Eleanor tried one last time to be embarrassed.
Park
For a second, he thought he’d gone too far.
He hadn’t even meant to, he was practically sleepwalking. And he’d been thinking about Eleanor, dreaming about her, for so many hours; wanting her made him stupid.
She was so still in his arms. He thought for a second that he’d gone too far, that he’d tripped a wire.
And then Eleanor touched him. She touched his neck.
It’s hard to say why this was different from all the other times she’d touched him. She was different. She was still and then she wasn’t.
She touched his neck, then drew a line down his chest. Park wished that he was taller and broader; he hoped she wouldn’t stop.
She was so gentle compared to him. Maybe she didn’t want him like he wanted her. But even if she wanted him half as much …
Eleanor
This is how she touched him in her head.
From jaw to neck to shoulder.
He was so much warmer than she expected, and harder. Like all of his muscles and bones were right on the surface, like his heart was beat-ing just under his T-shirt.
She touched Park softly, gingerly, just in case she touched him wrong.
Park
He relaxed against the door.
He felt Eleanor’s hand on his throat, on his chest, then took her other hand and pressed it to his face. He made a noise like he was hurt and decided to feel self-conscious about it later.
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, running his hand down her ribs, into her waist, out to her h*ps and back again … If he had all day, he would. If she weren’t made of so many other miracles.
‘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 Dunne’s office because somebody in gym took my clothes.’
‘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.
‘Ever? Yes. Soon? I don’t know …’
She hugged him as hard as she could, and then she walked home alone.
Richie was home and awake and watching Saturday Night Live. Ben was asleep on the floor, and Maisie was sleeping next to Richie on the couch.
Eleanor would have gone straight to bed, but she had to go to the bathroom. Which meant walking between him and the TV. Twice.
When she got to the bathroom, she pulled her hair back tight and washed her face again. She hurried back past the TV without looking up.
‘Where have you been?’ Richie asked.
‘Where do you go all the time?’
‘To my friend’s house,’ Eleanor said. She kept walking.
‘What friend?’
‘Tina,’ Eleanor said. She put her hand on the bedroom door.
‘Tina,’ Richie said. There was a cigarette in his mouth, and he was holding a can of Old Mil-waukee. ‘Tina’s house must be f**king Disney-land, huh? You can’t get enough.’
She waited.
‘Eleanor?’ she heard her mom calling from the bedroom. She sounded half asleep.
‘So, what’d you spend your Christmas money on?’ Richie asked. ‘I told you to buy yourself something nice.’
The bedroom door opened, and her mother came out. She was wearing Richie’s bathrobe –
one of those Asian souvenir robes, red satin, with a big gaudy tiger.
‘Eleanor,’ her mom said, ‘go to bed.’
‘I was just asking Eleanor what she bought with her Christmas money,’ Richie said.
If Eleanor made something up now, he’d want to see whatever it was. If she said she hadn’t spent the money, he might want it back.
‘A necklace,’ she said.
‘A necklace,’ he repeated. He looked at her blearily, like he was trying to come up with something awful to say, but he just took another drink and leaned back in his chair.
‘Good night, Eleanor,’ her mom said.
CHAPTER 43
Park
Park’s parents almost never fought, and when they did, it was always about him or Josh.
His parents had been arguing in their bedroom for more than an hour, and when it was time to leave for Sunday dinner, their mom came out and told the boys to go ahead without them.
‘Tell Grandma I have headache.’
‘What did you do?’ Josh asked Park as they cut through the front lawn.
‘Nothing,’ Park said. ‘What did you do?’
‘Nothing. It’s you. When I went to the bathroom, I heard mom say your name.’
But Park hadn’t done anything. Not since the eyeliner – which he knew wasn’t dead, but it seemed in remission. Maybe his parents knew somehow about yesterday …
Even if they did, Park hadn’t done anything with Eleanor that he’d ever been explicitly told not to do. His mom never talked to him about that kind of thing. And his dad hadn’t said anything more than ‘Don’t get anybody pregnant’
since he told Park about sex in the fifth grade.
(He’d told Josh at the same time, which was insulting.)
Anyway, they hadn’t gone that far. He hadn’t touched her anywhere that you couldn’t show on television. Even though he’d wanted to.
He wished now that he had. It might be months before they were alone again.
Eleanor
She went to Mrs Dunne’s office Monday morning before class, and Mrs Dunne gave her a brand new combination lock. It was hot pink.
‘We talked to some of the girls in your class,’
Mrs Dunne said, ‘but they all played dumb.
We’re still going to get to the bottom of this, I promise.’
There is no bottom, Eleanor thought. There’s just Tina.