Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga #5) - Stephenie Meyer Page 0,296

determined to be with Bella while she was in Phoenix. It wasn’t particularly hard for Bella to convince Renée she was just fine and that Renée should go back to Florida. Her mother left two days before we did.

Bella was on the phone with Charlie often, especially after Renée left, and now that the danger was past, now that he’d had time to consider all the angles, he was beginning to be angry. Not at Bella, of course not. His anger was pointed in the right direction. After all, none of this would have happened if not for me. His burgeoning friendship with Alice confused the issue for him, but I was sure what I would read in his quiet brain upon my return.

I tried to avoid more serious conversations with Bella. It was easier than I expected. We were rarely alone—even after Renée left, a constant influx of nurses and doctors took her place—and Bella was often drowsy from the medications. She seemed content enough that I was near. She didn’t beg me again for guarantees. But at times I felt sure I saw the doubt in her eyes. I wished I could erase that doubt, that I could mean my promises, but it was better not to speak than to lie again.

And then, so quickly, we were arranging transport home.

Charlie’s plan was that Bella would fly home with Carlisle while Alice and I drove the truck back to Washington. Carlisle fielded that call; we needed no discussion for him to know my opinion on the subject. He convinced Charlie that Alice and I had missed too much school already, and Charlie was unable to argue with him. We would fly home together. Carlisle would ship the truck home. He promised Charlie this was easy to arrange and not at all expensive.

How different it was, returning to the same airport where my worst nightmare had begun. We flew out after dark, so the glass ceilings above were no longer a danger. I wondered what Bella saw when she looked at these wide halls—did she think of the pain and terror of the last time she was here, too? No longer racing, we moved slowly, Alice pushing Bella in her wheelchair so that I could walk beside her, holding her hand. As I had expected, Bella didn’t like needing the chair, nor the curious glances thrown her way. Now and then she scowled at her thick, white cast as if she wanted to tear it off with her bare hands, but she never complained aloud.

She slept on the flight, and quietly murmured my name in her dreams. It would have been so easy to ignore the past and allow myself to relive our one perfect day, to stay in a time when the sound of my name on her lips didn’t burn with guilt and omens. But the looming separation was too sharp to allow for fantasy.

Charlie met us at SeaTac, though it was after eleven and the drive back to Forks would take him nearly four hours. Both Carlisle and Alice had tried to talk him out of it, but I understood. And, though his thoughts were just as clouded as before, it was still obvious that I was right. He’d come to put the blame in the right place.

Not that he harbored any dark suspicions that I’d shoved her down the stairs myself, but rather he felt that Bella would never have acted so impulsively if I hadn’t goaded her to it. Though he had a mistaken idea of what had driven Bella to Arizona, he wasn’t wrong about the central assumption. It was ultimately my fault.

It should have been a long drive behind Charlie’s police car, dutifully going exactly the speed limit, but the time was still moving too quickly. Even being temporarily separated from her did nothing to slow down those hours.

We all settled into the new routine with minimal delays. Alice took over as nurse and lady-in-waiting, and Charlie could not adequately express his gratitude. Bella, too, though embarrassed that she needed someone to help her with her most basic and intimate needs, was glad that someone was Alice. It was as if during those few days in Phoenix, Alice’s vision of Bella as her best friend had come fully to fruition. They were so at ease with each other—already flush with a plethora of inside jokes and confidences—as if they’d been companions for many years rather than just weeks. Charlie occasionally watched in confusion,