She remembered her books today, and she was wearing fresh clothes. She’d had to wash her jeans out in the bathtub last night, so they were still kind of damp … But altogether, Eleanor felt a thousand times better than she had yesterday. Even her hair was halfway cooperating. She’d clumped it up into a bun and wrapped it with a rubber band. It was going to hurt like crazy trying to tear the rubber band out, but at least it was staying for now.
Best of all, she had Park’s songs in her head – and in her chest, somehow.
There was something about the music on that tape. It felt different. Like, it set her lungs and her stomach on edge. There was something exciting about it, and something nervous. It made Eleanor feel like everything, like the world, wasn’t what she’d thought it was. And that was a good thing. That was the greatest thing.
When she got on the bus that morning, she immediately lifted her head to find Park. He was looking up too, like he was waiting for her. She couldn’t help it, she grinned. Just for a second.
As soon as she sat down, Eleanor slunk low in the seat, so the back-of- the-bus ruffians wouldn’t be able to see from the top of her head how happy she felt.
She could feel Park sitting next to her, even though he was at least six inches away.
She handed him yesterday’s comics, then tugged nervously at the green ribbon wound round her wrist. She couldn’t think of what to say. She started to worry that maybe she wouldn’t say anything, that she wouldn’t even thank him …
Park’s hands were perfectly still in his lap. And perfectly perfect. Honey-colored with clean, pink fingernails. Everything about him was strong and slender. Every time he moved he had a reason.
They were almost to school when he broke the silence.
‘Did you listen?’
She nodded, letting her eyes climb as high as his shoulders. ‘Did you like it?’ he asked.
She rolled her eyes. ‘Oh my God. It was … just, like …’ – she spread out all her fingers – ‘so awesome.’
‘Are you being sarcastic? I can’t tell.’
She looked up at his face, even though she knew how that was going to feel, like someone was hooking her insides out through her chest.
‘No. It was awesome. I didn’t want to stop listening. That one song – is it “Love Will Tear Us Apart”?’
‘Yeah, Joy Division.’
‘Oh my God, that’s the best beginning to a song ever.’ He imitated the guitar and the drums.
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ she said. ‘I just wanted to listen to those three seconds over and over.’
‘You could have.’ His eyes were smiling, his mouth only sort of. ‘I didn’t want to waste the batteries,’ she said.
He shook his head, like she was dumb.
‘Plus,’ she said, ‘I love the rest of it just as much, like the high part, the melody, the dahhh, dah-de-dah-dah, de-dahh, de dahhh.’
He nodded.
‘And his voice at the end,’ she said, ‘when he goes just a little bit too high … And then the very end, where it sounds like the drums are fighting it, like they don’t want the song to be over …’
Park made drum noises with his mouth: ‘ch-ch-ch, ch-ch-ch.’
‘I just want to break that song into pieces,’ she said, ‘and love them all to death.’
That made him laugh.
‘What about the Smiths?’ he asked.
‘I didn’t know who was who,’ she said. ‘I’ll write it down for you.’
‘I liked it all.’ ‘Good,’ he said. ‘I loved it.’
He smiled, but turned away to look out the window. She looked down.
They were pulling into the parking lot. Eleanor didn’t want this new talking thing – like, really talking, back and forth and smiling at each other
– to stop.
‘And …’ she said quickly, ‘I love the X-Men. But I hate Cyclops.’ He whipped his head back.
‘You can’t hate Cyclops. He’s team captain.’ ‘He’s boring. He’s worse than Batman.’ ‘What? You hate Batman?’
‘God. So boring. I can’t even make myself read it. Whenever you bring Batman, I catch myself listening to Steve, or staring out the window, wishing I was in hypersleep.’ The bus came to a stop.
‘Huh,’ Park said, standing up. He said it really judgmentally. ‘What?’
‘Now I know what you’re thinking when you stare out the window.’ ‘No, you don’t,’ she said. ‘I mix it up.’
Everybody else was pushing down the aisle past them. Eleanor stood up, too.
‘I’m bringing you The Dark Knight Returns,’ he said. ‘What’s that?’
‘Only the least boring Batman story ever.’
‘The least boring Batman story ever, huh? Does Batman raise both
eyebrows?’
He laughed again. His face completely changed when he laughed. He didn’t have dimples, exactly, but the sides of his face folded in on themselves, and his eyes almost disappeared.
‘Just wait,’ he said.
Park
That morning, in English, Park noticed that Eleanor’s hair came to a soft red point on the back of her neck.
Eleanor
That afternoon, in history, Eleanor noticed that Park chewed on his pencil when he was thinking. And that the girl sitting behind him – what’s her name, Kim, with the giant breasts and the orange Esprit bag – obviously had a crush on him.
Park
That night, Park made a tape with the Joy Division song on it, over and over again.
He emptied all his handheld video games and Josh’s remote-control cars, and called his grandma to tell her that all he wanted for his birthday in November was double-A batteries.
