Authors: Rainbow Rowell
some books onto the shelf and
took down a few others.
As the buzz of touching her
faded, he was starting to realize
that Eleanor hadn’t actually done
anything to touch him back. She
hadn’t bent her fingers around his.
She hadn’t even looked at him.
She still hadn’t looked at him.
Jesus
.
He knocked gently on her
locker door.
‘Hey,’ he said.
She shut the door. ‘Hey,
what?’
‘Okay?’ he asked.
She nodded.
‘I’ll see you in English?’ he
asked.
She nodded and walked away.
Jesus
.
Eleanor
All through first and second and
third hour, Eleanor rubbed her
palm.
Nothing happened.
How could it be possible that
there were that many nerve
endings all in one place?
And were they always there, or
did they just flip on whenever
they felt like it? Because, if they
were always there, how did she
manage to turn doorknobs without
fainting?
Maybe this was why so many
people said it felt better to drive a
stick shift.
Park
Jesus
. Was it possible to rape
somebody’s hand?
Eleanor wouldn’t look at Park
during English and history. He
went to her locker after school,
but she wasn’t there.
When he got on the bus, she
was already sitting in their seat –
but sitting in his spot, against the
wall. He was too embarrassed to
say anything. He sat down next to
her and let his hands hang
between his knees …
Which meant she really had to
reach for his wrist, to pull his
hand into hers. She wrapped her
fingers around his and touched his
palm with her thumb.
Her fingers were trembling.
Park shifted in his seat and
turned his back to the aisle.
‘Okay?’ she whispered.
He nodded, taking a deep
breath. They both stared down at
their hands.
Jesus
.
CHAPTER 16
Eleanor
Saturdays were the worst.
On Sundays, Eleanor could
think all day about how close it
was to Monday. But Saturdays
were ten years long.
She’d already finished her
homework. Some creep had
written ‘do i make you wet?’ on
her geography book, so she spent
a really long time covering it up
with a black ink pen. She tried to
turn it into some kind of flower.
She watched cartoons with the
little kids until golf came on, then
played double solitaire with Maisie
until they were both bored stupid.
Later, she’d listen to music.
She’d saved the last two batteries
Park had given her so that she
could listen to her tape player
today when she missed him most.
She had five tapes from him now
– which meant, if her batteries
lasted, she had four hundred and
fifty minutes to spend with Park in
her head, holding his hand.
Maybe it was stupid, but that’s
what she did with him, even in her
fantasies – even where anything
was possible. As far as Eleanor
was concerned, that just showed
how wonderful it was to hold
Park’s hand.
(Besides they didn’t
just
hold
hands. Park touched her hands
like they were something rare and
precious, like her fingers were
intimately connected to the rest of
her body. Which, of course, they
were. It was hard to explain. He
made her feel like more than the
sum of her parts.)
The only bad thing about their
new bus routine was that it had
seriously cut back on their
conversations. She could hardly
look at Park when he was
touching her. And Park seemed to
have a hard time finishing his
sentences. (Which meant he liked
her.
Ha
.)
Yesterday, on the way home
from school, their bus had to take
a fifteen-minute detour because of
a busted sewer pipe. Steve had
started cussing about how he
needed to get to his new job at the
gas station. And Park had said,
‘Wow.’
‘What?’ Eleanor sat by the wall
now, because it made her feel
safer, less exposed. She could
almost pretend that they had the
bus to themselves.
‘I can actually burst sewers
with my mind,’ Park said.
‘That’s
a
very
limited
mutation,’ she said. ‘What do they
call you?’
‘They call me … um …’ And
then he’d started laughing and
pulled at one of her curls. (That
was a new, awesome development
– the hair touching. Sometimes
he’d come up behind her after
school, and tug at her ponytail or
tap the top of her bun.)
‘I … don’t know what they
call me,’ he said.
‘Maybe the Public Works,’ she
said, laying her hand on top of
his, finger to finger. Her fingertips
came to his last knuckle. It might
be the only part of her that was
smaller than him.
‘You’re like a little girl,’ he
said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Your hands. They just look
…’ He took her hand in both of
his. ‘I don’t know … vulnerable.’
‘Pipemaster,’ she whispered.
‘What?’
‘That’s your superhero name.
No, wait – the Piper. Like, “Time
to pay the Piper!”’
He laughed and pulled at
another curl.
That was the most talking
they’d done in two weeks. She’d
started to write him a letter – she’d
started it a million times – but that
seemed like such a seventh-grade
thing to do. What could she write?
‘Dear Park, I like you. You
have really cute hair.’
He did have really cute hair.
Really, really. Short in the back,
but kind of long and fanned out in
the front. It was completely
straight and almost completely
black, which, on Park, seemed
like a lifestyle choice. He always
wore black, practically head to
toe. Black punk rock T-shirts over
black thermal long-sleeved shirts.
Black
sneakers.
Blue
jeans.
Almost all black, almost every
day. (He did have one white T-
shirt, but it said ‘Black Flag’ on
the front in big, black letters.)
Whenever Eleanor wore black,
her mom said that she looked like
she was going to a funeral – in a
coffin. Anyway, her mom used to
say stuff like that, back when she
occasionally noticed what Eleanor
was wearing. Eleanor had taken all
the safety pins from her mom’s
sewing kit and used them to pin
scraps of silk and velvet over the
holes in her jeans, and her mom
hadn’t even mentioned it.
Park looked good in black. It
made him look like he was drawn
in charcoal. Thick, arched, black
eyebrows. Short, black lashes.
High, shining cheeks.
‘Dear Park, I like you so
much. You have really beautiful
cheeks.’
The only thing she didn’t like
to think about, about Park, was
what he could possibly see in her.
Park
The pick-up kept dying.
Park’s dad wasn’t saying
anything, but Park knew he was
getting pissed.
‘Try again,’ his dad said. ‘Just
listen to the engine, then shift.’
That was an oversimplification
if Park had ever heard one. Listen
to the engine, depress the clutch,
shift, gas, release, steer, check
your mirrors, signal your turn,
look twice for motorcycles …
The crappy part was that he
was pretty sure he could do it if
his dad wasn’t sitting there,
fuming. Park could see himself
doing it in his head just fine.
It was like this at taekwando
sometimes, too. Park could never
master something new if his dad
was the one teaching it.
Clutch, shift, gas.
The pick-up died.
‘You’re thinking too much,’
his dad snapped.
Which is what his dad always
said. When Park was a kid, he’d
try to argue with him. ‘I can’t
help
but think,’ Park would say during
taekwando. ‘I can’t turn off my
brain.’
‘If
you
fight
like
that,
somebody’s going to turn it off
for you.’
Clutch, shift, grind.
‘Start it again … Now don’t
think, just shift … I said,
don’t
think
.’
The truck died again. Park put
his hands at ten and two and laid
his head on the steering wheel,
bracing himself. His dad was
radiating frustration.
‘Goddamn, Park, I don’t know
what to do with you. We’ve been
working on this for a year. I
taught your brother to drive in two
weeks.’
If his mom were here, she
would have called foul at this.
‘You don’t do that,’ she’d say.
‘Two boys.
Different
.’
And his dad would grit his
teeth.
‘I guess Josh doesn’t have any
trouble not thinking,’ Park said.
‘Call your brother stupid all
you want,’ his dad said. ‘He can
drive a manual transmission.’
‘But I’m only ever gonna get
to
drive
the
Impala,’
Park
muttered into the dash, ‘and it’s an
automatic.’
‘That isn’t the point,’ his dad
half shouted. If Park’s mom were
here, she would have said, ‘Hey,
mister, I don’t think so. You go
outside and yell at sky, you so
angry.’
What did it say about Park that
he wished his mom would follow
him around defending him?
That he was a pussy.
That’s what his dad thought.
It’s probably what he was thinking
now. He was probably being so
quiet because he was trying not to
say it out loud.
‘Try it again,’ his dad said.
‘No, I’m done.’
‘You’re done when I say
you’re done.’
‘No,’ Park said, ‘I’m done
now.’
‘Well, I’m not driving us
home. Try it again.’
Park started the truck. It died.
His dad slammed his giant hand
against the glove box. Park
opened the truck door and jumped
to the ground. His dad shouted his
name, but Park kept walking.
They were only a couple miles
from home.
If his dad drove by him on the
way home, Park didn’t notice.
When he got back to his
neighborhood, at dusk, Park
turned down Eleanor’s street
instead of his own. There were
two little reddish-blond kids
playing in her yard, even though it
was kind of cold.
He couldn’t see into the house.
Maybe if he stood here long
enough, she’d look out the
window. Park just wanted to see
her face. Her big brown eyes, her
full pink lips. Her mouth kind of
looked
like
the
Joker’s
–
depending on who was drawing
him – really wide and curvy. Not
psychotic, obviously … Park
should never tell her this. It
definitely didn’t sound like a
compliment.
Eleanor didn’t look out the
window. But the kids were staring
at him, so Park walked home.
Saturdays were the worst.
CHAPTER 17
Eleanor
Mondays were the best.
Today, when she got on the
bus, Park actually smiled at her.
Like, smiled at her the whole time
she was walking down the aisle.
Eleanor couldn’t bring herself
to smile directly back at him, not
in front of everybody. But she
couldn’t help but smile, so she
smiled at the floor and looked up
every few seconds to see whether
he was still looking at her.
He was.
Tina was looking at her, too,
but Eleanor ignored her.
Park stood up when she got to
their row, and as soon as she sat
down, he took her hand and
kissed it. It happened so fast, she