Rainbow Rowell - Eleanor & Park (2012)

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Levi's eyebrows were pornographic. If Cath were making this decision just on eyebrows, she would have been "up to his room" a long time ago.

Rainbow Rowell
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.)

Rainbow Rowell
He wished that they could go through life like this. That he could physically put himself between Eleanor and the world.

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My girlfriend is sad and quiet and keeps me up all night worrying about her.

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The first time he'd held her hand, it felt so good that it crowded out all the bad things. It felt better than anything had ever hurt.

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I love your name. I don't want to cheat myself out of a single syllable.

Rainbow Rowell
It was like their lives were overlapping lines, like they had their own gravity. Usually, that serendipity thing felt like the nicest thing the universe had ever done for her.

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Holding Eleanor's hand was like holding a butterfly. 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.

Rainbow Rowell
He wound the scarf around his fingers until her hand was hanging in the space between them. Then he slid the silk and his fingers into her open palm. And Eleanor disintegrated.

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There's no such thing as handsome princes, she told herself. There's no such thing as happily ever after.

Rainbow Rowell
Maybe Park had paralyzed her with his ninja magic, his Vulcan handhold, and now he was going to eat her. That would be awesome.

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You look different. You look unsettling.' 'You look like you,' he said. 'You with the volume turned up.

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His parents never talked about how they met, but when Park was younger, he used to try to imagine it. He loved how much they loved each other. It was the thing he thought about when he woke up scared in the middle of the night. Not that they loved him—they were his parents, they had to love him. That they loved each other. They didn't have to do that.

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But it's up to us …' he said softly. 'It's up to us not to lose this

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What's that thing you wrote about Simon once, that his eyes followed Baz 'like he was the brightest thing in the room, like he cast everything else into shadow'? That's you. You can't look away from him.

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She wanted to lose herself in him. To tie his arms around her like a tourniquet. If she showed him how much she needed him, he'd run away.

Rainbow Rowell
What are the chances you'd ever meet someone like that? he wondered. Someone you could love forever, someone who would forever love you back? And what did you do when that person was born half a world away? The math seemed impossible.

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Nothing was dirty. With Park. Nothing could be shameful. Because Park was the sun, and that was the only way Eleanor could think to explain it.

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Things she knew now, that she hadn't known two hours ago: Park was covered with skin. Everywhere.

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All through first and second and third hour, Eleanor rubbed her palm. Nothing happened. How could it be possible that there were that many never ending all in one place? And were they always there, or did they just flip on wherever 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 it felt better to drive a stick shift.

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Eleanor hadn't written him a letter. It was a postcard. GREETINGS FROM THE LAND OF 10,000 LAKES it said on the front. Park turned it over and recognized her scratchy handwriting. It filled his head with song lyrics. He sat up. He smiled. Something heavy and winged took off from his chest. Eleanor hadn't written him a letter, it was a postcard. Just three words long.

Rainbow Rowell
Well, she said. I'm frustrated. Don't make me angry-kiss you. Give me the laundry. Tempers rising, faces flushed … This is how it happens.

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What if Park realized that all the things he thought were so mysterious and intriguing about her were actually just … bleak?

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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.

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You always ask that. Why. Like there's an answer for everything. Not everybody has your life, you know, or your family. In your life, things happen for reasons. People make sense. But that's not my life. Nobody in my life makes sense…

Rainbow Rowell
Park was never going to love her more than he did on the day they said goodbye. And she couldn't bear to think of him loving her less.

Rainbow Rowell
(Because being assaulted with maxi pads is a great way to win friends and influence people.)

Rainbow Rowell
For the first time in weeks, Park didn't have that anxious feeling in his stomach on the way home from school, like he had to soak up enough Eleanor to keep him until the next day.

Rainbow Rowell
All of her bones seemed more purposeful than other people's. Like they weren't just there to hold her up, they were there to make a point.

Rainbow Rowell
But he kept finding new pockets of shallow inside himself. He kept finding new ways to betray her.

Rainbow Rowell