Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga #5) - Stephenie Meyer Page 0,120

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