‘Okay,’ she said.
He looked back at her, and his smile changed.
‘Keep it.’
When they got to Minneapolis, Park stopped at another gas station to ask for directions.
‘Is it easy?’ she asked him when he got back in the truck.
‘Like Sunday morning,’ he said. ‘We’re really close.’
CHAPTER 54
Park
He was more nervous about his driving once they got into the city. Driving in St Paul was nothing like driving in Omaha.
Eleanor was reading the map for him, but she’d never read a map outside of class before –
and between the two of them they kept making wrong turns.
‘I’m sorry,’ Eleanor kept saying.
‘It’s okay,’ Park said, glad she was sitting right next to him. ‘I’m not in any hurry.’
She pressed her hand into the top of his leg.
‘I’ve been thinking …’ she said.
‘Yeah?’
‘I don’t want you to come inside when we get there.’
‘You mean you want to talk to them by yourself?’
‘No … Well, yeah. But I mean … I don’t want you to wait for me.’
He tried to look down at her, but he was afraid he’d miss his turn again.
‘What?’ he said. ‘No. What if they don’t want you to stay?’
‘Then they can figure out how to get me home – I’ll be their problem. Maybe that’ll give me more time to talk to them about everything.’
‘But …’ I’m not ready for you to stop being my problem.
‘It makes more sense, Park. If you leave soon, you can still get home by dark.’
‘But if I leave soon …’ His voice dropped. ‘I leave soon.’
‘We have to say goodbye anyway,’ she said.
‘Does it matter if it’s now or a few hours from now or tomorrow morning?’
‘Are you kidding?’ He looked down at her, hoping he’d miss his turn. ‘Yes.’
Eleanor
‘It just makes more sense,’ she said. And then she bit her lip. The only way she was going to get through any of this was by force of will.
The houses were starting to look familiar –
big gray and white clapboard houses set far back on their lawns. Eleanor’s whole family had come up here for Easter the year after her dad left. Her uncle and his wife were atheists, but it was still a really fun trip.
They didn’t have kids of their own – probably by choice, Eleanor thought. Probably because they knew cute kids grow up into ugly, problem-atic teenagers.
But Uncle Geoff had invited her here.
He wanted her to come, at least for a few months. Maybe she didn’t have to tell him everything right away, maybe he’d just think she was early.
‘Is that it?’ Park asked.
He stopped in front of a gray-blue house with a willow tree in the front yard.
‘Yeah,’ she said. She recognized the house.
She recognized her uncle’s Volvo in the driveway.
Park stepped on the gas.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Just … around the block,’ he said.
Park
He drove around the block. For all the good it did him. Then he parked a few houses down from her uncle’s, so they could see the house from the car.
Eleanor couldn’t look away from it.
Eleanor
She had to say goodbye to him. Now. And she didn’t know how.
Park
‘You remember my phone number right?’
‘867-5309.’
‘Seriously, Eleanor.’
‘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.
He watched the woman who came to the door give Eleanor a big hug, and then he watched the door close behind them. And then he waited, just in case Eleanor changed her mind. Just in case she decided after all that he should come in.
The door stayed closed. Park remembered his promise and drove away. The sooner I get home, he thought, the sooner I’ll hear from her again.
He sent Eleanor a postcard from the first truck stop. ‘Welcome to Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Lakes.’
When he got home, his mom ran to the door to hug him.
‘All right?’ his dad asked.
‘Yeah,’ Park said.
‘How was the truck?’
‘Fine.’
His dad went outside to make sure.
‘You,’ his mom said, ‘I was so worried about you.’
‘I’m fine, Mom, just tired.’
‘How’s Eleanor?’ she asked. ‘She okay?’
‘I think so, has she called?’
‘No. Nobody called.’
As soon as his mom would let go of him, Park went to his room and wrote Eleanor a letter.
Eleanor
When Aunt Susan opened the door, Eleanor was already crying.
‘Eleanor,’ Aunt Susan kept saying. ‘Oh my goodness, Eleanor. What are you doing here?’
Eleanor tried to tell her that everything was okay. Which wasn’t true – she wouldn’t be there if everything was okay. But nobody was dead.
‘Nobody’s dead,’ she said.
‘Oh my God. Geoffrey!’ Aunt Susan called.
‘Wait here, sweetheart. Geoff …’
Left alone, Eleanor realized that she shouldn’t have told Park to leave right away.
She wasn’t ready for him to leave.
She opened the front door and ran out to the street. Park was already gone – she looked both ways for him.
When she turned around, her aunt and uncle were standing on the front porch watching her.
Phone calls. Peppermint tea. Her aunt and uncle talking in the kitchen long after she went to bed.
‘Sabrina …’
‘Five of them.’
‘We’ve got to get them out of there, Geoffrey
…’
‘What if she isn’t telling the truth?’
Eleanor took Park’s photo out of her back pocket and smoothed it out on the bedspread. It didn’t look like him. October was already a life-time away. And this afternoon was another life-time. The world was spinning so fast, she didn’t know where she stood anymore.
Her aunt had lent her some pajamas – they wore about the same size – but Eleanor put Park’s shirt back on as soon as she got out of the shower.
It smelled like him. Like his house, like potpourri. Like soap, like boy, like happiness.
She fell forward onto the bed, holding the hole in her stomach.
No one would ever believe her.
She wrote her mom a letter.
She said everything she’d wanted to say in the last six months.
She said she was sorry.
She begged her to think of Ben and Mouse –
and Maisie.
She threatened to call the police.
Her Aunt Susan gave her a stamp. ‘They’re in the junk drawer, Eleanor, take as many as you need.’
Park
When he got sick of his bedroom, when there was nothing left in his life that smelled like vanilla – Park walked by Eleanor’s house.
Sometimes the truck was there, sometimes it wasn’t, sometimes the Rottweiler was asleep on the porch. But the broken toys were gone, and there were never any strawberry-blond kids playing in the yard.
Josh said that Eleanor’s little brother had stopped coming to school. ‘Everybody says they’re gone. The whole family.’
‘That great news,’ their mother said. ‘Maybe that pretty mom wake up to bad situation, you know? Good for Eleanor.’
Park just nodded.
He wondered if his letters even got to wherever she was now.
Eleanor
There was a red rotary phone in the spare bedroom. Her bedroom. Whenever it rang, Eleanor felt like picking it up and saying, ‘What is it, Commissioner Gordon?’