“Oh.”
The surprise must’ve been written all over my face, because Colt said, “You didn’t know? I figured it was obvious. I always felt like I was staring at you …”
“Well … I’m blind, so … it’s easy to miss that stuff.”
We both smiled and, for a minute, it was like that night in his trailer again, just the two of us, laughing through the awkward moments.
“Well, of course I like you. You’re smart and nice, and a lot tougher than people realize, I think. I’ve liked you from day one. Not that it matters much,” he went on. “Even if I was still in town, you don’t wanna date a Dickinson.”
“That’s not true,” I said.
“Well, you shouldn’t wanna date a Dickinson.”
“I’ve done a lot of things I shouldn’t over the past few months,” I said. “And, honestly, I’m feeling pretty good about most of them, so …”
“Well … I’m glad,” he said. “That you don’t feel bad about what happened that night. And I am sorry I ain’t called. Not because you expected me to, but because I wanted to. If … If I want to again, would it be okay if—”
“Call any time,” I said.
“All right. Thanks …” He let out a breath, like everything we’d just said had relieved a weight he’d been carrying for months. “And, uh … I know you say we ain’t got a future, but you know. If we’re ever living in the same town again, maybe …”
That seemed unlikely. After getting out of Mursey, it was hard to imagine Colt or anybody ever wanting to move back. And even harder to imagine me being able to get out. But maybe that’s what I needed—some hope, some promise of a future, even if it was unlikely. Maybe if I did what Bo and Colt and Christy had been telling me to, talk to my parents about how suffocated I felt, maybe it’d pay off. Maybe one day I’d get out of here.
“Maybe.”
“We could hitchhike,” I say, watching as cars pull in and out of the gas station we’re approaching. “Shouldn’t be too hard to get someone to stop.”
“Bo.”
“I mean, we gotta be careful because some folks are crazy, but—”
“Bo!”
Agnes yells and I flinch. I been yelled at a lot in my life, but it ain’t never stung quite like this.
“Stop,” she says. “Just stop. I told you—I’m leaving. I’m finding a pay phone and I’m calling my parents.”
“Agnes … please … Let me explain.”
“What were you gonna do, Bo?” She spins around to face me. We’re in the parking lot now, standing beneath the Shell sign. She’s looking off to my right, but I feel every bit of her anger. “When we got to your dad’s house, what were you gonna do? Break the news and then send me packing? Have my parents take me back to Mursey so I can rot there?”
“You don’t understand.”
“I understand that I came with you—ran away from home, left my family, cut my hair off—because I didn’t want to be left in that town without you. Because I didn’t want to live without you. And you were just gonna throw me away! Make it all for nothing! Why’d you even bring me with you, Bo?”
“You wanted to!”
“But why’d you let me? Why’d you let me think this was about us?”
“Because I needed you!” I yell. “Because I was scared to go alone!”
The echo ain’t as loud here as on the back roads, but my voice still hollers back at us, faint but desperate. For a second, neither of us talk. A bald man pumping gas stops to look at us, but I try to ignore him.
“I needed you,” I say again, quieter this time. “I couldn’t tell you the truth because you wouldn’t get it. You got folks who’re always there. And I know those rules drive you crazy and they ain’t always fair, but they’re there. You ain’t gotta wonder where they’ll be every night or if they might get arrested or—worse—get themselves killed. You ain’t never gone to bed scared. You want freedom, Agnes. I get it. But all I want is to go home.”
“I could’ve been your home!”
I swallow. “Agnes …”
Agnes looks down, shakes her head. She’s holding so tight to her cane that I think it might snap in two. “You’re a coward, Bo.”
“What’d you just say to me?” I demand.
“You—” She looks up again, and even though she ain’t staring right at me, she’s closer this time. Her eyes burning into my forehead. “—are a fucking coward.”
“Shut up,” I warn. I can feel that Dickinson coming out in me again. That meanness. That anger. “Shut the fuck up.”