As soon as he disappeared from the window, she slipped off the bed like that stupid cat and put her bra and shoes on in the dark. She was wearing a great big T-shirt and a pair of her dad’s old flannel pajama pants. Her coat was in the living room, so she put on a sweater.
Maisie had fallen asleep watching TV, so it was relatively easy to climb over her empty bed and out the window.
He’ll kick me out for real this time, Eleanor thought, tiptoeing across the porch. That would be his best Christmas ever.
Park was waiting on the school steps. Where they’d sat and read Watchmen. As soon as he saw her, he stood up and ran to her. Like, actually ran.
He ran to her – and took her face in both of his hands. And then he was kissing her before she could say no. And she was kissing him back before she could remind herself that she wasn’t ever going to kiss anybody again, especially not him, because look how miserable it had made her.
She was crying, and so was Park. When she put her hands on his cheeks, they were wet.
And warm. He was so warm.
She bent her neck back and kissed him like she never had before. Like she wasn’t scared of doing it wrong.
He pulled away to say he was sorry, and she shook her head no, because even though she really did want him to be sorry, she wanted to kiss him more.
‘I’m sorry, Eleanor.’ He held her face against his. ‘I was wrong about everything. Everything.’
‘I’m sorry, too,’ she said.
‘For what?’
‘For acting mad at you all the time.’
‘It’s okay,’ he said, ‘sometimes I like it.’
‘But not always.’
He shook his head.
‘I don’t even know why I do it,’ she said.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘I’m not sorry about getting mad about Tina.’
He pressed his forehead against hers until it hurt. ‘Don’t even say her name,’ he said. ‘She’s nothing and you’re … everything. You’re everything, Eleanor.’
He kissed her again, and she opened her mouth.
They stayed outside until Park couldn’t rub any warmth back into her hands. Until her lips were numb from cold and kissing.
He wanted to walk her back home, but she told him that would be suicidal.
‘Come see me tomorrow,’ he said.
‘I can’t, it’s Christmas.’
‘The next day, then.’
‘The next day,’ she said.
‘And the day after that.’
She laughed. ‘I don’t think your mom would like that. I don’t think she likes me.’
‘You’re wrong,’ he said. ‘Come.’
Eleanor was climbing the front steps when she heard him whispering her name. She turned back, but she couldn’t see him in the shadows.
‘Merry Christmas,’ he said.
She smiled, but didn’t answer.
CHAPTER 33
Eleanor
Eleanor slept until noon on Christmas Day. Until her mom finally came in and told her to wake up.
‘Are you okay?’ her mom asked.
‘I’m asleep.’
‘You look like you’re getting a cold.’
‘Does that mean I can go back to sleep?’
‘I guess so. Look, Eleanor …’ her mother stepped away from the door, and her voice dropped. ‘I’m going to talk to Richie about this summer. I think I can get him to change his mind about that camp.’
Eleanor opened her eyes. ‘No. No, I don’t want to go.’
‘But I thought you’d jump at the chance to get out of here.’
‘No,’ Eleanor said, ‘I don’t want to have to leave everybody … again.’ Saying it made her feel like one hundred percent jerk, but she’d say anything to spend the summer with Park. (And she wasn’t even going to tell herself that he’d probably be sick of her by then.) ‘I want to stay home,’ she said.
Her mom nodded. ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘then I won’t mention it. But if you change your mind
…’
‘I won’t,’ Eleanor said.
Her mom left the room, and Eleanor pretended to go back to sleep.
Park
He slept until noon on Christmas Day, until Josh came in and sprayed him with one of their mom’s salon water bottles.
‘Dad says that if you don’t get up, he’s going to let me have all your presents.’
Park beat Josh back with a pillow.
Everybody else was waiting for him, and the whole house smelled like turkey. His grandma wanted him to open her present first – a new
‘Kiss Me, I’m Irish’ T-shirt. A size bigger than last year’s, which meant it would be a size too big.
His parents gave him a fifty-dollar gift certificate to Drastic Plastic, the punk-rock record store downtown. (Park was surprised that they’d think of that. And he was surprised that DP sold gift certificates. Not very punk.) He also got two black sweaters he might actually wear, some Avon cologne in a bottle shaped like an electric guitar, and an empty key ring –
which his dad made sure everybody noticed.
Park’s sixteenth birthday had come and gone, and he didn’t even care anymore about getting his license and driving himself to school. He wasn’t going to give up his only guaranteed time with Eleanor.
She’d already told him that as awesome as last night was – and they both agreed it was awesome – she couldn’t risk sneaking out again.
‘Any one of my siblings could have woken up, they still could, and they would definitely tell on me. They have very confused allegiances.’
‘But if you’re quiet …’
That’s when she’d told him that, most nights, she shared a room with all of her brothers and sisters. All of them. A room about the size of his, she said, ‘minus the waterbed.’
They were sitting against the back door of the school, in a little alcove where no one would see them unless they were really looking, and where the snow didn’t fall directly on their faces. They sat next to each other, facing each other, holding hands.
There was nothing between them now. Nothing stupid and selfish just taking up space.
‘So you have two brothers and two sisters?’
‘Three brothers, one sister.’
‘What are their names?’
‘Why?’