while you grab our stuff?”
“Uh … yeah. Sure.”
“There’s a grassy area around the side of the building,” Colt tells her. “Need me to help you find it?”
“That’s all right. I’ve got my cane.” It takes her a second to find Utah’s leash, but as soon as she picks it up, the dog runs right to her, ready for a morning pee.
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