Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga #5) - Stephenie Meyer Page 0,41

myself with the fact that her pain would be nothing more than a pinprick—just a tiny sting of rejection—compared to mine. Bella was human, and she knew that I was something else, something wrong, something frightening. She would probably be more relieved than wounded when I turned my face away from her and pretended that she didn’t exist.

“Hello, Edward,” she’d greeted me that first day back in Biology. Her voice had been pleasant, friendly, one hundred eighty degrees from the last time I’d spoken with her.

Why? What did the change mean? Had she forgotten? Decided she had imagined the whole episode? Could she possibly have forgiven me for not following through on my promise?

The questions had stabbed and twisted like the thirst that attacked me every time I breathed.

Just one moment to look in her eyes. Just to see if I could read the answers there.…

No. I could not allow myself even that. Not if I was going to change the future.

I’d moved my chin an inch in her direction without looking away from the front of the room. I’d nodded once, then turned my face straight forward.

She did not speak to me again.

That afternoon, as soon as school was finished, my role played, I ran halfway to Seattle, as I had the day before. It seemed that I could handle the aching just slightly better when I was flying over the ground, turning everything around me into a green blur.

This run became my daily habit.

Did I love her? I did not think so. Not yet. Alice’s glimpses of that future had stayed with me, though, and I could see how easy it would be to fall into loving Bella. It would be exactly like falling: effortless. Not letting myself love her was the opposite of falling—it was pulling myself up a cliff face, hand over hand, the task as grueling as if I had no more than mortal strength.

More than a month passed, and every day it got harder. That made no sense to me—I kept waiting to get over it, to have the struggle become easier or at least level off. This must be what Alice had meant when she’d predicted that I would not be able to stay away from the girl. She had seen the escalation of the pain.

But I could handle pain.

I would not destroy Bella’s future. If I was destined to love her, then wasn’t avoiding her the very least I could do?

Avoiding her was about the limit of what I could bear, though. I could pretend to ignore her and never look her way. I could pretend that she was of no interest to me. But I still hung on every breath she took, every word she spoke.

I couldn’t watch her with my eyes, so I watched her through the eyes of others. The vast majority of my thoughts revolved around her as though she was the center of my mind’s gravity.

As this hell ground on, I lumped my torments into four categories.

The first two were familiar. Her scent and her silence. Or rather—to take the responsibility on myself, where it belonged—my thirst and my curiosity.

The thirst was the most primal of my torments. It was my habit now to simply not breathe at all in Biology. Of course, there were always the exceptions—when I had to answer a question, and I would need my breath to speak. Each time I tasted the air around the girl, it was the same as the first day—fire and need and brutal violence desperate to break free. It was hard to cling even slightly to reason or restraint in those moments. And, just like that first day, the monster in me would roar, so close to the surface.

The curiosity was the most constant of my torments. The question was never out of my mind: What is she thinking now? When I heard her quiet sigh. When she twisted a lock of hair absently around her finger. When she threw her books down with more force than usual. When she rushed into class late. When she tapped her foot impatiently against the floor. Each movement caught in my peripheral vision was a maddening mystery. When she spoke to the other human students, I analyzed her every word and tone. Was she speaking her thoughts, or what she thought she should say? It often sounded to me as though she was trying to say what her audience expected, and this reminded me of my family and our daily