Run(23)

“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 me, 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 *, 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 f*ck 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.”