Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga #5) - Stephenie Meyer Page 0,126

the weekends open for adventures. I did Girl Scouts for a while, and once she put me in a dance class, but that was a mistake.” She raised her eyebrows as if daring me to doubt her. “She thought it would be convenient because it was close enough for me to walk there after school, but no convenience was worth the mayhem.”

“Mayhem, really?” I asked skeptically.

“If I had Ms. Kamenev’s number, she would corroborate my story.”

She looked up suddenly. All around us, the other students were gathering their things. How had the time passed so quickly?

She stood in response to the commotion, and I rose with her, gathering her trash onto the tray while she slung on her backpack. She reached as if to take the tray from me.

“I’ve got it,” I said.

She huffed quietly, a little exasperated. She still didn’t like being taken care of.

I couldn’t focus on my still-unanswered questions as we walked to Biology. I was remembering yesterday, wondering if that same tension, with the yearning and the electricity, would be present today. And sure enough, as soon as the lights went off, all the same overwhelming cravings returned. I had positioned my chair farther from hers today, but it didn’t help.

There was still that selfish part of me arguing that holding her hand would not be so wrong, even suggesting that this might be a good way to test her reactions, to prepare myself for being alone together. I tried to ignore the selfish voice and the temptation as best I could.

Bella was trying, too, I could tell. She leaned forward, chin propped against her arms, and I could see her fingers gripping under the edge of the desk so tightly that her knuckles were white. It made me wonder what precise temptation she was struggling against. Today she didn’t look at me. Not once.

There was so much I didn’t understand about her. So much I couldn’t ask.

My body was ever so slightly leaning toward her now. I pulled myself back.

When the lights came back on, Bella sighed, and if I’d had to guess, I would have named her expression relief. But relief from what?

I walked beside her to her next class, fighting the same internal battle as the day before.

She stopped at the door and looked up at me with her clear, deep eyes. Was that expectation, or confusion? An invitation or a warning? What did she want?

This is just a question, I told myself as my hand reached out to her of its own volition. Another kind of question.

Braced, not breathing, I let just the back of my hand graze the side of her face, from her temple to her narrow jaw. Like yesterday, her skin warmed to my touch, her heart beat faster. Her head tilted just a fraction of a centimeter as she leaned into my caress.

It was another kind of answer.

I walked away from her quickly again, knowing that this one aspect of my self-control was compromised, my hand smarting in the same painless way.

Emmett was already seated when I arrived at the Spanish classroom. So was Ben Cheney. They were not the only two to note my entrance. I could hear the other students’ curiosity, Bella’s name thought alongside mine, the speculation.…

Ben was the only human not thinking of Bella. My presence made him bristle a little, but he wasn’t antagonistic. He’d already spoken to Angela and made a date for this weekend. Her reception of his invitation had been warm, and he was still riding the high. Though he was wary of my intentions, he was cognizant that I had acted as catalyst for his current happiness. As long as I stayed away from Angela, he had no problem with me. There was even a hint of gratitude, though he had no idea this was exactly the outcome I’d desired, too. He seemed a clever boy—he rose in my estimation.

Bella was in Gym, but as in the second half of yesterday’s class, she did not participate. Her eyes were far away whenever Mike Newton turned to look at her. She was obviously elsewhere in her head. Mike guessed that anything he had to say to her would be unwelcome.

Guess I never really had a chance, he thought, half-resigned, half-sullen. How did it even happen? It was, like, overnight. Guess when Cullen wants something, it doesn’t take him long to get it. The images that followed, his ideas of what I’d gotten, were offensive. I stopped listening.

I didn’t like his