"It's a little like being in a huge hall filled with people, everyone
talking at once. It's just a hum — a buzzing of voices in the background.
Until I focus on one voice, and then what they're thinking is clear.
"Most of the time I tune it all out — it can be very distracting. And
then it's easier to seem normal" — he frowned as he said the word — "when
I'm not accidentally answering someone's thoughts rather than their
words."
"Why do you think you can't hear me?" I asked curiously.
He looked at me, his eyes enigmatic.
"I don't know," he murmured. "The only guess I have is that maybe your
mind doesn't work the same way the rest of theirs do. Like your thoughts
are on the AM frequency and I'm only getting FM." He grinned at me,
suddenly amused.
"My mind doesn't work right? I'm a freak?" The words bothered me more
than they should — probably because his speculation hit home. I'd always
suspected as much, and it embarrassed me to have it confirmed.
"I hear voices in my mind and you're worried that you're the freak," he
laughed. "Don't worry, it's just a theory…" His face tightened. "Which
brings us back to you."
I sighed. How to begin?
"Aren't we past all the evasions now?" he reminded me softly.
I looked away from his face for the first time, trying to find words. I
happened to notice the speedometer.
"Holy crow!" I shouted. "Slow down!"
"What's wrong?" He was startled. But the car didn't decelerate.
"You're going a hundred miles an hour!" I was still shouting. I shot a
panicky glance out the window, but it was too dark to see much. The road
was only visible in the long patch of bluish brightness from the
headlights. The forest along both sides of the road was like a black wall
— as hard as a wall of steel if we veered off the road at this speed.
"Relax, Bella." He rolled his eyes, still not slowing.
"Are you trying to kill us?" I demanded.
"We're not going to crash."
I tried to modulate my voice. "Why are you in such a hurry?"
"I always drive like this." He turned to smile crookedly at me.
"Keep your eyes on the road!"
"I've never been in an accident, Bella — I've never even gotten a
ticket." He grinned and tapped his forehead. "Built-in radar detector."
"Very funny." I fumed. "Charlie's a cop, remember? I was raised to abide
by traffic laws. Besides, if you turn us into a Volvo pretzel around a
tree trunk, you can probably just walk away."
"Probably," he agreed with a short, hard laugh. "But you can't." He
sighed, and I watched with relief as the needle gradually drifted toward
eighty. "Happy?"
"Almost."
"I hate driving slow," he muttered.
"This is slow?"
"Enough commentary on my driving," he snapped. "I'm still waiting for
your latest theory."
I bit my lip. He looked down at me, his honey eyes unexpectedly gentle.
"I won't laugh," he promised.
"I'm more afraid that you'll be angry with me."
"Is it that bad?"
"Pretty much, yeah."
He waited. I was looking down at my hands, so I couldn't see his
expression.
"Go ahead." His voice was calm.
"I don't know how to start," I admitted.
"Why don't you start at the beginning… you said you didn't come up with
this on your own."
"No."
"What got you started — a book? A movie?" he probed.
"No — it was Saturday, at the beach." I risked a glance up at his face.
He looked puzzled.
"I ran into an old family friend —Jacob Black," I continued. "His dad and
Charlie have been friends since I was a baby."
He still looked confused.
"His dad is one of the Quileute elders." I watched him carefully. His
confused expression froze in place. "We went for a walk —" I edited all
my scheming out of the story "— and he was telling me some old legends —
trying to scare me, I think. He told me one…" I hesitated.
"Go on," he said.
"About vampires." I realized I was whispering. I couldn't look at his
face now. But I saw his knuckles tighten convulsively on the wheel.
"And you immediately thought of me?" Still calm.
"No. He… mentioned your family."
He was silent, staring at the road.
I was worried suddenly, worried about protecting Jacob.
"He just thought it was a silly superstition," I said quickly. "He didn't
expect me to think anything of it." It didn't seem like enough; I had to
confess. "It was my fault, I forced him to tell me."
"Why?"
"Lauren said something about you — she was trying to provoke me. And an
older boy from the tribe said your family didn't come to the reservation,
only it sounded like he meant something different. So I got Jacob alone
and I tricked it out of him," I admitted, hanging my head.
He startled me by laughing. I glared up at him. He was laughing, but his
eyes were fierce, staring ahead.
"Tricked him how?" he asked.
"I tried to flirt — it worked better than I thought it would." Disbelief
colored my tone as I remembered.
"I'd like to have seen that." He chuckled darkly. "And you accused me of
dazzling people — poor Jacob Black."
I blushed and looked out my window into the night.
"What did you do then?" he asked after a minute.
"I did some research on the Internet."
"And did that convince you?" His voice sounded barely interested. But his
hands were clamped hard onto the steering wheel.
"No. Nothing fit. Most of it was kind of silly. And then…" I stopped.
"What?"
"I decided it didn't matter," I whispered.
"It didn't matter?" His tone made me look up — I had finally broken
through his carefully composed mask. His face was incredulous, with just
a hint of the anger I'd feared.
"No," I said softly. "It doesn't matter to me what you are."
A hard, mocking edge entered his voice. "You don't care if I'm a monster?
If I'm not human!"
"No."
He was silent, staring straight ahead again. His face was bleak and cold.
"You're angry," I sighed. "I shouldn't have said anything."
"No," he said, but his tone was as hard as his face. "I'd rather know
what you're thinking — even if what you're thinking is insane."
"So I'm wrong again?" I challenged.
"That's not what I was referring to. 'It doesn't matter'!" he quoted,
gritting his teeth together.
"I'm right?" I gasped.
"Does it matter?"
I took a deep breath.
"Not really." I paused. "But I am curious." My voice, at least, was
composed.
He was suddenly resigned. "What are you curious about?"
"How old are you?"
"Seventeen," he answered promptly.
"And how long have you been seventeen?"
His lips twitched as he stared at the road. "A while," he admitted at
last.
"Okay." I smiled, pleased that he was still being honest with me. He
stared down at me with watchful eyes, much as he had before, when he was
worried I would go into shock. I smiled wider in encouragement, and he
frowned.
"Don't laugh — but how can you come out during the daytime?"
He laughed anyway. "Myth."
"Burned by the sun?"
"Myth."
"Sleeping in coffins?"
"Myth." He hesitated for a moment, and a peculiar tone entered his voice.
"I can't sleep."
It took me a minute to absorb that. "At all?"
"Never," he said, his voice nearly inaudible. He turned to look at me
with a wistful expression. The golden eyes held mine, and I lost my train
of thought. I stared at him until he looked away.
"You haven't asked me the most important question yet." His voice was
hard now, and when he looked at me again his eyes were cold.
I blinked, still dazed. "Which one is that?"
"You aren't concerned about my diet?" he asked sarcastically.
"Oh," I murmured, "that."
"Yes, that." His voice was bleak. "Don't you want to know if I drink
blood?"
I flinched. "Well, Jacob said something about that."
"What did Jacob say?" he asked flatly.
"He said you didn't… hunt people. He said your family wasn't supposed to
be dangerous because you only hunted animals."
"He said we weren't dangerous?" His voice was deeply skeptical.
"Not exactly. He said you weren't supposed to be dangerous. But the
Quileutes still didn't want you on their land, just in case."
He looked forward, but I couldn't tell if he was watching the road or not.
"So was he right? About not hunting people?" I tried to keep my voice as
even as possible.
"The Quileutes have a long memory," he whispered.
I took it as a confirmation.
"Don't let that make you complacent, though," he warned me. "They're
right to keep their distance from us. We are still dangerous."
"I don't understand."
"We try," he explained slowly. "We're usually very good at what we do.
Sometimes we make mistakes. Me, for example, allowing myself to be alone
with you."
"This is a mistake?" I heard the sadness in my voice, but I didn't know
if he could as well.
"A very dangerous one," he murmured.
We were both silent then. I watched the headlights twist with the curves
of the road. They moved too fast; it didn't look real, it looked like a
video game. I was aware of the time slipping away so quickly, like the
black road beneath us, and I was hideously afraid that I would never have
another chance to be with him like this again — openly, the walls between
us gone for once. His words hinted at an end, and I recoiled from the
idea. I couldn't waste one minute I had with him.
"Tell me more," I asked desperately, not caring what he said, just so I
could hear his voice again.
He looked at me quickly, startled by the change in my tone. "What more do
you want to know?"
"Tell me why you hunt animals instead of people," I suggested, my voice
still tinged with desperation. I realized my eyes were wet, and I fought
against the grief that was trying to overpower me.
"I don't want to be a monster." His voice was very low.
"But animals aren't enough?"
He paused. "I can't be sure, of course, but I'd compare it to living on
tofu and soy milk; we call ourselves vegetarians, our little inside joke.
It doesn't completely satiate the hunger — or rather thirst. But it keens
us strong enough to resist. Most of the time." His tone turned ominous.
"Sometimes it's more difficult than others."
"Is it very difficult for you now?" I asked.
He sighed. "Yes."
"But you're not hungry now," I said confidently — stating, not asking.
"Why do you think that?"
"Your eyes. I told you I had a theory. I've noticed that people — men in
particular — are crabbier when they're hungry."
He chuckled. "You are observant, aren't you?"
I didn't answer; I just listened to the sound of his laugh, committing it
to memory.
"Were you hunting this weekend, with Emmett?" I asked when it was quiet
again.
"Yes." He paused for a second, as if deciding whether or not to say
something. "I didn't want to leave, but it was necessary. It's a bit
easier to be around you when I'm not thirsty."
"Why didn't you want to leave?"
"It makes me… anxious… to be away from you." His eyes were gentle but
intense, and they seemed to be making my bones turn soft. "I wasn't
joking when I asked you to try not to fall in the ocean or get run over
last Thursday. I was distracted all weekend, worrying about you. And
after what happened tonight, I'm surprised that you did make it through a
whole weekend unscathed." He shook his head, and then seemed to remember
something. "Well, not totally unscathed."
"What?"
"Your hands," he reminded me. I looked down at my palms, at the
almost-healed scrapes across the heels of my hands. His eyes missed
nothing.
"I fell," I sighed.
"That's what I thought." His lips curved up at the corners. "I suppose,
being you, it could have been much worse — and that possibility tormented
me the entire time I was away. It was a very long three days. I really
got on Emmett's nerves." He smiled ruefully at me.
"Three days? Didn't you just get back today?"
"No, we got back Sunday."
"Then why weren't any of you in school?" I was frustrated, almost angry
as I thought of how much disappointment I had suffered because of his
absence.
"Well, you asked if the sun hurt me, and it doesn't. But I can't go out
in the sunlight — at least, not where anyone can see."
"Why?"
"I'll show you sometime," he promised.
