Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga #5) - Stephenie Meyer Page 0,186

weren’t so hard to get to. I tried to make sense of them. Bella’s eyes flashing to the hall. The suddenly brighter color in her cheeks. This seemed to be all he was aware of. Then a sudden confusion of images, nebulous and without context. A 1971 mustard-yellow Impala. The Forks High School gym, decorated with crepe paper. A porch swing and a girl with bright green barrettes in her pale hair. Two red vinyl seats at a shiny chrome bar in a tacky diner. A girl with long, dark curls, walking along a beach under the moon.

“Do I?” Bella asked with put-on innocence. Water ran in the sink, and I could hear the sound of bristles against melamine.

Charlie was still thinking about the moon. “It’s Saturday,” he announced randomly.

Bella didn’t seem to know how to respond. I wasn’t sure where he was going with this, either.

Finally, he continued. “No plans tonight?”

I thought I understood the images now. Saturday nights from his youth? Maybe.

“No, Dad, I just want to get some sleep.” She sounded anything but tired.

Charlie sniffed once. “None of the boys in town your type, eh?”

Was he worried that she wasn’t having a normal teen experience? That she was missing out? For a second I felt a deep twinge of doubt. Should I be worried about the same? What I was keeping her from?

But then the sureness and sense of right from the meadow washed over me. We belonged together.

“No, none of the boys have caught my eye yet.” Bella’s tone was slightly patronizing.

“I thought maybe that Mike Newton… you said he was friendly.”

I hadn’t expected that. A sharp blade of anger twisted in my chest. Not anger, I recognized. Jealousy. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever disliked anyone quite so much as that pointless, insignificant boy.

“He’s just a friend, Dad.”

I couldn’t tell if Charlie was upset by her answer or relieved by it. Perhaps a mixture of both.

“Well, you’re too good for them all, anyway,” he said. “Wait till you get to college to start looking.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Bella agreed quickly. She turned the corner and started up the stairs. Her footsteps were slow—probably to emphasize her assertion that she was sleepy—and I had plenty of time to beat her to her room. Just in case Charlie followed. It would hardly be in line with her wishes for him to find me here, half-dressed, eavesdropping.

“’Night, honey,” Charlie called after her.

“See you in the morning, Dad,” she responded in a voice that tried to sound tired but failed badly.

It felt wrong to sit in the rocking chair as usual, invisible in the dark corner. It had been a hiding place when I hadn’t wanted her to know I was here. When I was being deceitful.

I lay across her bed, the most obvious place in the room, where there could be no hint of trying to disguise my presence.

I knew that her scent would engulf me here. The smell of detergent was fresh enough to suggest she’d washed the sheets recently, but it didn’t overpower her own fragrance. Overwhelming as it was, it was also painfully pleasant to be surrounded in such a sharp way by the evidence of her existence.

As soon as she entered the room, Bella stopped dragging her feet. She slammed the door shut behind her, then ran on her tiptoes to the window. Right past me without a glance. She shoved the window open and leaned outside, staring into the night.

“Edward?” she stage-whispered.

I suppose my resting place was not that obvious after all. I laughed quietly at my failed attempt to be aboveboard, then answered her.

“Yes?”

She spun so fast that she nearly lost her balance. With one hand, she gripped the window ledge for stability. Her other hand clutched at her throat.

“Oh,” she choked out. Almost in slow motion, she slid down the wall behind her until she was sitting on the wooden floor.

Once again, it seemed as though everything I did was wrong. At least this time it was funny rather than terrifying.

“I’m sorry.”

She nodded. “Just give me a minute to restart my heart.” In reality, her heart was thrumming from the shock I’d just given her.

I sat up, all my movements deliberate and slow. Moving like a human. She watched, her eyes riveted to each motion, a smile starting to form at the corners of her lips.

Noticing her lips made me feel that she was much too far away. I leaned toward her and picked her up carefully, my