Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga #5) - Stephenie Meyer Page 0,93

that was inexplicably tender. “It doesn’t matter to me what you are.”

She was impossible.

“You don’t care if I’m a monster? If I’m not human?”

“No.”

I started to wonder if she was entirely stable.

I supposed that I could arrange for her to receive the best care available.… Carlisle would have the connections to find her the most skilled doctors, the most talented therapists. Perhaps something could be done to fix whatever it was that was wrong with her, whatever it was that made her content to sit beside a vampire with her heart beating calmly and steadily. I would watch over the facility, naturally, and visit as often as she allowed.

“You’re angry,” she sighed. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

As if her hiding these disturbing tendencies would help either of us.

“No. I’d rather know what you’re thinking—even if what you’re thinking is insane.”

“So I’m wrong again?” she asked, a bit belligerent now.

“That’s not what I was referring to!” My teeth clenched together again. “‘It doesn’t matter’!” I repeated in a scathing tone.

She gasped. “I’m right?”

“Does it matter?” I countered.

She took a deep breath. I waited angrily for her answer.

“Not really,” she said, her voice composed again. “But I am curious.”

Not really. It didn’t really matter. She didn’t care. She knew I was inhuman, a horror, and this didn’t really matter to her.

Aside from my worries about her sanity, I began to feel a swelling of hope. I tried to quash it.

“What are you curious about?” I asked her. There were no secrets left, only minor details.

“How old are you?” she asked.

My answer was automatic and ingrained. “Seventeen.”

“And how long have you been seventeen?”

I tried not to smile at her patronizing tone. “A while,” I admitted.

“Okay,” she said, abruptly enthusiastic. She smiled up at me. When I stared back, anxious again about her mental health, she smiled wider. I frowned.

“Don’t laugh,” she warned. “But how can you come out during the daytime?”

I laughed despite her request. Her research had not netted her anything unusual, it seemed. “Myth,” I told her.

“Burned by the sun?”

“Myth.”

“Sleeping in coffins?”

“Myth.”

Sleep had not been a part of my life for so long—not until these last few nights, as I’d watched Bella dreaming.

“I can’t sleep,” I murmured, answering her question more fully.

She was silent for a moment.

“At all?” she asked.

“Never,” I breathed.

As I met her penetrating gaze, read the surprise and the sympathy there, I abruptly yearned for sleep. Not for oblivion, as I had before, not to escape boredom, but because I wanted to dream. Maybe if I could be unconscious, if I could dream, I could live for a few hours in a world where she and I could be together. She dreamed of me. I wanted to dream of her.

She stared back at me, her expression full of wonder. I had to look away.

I could not dream of her. She should not dream of me.

“You haven’t asked me the most important question yet,” I said. The stone heart in my silent chest felt colder and harder than before. She had to be forced to understand. At some point, she must be made to see that this all did matter—more than any other consideration. Considerations like the fact that I loved her.

“Which one is that?” she asked, surprised and unaware.

This only made my voice harder. “You aren’t concerned about my diet?”

“Oh. That.” She spoke in a quiet tone that I couldn’t interpret.

“Yes, that. Don’t you want to know if I drink blood?”

She cringed away from my question. Finally.

“Well, Jacob said something about that,” she said.

“What did Jacob say?”

“He said you didn’t… hunt people. He said your family wasn’t supposed to be dangerous because you only hunted animals.”

“He said we weren’t dangerous?” I repeated cynically.

“Not exactly,” she clarified. “He said you weren’t supposed to be dangerous. But the Quileutes still didn’t want you on their land, just in case.”

I stared at the road, my thoughts in a hopeless snarl, my throat aching with the familiar fire.

“So, was he right?” she asked, as calmly as if she were confirming a weather report. “About not hunting people?”

“The Quileutes have a long memory.”

She nodded to herself, thinking hard.

“Don’t let that make you complacent, though,” I said quickly. “They’re right to keep their distance from us. We are still dangerous.”

“I don’t understand.”

No she didn’t. How to make her see?

“We… try,” I told her. “We’re usually very good at what we do. Sometimes we make mistakes. Me, for example, allowing myself to be alone with you.”

Her scent was still a force in the car. I