Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga #5) - Stephenie Meyer Page 0,168

think of how to say goodbye in such a way that she would know how much I loved her, but not feel threatened by that love.

“I mean,” she explained suddenly, no edge in her tone, “is there no hope, then?”

In a fraction of a second I replayed our last exchange in my head, and realized how I’d misinterpreted her reaction. When I had begged pardon for past sins, she’d thought I was excusing a future, but imminent, crime. That I meant to—

“No, no!” I had to fight to slow my words down to human speed—I was in such a hurry to have her hear them. “Of course there’s hope! I mean, of course I won’t—”

Kill you. I couldn’t finish the sentence. Those words were agony to me, imagining her gone. My eyes bored into hers, trying to communicate everything I couldn’t say. “It’s different for us,” I promised. “Emmett… these were strangers he happened across. It was a long time ago, and he wasn’t as… practiced, as careful, as he is now.”

She sifted through my words, heard the parts I hadn’t said.

“So if we’d met…” She paused, searching for the right scenario. “Oh, in a dark alley or something…?”

Ah, here was a bitter truth.

“It took everything I had not to jump up in the middle of that class full of children and—”

Kill you. My eyes fell from hers. So much shame.

Still, I couldn’t leave her any flattering illusions about me.

“When you walked past me,” I admitted, “I could have ruined everything Carlisle has built for us, right then and there. If I hadn’t been denying my thirst for the last, well, too many years, I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself.”

I could see the classroom so clearly in my mind. Perfect recall was more a curse than a gift. Did I need to remember with such precision every second of that hour? The fear that had dilated her eyes, the reflection of my monstrous countenance in them? The way her scent had destroyed every good thing about me?

Her expression was far away. Maybe she was remembering, too.

“You must have thought I was possessed.”

She didn’t deny it.

“I couldn’t understand why,” she said in a fragile voice. “How you could hate me so quickly…”

She’d intuited the truth in that moment. She’d understood correctly that I had hated her. Almost as much as I’d desired her.

“To me, it was like you were some kind of demon, summoned straight from my own personal hell to ruin me.” It was painful to relive the emotion of it, to remember seeing her as prey. “The fragrance coming off your skin… I thought it would make me deranged that first day. In that one hour, I thought of a hundred different ways to lure you from the room with me, to get you alone. And I fought them each back, thinking of my family, what I could do to them. I had to run out, to get away before I could speak the words that would make you follow.… You would have come.”

What must it be like for her to know this? How did she align the opposing facts? Me, would-be murderer, and me, would-be lover? What did she think of my confidence, my certainty that she would have followed the murderer?

Her chin lifted a centimeter. “Without a doubt,” she agreed.

Our hands were still carefully intertwined. Hers were nearly as still as mine, aside from the blood pulsing through them. I wondered if she felt the same fear that I did—the fear that they might have to come apart, and she wouldn’t be able to find the courage and forgiveness necessary to bring them together again.

It was a little easier to confess when I wasn’t looking into her eyes.

“And then,” I continued, “as I tried to rearrange my schedule in a pointless attempt to avoid you, you were there—in that close, warm little room, the scent was maddening. I so very nearly took you then. There was only one other frail human there—so easily dealt with.”

I felt the shiver move down her arms to her hands. With every new attempt to explain, I found myself using more and more distressing words. They were the right words, the truthful words, and they were also so ugly.

There was no stopping them now, though, and she sat silent and nearly motionless as they gushed out of me, more confessions mixed up in explanations. I told her about my unsuccessful attempt to run away, and the arrogance that brought me