Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga #5) - Stephenie Meyer Page 0,189

you.…”

Words rarely failed me, but this was an emotion I’d never experienced, that I had no name for.

“You’re good at everything,” she said, her tone implying that this was so obvious she shouldn’t have had to say it out loud.

I shrugged in mock acceptance, and then laughed quietly with her, mostly with joy and wonder.

Her laugh faded, and a hint of the worry line appeared between her brows. “But how can it be so easy now? This afternoon…”

Though we were more in sync than we’d ever been, I had to remember that her afternoon in the meadow and my afternoon in the meadow had been quite different experiences. How could she begin to understand the kinds of changes I’d gone through in those hours we’d been together in the sun? Despite the new intimacy, I knew I would never explain to her exactly how I’d gotten to this place. She would never know what I had allowed myself to imagine.

I sighed, choosing my words. I wanted her to understand as much as I could share. “It’s not easy.” It would never be easy. It would always be painful. None of that mattered. Possible was all I would ever ask for. “But this afternoon, I was still… undecided.” Was that the best word to describe my sudden fit of violence? I couldn’t think of another. “I am sorry about that. It was unforgivable for me to behave so.”

Her smile became benevolent. “Not unforgivable.”

“Thank you,” I murmured before returning to the task of explaining. “You see… I wasn’t sure if I was strong enough, and…” I took one of her hands and held it against my skin, smoldering embers against ice. It was an instinctive gesture, and I was surprised to find that it did somehow make it easier to speak. “While there was still that possibility that I might be”—I inhaled her scent from the most fragrant point inside her wrist, reveling in the fiery pain—“overcome… I was susceptible. Until I made up my mind that I was strong enough, that there was no possibility at all that I would… that I ever could…”

My sentence trailed off, unfinished, as I finally met her gaze. I took both her hands in mine.

“So there’s no possibility now.” I couldn’t tell if she meant it as a statement or a question. If it was a question, she seemed very sure of the answer. And I wanted to sing with joy that she was right.

“Mind over matter,” I said again.

“Wow, that was easy.” She was laughing again.

I laughed, too, effortlessly falling into her exuberant mood.

“Easy for you!” I teased. I freed one of my hands to touch the tip of her nose with my index finger.

Abruptly, the jocularity felt off, somehow abrasive. All my anxieties swirled through my head like a whirlpool. My humor vanished and I found myself choking out another warning.

“I’m trying. If it gets to be too much, I’m fairly sure I’ll be able to leave.”

The frown that crossed her face featured an unexpected note of outrage.

But I wasn’t finished cautioning. “And it will be harder tomorrow. I’ve had the scent of you in my head all day, and I’ve grown amazingly desensitized. If I’m away from you for any length of time, I’ll have to start over again. Not quite from scratch, though, I think.”

She leaned toward my chest, then swayed back again, as if she were catching herself. It reminded me of how she’d tucked her chin before. No throat exposure.

“Don’t go away, then.”

I took a steadying breath—a steadying, burning breath—and forced myself to stop panicking. Could she understand that the invitation in her words spoke to my greatest desire?

I smiled at her, wishing I could display a similar kindness on my face. It came so easily to her.

“That suits me. Bring on the shackles—I’m your prisoner.”

I wrapped my hands around her delicate wrists as I spoke, laughing at the image in my mind. They could bind me in iron, or steel, or some stronger alloy yet to be discovered, and none of that would hold me the way one look from this fragile human girl could.

“You seem more optimistic than usual. I haven’t seen you like this before,” she noted.

Optimistic… an astute observation. My cynical old self seemed an entirely a different person.

I leaned closer to her, her wrists still locked in my hands. “Isn’t it supposed to be like this? The glory of first love, and all that. It’s incredible, isn’t it, the difference between reading about something,