“Yeah … Except you.” I swallow. “I miss you, Agnes. I’m sorry I didn’t say good-bye.”
She don’t say it’s all right. Or that she understands. It probably ain’t, and she probably don’t. But she does say, “I miss you, too.” And then, “But I’m still here, you know. You can always come visit. My parents would like to see you.”
“Maybe.”
But I know I won’t.
I’m glad she’d wanna see me again, after everything I’ve done. Mad as she is at me, she’d still let me in her house, which is more than I deserve. But going back to Mursey is the last thing I oughta be doing.
“And there’s a college near there,” Agnes says. “Murray. Maybe I can talk Daddy into taking me there, too. Maybe we could see each other. You could show me where you live.”
The thought makes me a little nervous. Bringing Agnes here, bringing all the memories into my new world, is scary enough. But the idea of having her back for a day, maybe two, then watching her leave … I ain’t sure I can handle it.
Not yet.
Hell, I already know hanging up this phone’s gonna tear me apart.
She don’t push, though, and I’m real glad for it.
“Hey,” she says. “I know you gotta go soon, but … can you do something for me?”
“Sure,” I say. Because I owe her so much. I’d do almost anything. “What?”
“Don’t laugh, but … can you read me a poem? I don’t even know if you still have that book I got you, but—”
“Give me a minute.”
I put the phone down on the counter and run to the little bedroom I share with Phoebe. The book is on my nightstand, next to my bed. I grab it and head back to the kitchen.
“I’m back,” I say, tucking the phone between my ear and my shoulder. “What poem you want me to read?”
“You pick,” she says. “One we haven’t read before.”
I’d dog-eared half a dozen pages in the book by now. Poems that stood out to me. That I’d liked. I’d even marked up a few, circling lines and underlining whole stanzas. I find one of them. One of the poems I’ve marked all over.
I clear my throat and start reading Edgar Allan Poe’s words, slow and careful. Agnes is quiet, listening. And for a minute, it’s like we’re back in her yard on a summer day. Just her and me.
I run my fingers across the second stanza and the four lines I’ve underlined there.
I was a child, and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
I and my Annabel Lee—
“Agnes, you sure you wanna do this?”
We were sitting in my sister’s car in the middle of the night, about to do what I’d been dreaming of for months: getting the hell out of Mursey. Being free. Being with her.
“No,” I said.
Because as much as I wanted to run, as many times as I told myself we’d make it work, that we’d come up with a plan … Deep down, I knew this might not end well. Stories like ours never did. But I remembered that poem in English, the Robert Frost poem Bo said was about how we tell our stories and change our histories.
And this was my story. This whole last year. And tonight. And wherever we went from here. This was the story I’d tell.
I looked over at her. Or, at the space where I guessed she was. It was too dark for me to see anything but a few dots of light on the dashboard. So I had no idea if I was looking at her face or not. Somehow, though, I felt like I was.
“But I’m doing it anyway.”
I heard her take a breath, then there was the sound of the garage door opening behind us.
Even though this story could end a thousand different ways, and even though chances were, it might not have a happy ending, it didn’t matter. Because I already knew how I was gonna tell this story.
Bo Dickinson changed my life. She made it beautiful and messy. She made me happy, she scared me, she showed me I could be tough, and she showed me how it felt to live. She ruined my reputation and I loved every second of it.
Because she was the best friend I’d ever had. And I would have followed her off the edge of the earth if I had to.
That was our poetry. Our story. And it was one I’d be telling until the day I died.
“Love you, Bo,” I said.
“Love you, too.”
This book was truly a passion project for me—a book of my heart—and it would not have been possible without some wonderful, supportive people.