Eleanor & Park

If he was shy now, he wouldn’t get anything that he wanted. Eleanor

Park was alive, and she was awake, and this was allowed.

He was hers.

To have and hold. Not forever, maybe – not forever, for sure – and not figuratively. But literally. And now. Now, he was hers. And he wanted her to touch him. He was like a cat who pushes its head under your hands.

Eleanor brought her hands down Park’s chest with her fingertips apart, then brought them up again under his shirt.

She did it because she wanted to. And because once she started touching him the way she did in her head, it was hard to stop. And because

… what if she never had the chance to touch him like this again? Park

When he felt her fingers on his stomach, he made the noise again. He held her to him and pushed forward, pushing Eleanor backward – stumbling around the coffee table to the couch.

In movies, this happens smoothly or comic-ally. In Park’s living room, it was just awkward.

They wouldn’t let go of each other, so Eleanor fell back, and Park fell against her in the corner of the couch.

He wanted to look in her eyes, but it was hard when they were this close. ‘Eleanor …’ he whispered.

She nodded.

‘I love you,’ he said.

She looked up at him, her eyes shiny and black, then looked away. ‘I know,’ she said.

He pulled one of his arms out from under her and traced her outline against the couch. He could spend all day like this, ru

‘You know?’ he repeated. She smiled, so he kissed her. ‘You’re not the Han Solo in this rela-tionship, you know.’

‘I’m totally the Han Solo,’ she whispered. It was good to hear her. It was good to remember it was Eleanor under all this new flesh.

‘Well, I’m not the Princess Leia,’ he said.

‘Don’t get so hung up on gender roles,’

Eleanor said. Park ran his hand out to her hip and back again, catching his thumb under her sweater. She swallowed and lifted her chin.

He pulled her sweater up farther and, then, without thinking about why, he pulled up his shirt, too, and laid his bare stomach against hers.

Eleanor’s face crumpled, and it made him come unhinged.

‘You can be Han Solo,’ he said, kissing her throat. ‘And I’ll be Boba Fett. I’ll cross the sky for you.’ Eleanor

Things she knew now, that she hadn’t known two hours ago:

Park was covered with skin. Everywhere.

And it was all just as smooth and honey-beautiful as the skin on his hands. It felt thick and richer in some places, more like crushed velvet than silk. But it was all his.

And all wonderful.

She was also covered with skin. And her skin was apparently covered with super-powered nerve endings that hadn’t done a damn thing her whole life, but came alive like ice and fire and bee stings as soon as Park touched her. Wherever Park touched her.

As embarrassed as she was of her stomach and her freckles and the fact that her bra was held together with two safety pins, she wanted Park to touch her more than she could ever feel embarrassed. And when he touched her, he didn’t seem to care about any of those things. Some of them he even liked. Like her freckles. He said she was candy-sprinkled.

She wanted him to touch her everywhere.

He’d stopped at the edge of her bra and only dipped his fingers into the back of her jeans – but it wasn’t Eleanor who stopped him. She never would. When Park touched her, it felt better than anything she’d ever felt in her whole life. Ever.

And she wanted to feel that way as much she could. She wanted to stock up on him.

Nothing was dirty. With Park.

Nothing could be shameful.

Because Park was the sun, and that was the only way Eleanor could think to explain it. Park

Once it started to get dark, he felt like his parents could walk in at any minute, like they should have been home a long time ago – and he didn’t want them to find him like this, with his knee between Eleanor’s legs and his hand on her hip and his mouth as far as it could reach down the neck of her sweater.

He pulled away from her and tried to think clearly again. ‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know. Nowhere … My parents should be home soon, we should get it together.’

‘Okay,’ she said, and sat up. But she looked so bewildered and beautiful that he climbed back on top of her and pushed her all the way down.

A half-hour later, he tried again. He stood up this time.

‘I’m going to the bathroom,’ he said.

‘Go,’ she said. ‘Don’t look back.’

He took a step, then looked back.

‘I’ll go,’ she said a few minutes later.

While she was gone, Park turned up the volume on the TV. He got them both Cokes and looked at the couch to see if it looked illicit. It didn’t seem to.

When Eleanor came back, her face was wet.

‘Did you wash your face?’

‘Yeah …’ she said.

‘Why?’

‘Because I looked weird.’

‘And you thought you could wash it off?’

He gave her the same once-over he’d given the couch. Her lips were swollen, and her eyes seemed wilder than usual. But Eleanor’s sweaters were always stretched out, and her hair always looked tangled.

‘You look fine,’ he said. ‘What about me?’

She looked at him, and then smiled. ‘Good

…’ she said. ‘Just really, really good.’

He held out his hand to her, and pulled her onto the couch. Smoothly, this time.

She sat next to him and looked down at her lap.

Park leaned against her. ‘It’s not going to be weird now,’ he said, softly, ‘is it?’

She shook her head and laughed. ‘No,’ she said, and then, ‘only for a minute, only a little.’

He’d never seen her face so open. Her brows weren’t pulled together, her nose wasn’t scrunched. He put his arm around her, and she laid her head on his chest without any prompting.

‘Oh, look,’ she said, ‘ The Young Ones.’

‘Yeah … Hey. You still haven’t told me –

what was going on yesterday? When I saw you?

What was wrong?’

She sighed. ‘I was on my way to Mrs Du

‘Tina?’

‘I don’t know, probably.’

‘Jesus …’ he said, ‘that’s terrible.’

‘It’s okay.’ She actually sounded like it was.

‘Did you find them? Your clothes?’

‘Yeah … I really, really don’t want to talk about it.’

‘Okay,’ he said.

Eleanor pressed her cheek into his chest, and Park hugged her. He wished that they could go through life like this. That he could physically put himself between Eleanor and the world.

Maybe Tina really was a monster.

‘Park?’ Eleanor said. ‘Just one more thing. I mean, can I ask you something?’

‘You know you can ask me anything. We’ve got a deal.’

She set her hand over his heart. ‘Did … the way you acted today have something to do with seeing me yesterday?’

He almost didn’t want to answer. Yesterday’s confusing lust felt even more inappropriate now that he knew the upsetting backstory. ‘Yeah,’ he said quietly.

Eleanor didn’t say anything for a minute or so. And then …

‘Tina would be so pissed.’ Eleanor

When Park’s parents got home, they seemed genuinely glad to see Eleanor. His dad had bought a new hunting rifle at the boat show, and he tried to show her how it worked.

‘You can buy guns at a boat show?’ Eleanor asked.

‘You can buy anything at a boat show,’ his dad said. ‘Anything worth having.’

‘Books?’ she asked.

‘Books about guns and boats.’

She stayed late because it was Saturday, and on the way home she and Park stopped at his grandparents’ driveway, as usual.

But tonight Park didn’t lean over and kiss her. Instead, he held her tight.

‘Do you think we’ll ever be alone like that again?’ she asked. She felt the tears in her eyes.