Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga #5) - Stephenie Meyer Page 0,165

I could find no meaning in them. Just more mysteries. Another question she would never answer. I didn’t deserve answers.

I sighed. “How easily frustrated I am.”

She looked up then, her eyes probing mine. We stared at each other for a few seconds, and I was surprised at the intensity of her gaze. I felt that she was reading me more successfully than I was ever able to read her.

“I was afraid,” she began, and I realized gratefully that she was answering my question after all. “Because… for, well, obvious reasons, I can’t stay with you.” Her eyes dropped again as she said the word stay. I understood her clearly, for once. I could hear that when she said stay, she didn’t mean for this moment in the sunshine, for the afternoon or the week. She meant it the way I wanted to say it to her. Stay always. Stay forever. “And I’m afraid that I’d like to stay with you, much more than I should.”

I thought of all that would entail if, after all, I forced her to do exactly as she described. If I made her stay forever. Every sacrifice she would bear, every loss she would mourn, every stinging regret, every aching, tearless stare.

“Yes.” It was hard to agree with her, even with all that pain fresh in my imagination. I wanted it so much. “That is something to be afraid of, indeed. Wanting to be with me.” Selfish me. “That’s really not in your best interest.”

She scowled at my hand as if she didn’t like my acknowledgment any more than I did.

This was a dangerous path to even hint at. Hades and his pomegranate. How many toxic seeds had I already infected her with? Enough that Alice had seen her pale and grieving in my absence. Though it felt as though I, also, had been corrupted. Hooked. Addicted with no hope of recovery. I couldn’t fully form the picture in my head. Leaving her. How would I survive? Alice had shown me Bella’s anguish in my absence, but what would she see of me in that version of the future, if she looked? I couldn’t believe I would be anything more than a broken shadow, useless, crumpled, empty.

I spoke the thought aloud, but mostly to myself. “I should have left long ago. I should leave now. But I don’t know if I can.”

She still stared at our hands, but her cheeks warmed. “I don’t want you to leave,” she mumbled.

She wanted me to stay with her. I tried to fight the happiness, the surrender it pulled me toward. Was the choice even mine, or was it hers alone now? Would I stay until she told me to go? Her words seemed to echo in the faint breeze. I don’t want you to leave.

“Which is exactly why I should.” Surely the more time we were together, the harder it would grow to be apart. “But don’t worry. I’m essentially a selfish creature. I crave your company too much to do what I should.”

“I’m glad.” She said the words simply, as if this was an obvious thing. As if every girl would be pleased that her favorite monster was too selfish to put her before himself.

My temper flared, anger pointed only at myself. With rigid control, I removed my hand from hers.

“Don’t be! It’s not only your company I crave! Never forget that. Never forget I am more dangerous to you than I am to anyone else.”

She looked at me quizzically. There was no fear anywhere in her eyes now. Her head cocked slightly to the left.

“I don’t think I understand exactly what you mean—by that last part anyway,” she said, her tone analytical. It reminded me of our conversation in the cafeteria, when she had asked about hunting. She sounded as if she were gathering data for a report—one she was vitally interested in, but still, no more than an academic inquiry.

I couldn’t help but smile at her expression. My anger vanished as quickly as it had come. Why waste time with ire when there were so many more pleasant emotions available?

“How do I explain?” I murmured. Naturally she had no idea what I was talking about. I had not been terribly specific when it came to my reaction to her scent. Of course I hadn’t; it was an ugly thing, something I was deeply ashamed of. Not to mention the overt horror of the subject. How to explain, indeed. “And without frightening you again… hmmmm.”

Her fingers uncurled,