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They broke apart when the bus stopped A flood of reality rushed through Park, and he looked around nervously to see if anyone had been watching them Then he looked nervously at Eleanor to see if she’d noticed hi at the floor, even as she picked up her books and stood in the aisle

If so, ould they have seen? Park couldn’t iine what his face had looked like when he touched Eleanor

Like so the first drink in a Diet Pepsi commercial Over-the-top bliss

He stood behind her in the aisle She was just about his height Her hair was pulled up, and her neck was flushed and splotchy He resisted the urge to lay his cheek against it

He walked with her all the way to her locker, and leaned against the wall as she opened it She didn’t say anything, just shifted 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 hiers around his She hadn’t even looked at hiently 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 pal happened

How could it be possible that there were that s 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 ?

Maybe this hy so many people said it felt better to drive a stick shift

Park

Jesus Was it possible to rape solish 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 e 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 pal

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 hoeography book, so she spent a really long ti 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 iven 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 fiftyhis hand

Maybe it was stupid, but that’s what she did with hi was possible As far as Eleanor was concerned, that just showed hoonderful it was to hold Park’s hand

(Besides they didn’t just hold hands Park touched her hands like they were soers were intimately connected to the rest of her body Which, of course, they were It was hard to explain He made her feel likeabout 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 see 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 seith my mind,’

Park said

‘That’s a very limited mutation,’ she said

‘What do they call you?’

‘They calland pulled at one of her curls (That was a neeso So at her ponytail or tap the top of her bun)

‘I … don’t knohat they callher hand on top of his, finger to finger Her fingertips caht be the only part of her that was sirl,’ 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, "Tihed and pulled at another curl

That was thethey’d done in teeks She’d started to write him a letter – she’d started it a rade 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 coht and almost completely black, which, on Park, seemed like a lifestyle choice He alore black, practically head to toe Black punk rock T-shirts over black ther-sleeved shirts Black sneak-ers 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, herto a funeral –

in a coffin Anyway, her mom used to say stuff like that, back when she occasionally noticed what Eleanor earing Eleanor had taken all the safety pins fro 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