She blinked swiftly, shaking her head as if to clear it. “Um,” she said, “it doesn’t help with the Charlie situation if an unexplained Volvo is left in the driveway.”
Ah, how little she still knew about me. “I wasn’t intending to bring a car.”
“How—?” she started to ask.
I interrupted her. The answer would only bring on another round of questions. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be there, no car.”
She put her head to one side, and looked for a second as though she was going to press for more, but then seemed to change her mind.
“Is it later yet?” she asked, reminding me of our unfinished conversation in the cafeteria today.
I should have just answered her other question. This one was much more unappealing. “I suppose it is later,” I agreed unwillingly.
I parked in front of her house, tensing as I tried to think of how to explain… without making my monstrous nature too evident, without frightening her again. Or was it wrong to minimize my darkness?
She waited with the same politely interested mask she’d worn at lunch. If I’d been less anxious, her preposterous calm would have made me laugh.
“And you still want to know why you can’t see me hunt?” I asked.
“Well, mostly I was wondering about your reaction,” she said.
“Did I frighten you?” I asked, positive that she would deny it.
“No.” It was such an obvious lie.
I tried not to smile, and failed. “I apologize for scaring you.” And then my smile vanished with the momentary humor. “It was just the very thought of you being there… while we hunted.”
“That would be bad?”
The mental picture was too much—Bella, so vulnerable in the empty darkness; myself, out of control.… I tried to banish it from my head. “Extremely.”
“Because…?”
I took a deep breath, concentrating for one moment on the burning thirst. Feeling it, managing it, proving my dominion over it. It would never control me again—I willed that to be true. I would be safe for her. I stared toward the welcome clouds without really seeing them, wishing I could believe that my determination would make any difference if I were hunting when I crossed her scent.
“When we hunt… we give ourselves over to our senses,” I told her, thinking through each word before I spoke it. “Govern less with our minds. Especially our sense of smell. If you were anywhere near me when I lost control that way…”
I shook my head in agony at the thought of what would—not what might, but what would—surely happen then.
I listened to the spike in her heartbeat, and then turned, restless, to read her eyes.
Bella’s face was composed, her eyes grave. Her mouth was pursed just slightly in what I guessed was concern. But concern for what? Her own safety? Was there any hope that I’d finally made the realities clear? I continued to stare at her, trying to translate her ambiguous expression into sure fact.
She gazed back. Her eyes grew round after a moment, and her pupils dilated, though the light had not changed.
My breathing accelerated, and suddenly the quiet in the car seemed to be humming, just as in the darkened Biology room this afternoon. The electric current raced between us again, and my desire to touch her was, briefly, stronger even than the demands of my thirst.
The throbbing electricity made it feel as if I had a pulse again. My body sang with it. As though I were human. More than anything in the world, I wanted to feel the heat of her lips against mine. For one second, I struggled desperately to find the strength, the control, to be able to put my mouth so close to her skin.
She sucked in a ragged breath, and only then did I realize that when I had started breathing faster, she had stopped breathing altogether.
I closed my eyes, trying to break the connection between us.
Bella’s existence was tied to a thousand delicately balanced chemical processes, all so easily disrupted: The rhythmic expansion of her lungs, that flow of oxygen was life or death to her. The fluttering cadence of her fragile heart could be stopped by so many stupid accidents or illnesses or… by me.
I did not believe that any member of my family—except possibly Emmett—would hesitate if he or she were offered a chance back, if he or she could trade immortality for mortality again. Rosalie and I, Carlisle, too, would stand in fire for it. Burn for as many days or centuries as were necessary.
Most of our kind prized immortality above all else. There were even humans who craved this, who searched in dark places for those who could give them the blackest of gifts.
Not us. Not my family. We would trade anything to be human.
But none of us, not even Rosalie, had ever been as desperate for a way back as I was now.
I opened my eyes and stared at the microscopic pits and flaws in the windshield, as though there was some solution hidden in the imperfect glass. The electricity had not faded, and I had to concentrate to keep my hands on the wheel.
My right hand began to sting without pain again, from when I’d touched her before.
“Bella, I think you should go inside now.”
She obeyed at once, without comment, getting out of the car and shutting the door behind herself. Did she feel the potential for disaster as clearly as I did?
Did it hurt her to leave, as it hurt me to see her go? The only solace was that I would see her soon. Sooner than she would see me. I smiled at that, then rolled the window down and leaned across to speak to her one more time. It was safer now, with the heat of her body outside the car.
She turned to see what I wanted, curious.
Always so curious, though I’d answered almost all of her many questions. My own curiosity was entirely unsatisfied. That wasn’t fair.
“Oh, Bella?”
“Yes?”
Her forehead puckered. “Your turn to what?”
“Ask the questions.” Tomorrow, when we were in a safer place, surrounded by witnesses, I would get my own answers. I grinned at the thought, and then turned away because she made no move to leave. Even with her outside the car, the echo of the electricity zinged in the air. I wanted to get out, too, to walk her to her door as an excuse to stay beside her.
No more mistakes. I hit the gas, and then sighed as she disappeared behind me. It seemed as though I was always running toward Bella or away from her, never staying in place. I would have to find some way to hold my ground if we were ever going to have any peace.
My house appeared calm and silent from the outside as I drove past, heading for the garage. But I could hear the turmoil—both spoken aloud and silently thought—inside. I threw one wistful glance in the direction of my favorite car—still pristine, for now—before I headed out to face the beautiful ogre under the bridge. I couldn’t even make the short walk from the garage to the house before being accosted.
Rosalie shot out the front door as soon as my footsteps were audible. She planted herself at the base of the stairs, her lips pulled back over her teeth.
I stopped twenty yards away, and there was no aggression in my stance. I knew I deserved this.
“I’m so sorry, Rose,” I told her before she had even gathered her thoughts to attack. I probably wouldn’t get to say much more.
Her shoulders squared, her chin jerked up.
How could you have been so stupid?
Emmett came slowly down the stairs behind her. I knew that if Rosalie attacked me, Emmett would come between us. Not to protect me. To keep her from provoking me enough that I would fight back.
“I’m sorry,” I told her again.
I could see that she was surprised by the lack of sarcasm in my voice, my quick capitulation. But she was too angry to accept apologies yet.
Are you happy now?
“No,” I said, the ache in my voice giving proof to the denial.
Why did you do it, then? Why would you tell her? Just because she asked? The words themselves weren’t so harsh—it was her mental tone that was edged with needle-sharp points. Also in her mind was Bella’s face—just a caricature of the face I loved. As much as Rosalie hated me in this moment, it was nothing to the hate she felt for Bella. She wanted to believe this hate was justified, founded solely on my bad behavior—that Bella was only a problem because she was now a danger to us. A broken rule. Bella knew too much.
But I could see how much her judgment was clouded by her jealousy of the girl. It was more now than the fact that I found Bella so much more compelling than I had Rosalie. Her jealousy had twisted and shifted focus. Bella had everything Rosalie wanted. She was human. She had choices. Rose was outraged that Bella would put this in jeopardy, that she would flirt with the darkness when she had other options.
Rose thought she might even trade faces with the girl she thought of as homely, if she could have her humanity in the bargain.
Though Rosalie was trying not to think all these things while she waited for my answer, she couldn’t keep them entirely out of her head.
“Why?” she demanded out loud when I still said nothing. She didn’t want me to keep reading. “Why did you tell her?”
“I’m actually surprised you were able to,” Emmett said before I could respond. “You rarely say the word, even with us. It’s not your favorite.”
He was thinking how much Rose and I were alike in this, how we both avoided the title to the nonlife we hated. Emmett had no such reservations.
What would it be like to feel the way Emmett did? To be so practical, so free from regret? To be able to so easily accept and move forward?
Rose and I would both be happier people if we could follow his example.
Seeing this—our similarities—so clearly made it even easier to excuse the venom-tipped needles that Rose was still thinking my way.
“You’re not wrong,” I said to Emmett. “I doubt I would ever have been able to say it myself.”
Emmett cocked his head to the side. Behind him, inside the house, I could feel the shock from the rest of our audience. Only Alice was unsurprised.
“Then how?” Rosalie hissed.
“Don’t overreact,” I said, without much hope. Her eyebrows shot up. “It wasn’t an intentional breach. It’s probably something we should have foreseen.”
“What are you talking about?” she demanded.
“Bella is friends with the great-grandson of Ephraim Black.”
Rosalie froze with surprise. Emmett, too, was taken off guard. They were no more prepared for this direction than I had been.
Carlisle appeared in the doorway. This was more than just a fight between Rosalie and me now.
“Edward?” he asked.
“We should have known, Carlisle. Of course the elders would warn the next generation when we came back. And of course the next generation wouldn’t credit any of it. It’s just a silly story to them. The boy who answered Bella’s questions didn’t believe anything he was telling her.”
I wasn’t anxious about Carlisle’s reaction. I knew how he would respond. But I was listening very intently to Alice’s room now, to hear what Jasper would think.
“You’re right,” Carlisle said. “Naturally, it would play out that way.” He sighed. “It’s bad luck Ephraim’s progeny had such a knowledgeable audience.”
Jasper listened to Carlisle’s response, and he was concerned. But his thoughts were more about leaving with Alice than silencing the Quileutes. Alice was already watching his ideas for the future, and preparing to refute them. She had no intention of going anywhere.
“Hardly bad luck,” Rosalie said through her teeth. “It’s Edward’s fault that the girl knows anything.”
“True,” I agreed quickly. “This is my fault. I am sorry.”
Please, Rosalie thought directly at me. Enough with the roll-over routine. Stop playing so penitent.
“I’m not playing,” I said to her. “I know I’m to blame for all of this. I’ve made an enormous mess of everything.”
“Alice told you I was thinking of burning your car, didn’t she?”
I smiled—sort of. “She did. But I deserve that. If it makes you feel better, have at it.”
She looked at me for a long moment, thinking about going ahead with the destruction. Testing me, to see if I was bluffing.
I shrugged at her. “It’s just a toy, Rose.”
“You’ve changed,” she said from between her teeth again.
I nodded. “I know.”
She whirled and stalked off toward the garage. But she was the one bluffing. If it wouldn’t hurt me, there was no point to the exercise. Of all my family, she was the only one who loved cars the way I did. Mine was too beautiful to vandalize for no reason.
Emmett looked after her. “I don’t suppose you’d give me the full story now.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said innocently. He rolled his eyes, then followed Rosalie.
I looked at Carlisle and mouthed Jasper’s name.
He nodded. Yes, I can imagine. I’ll speak with him.
Alice appeared in the doorway. “He’s waiting for you,” she said to Carlisle. Carlisle smiled at her—a little wryly. Though we were as used to Alice as it was possible to be, she was often uncanny. Carlisle patted her short black hair as he passed her.
I sat at the top of the stairs and Alice sat beside me, both of us listening to the conversation upstairs. There was no tension in Alice—she knew how it would end. She showed me, and my tension vanished as well. The conflict was over before it started. Jasper admired Carlisle as much as any of us did, and he was happy to follow his lead… until he thought Alice might be in danger. I found that I understood Jasper’s perspective more easily now. It was strange how much I hadn’t understood before Bella. She had changed me more than I’d known it was possible for me to change and still remain myself.