Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga #5) - Stephenie Meyer Page 0,207

me happy. Actually, Esme wouldn’t care if you had a third eye and webbed feet. All this time she’s been worried about me, afraid that there was something missing from my essential makeup, that I was too young when Carlisle changed me.… She’s ecstatic. Every time I touch you, she just about chokes with satisfaction.”

She pursed her lips. “Alice seems very… enthusiastic.”

I tried to keep my composure, but I heard the edge of ice in my answer. “Alice has her own way of looking at things.”

Her aspect had been tense for most of our exchange, but suddenly she was grinning. “And you’re not going to explain that, are you?”

Of course she’d noticed all my strange reactions to any mention of Alice; I’d not been very subtle. At least she was smiling now, pleased to catch me out. I was sure she had no idea why I was irritated with Alice. Just letting me know that she knew that I was keeping something from her seemed to be enough for her now. I didn’t respond, but I didn’t think she was expecting me to.

“So what was Carlisle telling you before?” she asked.

I frowned. “You noticed that, did you?” Well, I knew I needed to tell her this.

“Of course.”

I thought of that little shudder when I’d explained about Jasper.… I hated to alarm her again, but she should be frightened.

“He wanted to tell me some news,” I admitted. “He didn’t know if it was something I would share with you.”

She sat up straighter, alert. “Will you?”

“I have to, because I’m going to be a little… overbearingly protective over the next few days—or weeks—and I wouldn’t want you to think I’m naturally a tyrant.”

My trivializing did not put her at ease.

“What’s wrong?” she demanded.

“Nothing’s wrong, exactly. Alice just sees some visitors coming soon. They know we’re here, and they’re curious.”

She repeated my word in a whisper. “Visitors?”

“Yes… well, they aren’t like us, of course—in their hunting habits, I mean. They probably won’t come into town at all, but I’m certainly not going to let you out of my sight till they’re gone.”

She shuddered so hard I could feel the motion in the bench beneath us.

“Finally, a rational response!” I muttered. I thought of all the horrifying things she’d accepted about me without a tremor. Only other vampires were scary, apparently. “I was beginning to think you had no sense of self-preservation at all.”

She ignored that, and started to watch my hands moving over the keys again. After a few seconds, she took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. Had she processed another waking nightmare so easily?

It seemed so. She examined the room now, her head turning slowly as she scrutinized my home. I could imagine what she was thinking.

“Not what you expected, is it?” I guessed.

She was still cataloguing with her eyes. “No.”

I wondered what had surprised her most: the light colors, the vast openness of the space, the wall of windows? It was all very carefully designed—by Esme—not to feel like some kind of fortress or asylum.

I could hazard what a normal human would have predicted. “No coffins, no piled skulls in the corners; I don’t even think we have cobwebs… what a disappointment this must be for you.”

She didn’t react to my joke. “It’s so light… so open.”

“It’s the one place we never have to hide.”

While I’d been focused on her, the song I was playing had strayed back to its roots. I found myself in the middle of the bleakest moment—the moment when the obvious truth was unavoidable: Bella was perfect as she was. Any interference from my world was a tragedy.

It was too late to save the song. I let it end as it had before, with that heartbreak.

Sometimes it was so easy to believe that Bella and I were right together. In the moment, when impulsivity led, and everything came so naturally… I could believe. But whenever I looked at it logically, without allowing emotion to trump reason, it was clear that I could only hurt her.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Her eyes were swimming in tears. While I watched, she quickly wiped her fingers across her lower lids, rubbing the moisture away.

This was the second time I’d seen Bella cry. The first time, I’d hurt her. Not intentionally, but still, by implying we could never be together, I’d caused her pain.

Now she cried because the music I’d created for her had touched her. Tears caused by pleasure. I wondered how much of this unspoken language she had understood.

One tear