Eleanor & Park

FUCK THIS.

‘I hate you.’

FUCK ALL OF YOU.

‘Fuck you.’

STUPID BITCHES.

‘Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.’

WHAT DID SHE JUST SAY?

In Eleanor’s head, the house shook.

Her mother was pulling on her then, trying to pull her out of bed. Eleanor tried to come with her, but she was too scared to stand up. She wanted to flatten herself to the floor and crawl away. She wanted to pretend that the room was full of smoke.

Richie was roaring. Her mother pulled Eleanor to the top of the stairs, then pushed her down.

He was right behind them.

Eleanor fell against the banister and practically ran to the front door on all fours. She got outside and kept ru

Eleanor wondered if she should keep ru

When the front door opened again, Eleanor took a few steps into the street.

It was just her mom. She took Eleanor’s arm and started walking quickly toward the neighbor’s house.

If Eleanor would have known then what was about to happen, she would have run back to tell Ben goodbye. She would have looked for Maisie and Mouse and kissed them each hard on the cheek. Maybe she would have asked to go back inside to see the baby.

And if Richie had been inside waiting for her, maybe she would have dropped to her knees and begged him to let her stay. Maybe she would have said anything he wanted her to.

If he wanted that now – if he wanted her to beg for forgiveness, for mercy, if that was the price she had to pay to stay – she’d do it.

She hoped he couldn’t see that.

She hoped none of them could see what was left of her. Park

She ignored Mr Stessman in English class.

In history, she stared out the window.

On the way home, she wasn’t irritable; she wasn’t anything at all.

‘Okay?’ he asked.

She nodded her head against him.

When she got off the bus at her stop, Park still hadn’t told her. So he jumped up and followed her, even though he knew she wouldn’t want him to.

‘Park …’ she said, looking nervously down the street to her house.

‘I know,’ he said, ‘but I wanted to tell you …

I’m not grounded anymore.’

‘You’re not?’

‘Uh-uh.’ He shook his head.

‘That’s great,’ she said.

‘Yeah …’

She looked back at her house.

‘It means you can come over again,’ he said.

‘Oh,’ she said.

‘I mean, if you want to.’ This wasn’t going like he thought it would. Even when Eleanor was looking at him, she wasn’t looking at him.

‘Oh,’ she said.

‘Eleanor? Is everything okay?’

She nodded.

‘Do you still …’ He hung onto the backpack straps across his chest. ‘I mean, do you still want to? Do you still miss me?’

She nodded. She looked like she was going to cry. Park hoped she wouldn’t cry at his house again … If she ever came back. It felt like she was slipping away.

‘I’m just really tired,’ she said.

CHAPTER 26 Eleanor

Did she miss him?

She wanted to lose herself in him. To tie his arms around her like a tourniquet.

If she showed him how much she needed him, he’d run away.

CHAPTER 27 Eleanor

Eleanor felt better the next morning. Mornings usually got the best of her.

This morning, she woke up with that stupid cat curled up against her like it couldn’t tell that she’d never liked him or cats in general.

And then her mom gave her a fried egg sandwich that Richie hadn’t wanted, and pi

‘I found it at the thrift shop,’ her mom said.

‘Maisie wanted it, but I saved it for you.’ She smudged vanilla behind Eleanor’s ears.

‘I might go to Tina’s house after school,’

Eleanor said.

‘Okay, have fun.’

Eleanor hoped that Park would be waiting for her at the bus stop, but she wouldn’t blame him if he wasn’t.

He was. He was standing there in the half-light, wearing a gray trench coat and black high-tops, and watching for her.

She ran past the last few houses to get to him.

‘Good morning,’ she said, shoving him with both hands.

He laughed and stepped back. ‘Who are you?’

‘I’m your girlfriend,’ she said. ‘Ask anybody.’

‘No … my girlfriend is sad and quiet and keeps me up all night worrying about her.’

‘Bummer. Sounds like you need a different girlfriend.’

He smiled and shook his head.

It was cold and half dark, and Eleanor could see Park’s breath. She resisted the urge to try to swallow it.

‘I told my mom that I was going to a friend’s house after school …’ she said.

‘Yeah?’

Park was the only person she knew who wore his backpack actually on his shoulders, not slung over one side – and he was always holding onto the straps, like he’d just jumped out of a plane or something. It was extremely cute. Especially when he was being shy and letting his head hang forward.

She pulled the front of his bangs. ‘Yeah.’

‘Cool,’ he said, smiling, all shiny cheeks and full lips.

Don’t bite his face, Eleanor told herself. It’s disturbing and needy and never happens in situation comedies or movies that end with big kisses.

‘I’m sorry about yesterday,’ she said.

He hung onto his straps and shrugged.

‘Yesterday happens.’

God, it was like he wanted her to eat his face clean off. Park

He almost told her all the things his mom had said about her.

It seemed like it was wrong to keep secrets from Eleanor.

But it seemed like it would be more wrong to share that kind of secret. It would just make Eleanor even more nervous. She might even refuse to come over …

And she was so happy today. She was a different person. She kept squeezing his hand. She even bit his shoulder when they were getting off the bus.

Plus, if he told her, at the very least she was going to want to go home and change. She was wearing an orange argyle sweater today, way too big, with her silky green tie and baggy painter’s jeans.

Park didn’t know if Eleanor even had any girl’s clothes – and he didn’t care. He kind of liked that she didn’t. Maybe that was another gay thing about him, but he didn’t think so, because Eleanor wouldn’t look like a guy even if you cut off her hair and gave her a mustache. All the men’s clothes she wore just called attention to how much of a girl she was.

He wasn’t going to tell her about his mom.

And he wasn’t going to tell her to smile. But if she bit him again, he was going to lose something.

‘Who are you?’ he asked, when she was still smiling in English class.

‘Ask anybody,’ she said. Eleanor

In Spanish class today, they were supposed to write a letter in Spanish to a friend. Señora Bouzon put on an episode of Qué Pasa, USA?

while they worked on it.

Eleanor tried to write a letter to Park. She didn’t get very far.

Estimado Señor Sheridan,

Mi gusta comer su cara.

Besos,

Leonor

For the rest of the day, whenever Eleanor felt nervous or scared, she told herself to be happy instead. (It didn’t really make her feel better, but it kept her from feeling worse …) She told herself that Park’s family must be decent people because they’d raised a person like Park. Never mind that this principle didn’t hold true in her own family. It wasn’t like she had to face his family alone. Park would be there. That was the whole point. Was there any place so horrible that she wouldn’t go there to be with Park?

She saw him after seventh hour in a place she’d never seen him before, carrying a micro-scope down the hall on the third floor. It was at least twice as nice as seeing him somewhere she expected him to be.