Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga #5) - Stephenie Meyer Page 0,190

seeing it in the pictures, and experiencing it?”

She nodded, thoughtful. “Very different. More… forceful than I’d imagined.”

I contemplated the first time I’d really experienced the difference between first-and secondhand emotion. “For example: the emotion of jealousy,” I said. “I’ve read about it a hundred thousand times, seen actors portray it in a thousand different plays and movies. I believed I understood that one pretty clearly. But it shocked me.… Do you remember the day that Mike asked you to the dance?”

“The day you started talking to me again.” She said this like a correction, as if I were prioritizing the wrong part of the memory.

But I was lost in what had happened just before that, reliving with perfect recall the first time I’d ever felt that specific passion.

“I was surprised,” I mused, “by the flare of resentment, almost fury, that I felt—I didn’t recognize what it was at first. I was even more aggravated than usual that I couldn’t know what you were thinking, why you refused him. Was it simply for your friend’s sake? Was there someone else? I knew I had no right to care either way. I tried not to care.…” My mood shifted as the story followed its path. I laughed once. “And then the line started forming.”

As I had expected, her answering scowl only made me want to laugh again.

“I waited, unreasonably anxious to hear what you would say to them, to watch your expressions. I couldn’t deny the relief I felt, watching the annoyance on your face. But I couldn’t be sure.… That was the first night I came here.”

A slow flush began in her cheeks, but she leaned closer, intense rather than embarrassed. The atmosphere transformed once more, and I found myself mid-confession for the hundredth time today. I whispered more softly now.

“I wrestled all night while watching you sleep… with the chasm between what I knew was right, moral, ethical, and what I wanted. I knew that if I continued to ignore you as I should, or if I left for a few years, till you were gone, that someday you would say yes to Mike, or someone like him. It made me angry.”

Angry, miserable, as if life were draining of all color and purpose.

In what seemed an unconscious movement, she shook her head, denying this vision of her future.

“And then, as you were sleeping, you said my name.”

Looking back, it seemed as though those brief seconds were the turning point, the divide. Though I had doubted myself a million times in the interim, once I’d heard her call to me, I’d never had another choice.

“You spoke so clearly,” I continued, my voice just a breath. “At first I thought you’d woken. But you rolled over restlessly and mumbled my name once more, and sighed. The feeling that coursed through me then was unnerving, staggering. And I knew I couldn’t ignore you any longer.”

Her heart beat more quickly.

“But jealousy… it’s a strange thing. So much more powerful than I would have thought. And irrational! Just now, when Charlie asked you about that vile Mike Newton—”

I didn’t finish, remembering that I should probably not reveal exactly how strong my feelings about the hapless boy had become.

“I should have known you’d be listening,” she muttered.

It wasn’t really an option to not hear anything that happened so close. “Of course.”

“That made you feel jealous, though, really?” Her tone changed from annoyance to disbelief.

“I’m new at this,” I reminded her. “You’re resurrecting the human in me, and everything feels stronger because it’s fresh.”

Unexpectedly, a smug little smile puckered her lips. “But honestly, for that to bother you, after I have to hear that Rosalie—Rosalie, the incarnation of pure beauty, Rosalie—was meant for you. Emmett or no Emmett, how can I compete with that?”

She said the words as though she was playing her trump card. As if jealousy were rational enough to weigh out the physical attractiveness of the third parties, and then be felt in direct proportion.

“There’s no competition,” I promised her.

Gently and slowly, I used her imprisoned wrists to pull her closer to me, until her head rested just under my chin. Her cheek seared against my skin.

“I know there’s no competition. That’s the problem,” she grumbled.

“Of course Rosalie is beautiful in her way.…” It wasn’t as if I could deny Rosalie’s exquisiteness, but it was an unnatural, heightened thing—sometimes more disturbing than attracting. “But even if she wasn’t like a sister to me, even if Emmett didn’t belong with her, she could never have