‘Seriously, Park. I’m never going to forget your phone number.’
‘Call me as soon as you can, okay? Tonight.
Collect. And give me your uncle’s number. Or, if he doesn’t want you to call, send the number to me in a letter – in one of the many, many letters you’re going to write me.’
‘He might send me home.’
‘No.’ Park let go of the gearshift and took her hand. ‘You’re not going back there. If your uncle sends you home, come to my house. My parents will help us figure it out. My dad already said that they would.’
Eleanor’s head fell forward.
‘He’s not going to send you home,’ Park said.
‘He’s going to help …’ She nodded deliberately at the floor. ‘And he’s going to let you accept fre-quent, private, long-distance phone calls …’
She was still.
‘Hey,’ Park said, trying to lift up her chin.
‘Eleanor.’
Eleanor
Stupid Asian kid.
Stupid, beautiful Asian kid.
Thank God she couldn’t make her mouth work right now, because if she could there’d be no end to the melodramatic garbage she’d say to him.
She was pretty sure she’d thank him for saving her life. Not just yesterday, but, like, practically every day since they’d met. Which made her feel like the dumbest, weakest girl. If you can’t save your own life, is it even worth saving?
There’s no such thing as handsome princes, she told herself.
There’s no such thing as happily ever after.
She looked up at Park. Into his golden green eyes.
You saved my life, she tried to tell him. Not forever, not for good. Probably just temporarily.
But you saved my life, and now I’m yours. The me that’s me right now is yours. Always.
Park
‘I don’t know how to say goodbye to you,’ she said.
He smoothed her hair off her face. He’d never seen her so fair. ‘Then don’t.’
‘But I have to go …’
‘So go,’ he said, with his hands on her cheeks. ‘But don’t say goodbye. It’s not goodbye.’
She rolled her eyes and shook her head.
‘That’s so lame.’
‘Seriously? You can’t cut me five minutes of slack?’
‘That’s what people say – “It’s not goodbye”
– when they’re too afraid to face what they’re really feeling. I’m not going to see you tomorrow, Park – I don’t know when I’ll see you again. That deserves more than “It’s not goodbye.”’
‘I’m not afraid to face what I’m feeling,’ he said.
‘Not you,’ she said, her voice breaking. ‘Me.’
‘You,’ he said, putting his arms around her and promising himself that it wouldn’t be the last time, ‘are the bravest person I know.’
She shook her head again, like she was trying to shake off the tears.
‘Just kiss me goodbye,’ she whispered.
Only for today, he thought. Not ever.
Eleanor
You think that holding someone hard will bring them closer. You think that you can hold them so hard that you’ll still feel them, embossed on you, when you pull away.
Every time Eleanor pulled away from Park, she felt the gasping loss of him.
When she finally got out of the truck, it was because she didn’t think she could stand touching and untouching him again. The next time she ripped herself away, she’d lose some skin.
Park started to get out with her, but she stopped him.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Stay.’ She looked up anxiously at her uncle’s house.
‘It’s going to be okay,’ Park said.
She nodded. ‘Right.’
‘Because I love you.’
She laughed. ‘Is that why?’
‘It is, actually.’
‘Goodbye,’ she said. ‘Goodbye, Park.’
‘Goodbye, Eleanor. You know, until tonight.
When you’re going to call me.’
‘What if they’re not home? God, that would be anti-climactic.’
‘That would be great.’
‘Dork,’ she whispered with a leftover smile on her face. She stepped back and closed the door.
‘I love you,’ he mouthed. Maybe he was saying it out loud. She couldn’t hear him anymore.
CHAPTER 55
Park
He didn’t ride the bus anymore. He didn’t have to. His mom gave him the Impala when his dad bought her a new Taurus …
He didn’t ride the bus anymore because he’d have the whole seat to himself.
Not that the Impala wasn’t just as ruined with memories. Some mornings, if Park got to school early, he sat in the parking lot with his head on the steering wheel and let whatever was left of Eleanor wash over him until he ran out of air.
Not that school was any better.
She wasn’t at her locker. Or in class. Mr Stessman said it was pointless to read Macbeth out loud without Eleanor. ‘Fie, my Lord, fie,’ he lamented.
She didn’t stay for dinner. She didn’t lean against him when he watched TV.
Park spent most nights lying on his bed because it was the only place she’d never been.
He lay on his bed and never turned on the stereo.
Eleanor
She didn’t ride the bus anymore. She rode to school with her uncle. He made her go, even though there were only four weeks left, and everybody was already studying for finals.
There weren’t any Asian kids at her new school. There weren’t even any black kids.
When her uncle went down to Omaha, he said she didn’t have to go. He was gone three days, and when he came back, he brought the black trash bag from her bedroom closet. Eleanor already had new clothes. And a new bookcase and a boombox. And a six-pack of blank cassette tapes.
Park
Eleanor didn’t call that first night.
She hadn’t said that she would, now that he thought about it. She hadn’t said that she’d write either, but Park thought that went unsaid. He’d thought that was a given.
After Eleanor got out of the truck, Park had waited in front of her uncle’s house.
He was supposed to drive away as soon as the door opened, as soon as it was clear that somebody was home. But he couldn’t just leave her like that.