Bo

Bo is Willowdean Dickson’s coworker, confidant, and romantic interest, but his willingness to name what he wants cannot by itself undo the shame and fear that keep her from accepting a public relationship. His most revealing moments join tenderness with vulnerability: he shares his experience of losing his mother, comforts Willowdean as she grieves changes to Lucy’s room, and tells her plainly that he wants to be with her. Their closeness becomes real, but not settled; Willowdean’s fear of being judged remains a force between them.

Identity and Background

Bo works with Willowdean at Harpy’s Burgers & Dogs. The evidence presents him not through a detailed account of his own ambitions or history, but through what he offers in conversation and how he responds when Willowdean lets him see her grief. His brief account of his mother’s final days reveals a family loss that has shaped how he understands keeping, giving away, and letting go of a loved one’s belongings.

When Willowdean explains that her mother is once again cleaning out Lucy’s room, Bo recognizes the difficulty behind this seemingly practical change. His own mother, after learning that she was dying, began inviting people over and sending them away with her possessions. By the time she was gone, only a few nightgowns and shoes remained. Bo admits that he was angry with her for giving things away, while also acknowledging that he does not think he could have done the clearing himself. His father, by contrast, would have continued using her perfume as air freshener. In a few details, Bo gives grief a material shape: what remains in a room can comfort, hurt, or become difficult to relinquish.

Intimacy and Care

The conversation takes place around a necklace with a Dolly pendant, one of Lucy’s things. Bo asks what it is, and Willowdean explains that it belonged to her aunt. As he traces the chain with his finger, he listens to her describe her mother’s repeated attempts to clear Lucy’s room. His response is not to dismiss the attachment or press Willowdean to feel differently. He offers the parallel of his own family’s loss, making room for hers through what he has experienced.

After listening, Bo pulls Willowdean’s chair closer and puts an arm around her. She eases into him, even though an inner voice warns her against letting him touch her. The moment marks a change in her immediate response to intimacy: the warning does not disappear, but quiets. His kiss on her hair is described as calming. The scene therefore makes physical closeness both welcome and uneasy for Willowdean, rather than presenting affection as a simple cure for her doubts.

That comfort is interrupted when Mitch Lewis arrives carrying a grocery bag and sees them together. Willowdean’s startled movement causes her to bump Bo’s jaw, and she apologizes without being sure which of them she means. When Mitch asks who Bo is, she calls him a coworker, then becomes defensive when asked whether she likes him. She knows they have kissed and sometimes held hands, but resists the conclusion that these gestures make them a couple. Bo’s presence has become emotionally consequential before Willowdean is ready to define it.

A Relationship Without a Secure Label

Bo eventually states his desire more directly. After Willowdean has started to leave, he follows her into the driveway and says he wants to be with her, but cannot if she will not let him. When she questions why he would want someone with her body, he answers that he likes her and may feel more than that. He says she is the person keeping him awake and driving him crazy, distinguishing his feelings for her from concerns about work, school, or other people.

Bo’s answer confronts the difference between his view of Willowdean and her view of herself. He calls her beautiful and rejects the power of anyone who has made her feel otherwise. Willowdean can register his affirmation and still think of herself as fat; the scene leaves both truths in tension rather than allowing one to cancel the other. She kisses him again, but says she cannot continue. Her refusal is not evidence that she feels nothing: she has just acknowledged, privately, that she likes him and wishes she could give in. Instead, she fears the whispers and ridicule that might accompany being seen with him. The obstacle is not a lack of attraction but the force of public judgment as she anticipates it, compounded by her own body-image distress.

Later, Willowdean tells Ellen Dryver how much has happened between them and reports that Bo wants to be her boyfriend. She objects to the label because she expects they would be ridiculed at school almost immediately. Ellen counters with her own experience of being laughed at alongside Tim, challenging the assumption that ridicule must make a relationship impossible. Bo’s wish for an acknowledged partnership thus becomes part of a larger conflict over whether fear of other people’s reactions should decide what Willowdean permits herself to have.

Support and Unresolved Ending

Bo’s support also reaches Willowdean on the night of the pageant. A small bouquet of sunflowers arrives with a card signed by Bo and Loraine wishing her luck. The gesture places him among the people encouraging her to take the stage, even while their own relationship remains undefined. It is encouragement rather than a resolution: the card does not settle the question of whether she will accept his offer to be together.

After the pageant, Willowdean enters Harpy’s Burgers & Dogs, where Bo rounds a corner with a red sucker between his cherry-stained lips. He lowers his apron to his waist and greets her with a broad grin. His recognition of her closes the supplied account on a small, warm encounter at their workplace, not on a declaration or a confirmed reconciliation. Bo’s significance lies partly in that open state. He makes his affection explicit and offers tenderness, while Willowdean’s fear of ridicule and difficulty believing she can be loved remain unresolved.