Run(26)

“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?”