Run(30)

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.

But I wasn’t an angel. I was just a kid who couldn’t see real well.

“I don’t think of you that way,” Bo said.

“You don’t?”

“As a sweet, innocent blind girl? Nah. I mean, you’re nice and all. But you’re tough, too. I think you’re kind of a badass.”

I laughed. Because there was no way that was true, no matter how much I wanted it to be. Telling off Christy was the only badass thing I’d done in my life. And even that had made me feel bad.

Bo didn’t laugh, though. “I ain’t kidding,” she said. “I think you’re a Loretta.”

“What?”

“Loretta Lynn,” she said. “She’s nice—at least, I like to think she is—but she’s tough, too. She dealt with a lotta shit, but she just keeps going. You’re a Loretta.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I always related more to Tammy Wynette.”