Authors: Rainbow Rowell
Eleanor
whispered into the pillow. She
could hear things slamming. She
could hear her mother in the
doorway, talking softly, like she
was trying to put a baby back to
sleep.
FAT and FUCK and BITCH
and BEGGING FOR IT, JUST
FUCKING BEGGING FOR IT.
‘I hate you,’ Eleanor said
louder. ‘I hate you, I hate you, I
hate you.’
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 running to the
end of the sidewalk. Ben was
sitting on the porch, playing with
his Hot Wheels. He stopped and
watched Eleanor run by.
Eleanor wondered if she
should keep running, but where
would she go? Even when she
was a little girl, she never
fantasized about running away.
She could never imagine herself
past the edge of the yard. Where
would she go? Who would take
her?
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 pinned an old,
chipped glass flower to Eleanor’s
jacket.
‘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 microscope
down the hall on the third floor. It
was at least twice as nice as seeing
him somewhere she expected him
to be.
CHAPTER 28
Park
He called his mom during lunch to
tell her that Eleanor was coming
over. His counselor let him use
her phone. (Mrs Dunne loved the
opportunity to be good in a crisis,
so all Park had to do was imply
that it was an emergency.) ‘I just
wanted to tell you that Eleanor is
coming over after school,’ he told
his mom. ‘Dad said it was all
right.’
‘Fine,’ his mother said, not
even pretending that she was okay
with it. ‘Is she staying for dinner?’
‘I don’t know,’ Park said.
‘Probably not.’
His mother sighed.
‘You have to be nice to her,
you know.’
‘I’m nice to everybody,’ his
mom said. ‘You know that.’
He could tell Eleanor was nervous
on the bus. She was quiet, and she
kept running her bottom lip
through her teeth, making it go
white, so that you could see that
her lips had freckles, too.
Park tried to get her to talk
about
Watchmen
; they’d just read
the fourth chapter. ‘What do you
think of the pirate story?’ he
asked.
‘What pirate story?’
‘You
know,
there’s
that
character who’s always reading a
comic book about pirates, the
story within the story, the
pirate
story.’
‘I always skip that part,’ she
said.
‘You skip it?’
‘It’s boring. Blah, blah, blah –
pirates! – blah, blah, blah.’
‘Nothing Alan Moore writes
can be blah-blah-blahed,’ Park
said solemnly.
Eleanor shrugged and bit her
lip.
‘I’m beginning to think you
shouldn’t have started reading
comics
with
a
book
that
completely deconstructs the last
fifty years of the genre,’ he said.
‘All I’m hearing is blah, blah,
blah, genre.’
The
bus
stopped
near
Eleanor’s house. She looked at
him.
‘We may as well get off at my
stop,’ Park said, ‘right?’
Eleanor shrugged again.
They got off at his stop, along
with Steve and Tina and most of
the people who sat at the back of
the bus. All the back-of-the-bus
kids hung out in Steve’s garage
when he wasn’t at work, even in
winter.
Park
and
Eleanor
trailed
behind them.