Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga #5) - Stephenie Meyer Page 0,206

measures, her mouth fell open.

Jasper laughed again; this time Alice joined him. Bella stiffened, but didn’t turn. Her eyes narrowed, her gaze never leaving my fingers, chasing them as they moved across the keys.

I heard Alice skip to the stairs at the same time that Carlisle thought, Well, that’s probably enough of us for now. We don’t want to overwhelm her.

Esme was disappointed, but she followed Alice upstairs. They would all pretend that this was just a normal day, that it was nothing momentous to have a human inside our house. One by one, they flitted away to the tasks they would have been pursuing if I hadn’t brought the mortal home.

Bella was still entirely focused on the motion of my hands, but I thought she was not… as eager as before? Her brows were pressing down over her eyes. I didn’t understand her expression.

I tried to cheer her, turning my head to catch her attention and winking once. That usually made her smile.

“Do you like it?” I asked.

Her head tilted to the side and then something seemed to occur to her. Her eyes grew huge again.

“You wrote this?” she said, her tone strangely accusatory.

I nodded and added, “It’s Esme’s favorite,” like an apology, though I wasn’t sure what I was trying to excuse.

Bella stared at me, strangely forlorn. Her eyes closed, and her head rocked slowly from side to side.

“What’s wrong?” I implored.

She opened her eyes and finally smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile.

“I’m feeling extremely insignificant,” she admitted.

I was stunned for a moment. I supposed Esme’s earlier words about showing off were the crux of the matter. Her idea that my music would win over whichever corners of Bella’s heart remained ambivalent was obviously misguided.

How to explain that all these things I could do, things that came with such ridiculous ease because of what I was, were entirely meaningless? They didn’t make me special or superior. How to show her that everything I was had never been enough to make me worthy of her? That she was the lofty goal I’d been trying to reach for so long?

I could only think of one way. I created a simple bridge and shifted into a new song. She watched my expression now, expecting me to respond. I waited until I was through the main structure of the melody, hoping she would recognize it.

“You inspired this one,” I murmured.

Could she feel how this music came from the very core of my being? And that my core, along with everything else I was, centered wholly on her?

For a few moments, I let the notes of the song fill in the spaces that my words never quite could. The melody expanded as I played, drifting away from its former minor key, reaching now for a happier resolution.

I thought I should allay her earlier fears. “They like you, you know. Esme especially.” Bella had probably been able to see that herself.

She twisted to peek over her shoulder. “Where did they go?”

“Very subtly giving us some privacy, I suppose.”

“They like me,” she groaned. “But Rosalie and Emmett…”

I shook my head impatiently. “Don’t worry about Rosalie. She’ll come around.”

She pursed her lips, unconvinced. “Emmett?”

“Well, he thinks I’m a lunatic, it’s true.” I laughed once. “But he doesn’t have a problem with you. He’s trying to reason with Rosalie.”

The corners of her lips pulled down. “What is it that upsets her?”

I took a breath and exhaled slowly—stalling. I wanted to say only the most necessary parts, and say them in the least upsetting way.

“Rosalie struggles the most with… with what we are,” I explained. “It’s hard for her to have someone on the outside know the truth. And she’s a little jealous.”

“Rosalie is jealous of me?” She looked as though she wasn’t sure whether I was joking.

I shrugged. “You’re human. She wishes that she were, too.”

“Oh!” That revelation stunned her for a moment. But then the frown returned. “Even Jasper, though…”

The sense that everything was perfectly natural and easy had faded as soon as Jasper had stopped concentrating on us. I imagined she was remembering his introduction without that influence, and seeing for the first time the strangeness of the wide space he had left between them.

“That’s really my fault. I told you he was the most recent to try our way of life. I warned him to keep his distance.”

I’d said the words lightly, but after a second, Bella shivered.

“Esme and Carlisle?” she asked quickly, as if eager for a new subject.

“Are happy to see