Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga #5) - Stephenie Meyer Page 0,94

was growing used to it, I could almost ignore it, but there was no denying that my body still yearned toward her for the worst possible reason. My mouth was swimming with venom. I swallowed.

“This is a mistake?” she asked, and there was heartbreak in her voice. The sound of it disarmed me. She wanted to be with me—despite everything, she wanted to be with me.

Hope swelled again, and I beat it back.

“A very dangerous one,” I told her truthfully, wishing the truth could really somehow cease to matter.

She didn’t respond for a moment. I heard her breathing change—it hitched in strange ways that did not sound like fear.

“Tell me more,” she said suddenly, her voice distorted by anguish.

I examined her carefully.

She appeared to be in some kind of pain. How had I allowed this?

“What more do you want to know?” I asked, trying to think of a way to keep her from hurting. She should not hurt. I couldn’t let her be hurt.

“Tell me why you hunt animals instead of people,” she said, still anguished.

Wasn’t it obvious? Or maybe this didn’t matter to her, either.

“I don’t want to be a monster,” I muttered.

“But animals aren’t enough?”

I searched for another comparison, a way that she could understand. “I can’t be sure, of course, but I’d compare it to living on tofu and soy milk; we call ourselves vegetarians, our little inside joke. It doesn’t completely satiate the hunger—or rather thirst. But it keeps us strong enough to resist. Most of the time.” My voice got lower. I was ashamed of the danger I had allowed her to be in. Danger I continued to allow. “Sometimes it’s more difficult than others.”

“Is it very difficult for you now?”

I sighed. Of course she would ask the question I didn’t want to answer. “Yes,” I admitted.

I expected her physical response correctly this time: Her breathing held steady, her heart kept its even pattern. I expected it, but I did not understand it. How could she not be afraid?

“But you’re not hungry now,” she declared, perfectly sure of herself.

“Why do you think that?”

“Your eyes,” she said, her tone offhand. “I told you I had a theory. I’ve noticed that people—men in particular—are crabbier when they’re hungry.”

I chuckled at her description: crabby. There was an understatement. But she was dead right, as usual. “You are observant, aren’t you?” I laughed again.

She smiled a little, the crease returning between her eyes as if she were concentrating on something.

“Were you hunting this weekend, with Emmett?” she asked after my laugh had faded. The casual way she spoke was as fascinating as it was frustrating. Could she really accept so much in stride? I was closer to shock than she seemed to be.

“Yes,” I told her, and then, as I was about to leave it at that, I felt the same urge I’d had in the restaurant: I wanted her to know me. “I didn’t want to leave,” I went on slowly, “but it was necessary. It’s a bit easier to be around you when I’m not thirsty.”

“Why didn’t you want to leave?”

I took a deep breath, and then turned to meet her gaze. This kind of honesty was difficult in a very different way.

“It makes me… anxious”—I supposed that word would suffice, though it wasn’t strong enough—“to be away from you. I wasn’t joking when I asked you to try not to fall in the ocean or get run over last Thursday. I was distracted all weekend, worrying about you. And after what happened tonight, I’m surprised that you did make it through a whole weekend unscathed.” Then I remembered the scrapes on her palms. “Well, not totally unscathed,” I amended.

“What?”

“Your hands,” I reminded her.

She sighed and her lips turned down. “I fell.”

“That’s what I thought,” I said, unable to contain my smile. “I suppose, being you, it could have been much worse—and that possibility tormented me the entire time I was away. It was a very long three days. I really got on Emmett’s nerves.” Honestly, that didn’t belong in the past tense. I was probably still irritating Emmett, and all the rest of my family, too. Except Alice.

“Three days?” she asked, her voice suddenly sharp. “Didn’t you just get back today?”

I didn’t understand the edge in her voice. “No, we got back Sunday.”

“Then why weren’t any of you in school?” she demanded. Her irritation confused me. She didn’t seem to realize that this question was one that related to mythology again.

“Well, you asked if the sun