Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga #5) - Stephenie Meyer Page 0,167

her curiosity.

This was more horror. I couldn’t look her in the eye while I answered. I stared at the sun instead as it slipped closer to the edge of the trees. Every second gone hurt me more than they ever had—seconds I could never have with her again. I wished we didn’t need to spend these precious seconds on something so distasteful.

“I spoke to my brothers about it.… To Jasper, every one of you is much the same. He’s the most recent to join our family. It’s a struggle for him to abstain at all. He hasn’t had time to grow sensitive to the differences in smell, in flavor—” I flinched, realizing too late where my rambling had taken me. “Sorry,” I added quickly.

She gave an exasperated little huff. “I don’t mind. Please don’t worry about offending me, or frightening me, or whichever. That’s the way you think. I can understand, or I can try to at least. Just explain however you can.”

I tried to settle myself. I needed to accept that through some miracle, Bella was able to know the darkest things about me and not be terror-stricken. Able not to hate me for it. If she was strong enough to hear this, I needed to be strong enough to speak the words. I looked back at the sun, feeling the deadline in its slow descent.

“So…,” I began again slowly, “Jasper wasn’t sure if he’d ever come across someone who was as… appealing as you are to me. Which makes me think not. Emmett has been on the wagon longer, so to speak, and he understood what I meant. He says twice, for him, once stronger than the other.”

I finally met her gaze. Her eyes were narrowed just slightly, her focus intent. “And for you?” she asked.

That was an easy answer, with no guesswork needed. “Never.”

She seemed to consider that word for a long moment. I wished I knew what it meant to her. Then her face relaxed a bit.

“What did Emmett do?” she asked in a conversational tone.

As if this were just some storybook fairy tale I was sharing with her, as if good always won the day and—though the road might get dark at points—nothing truly evil or permanently cruel was allowed to happen.

How could I tell her about these two innocent victims? Humans with hopes and fears, people with families and friends who loved them, imperfect beings who deserved the chance to improve, to try. A man and a woman with names now inscribed on simple headstones in obscure graveyards.

Would she think better or worse of us if she knew that Carlisle had required our attendance at their funerals? Not just these two, but every victim of our mistakes and lapses. Were we a tiny bit less damned because we had listened to those who knew them best describe their shortened lives? Because we bore witness to the tears and cries of pain? The monetary aid we’d anonymously provided to make sure there was no unnecessary physical suffering seemed crass in retrospect. Such a weak recompense.

She gave up waiting for an answer. “I guess I know.”

Her expression was mournful now. Did she condemn Emmett while she gave me so much mercy? His crimes, though much greater than two, were less in total than mine. It pained me that she would think badly of him. Was this—the specificity of two victims—the offense she would balk at?

“Even the strongest of us fall off the wagon, don’t we?” I asked weakly.

Could this be forgiven, too?

Perhaps not.

She winced, flinching away from me. No more than an inch, but it felt like a yard. Her lips pulled into a frown.

“What are you asking? My permission?” The hard edge in her voice sounded like sarcasm.

So here was her limit. I’d thought she’d been extraordinarily kind and merciful, too forgiving, in truth. But actually, she’d simply underestimated my depravity. She must have thought that, for all my warnings, I’d only ever been tempted. That I’d always made the better choice, as I had in Port Angeles, driving away from bloodshed.

I’d told her that same night how, despite our best efforts, my family made mistakes. Had she not realized that I’d been confessing to murder? No wonder she accepted things so easily; she thought I was always strong, that I only had near misses on my conscience. Well, it wasn’t her fault. I’d never explicitly admitted to killing anyone. I’d never given her the body count.

Her expression softened while I spiraled. I tried to