A/N: This is something I wrote on a whim right after I finished the book (correction: I wrote part of it right after I finished the book, and part just now, months after I'd finished the book). The ending disappointed me, I just felt like there was too much hanging in the air. (Okay, I just want to know they end up together. I just want them to end up together.) So...this is an epilogue of sorts. There's really no context, they see each other again and we don't know why or how, so it's probably confusing, but please just go with it.
Park
Eleanor still smelled like homemade birthday cake, better than any gift he'd ever gotten. Her hair looked, if possible, even redder than before, or maybe it was just that the memories he'd clung to of her had dulled its colour. Like the brightest part of sunrise. The heart of a fire.
He felt like his eyes couldn't get enough of her, like he could have just stood here for the rest of the day and looked at her. Of course, that wasn't enough, not really. He wanted to touch her, to bury his face in her neck and run his fingers down her side, to kiss her and taste her and anchor himself to her and never let go.
He didn't move. He couldn't.
"Park," she said, with a trace of hesitation in her voice that he didn't like. She didn't need to hesitate. Had the sound of his voice become foreign to her? The sound of her name was more familiar to him than his own. He said it all the time, even after she left. Especially after she left.
Instead of replying, Park just jerked his head in a nod. The only thing that reassured him was that Eleanor was looking at him the way he was looking at her, like the two of them were locked together already even without making contact.
Eleanor
Park nodded and stared at her. She was staring at him too, drinking him in. Neither of them blinked, neither of them looked away, neither of them said anything.
Silence could be awkward, suffocating, painful, but not with Park. She and Park didn't need to talk to speak with each other. They could speak just through the contact of their hands, or their eyes – or at least, they used to. She wasn't sure if they were speaking now, if they were on speaking terms.
It hurt her, but she couldn't exactly complain. She was the one that did this to them. To him.
Park
He waited for Eleanor to say something else, something more, but she didn't. She stayed silent, looking at him. He wasn't sure if she was waiting for him to talk, if she was waiting for him at all. He had been waiting for her all along, and he felt like he still was, even though she was right there. Right in front of him.
Park licked his lips, swallowed. "Eleanor," he said, more breath than sound.
Her eyes flickered with something; he couldn't tell what.
"Eleanor," he said again, louder, clearer.
"Park."
He said her name, and she said his, and that was it. It was probably the most meaningless conversation ever and the most meaningful conversation ever at the same time. It wasn't much of a conversation at all, but it was more than what they had for almost a year.
When he had been waiting for her reply, waiting for her, the time crawled by like a limping snail. Now, looking back on it, suddenly it was like no time had passed at all and he was waiting by her uncle's house with his heart in his throat.
"Eleanor," he repeated, and held out his hand, and she took it.
Eleanor
Park's palm was warm and clammy at the same time. She felt like she could feel his heartbeat in his palm, she felt like she could hear hers too. His heart was beating just a little faster than hers, and her heart was trying to catch up to him, trying to match him.
It's amazing how familiar this was, his hand in hers, his skin against hers, his touch setting her nerves alight. It was so familiar, because this was Park, and yet it was different, because this might not be her Park anymore.
"Park," she whispered again, because she liked the way his name felt in her mouth, liked the way her lips shaped around it. Liked the way he looked at her when she said it. She didn't know what to say after. She never knew what to say.
He squeezed her hand, like he knew what she was struggling with. Except he couldn't possibly know, because he always knew what to say and he said it.
Park smiled. "Hi," he said.
Eleanor swallowed. "Hi," she replied.
Park
Then they were talking. They talked about everything and nothing. He had missed this; he had missed everything about her, but he especially missed talking to her. She always had something to say that he didn't expect. She wasn't predictable; she wasn't like anyone else.
Her eyes were still so dark, the colour of ground espresso or 99% chocolate. Bitter things. Her gaze wasn't bitter, but the way it made him feel was somewhere on that spectrum. Bittersweet, maybe.
Eleanor
"So, Steve and Tina eloped."
"Yeah." Park scratched the back of his neck. His skin was as smooth and golden as ever. He was still the sun to her; she still revolved around him. "They escaped."
"Escaped," she repeated, a word she was familiar with.
"Steve wrote to me," Park said noncommittally. "Right away."
"Did Tina write to you too?" Eleanor wasn't being bitter or jealous. She wasn't. After the garage, she didn't see Tina like that anymore.
He stared at her with such intensity she almost looked away. "No, she didn't. Even if she did…" Park shrugged. "There was only one person whose letters I waited for."
Eleanor had a closet of new clothes now and she took care of her hair according to Park's mom's suggestions, but when Park looked at her like that, she felt like she was running down the hallway in her gymsuit again. Like she was bare and exposed and everything was laid out for people to laugh at.
Except Park didn't laugh. Not at her, anyway. He always laughed with her, never at her. And when she laughed with him, when his eyes disappeared into crescents and his teeth flashed, the world looked like a brighter place.
"I wrote you a postcard," she said quietly, feeling stupid even as she said it.
Park tugged his bottom lip into his mouth. He wasn't wearing eyeliner, but he didn't need to for his eyes to stand out. He had eyes that caught all the light in a room, and when he looked at her, she felt bright no matter how dark the world was.
"I know," he said, equally as quietly. "I read it every day. Many times a day."
She almost blurted out that she did the same to his photo, but that seemed creepier than rereading letters. She might as well tell him that she wanted to eat his face. "I read all your letters."
"I wrote more that I never sent you."
"You can send them now."
He shook his head. "I don't want to send you letters anymore."
Eleanor's heart sank. It never obeyed her around Park; it belonged more to him than her.
Park looked at her like she was the sun and the moon and the stars, like she was worth more than all the celestial bodies in the universe. "I want to talk to you. I want to go out with you. I want to read comics with you and listen to tapes with you and drive downtown with you—" He cut off like he ran out of air. She understood the feeling; there was never enough air around when she was with him.
"Park," she whispered.
"What?"
"Come here," she said. "I want to show you something."
He stared at her for a moment like he couldn't hear her, and then, slowly but surely, he broke into a smile.
When their lips met, she felt a thrill, a jolt of heat and excitement, and she wondered if this was what it was like to get high. Maybe that was why her dad liked pot so much. The high subsided as Park opened his mouth and let her in, not into a low but a soft, familiar comfort, like climbing into bed after a long night, or being wrapped in a favourite sweater. Like coming home.
She liked living with Uncle Geoff and Aunt Susan, she liked her room and she liked Minnesota, but none of that could compare to this. To Park. Kissing him was like coming home, and she'd been away for too long.
Park
She was miles upon miles of skin, smooth and milky and freckled. He liked her freckles. He imagined connecting them, finding patterns in randomness, making constellations out of scattered stars.
He imagined writing his name on her skin, leaving his mark behind. He imagined tattooing her name on his body, maybe right over his chest, where she had already left a brand behind anyway.
Instead, he kissed her, on her lips, her neck, her shoulder, heading lower, eliciting from her gasps and trembles and half-broken sounds that might have been his name.
I love you, he mouthed against her skin. She tasted like vanilla everywhere, or at least, everywhere that he'd kissed so far. He wondered what she tasted like in the other places. I love you I love you I love you.
"Park," she whispered. Nobody ever said his name the way she did, like a secret, like a treasure she wanted to keep for herself.
"Eleanor," he returned, while he was still capable of speaking. "Eleanor."
Eleanor
It wasn't fair what he could do to her just by saying her name or looking at her. She remembered when they held hands on the bus, the feel of his palm against hers, his fingers interlaced with hers. She hadn't thought that anything could feel better than that, and then he had kissed her. Held her. Touched her.
It wasn't fair what he did to her. Except maybe she did it to him too, so maybe it was kind of fair, after all.
Park
Sometimes he thought about a lot when he kissed Eleanor. Sometimes he couldn't think at all. Usually, it was the latter.
This time, it was the former.
He thought about how he was reminded of her hair when his parents had wine at dinner one night. He thought about how he missed the silk scarves she used to tie around her wrists, how he would imagined tying them around his as well, binding them together. He thought about how he couldn't stop thinking about her.
He thought about his life before her – thought about it, but could barely remember it.
He thought about his life after her and drew a total blank.
Eleanor
Park had a magical smile. He had a magical smile and magical eyes and she would have started to describe more things about him as magical, but that was just getting dangerously lame and cheesy.
She did it anyway.
In her head, of course, not out loud. Not to him. It was okay that he was a dork, because he was Park and he was adorable like that, but if she told him how looking into his eyes for too long made her feel drunk, if she told him how she want to eat him up and keep him inside her…
She already left him once, and it nearly tore her apart. If he left her, she would utterly shatter, and nobody would be able to pick up the pieces.
Eleanor didn't want to end up like Humpty Dumpty.
Park
Eleanor made him rice pudding one day. Her family recipe, apparently. It was a bit overcooked but still delicious. He had three helpings, until his stomach felt distended and he literally could not eat another bite.
She watched him eat like she was the one doing it, like she was eating pure ambrosia.
"This is great," Park said, suppressing a burp. "I didn't know you could cook."
"You don't know a lot of things about me," she said flippantly. It was probably supposed to sound teasing, but it fell flat, because it was true.
I know you rub vanilla behind your ears. I know your favourite songs. I know you have freckles all over. I know you spent your first pocket money from your uncle on the final issue of Watchmen.
I know I love you.
Eleanor was looking at him. "You probably like pumpkin pie better."
"I prefer apple, actually." He nuzzles his face against her hair. "Cinnamon. Sometimes you smell like cinnamon."
She laughed. He loved her laugh. "Vanilla and cinnamon. You sound like I smell like a bakery."
"Would you serve your rice pudding at a bakery?"
She wiped a bit of it away from the corner of his mouth. "Just for you."
Eleanor
They were sitting beside each other on the couch, shoulders and thighs pressed together. Park's breath smelled of rice pudding, and the light struck gold sparks off his green eyes. He curled a lock of her hair around his finger, just kept it there, like he wanted to make a ring out of her hair.
She knew he liked her hair. She had never liked her hair, but he liked it so much that it almost made her like it too. For so long, she never understood what he saw in her, but when she looked into his eyes, she could almost see it too.
He shifted beside her, away from her, so they were no longer touching. She missed him. "Eleanor."
"Yeah?"
"You're right. I don't know a lot of things about you."
"Park—"
"But I want to," he said insistently. "I want to know you."
"You do know me," she said. "You don't know everything about me, but that doesn't mean you don't know me."
If he didn't know her, then who did? She didn't even know herself sometimes, a lot of the time, but she knew him, and he knew her. That's how it worked. That's how it's going to work.
"I want to know you," he repeated, lower, softer. "I want us to know each other."
Eleanor didn't know what to do when he looked at her like that. With those magical eyes. She leaned toward him, drawn by his gravity, and he didn't move back against her, but he took her hand again and he held it and held her.
Park
He knew this couldn't last forever, but it still struck him like a blow when it was time for Eleanor to return to her aunt and uncle's. He wasn't driving her this time – her uncle was coming to pick her up – but he could feel his heart in his throat again. He almost choked on it.
Eleanor gave him a smile. He couldn't tell whether it was happy or sad. "I'll write back this time. I promise."
Park was reduced to mutely nodding again. He tried to find a smile, but he came up empty-handed. Empty-mouthed.
"Park." This time, she reached out and took his hand. "This isn't goodbye, okay. This is just – see you later."
He tried again and found a smile. "See you soon," he amended.
She smiled again, and this time, it looked happy. "See you soon," she agreed.
He pulled her into his arms and buried his face in her hair. Her red, red hair. It enveloped him like fire, and he didn't care if he got burned, he wanted to stay like this, with her. Just a little longer.
Eleanor
She was the one to pull away from him. (She was always the one to pull away.) She could see her uncle's car, and she knew she had to go. She had to leave him. But she had promised him soon, they had promised each other. This isn't goodbye, she reminded herself. This isn't the end. This is only the start. The restart.
Park kissed her, his mouth shaping a word around hers: soon. And when he pulled away, she hadn't had enough of him so she pulled him back and kissed him again.
Park & Eleanor
They said it to each other at the same time.
Just three words.