Well, she wasn’t, he thought to himself, cutting through the alley.

He didn’t know where Eleanor lived, exactly.

He knew where she got on the bus, and he knew that she lived next to the school …

It must be this one, he thought. He stopped at a small white house. There were a few broken toys in the yard, and a giant Rottweiler was asleep on the porch.

Park walked toward the house slowly. The dog lifted its head and watched him for a second, then settled back to sleep. It didn’t move, even when Park climbed the steps and knocked on the door.

The guy who answered looked too young to be Eleanor’s dad. Park was pretty sure he’d seen this guy around the neighborhood. He didn’t know who he’d expected to come to the door.

Somebody more exotic. Somebody more like her.

The guy didn’t even say anything. Just stood at the door and waited.

‘Is Eleanor home?’ Park asked.

‘Who wants to know?’ He had a nose like a knife, and he looked straight down it at Park.

‘We go to school together,’ Park said.

The guy looked at Park for another second, then closed the door. Park wasn’t sure what to do. He waited for a few minutes, then right as he was thinking about leaving, Eleanor opened the door just enough to slide through.

Her eyes were round with alarm. In the dark like this, it didn’t even look like she had irises.

As soon as he saw her, he knew it had been a mistake to come here – he felt like he should have known that sooner. He’d been so caught up in showing her …

‘Hey,’ he said.

‘Hi.’

‘I …’

‘… came to challenge me in hand-to-hand combat?’

Park reached into the front of his dobak and pulled out the second issue of Watchmen. Her face lit up; she was so pale, so luminous under the street light, that wasn’t just an expression.

‘Have you read it?’ she asked.

He shook his head. ‘I thought we could …

together.’

Eleanor glanced back at the house, then stepped quickly off the steps. He followed her down the steps, across the gravel driveway, to the back stoop of the elementary school. There was a big safety light over the door. Eleanor sat on the top step, and Park sat next to her.

It took twice as long to read Watchmen as it did any other comic, and it took even longer tonight because it was so strange to be sitting together somewhere other than on the bus. To even see each other outside of school. Eleanor’s hair was wet and hanging in long, dark curls around her face.

When they got to the last page, all Park wanted to do was sit and talk about it. (All he really wanted to do was sit and talk to Eleanor.) But she was already standing up and looking back at her house.

‘I’ve got to go,’ she said.

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Okay. I guess I do, too.’

She left him sitting on the elementary school steps. She was disappearing inside the house before he could think about saying goodbye. Eleanor

When she walked back into the house, the living room was dark, but the TV was on. Eleanor could see Richie sitting on the couch and her mom standing in the doorway of the kitchen.

It was just a few steps to her room …

‘Is that your boyfriend?’ Richie asked before she made it. He didn’t look up from the TV.

‘No,’ she said. ‘He’s just a boy from school.’

‘What did he want?’

‘To talk to me about an assignment.’

She waited in her bedroom doorway. Then, when Richie didn’t say anything more, she stepped inside, shutting the door behind her.

‘I know what you’re up to,’ he said, raising his voice, just as the door closed. ‘Nothing but a bitch in heat.’

Eleanor let his words hit her full on. Took them right on the chin.

She climbed into bed and clenched her eyes and jaw and fists – held everything clenched until she could breathe without screaming.

Until this moment, she’d kept Park in a place in her head that she thought Richie couldn’t get to. Completely separate from this house and everything that happened here. (It was a pretty awesome place. Like the only part of her head fit for praying.)

But now Richie was in there, just pissing all over everything. Making everything she felt feel as rank and rotten as him.

Now she couldn’t think about Park …

About the way he looked in the dark, dressed in white, like a superhero.

About the way he smelled, like sweat and bar soap.

About the way he smiled when he liked something, with his lips just turned up at the corners …

Without feeling Richie leer.

She kicked the cat out of the bed, just to be mean. He squawked, but jumped right back up.

‘Eleanor,’ Maisie whispered from the bottom bunk, ‘was that your boyfriend?’

Eleanor crushed her teeth together. ‘No,’ she whispered back viciously. ‘He’s just a boy.’

CHAPTER 15 Eleanor

Her mother stood in the bedroom the next morning while Eleanor got ready. ‘Here,’ she whispered, taking the hairbrush and drawing Eleanor’s hair into a ponytail without brushing out the curl.

‘Eleanor …’ she said.

‘I know why you’re in here,’ Eleanor said, pulling away. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘Just listen.’

‘No. I know. He won’t come back, okay? I didn’t invite him, but I’ll tell him, and he won’t come back.’

‘Okay, well … good,’ her mom said, folding her arms, still whispering. ‘It’s just that you’re so young.’

‘No,’ Eleanor said, ‘that’s not what it is. But it doesn’t even matter. He won’t come back, okay? It isn’t even like that anyway.’

Her mom left the room. Richie was still in the house. Eleanor ran out the front door when she heard him turn on the bathroom sink.

It’s not even like that, she thought as she walked to the bus stop. And thinking it made her want to cry, because she knew it was true.

And wanting to cry just made her angry.

Because if she was going to cry about something, it was going to be the fact that her life was complete shit – not because some cool, cute guy didn’t like her like that.

Especially when just being Park’s friend was pretty much the best thing that had ever happened to her.

She must have looked ticked off when she got on the bus because Park didn’t say hi when she sat down.

Eleanor looked into the aisle.

After a few seconds, he reached over and pulled at the old silk scarf she’d tied around her wrist.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘For what?’ She even sounded angry. God, she was a jerk.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I feel like maybe I got you in trouble last night …’

He pulled on the scarf again, so she looked at him. She tried not to look mad – but she’d rather look mad than look like she’d spent all night thinking about how beautiful his lips are.

‘Was that your dad?’ he asked.

She jerked her head back. ‘ No. No, that was my … mother’s husband. He’s not really my anything. My problem, I guess.’

‘Did you get in trouble?’

‘Sort of.’ She really didn’t want to talk to Park about Richie. She’d just about scraped all the Richie off the Parkplace in her head.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said again.

‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t your fault.

Anyway, thanks for bringing Watchmen. I’m glad I got to read it.’

‘It was cool, huh?’

‘Oh, yeah. Kind of brutal. I mean that part with the Comedian …’

‘Yeah … sorry.’

‘No, I didn’t mean that. I mean … I think I need to reread it.’

‘I read it again twice last night. You can take it tonight.’

‘Yeah? Thanks.’

He was still holding the end of her scarf, rubbing the silk idly between his thumb and fingers.

She watched his hand.

If he were to look up at her now, he’d know exactly how stupid she was. She could feel her face go soft and gummy. If Park were to look up at her now, he’d know everything.

He didn’t look up. He wound the scarf around his fingers until her hand was hanging in the space between them.