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.