Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga #5) - Stephenie Meyer Page 0,154

that it’s made you suicidal?”

“You said it might cause trouble for you,” she said quietly, all humor gone. “Us being together publicly.”

I remembered the exchange perfectly, and wondered how she had gotten it so backward. I hadn’t told her that so she would try to make herself more vulnerable to me. I’d told her so she would run away from me.

“So you’re worried about the trouble it might cause me,” I asked through my teeth, trying to place the words in exactly the right order so that it would be impossible for her not to hear the inherent ridiculousness of her position. “If you don’t come home?”

Eyes on the road, she nodded once.

“How can you not see how wrong I am?” I hissed, too angry to slow the words down into something comprehensible for her. Telling her never worked. I would have to show her.

She seemed nervous, but in a new way, her eyes almost shifting to look at me, yet never quite breaking away from the road. Frightened by my anger, though not in the way she should be. Just worried that she’d made me unhappy. I didn’t have to read her mind to anticipate the established pattern.

As usual, I wasn’t truly angry with her—only myself. Yes, her responses toward me were always backward. But that was because, in another way, they were right. She was always too kind. She gave me credit I didn’t deserve, worried over my feelings as if they mattered. Her very goodness was what put her in this danger. Her virtue, my vice, the two opposites binding us together.

We’d reached the end of the paved road. Bella pulled the truck onto the loamy shoulder and killed the engine. The sudden quiet was almost shocking after the long auditory assault. She disengaged her seat belt and slid quickly from the truck without looking at me. With her back to me, she pulled her sweater over her head. It took her a few seconds’ struggle, and then she tied the sleeves around her waist. I was surprised to see that her shirt mirrored my own in more than color; it too left her arms bare to the shoulder. This was more of her than I was used to seeing, but despite the fascination that immediately sparked, what I felt most was concern. Anything that interrupted my concentration was a danger.

I sighed. I didn’t want to go through with this. There were many serious reasons, life and death reasons, but in this moment, my greatest dread was the expression on her face, the revulsion in her eyes, when she finally saw me.

I would face it head-on. Pretend to be brave, to be bigger than this selfish fear, even if it was no more than a charade.

I slipped my own sweater off, feeling glaringly conspicuous. I’d never uncovered so much of my skin around anyone but my family.

Jaw clenched, I slid out of the truck—leaving the sweater so I wouldn’t be tempted—and shut the door. I stared into the forest. Maybe if I got off the road and into the trees, I wouldn’t feel so exposed.

I felt her eyes on me, but I was too cowardly to turn. I looked over my shoulder instead.

“This way.” The words came out clipped, too fast. I had to get my anxiety under control. I started to walk slowly forward.

“The trail?” Her voice was an octave higher than usual. I glanced at her again—she looked nervous as she walked around the front end of the truck to meet me. There were so many things that might be frightening her, I couldn’t be sure which it was.

I tried to sound like a normal person. Light, funny. Maybe I could ease her apprehension, if not my own. “I said there was a trail at the end of the road, not that we were taking it.”

“No trail?” She said the word trail as if she were referring to the last life vest on a sinking ship.

I squared my shoulders, formed my lips into a false smile, and turned to face her.

“I won’t let you get lost,” I promised.

It was worse than I’d been braced for. Her mouth actually fell open, like a character in the kind of sitcom that had a laugh track. She did a quick double take, her eyes running up and down my bared skin.

And this was nothing. Just pale skin. Well, extremely pale skin, bent in a slightly inhuman way over the angularity of my inhuman musculature. If this was her