Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga #5) - Stephenie Meyer Page 0,23

and I located her at last, in Gym with him. He was unhappy because I’d spoken to her today in Biology. He was running over her response when he’d brought the subject up.

I’ve never seen him actually say more than a word here or there to anyone. Of course he would decide to talk to Bella. I don’t like the way he looks at her. But she didn’t seem too excited about him. What did she say to me earlier? “Wonder what was with him last Monday.” Something like that. Didn’t sound like she cared. It couldn’t have been much of a conversation.…

He cheered himself with the idea that Bella had not been interested in her exchange with me. This annoyed me quite a bit, so I stopped listening to him.

I put in a CD of violent music, and then turned it up until it drowned out other voices. I had to concentrate on the music very hard to keep myself from drifting back to Mike Newton’s thoughts to spy on the unsuspecting girl.

I cheated a few times as the hour drew to a close. Not spying, I tried to convince myself. I was just preparing. I wanted to know exactly when she would leave the gym, when she would be in the parking lot. I didn’t want her to take me by surprise.

As the students started to file out the gym doors, I got out of my car, not sure why I did it. The rain was light—I ignored it as it slowly saturated my hair.

Did I want her to see me here? Did I hope she would come to speak to me? What was I doing?

I didn’t move, though I tried to convince myself to get back in the car, knowing my behavior was reprehensible. I kept my arms folded across my chest and breathed very shallowly as I watched her walk slowly toward me, her mouth turning down at the corners. She didn’t look at me. A few times she glanced up at the clouds with a scowl, as if they had offended her.

I was disappointed when she reached her car before she had to pass me. Would she have spoken to me? Would I have spoken to her?

She got into a faded red Chevy truck, a rusted behemoth that was older than her father. I watched her start the truck—the old engine roared louder than any other vehicle in the lot—and then hold her hands out toward the heating vents. The cold was uncomfortable to her—she didn’t like it. She combed her fingers through her thick hair, pulling locks through the stream of hot air as though she was trying to dry them. I imagined what the cab of that truck would smell like, and then quickly drove out the thought.

She glanced around as she prepared to back out, and finally looked in my direction. She stared back at me for only half a second, and all I could read in her eyes was surprise before she tore them away and jerked the truck into reverse. And then squealed to a stop again, the back end of the truck missing a collision with Nicole Casey’s compact by mere inches.

She stared into her rearview mirror, her mouth hanging open, horrified at her near miss. When the other car had pulled past her, she checked all her blind spots twice and then inched out of the parking space so cautiously that it made me grin. It was as though she thought she was dangerous in her decrepit truck.

The thought of Bella Swan being dangerous to anyone, no matter what she was driving, had me laughing while the girl drove past me, staring straight ahead.

3. RISK

TRULY, I WAS NOT THIRSTY, BUT I DECIDED TO HUNT AGAIN THAT NIGHT. A small ounce of prevention, inadequate though I knew it to be.

Carlisle came with me. We hadn’t been alone together since I’d returned from Denali. As we ran through the black forest, I heard him thinking about that hasty goodbye last week.

In his memory, I saw the way my features had been twisted in fierce despair. I felt again his surprise and sudden worry.

“Edward?”

“I have to go, Carlisle. I have to go now.”

“What’s happened?”

“Nothing. Yet. But it will if I stay.”

He’d reached for my arm. I’d seen how it had hurt him when I’d cringed away from his hand.

“I don’t understand.”

“Have you ever… has there ever been a time…?”

I watched myself take a deep breath, saw the wild light in my