Run (10 page)

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 says. “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.”

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.