Park wanted Eleanor to start checking her books now, especially after gym class.

# Eleanor #

"Tell who?" They were sitting in his room, leaning against his bed, trying to pretend that Park didn't have his arm around her for the first time since she crushed his cassette tapes. Just barely, not quite around her.

"You could tell Mrs Dunne," he said. "She likes you."

"Because if it is Tina," he said -- you could tell that he still didn't believe that it was, "you need to tell somebody."

"There's no complicated romantic history," Park said.

"Mrs Dunne? No. But we've hugged a lot."

"Okay, so I tell Mrs Dunne, and I show her whatever awful thing Tina has misspelled on my books -- and then Mrs Dunne asks, 'How do you know that Tina wrote that?' She'll be just as skeptical as you were, but without the complicated romantic history…"

"Did you kiss her?" Eleanor hadn't meant to ask that. Out loud. It was almost like she'd asked it so many times in her head that it leaked out.

"You know what I mean… Did you kiss her?"

"I don't want to talk about this," he said.

"I didn't even know you existed." Park's arm suddenly made contact, full contact, with Eleanor's waist. He pressed into her side, and she sat up, instinctively, trying to spread herself thinner.

"I was twelve."

"Yeah," he said, "and that's one of the reasons it doesn't count. It was like a practice pitch."

"But you'll always remember it," she said. "It was your first kiss."

"It was Tina, I was twelve, I didn't even like girls yet…"

"But…" she said, "how could you kiss her?"

"It doesn't matter."

"What are the other reasons?"

"I'll remember that it didn't matter," Park said.

She was sure that he'd kissed her. She was sure that they'd done other stuff, too. Tina was so little, Park could probably wrap his arms all the way around her and shake his own hands at her waist.

Eleanor wanted to let this go -- the most trustworthy voices in her head were shouting, "Let it go!"

"But she's awful."

"Because you did," Eleanor said.

"She was twelve, too."

"It does matter. Was it your first kiss?"

"But… how could you kiss her and then kiss me?"

"What?"

He set his forehead against hers. She didn't know what to do with her eyes or her hands.

"It matters," Eleanor whispered. Now that his arms were around her, there was almost no space between them. "Because you were the first person I ever kissed. And that matters."

"I don't want to think about an after."

Park put his other arm around her. "Please. Listen to me. It was nothing. It doesn't matter."

"Nothing before you counts," he said. "And I can't even imagine an after."

She shook her head. "Don't."

"Don't." She didn't want him to talk like this. She'd meant to push him, but not this far.

"That's what I'm saying, maybe there won't be one."

"Don't talk about after."

"There aren't even roads between Tina and me…" she said. "How could you like us both? Did you have a life-changing head injury in junior high?"

"I just meant that… I want to be the last person who ever kisses you, too… That sounds bad, like a death threat or something. What I'm trying to say is, you're it. This is it for me."

"Eleanor…"

So. Anyway. Park wanted her to start checking her book covers. Especially after gym class. So now Eleanor waited until almost everybody else had changed and left the locker room, and then she carefully examined her books for anything suspicious.

"Romeo, sweet Romeo…"

And even after he kissed her, she kept her hands on his chest.

She shook her head. "But you're twelve."

"Of course there will." She put her hands on his chest, so that she could push him away if she had to. "I mean… God, of course there will. It's not like we're going to get married, Park."

"Not now."

"I'm not proposing," he said. "I'm just saying… I love you. And I can't imagine stopping…"

"Stop." She tried to roll her eyes, but it hurt.

I never said I loved you, Eleanor thought.

"It's not like that, Eleanor, and you know it." Park's arms were tight around her. All the playfulness in his voice was gone. "There's no reason to think we're going to stop loving each other," he said. "And there's every reason to think that we won't."

"I'm sixteen…" he said. "Bono was fifteen when he met his wife, and Robert Smith was fourteen…"

"I think they've run out of ways to make fun of my hair," Eleanor said to DeNice while she looked over her algebra book.

DeNice and Beebi usually waited with her. It meant that they were late for lunch sometimes, but it also meant that they could all change in relative privacy, which they should have thought of months ago.

It was all very clinical.

There didn't seem to be anything pervy written on Eleanor's books today. In fact, Tina had ignored her all through class. Even Tina's sidekicks (even thuggy Annette) seemed bored with Eleanor.

"They could call you 'Ronald McDonald,'" DeNice said. "Have they called you that?"

"Shut up," Eleanor said, looking around the locker room. "Little pitchers."

"Or 'Wendy,'" Beebi said, lowering her voice and wolfing, "Where's the beef?"

"You go ahead," Eleanor said. "Get us a place in line. I still have to change."

"They're all gone," DeNice said. "Everybody's gone. They're all in the cafeteria, eating my Macho Nachos. Hurry up, girl."

"All right," DeNice said, "but stop looking at those books. You said it yourself, there's nothing there. Come on, Beebi."

She tried the one above it. Nothing. And nothing below. No…

Eleanor walked into the bathroom. The floor was wet, and Mrs Burt was standing in a stall. "I'll get a bag," Mrs Burt said, pushing past Eleanor.

"What are you doing?" Mrs Burt asked.

Eleanor looked down at the toilet. Even though she knew what she was going to see there, it still felt like a wet slap in the face. Her new jeans and her cowboy shirt were in a dark pile in the bowl, and her shoes were crammed under the lip. Somebody had flushed the toilet, and there was water still spilling over the edge. Eleanor watched it run.

Eleanor started over, opening all the lockers on the wall, then moving on to the next wall, trying not to panic. Maybe they'd just moved her clothes. Ha. Funny. Super-good joke, Tina.

"You should use the same locker every time, so it's easy to remember."

"Those little bitches…" Mrs Burt sighed. Like she couldn't imagine a bigger hassle.

"Looking for my clothes," Eleanor said.

It was empty.

Huh.

Mrs Burt started opening lockers at the other end of the room. Eleanor checked the trash and the showers. Then Mrs Burt called out from the bathroom. "Found them!"

"No, somebody… I mean, I think somebody took them."

Eleanor started packing up her books. She heard Beebi shout, "Where's the beef?" from the locker-room door. Dork. Eleanor opened up her locker.

"Here," Mrs Burt said, handing Eleanor a yellow Food 4 Less bag. "Fish 'em out."

"I don't want them," Eleanor said, backing away. She couldn't wear them anymore anyway. Everybody would know those were her toilet clothes.

Yeah, thanks, Eleanor thought, wringing out her jeans over the toilet. She wanted to wipe her eyes, but her hands were wet.

Eleanor reached into the toilet and felt tears slipping down her cheeks. Mrs Burt held the bag open. "You've got to stop letting them get to you, you know," she said. "You just encourage them."

"Well, you can't leave them here," Mrs Burt said. "Fish them out." Eleanor stared at her clothes. "Come on," Mrs Burt said.

"Your counselor's office."

Eleanor took a sharp breath. "I can't walk down the hall like this."

"For where?" Eleanor asked.

"What do you want from me, Eleanor?" That was obviously a rhetorical question; Mrs Burt wasn't even looking at her. Eleanor followed her to the coach's office and waited for the pass.

Mrs Burt handed her the bag. "Come on," she said. "I'll write you a pass."

As soon as she got out to the hallway, the tears came on hard. She couldn't walk through the school like this -- in her gymsuit. In front of boys… And everybody. In front of Tina. God, Tina was probably selling tickets outside the cafeteria. Eleanor couldn't do it. Not like this.

It wasn't just that her gymsuit was ugly. (Polyester. One-piece. Red-and-white stripes with an extra-long white zipper.)

People were already showing up for the next gym class. A few freshman girls looked at Eleanor, then started whispering. Her bag was dripping.

It was also extremely tight.

The shorts just barely cleared her underwear, and the fabric was stretched so tight over her chest, the seams were starting to pop under her arms.

Before she could think it through, Eleanor turned the wrong way down the hall and headed for the door to the football field. She acted like she was supposed to be walking out of the building in the middle of the day, like she was on some kind of weeping/half-dressed/drippy-bag mission.

She was a tragedy in that gymsuit. A ten-car pileup.

The door clicked locked behind her, and Eleanor crouched against it, letting herself fall apart. Just for a minute. God. God.

She took another deep breath and started walking.

There were no classrooms at this end of the school, so at least no one was watching her. She stuck close to the building, and when she turned the corner, she walked under a row of windows. She thought about walking right home, but that might be worse. It'd definitely be longer.

There was a trash can sitting right outside the door, and she got up and hurled the Food 4 Less bag into it. She wiped her eyes with her gymsuit. Okay, she told herself, taking a deep breath, get it together. Don't let them get to you. Those were her new jeans in the trash. And her favorite shoes. Her Vans. She walked over to the trash and shook her head, reaching down for the bag. Fuck you, Tina. Fuck you to the moon.

If she could just get to the front door, the counselor's offices were right inside. Mrs Dunne would help her. Mrs Dunne wouldn't tell her not to cry.

She really should have expected Park to walk through one of them.

Almost there, Eleanor thought. Don't run, just a few more doors…

The security guard at the front door acted like girls were wandering in and out in their gym clothes all day long. He glanced at Eleanor's pass and waved her on.

Ever since the first day they'd met, Eleanor was always seeing him in unexpected places. It was like their lives were overlapping lines, like they had their own gravity. Usually, that serendipity felt like the nicest thing the universe had ever done for her.

Park walked out of a door on the opposite side of the hallway and stopped as soon as he saw her. She tried to look away, but she didn't do it soon enough. Park's face turned red. He stared at her. She pulled down her shorts and stumbled forward, running the last few steps to the counselors" offices.

Eleanor thought for a moment about what she'd do if she didn't go back to school. Stay here all day? And then what?

"You don't have to go back there," her mom said after Eleanor had told her the whole story. (Almost the whole story.)

"Girls are so mean…" she said. "You're lucky to have one friend you can trust."

"Tina," her mom said. "You're lucky to have Tina."

Eleanor must have looked confused.

Eleanor's mom dumped the yellow plastic bag into the bathtub and started rinsing out the clothes, wrinkling her nose, even though they didn't smell.

She stayed home that night. Even though it was Friday, and Park's family always watched movies and made popcorn in the air popper on Fridays.

Eleanor nodded.

She couldn't face him.

All she'd see was the look on his face in the hallway. She'd feel like she was still standing there in her gymsuit.

"It's okay," she said. Mrs Dunne had driven Eleanor home herself, and she'd promised to bring a padlock for her gym locker.