Run (12 page)

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.

Once they’re out the door, Colt turns to me. “You sure you wanna do this?” he asks.

“What other choice do I got?”

He don’t answer. Because he knows there ain’t no other choice. Not really. Going home’s not an option now. All I can do is keep running.

After a second, he sighs. “Fuck. There really ain’t no winning here, is there?”

I shake my head. “There never is for us.”

He almost smiles. Then he looks down at his bare feet on the carpet. “Bo, you know I’d let you stay here, but—”

“I ain’t gonna do that to you. You finally got out. Got away from all this. I already done enough damage making you call your dad. I can’t drag you down no more.”

He looks up, and I wonder if he recognizes the words I just used. Repeating back what he said to Agnes last night. But if he does, he don’t show it. “I wanted to get you out of there, too,” he says. “It’s always been my plan, you know. To get settled in and … I dunno. Save some money so I could get you out of Mursey, too. Get you away from all that.”

“Well, this is my way of doing it myself. Might not be the best way, but I don’t got another choice.”

He looks like he might argue, but the door opens and Agnes comes back in with Utah.

“All right,” she says. “Are we ready?”

I stand up and tuck the book of maps under my arm. I grab our bags and head toward the front door.

Colt follows me. He gives Agnes a hug that lasts a second too long, and I see her whisper something in his ear. After he lets her go, Colt turns to me. He puts his arms around me and pulls me in, and I damn near start to cry. He holds me tight, tighter than he has before. I know he’s worried, and I hate it. I don’t wanna hurt him. Since I can remember, Colt’s been the only person I’ve ever really loved. The only one who’s loved me back.

Until Agnes.

“Be careful,” he whispers.

Then, slowly, he lets go.

Outside, in the parking lot, Agnes uses her cane to find her way to the passenger’s side of the Reliant K. “So we’re going almost all the way across the state, right? Think there will be any cool things to see along the way? How far are we gonna be from Cumberland Falls?”

I stop at the driver’s-side door, Utah’s leash in one hand, car keys in the other.

When I don’t move for a second, she asks, “Are you gonna open the door?”

“Listen, Agnes … You ain’t gotta come with me if you don’t want. It’s a long drive, and I’m sure Colt’ll take you back to Mursey if you want him to. I won’t be mad if you don’t come, so—”

“What’re you talking about?” she asks, staring at me over the roof of the car. “Of course I’m coming. Don’t you want me to?”

“Yeah, I do.”

More than anything. The idea of going alone scares the shit out of me. But I gotta give her an out. I’m a good enough person to do that.

“Well, then, unlock the car,” she says. “Because you and me have a long way to go.”

“Okay.” I unlock the car and watch her climb inside.

Because I’m a good enough person to give her an out, but I ain’t good enough to make her take it.

Bo wasn’t at school on Monday. At least, I couldn’t find her. I searched, looking for a glimpse of that red-gold hair. I listened, hoping to hear her voice in the halls. But instead, all I heard were the whispers.

Word had gotten out about what I’d said in Sunday school class, which wasn’t surprising considering who I’d said it to. In all the years I’d known Christy, I’d never known her to keep gossip to herself. Especially if it might get her any kind of sympathy. I was worried everyone would be mad at me. And maybe some people were. But some were … impressed.

“Is it true?” Dana Hickman asked when she found me in the library, sitting alone with my history book and a magnifier during lunch. “Did you really tell Christy she was going to hell in the middle of church?”

“Um … I guess. Something like that.”

“Damn, Agnes,” she said. “And partying with Dickinsons on Friday? Didn’t think you had it in you.”

She wasn’t the only one who felt that way, apparently. A few others said the same thing throughout the day. Even Andrew brought it up when I ran into him out in the parking lot after school, while I was waiting for Mama to come pick me up.

“You’re not the girl I thought you were, Agnes.”

It didn’t seem likely he meant that as a compliment, all things considered, but it felt like one. You don’t realize how much people underestimate you until they start … estimating you. For the first time, the people at school weren’t seeing me as Agnes, the poor, sweet little blind girl.

And I wasn’t seeing myself that way, either.

When Mama and I got home, I decided to do my homework on the front porch. It was so nice outside, just slightly cool and not humid at all. Perfect early-autumn weather. And the house felt stifling. It wasn’t sudden. It had been creeping up on me for a while, this feeling of being caged. But you don’t always know something is choking you until it’s already too tight and you can’t breathe real well. That’s what the house felt like now.

So I took one of my special notebooks—one of the ones full of paper that had lines so thick and dark that even I could see where I ought to write. Lines on regular notebook paper were too thin, too light, and I always ended up with sentences that sloped down the page like wilting flowers.

But with my special paper and a felt-tip pen, I could usually write an essay that was at least somewhat legible. Today’s essay was for English, a line-by-line analysis of a poem of my choosing. Considering Bo had been on my mind all day, it wasn’t a surprise I’d chosen something by Emily Dickinson.

I uncapped my pen and wrote the first couple lines.

Behind Me—dips Eternity—

Before Me—Immortality—

I stopped and tapped my chin with my pen, thinking of what to write, what my analysis of these words were. I wondered what Bo’s thoughts on the poem would be.

And then, like that thought had conjured her, she was there.

There was a car with a loud engine idling in front of our driveway, but I didn’t think much of it until I heard her voice, shouting my name out the window.

“Agnes!”

I didn’t have to look up. My heart started beating real fast, but, at the same time, I felt relieved. The way you feel when you finally get to take your bra off at the end of the day.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go for a ride.”

“Who’s car do you have?” I hollered back.

“Stole it.” I must have looked horrified, even all the way across the yard. “Jesus, I’m kidding. It’s my mama’s. And she knows I got it … Or, she will when she wakes up. But that ain’t gonna be for a while, I reckon. So come on.”

I glanced at my front door. Mama had complained of a headache when we got home this afternoon, and she’d gone to lie down. And nobody wanted to wake Mama up when she had a headache. Not if they wanted to keep their own head intact.

“Where would we be going?” I asked.

“Nowhere far.”

I knew I ought to tell Mama where I was going. She might be mad if she woke up and I was gone. But she’d also be mad if I woke her up for anything short of an emergency. And Gracie used to go out after school all the time with her friends. No one even expected her home until dinner.

But I’d never gone out after school before. Not on a weeknight. I stayed home. Every day. Every night.

“Agnes?” Bo called. “You coming or what?”

I looked down at my notebook and the black, scratchy writing there.

Behind Me—dips Eternity—

Before Me—Immortality—

I flipped the page, tore out a blank sheet, and scribbled a quick note to Mama. I ran inside, left the note on the counter, and grabbed my cane.

“Ready?” Bo asked when I hopped down the front steps and moved toward the car.

“Ready,” I answered.

And I climbed inside, eager to see what lay before me.

“Wow. Bet Christy didn’t like that too well,” she said when I told her the Sunday school story in the car.

“Nope. She’s already told everyone in school. It’s funny, though. Some people are mad at me, sure. But most people, I think, were just surprised. They can’t believe I said it.”

“How come?”

“Well … partly because she’s my best friend.”

Or was she?

I hadn’t even questioned it until just then. But it seemed almost impossible that we could keep being best friends now. And, despite everything, I felt a pang of sadness at the realization. We’d been close for years. Since we were little. She’d been my first—my only—best friend. And while I wasn’t sure exactly how things would change in the long run, I knew they had to. I couldn’t imagine us just going back to sitting together at lunch and talking on the church steps on Sundays.

But as sad and uncertain as I felt about my friendship with Christy, I was also excited. Because Bo and I were spending more time together, and whenever we did, it was like a shot of adrenaline. A combination of anticipation and relief, an overwhelming need to spend every second with her.

I couldn’t remember ever feeling that way with Christy.

“And also,” I continued, “I don’t know. I don’t think people expect that out of me. Everybody sees me as this sweet, innocent blind girl.”

“What the hell does blind got to do with it?” Bo asked as we turned onto a gravel road. I still wasn’t sure where we were going.

“I mean … it doesn’t, I guess.”

Or maybe it did. I always got the feeling that was why people thought of me as sweet and innocent. Because I was blind. In stories, the injured, the weak, they were always good. Kind and innocent. More than once, I’d heard the women at my church describe me as “an angel.” They’d tell Mama that God only sent angels like me to parents he knew could handle the challenge. I was a precious gift to be taken care of.