Free Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Or a heartbeat.
    Like holding something complete,
    and completely alive.
    As soon as he touched her, he
    wondered how he’d gone this
    long without doing it. He rubbed
    his thumb through her palm and
    up her fingers, and was aware of
    her every breath.
    Park had held hands with girls
    before. Girls at Skateland. A girl at
    the ninth-grade dance last year.
    (They’d kissed while they waited
    for her dad to pick them up.) He’d
    even held Tina’s hand, back when
    they ‘went’ together in the sixth
    grade.
    And always, before, it had
    been fine. Not much different
    from holding Josh’s hand when
    they were little kids crossing the
    street. Or holding his grandma’s
    hand when she took him to
    church. Maybe a little sweatier, a
    little more awkward.
    When he’d kissed that girl last
    year, with his mouth dry and his
    eyes mostly open, Park had
    wondered if maybe there was
    something wrong with him.
    He’d
    even
    wondered
    –
    seriously, while he was kissing
    her, he’d wondered this – whether
    he might be gay. Except he didn’t
    feel like kissing any guys either.
    And if he thought about She-Hulk
    or Storm (instead of this girl,
    Dawn) the kissing got a lot better.
    Maybe I’m not attracted to real
    girls, he’d thought at the time.
    Maybe I’m some sort of perverted
    cartoon-sexual.
    Or maybe, he thought now, he
    just didn’t recognize all those
    other girls. The way a computer
    drive will spit out a disk if it
    doesn’t recognize the formatting.
    When he touched Eleanor’s
    hand, he recognized her. He knew.
    Eleanor
    Disintegrated.
    Like something had gone
    wrong beaming her onto the
    Starship Enterprise.
    If you’ve ever wondered what
    that feels like, it’s a lot like
    melting – but more violent.
    Even in a million different
    pieces, Eleanor could still feel
    Park holding her hand. Could still
    feel his thumb exploring her palm.
    She sat completely still because
    she didn’t have any other option.
    She tried to remember what kind
    of animals paralyzed their prey
    before they ate them …
    Maybe Park had paralyzed her
    with his ninja magic, his Vulcan
    handhold, and now he was going
    to eat her.
    That would be awesome.
    Park
    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 him looking.
    She was still staring at the
    floor, even as she picked up her
    books and stood in the aisle.
    If
    someone
    had
    been
    watching, what would they have
    seen? Park couldn’t imagine what
    his face had looked like when he
    touched Eleanor. Like somebody
    taking 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 him back. She
    hadn’t bent her fingers around his.
    She hadn’t even looked at him.
    She still hadn’t looked at him.
    Jesus .
    He knocked gently 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
    palm.
    Nothing happened.
    How could it be possible that
    there were that many nerve
    endings 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
    manage to turn doorknobs without
    fainting?
    Maybe this was why so many
    people said