Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga #5) - Stephenie Meyer Page 0,170

part now, and I could say the things I’d wanted to tell her for so long. I met her eyes again, rejoicing in this confession.

“You are the most important thing to me now. The most important thing to me ever.”

Just as the word unendurable was not enough, so were these words weak echoes of the feelings they tried to describe. I hoped she could see in my eyes exactly how inadequate they were. She was always better at knowing my mind than I was at reading hers.

She held my exultant gaze for just a moment, pink creeping into her cheeks, but then her eyes fell to our hands. I thrilled to the beauty of her complexion, seeing only the loveliness and nothing else.

“You already know how I feel, of course,” she said, her voice not much louder than a whisper. “I’m here… which, roughly translated, means I would rather die than stay away from you.”

I wouldn’t have thought it possible to feel such euphoria and such regret at the same time. She wanted me—bliss. She was risking her very life for me—unacceptable.

She scowled, her eyes still lowered. “I’m an idiot.”

I laughed at her conclusion. From a certain angle, she had a point. Any species that ran so headlong into the arms of its most dangerous predator wouldn’t survive long. It was a good thing she was an outlier.

“You are an idiot,” I teased gently. And I would never stop being grateful for it.

Bella glanced up with a puckish grin, and we both laughed together. It was such a relief to laugh after my grueling revelations that my laugh shifted from humor to sheer joy. I was sure she felt the same. We were utterly in sync for one perfect moment.

Though it was impossible, we belonged together. Everything was wrong with this picture—a killer and an innocent leaning close, each basking in the presence of the other, totally at peace. It was as if we’d somehow ascended to a better world, where such impossibilities could exist.

I was suddenly reminded of a painting I’d seen many years ago.

Whenever we canvassed the countryside for likely towns in which to settle, Carlisle would frequently make side trips to duck into old parish churches. He seemed unable to stop himself. Something about the simple wooden structures, usually dark for lack of good windows, the floorboards and pew backs all worn smooth and smelling of layer upon layer of human touches, brought him a reflective kind of calm. Thoughts of his father and his childhood were brought to the fore, but the violent end seemed far away in those moments. He remembered only pleasant things.

On one such diversion, we found an old Quaker meetinghouse around thirty miles north of Philadelphia. It was a small building, no bigger than a farmhouse, with a stone exterior and a very Spartan arrangement inside. So plain were the knotty floors and straight-backed pews that I was almost shocked to see an adornment on the far wall. Carlisle’s interest was piqued as well, and we both examined it.

It was quite a small painting, no more than fifteen inches square. I guessed that it was older than the stone church that housed it. The artist was clearly untrained, his style amateurish. And yet, there was something in the simple, poorly wrought image that managed to convey an emotion. There was a warm vulnerability to the animals depicted, an aching kind of tenderness. I was strangely moved by this kinder universe the artist had envisioned.

A better world, Carlisle had thought to himself.

The sort of world where this present moment could exist, I thought now, and felt that aching tenderness again.

“And so the lion fell in love with the lamb…,” I whispered.

Her eyes were so open and accessible for one second, and then she flushed again and looked down. She steadied her breath for a moment, and her impish smile returned.

“What a stupid lamb,” she teased, stretching out the joke.

“What a sick, masochistic lion,” I countered.

I wasn’t sure that was a true statement, though. In one light, yes, I was deliberately causing myself unnecessary pain and enjoying it, the textbook definition of masochism. But the pain was the price… and the reward was so much more than the pain. Really, the price was negligible. I would pay it ten times over.

“Why…?” she murmured, hesitant.

I smiled at her, eager to know her mind. “Yes?”

A hint of the forehead crease began to form. “Tell me why you ran from me before.”

Her words hit me physically, lodging