The fury ached for some kind of physical outlet. Though this insignificant, undeserving boy might not be the one Bella would say yes to, I yearned to pulverize his skull with my fist, to let him stand as a proxy for whoever it would be.
I didn’t understand this emotion—it was such a tangle of pain and fury and desire and despair. I had never felt it before; I couldn’t put a name to it.
“Mike, I think you should tell her yes,” Bella said in a gentle voice.
Mike’s hopes plummeted. I would have enjoyed that under other circumstances, but I was lost in the aftershock and the remorse for what the pain and fury had done to me.
Alice was right. I was not strong enough.
Right now, she would be watching the future spin and twist, become mangled again. Would this please her?
“Did you already ask someone?” Mike asked sullenly. He glanced at me, suspicious for the first time in many weeks. I realized I had betrayed my interest; my head was inclined in Bella’s direction.
The wild envy in his thoughts—envy for whomever this girl preferred to him—suddenly put a name to my emotion.
I was jealous.
“No,” the girl said with a trace of humor in her voice. “I’m not going to the dance at all.”
Through all the remorse and anger, I felt relief at her words. It was wrong, dangerous even, to consider Mike and the other mortals interested in Bella as rivals, but I had to concede that they had become just that.
“Why not?” Mike asked harshly. It offended me that he used this tone with her. I bit back a growl.
“I’m going to Seattle that Saturday,” she answered.
The curiosity was not as vicious as it would have been before—now that I was fully intending to find out the answers to everything. I would know the reasons behind this new revelation soon enough.
Mike’s voice turned unpleasantly wheedling. “Can’t you go some other weekend?”
“Sorry, no.” Bella was brusquer now. “So you shouldn’t make Jess wait any longer—it’s rude.”
Her concern for Jessica’s feelings fanned the flames of my jealousy. This Seattle trip was clearly an excuse to say no—did she refuse purely out of loyalty to her friend? She was more than selfless enough for that. Did she actually wish she could say yes? Or were both guesses wrong? Was she interested in someone else?
“Yeah, you’re right,” Mike mumbled, so demoralized that I almost felt pity for him. Almost.
He dropped his eyes from the girl, cutting off my view of her face in his thoughts.
I wasn’t going to tolerate that.
I turned to read her face myself, for the first time in more than a month. It was a sharp relief to allow myself this. I imagined it would feel the same to press ice to an aching burn. An abrupt cessation of pain.
Her eyes were closed, and her hands pressed against the sides of her face. Her shoulders curved inward defensively. She shook her head ever so slightly, as if she were trying to push some thought from her mind.
Frustrating. Fascinating.
Mr. Banner’s voice pulled her from her reverie, and her eyes slowly opened. She looked at me immediately, perhaps sensing my gaze. She stared up into my eyes with the same perplexed expression that had haunted me for so long.
I didn’t feel remorse or guilt or rage in that second. I knew they would come again, and soon, but for this one moment I rode a strange, jittery high. As if I had triumphed rather than lost.
She didn’t look away, though I stared with inappropriate intensity, trying vainly to read her thoughts through her liquid brown eyes. They were full of questions, rather than answers.
I could see the reflection of my own eyes, black with thirst. It had been nearly two weeks since my last hunting trip; this was not the safest day for my will to crumble. But the blackness did not seem to frighten her. She still did not look away, and a soft, devastatingly appealing pink began to color her skin.
What are you thinking now?
I almost asked the question aloud, but at that moment, Mr. Banner called my name. I picked the correct answer out of his head and glanced briefly in his direction, sucking in a quick breath.
“The Krebs Cycle.”
Thirst scorched my throat—tightening my muscles and filling my mouth with venom—and I closed my eyes, trying to concentrate through the desire for her blood that raged inside me.
The monster was stronger than before, rejoicing. He embraced this dual future that gave him a fifty-fifty chance at what he craved so viciously. The third, shaky future I’d tried to construct through willpower alone had collapsed—destroyed by common jealousy, of all things—and he was so much closer to his goal.
The remorse and guilt now burned with the thirst, and if I’d had the ability to produce tears, they would have filled my eyes now.
What had I done?
Knowing the battle was already lost, there seemed to be no reason to resist what I wanted. I turned to stare at the girl again.
She had hidden in her hair, but I could see that her cheek was deep crimson now.
The monster liked that.
She did not meet my gaze again but twisted a strand of her dark hair nervously between her fingers. Her delicate fingers, her fragile wrist—they were so breakable, looking for all the world as though just my breath could snap them.
No, no, no. I could not do this. She was too breakable, too good, too precious to deserve this. I couldn’t allow my life to collide with hers, to destroy it.
But I couldn’t stay away from her, either. Alice was right about that.
The monster inside me hissed with annoyance as I struggled.
My brief hour with her passed all too quickly, while I vacillated between the rock and the hard place. The bell rang, and she started collecting her things without looking at me. This disappointed me, but I could hardly expect otherwise. The way I had treated her since the accident was inexcusable.
“Bella?” I said, unable to stop myself. My willpower lay in shreds.
She hesitated before looking at me. When she turned, her expression was guarded, suspicious.
I reminded myself that she had every right to distrust me. That she should.
She waited for me to continue, but I just stared at her, reading her face. I pulled in shallow mouthfuls of air at regular intervals, fighting my thirst.
“What?” she finally said, a hard edge to her voice. “Are you speaking to me again?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer her question. Was I speaking to her again, in the sense that she meant?
Not if I could help it. I would try to help it.
“No, not really,” I told her.
She closed her eyes, which only made things more difficult. It cut off my best avenue of access to her feelings. She took a long, slow breath without opening her eyes, and spoke. “Then what do you want, Edward?”
Surely this was not a normal human way to converse. Why did she do it?
But how to answer her?
With the truth, I decided. I would be as truthful as I could with her from now on. I didn’t want to deserve her distrust, even if earning her trust was impossible.
“I’m sorry,” I told her. That was truer than she would ever know. Unfortunately, I could only safely apologize for the trivial. “I’m being very rude, I know. But it’s better this way, really.”
Her eyes opened, their expression still wary. “I don’t know what you mean.”
I tried to get as much of a warning through to her as was allowed. “It’s better if we’re not friends.” Surely, she could sense that much. She was a bright girl. “Trust me.”
Her eyes tightened, and I remembered that I had said those words to her before—just before breaking a promise. I winced when her teeth clenched together with a sharp click—she clearly remembered, too.
“It’s too bad you didn’t figure that out earlier,” she said angrily. “You could have saved yourself all this regret.”
I stared at her in shock. What did she know of my regrets?
“Regret? Regret for what?” I demanded.
“For not just letting that stupid van squish me!” she snapped.
I froze, stunned.
How could she be thinking that? Saving her life was the one acceptable thing I’d done since I met her. The only thing I was not ashamed of, that made me glad I existed at all. I’d been fighting to keep her alive since the first moment I’d caught her scent. How could she doubt my one good deed in all this mess?
“You think I regret saving your life?”
“I know you do,” she retorted.
Her estimation of my intentions left me seething. “You don’t know anything.”
How confusing and incomprehensible the workings of her mind were! She must not think in the same way as other humans at all. That must be the explanation behind her mental silence. She was entirely other.
She jerked her face away, gritting her teeth again. Her cheeks were flushed, with anger this time. Slamming her books together in a pile, she yanked them up into her arms, and marched toward the door without meeting my stare.
Even as vexed as I felt, something about her anger softened my annoyance. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was that made her exasperation somehow… endearing.
She walked stiffly, without looking where she was going, and her foot caught on the lip of the doorway. Her things all crashed to the ground. Instead of bending to get them, she stood rigidly straight, not even looking down, as if she was not sure the books were worth retrieving.
No one was here to watch me. I flitted to her side and had her books in order before she had even examined the mess.
She bent halfway, saw me, and then froze. I handed her books back to her, making sure my icy skin never touched hers.
“Thank you,” she said in a sharp voice.
“You’re welcome.” My voice was still rough with my former irritation, but before I could clear my throat and try again, she’d wrenched herself upright and stomped away toward her next class.
I watched until I could no longer see her angry figure.
Spanish passed in a blur. Mrs. Goff never questioned my abstraction—she knew my Spanish was superior to hers and gave me a great deal of latitude—leaving me free to think.
So I couldn’t ignore the girl. That much was obvious. But did it mean I had no choice but to destroy her? That could not be the only available future. There had to be some other choice, some delicate balance. I tried to think of a way.
I didn’t pay much attention to Emmett until the hour was nearly up. He was curious—Emmett was not overly intuitive about the shades in others’ moods, but he could see the obvious change in me. He wondered what had happened to remove the unrelenting glower from my face. He struggled to define the change, and finally decided that I looked hopeful.
Hopeful? Was that how I seemed from the outside?
I pondered the idea as we walked to the Volvo, wondering what exactly I should be hoping for.
But I didn’t have long to ponder. Sensitive as I always was to thoughts about the girl, the sound of Bella’s name in the heads of those humans I really should not think of as rivals caught my attention. Eric and Tyler, having heard—with much satisfaction—of Mike’s failure, were preparing to make their moves.
Eric was already in place, positioned against her truck where she could not avoid him. Tyler’s class was being held late to receive an assignment, and he was in a desperate hurry to catch her before she escaped.
“Wait for the others here, all right?” I murmured to Emmett.
He eyed me suspiciously, but then shrugged and nodded.
Kid’s lost his damn mind, he thought, amused.
Bella was on her way out of the gym, and I waited where she would not see me. As she got closer to Eric’s ambush, I strode forward, setting my pace so that I would walk by at the right moment.
I watched her body stiffen when she caught sight of the boy waiting for her. She froze for a moment, then relaxed and moved forward.
“Hey, Eric,” I heard her call in a friendly voice.
I was abruptly and unexpectedly anxious. What if this gangly teen with his unhealthy skin was somehow pleasing to her? Perhaps her earlier kindness to him had not been entirely selfless?
Eric swallowed loudly, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Hi, Bella.”
She seemed unconscious of his nervousness.
“What’s up?” she asked, unlocking her truck without looking at his frightened expression.
“Uh, I was just wondering… if you would go to the spring dance with me?” His voice broke.
She finally looked up. Was she taken aback, or pleased? Eric couldn’t meet her gaze, so I couldn’t see her face in his mind.
“I thought it was girls’ choice,” she said, sounding flustered.
“Well, yeah,” he agreed wretchedly.
This pitiable boy did not irritate me as much as Mike Newton did, but I couldn’t find it in myself to feel sympathy for his angst until after Bella had answered him in a gentle voice.
“Thank you for asking me, but I’m going to be in Seattle that day.”
He’d already heard this; still, it was a disappointment.
“Oh,” he mumbled, barely daring to raise his eyes to the level of her nose. “Well, maybe next time.”
“Sure,” she agreed. Then she bit down on her lip, as if she regretted leaving him a loophole. That pleased me.
Eric slumped forward and walked away, headed in the wrong direction from his car, his only thought escape.
I passed her in that moment and heard her sigh of relief. I laughed before I could catch myself.
She whirled at the sound, but I stared straight ahead, trying to keep my lips from twitching in amusement.
Tyler was behind me, almost running in his hurry to catch her before she could drive away. He was bolder and more confident than the other two. He’d only waited to approach Bella this long because he’d respected Mike’s prior claim.
I wanted him to succeed in catching her for two reasons. If—as I was beginning to suspect—all this attention was annoying to Bella, I wanted to enjoy watching her reaction. But if it was not—if Tyler’s invitation was the one she’d been hoping for—then I wanted to know that, too.
I measured Tyler Crowley as competition, knowing it was reprehensible to do so. He seemed tediously average and unremarkable to me, but what did I know of Bella’s preferences? Maybe she liked average boys.
I winced at that thought. I could never be an average boy. How foolish it was to set myself up as a candidate for her affections. How could she ever care for someone who was, by default, the villain of the story?
She was too good for a villain.
Though I ought to have let her escape, my inexcusable curiosity kept me from doing what was right. Again. But what if Tyler missed his chance now, only to contact her later when I would have no way of knowing the outcome? I pulled my Volvo out into the narrow lane, blocking her exit.
Emmett and the others were on their way, but he’d described my strange behavior to them, and they were walking slowly, staring at me, trying to decipher what I was doing.
I watched the girl in my rearview mirror. She glowered toward the back of my car without meeting my gaze, looking as if she wished she were driving a tank rather than a rusted Chevy.
Tyler hurried to his car and got in line behind her, grateful for my inexplicable conduct. He waved at her, trying to catch her attention, but she didn’t notice. He waited a moment, and then left his car, forcing his gait into a saunter as he sidled up to her passenger-side window. He tapped on the glass.
She jumped, and then stared at him in confusion. After a second, she rolled the window down manually, seeming to have some trouble with it.
“I’m sorry, Tyler,” she said, her voice irritated. “I’m stuck behind Cullen.”
She said my surname in a hard voice.
“Oh, I know,” Tyler said, undeterred by her mood. “I just wanted to ask you something while we’re trapped here.”
His grin was cocky.
I was gratified by the way she blanched at his obvious intent.
“Will you ask me to the spring dance?” he said, no thought of defeat in his mind.
“I’m not going to be in town, Tyler,” she told him, irritation still plain in her voice.
“Yeah, Mike said that.”
“Then why—?” she started to ask.
He shrugged. “I was hoping you were just letting him down easy.”
Her eyes flashed, then cooled. “Sorry, Tyler,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. “I really am going out of town.”
Given her usual practice of putting the needs of others above her own, I was a little surprised at her steely resolve when it came to this dance. Where did it spring from?
Tyler accepted her excuse, his self-assurance untouched. “That’s cool. We still have prom.”
He strutted back to his car.
I was right to have waited for this.
The horrified expression on her face was priceless. It told me what I should not so desperately have needed to know—that she had no feelings for any of these human males who wished to court her.
Also, her expression was possibly the funniest thing I’d ever seen.
My family arrived then, confused that I was, for a change, rocking with laughter rather than scowling murderously at everything in sight.
What’s so funny? Emmett wanted to know.
I just shook my head as Bella revved her noisy engine angrily. She looked like she was wishing for a tank again.
“Let’s go!” Rosalie hissed impatiently. “Stop being an idiot. If you can.”
Her words didn’t annoy me—I was too entertained. But I did as she asked.
No one spoke to me on the way home. I continued to chuckle every now and again, thinking of Bella’s face.
As I turned onto the drive—speeding up now that there were no witnesses—Alice ruined my mood.
“So do I get to talk to Bella now?” she asked suddenly.
“No,” I snapped.
“Not fair! What am I waiting for?”
“I haven’t decided anything, Alice.”
“Whatever, Edward.”
In her head, Bella’s two destinies were clear again.
“What’s the point in getting to know her?” I mumbled, suddenly morose. “If I’m just going to kill her?”
Alice hesitated for a second. “You have a point,” she admitted.
I took the final hairpin turn at ninety miles an hour, and then screeched to a stop an inch from the rear garage wall.
“Enjoy your run,” Rosalie said smugly as I threw myself out of the car.
But I didn’t go running today. Instead, I went hunting.
The others were scheduled to hunt tomorrow, but I couldn’t afford to be thirsty now. I overdid it, drinking more than necessary, glutting myself again—a small grouping of elk and one black bear I was lucky to stumble across this early in the year. I was so full it was uncomfortable. Why couldn’t that be enough? Why did her scent have to be so much stronger than anything else?
And not just her scent—whatever it was about her that marked her for disaster. She’d been in Forks for mere weeks and already she’d twice come within inches of a violent end. For all I knew, right at this very moment she could have wandered into the path of another death sentence. What would it be this time? A meteorite smashing through her roof and crushing her in her bed?
I could hunt no more and the sun was still hours and hours from rising. Now that it had occurred to me, the idea of the meteorite and all its possible allies was hard to dismiss. I tried to be rational, to consider the odds against all the disasters I could imagine, but that didn’t help. What were the odds, after all, that the girl would come to live in a town with a decent percentage of vampires as permanent residents? What were the odds that she would appeal to one so perfectly?
What if something happened to her in the night? What if I went to school tomorrow, every sense and feeling focused onto the space where she should be, and her seat was empty?
Abruptly, the risk felt unacceptable.
The only way I could be positive she was safe was if there was someone in place to catch the meteorite before it could touch her. The jittery high swept through me again when I realized that I was going to go find the girl.
It was past midnight, and Bella’s house was dark and quiet. Her truck was parked against the curb, her father’s police cruiser in the driveway. There were no conscious thoughts anywhere in the neighborhood. I watched the house from the blackness of the forest that bordered it on the east.
There was no evidence of any kind of danger… aside from myself.
I listened and picked out the sound of two people breathing inside the house, two even heartbeats. So all must be well. I leaned against the trunk of a young hemlock and settled in to wait for stray meteorites.