Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga #5) - Stephenie Meyer Page 0,95

hurt me, and it doesn’t,” I said. “But I can’t go out in the sunlight—at least, not where anyone can see.”

That distracted her from her mysterious annoyance. “Why?” she asked, leaning her head to one side.

I doubted I could come up with the appropriate analogy to explain this one. So I just told her, “I’ll show you sometime,” and then immediately wondered if this was a promise I would end up breaking—I’d said the words so casually, but I could not imagine actually following through.

It wasn’t something to worry about now. I didn’t know if I could be allowed see her again, after tonight. Did I love her enough yet to be able to bear leaving her?

“You might have called me,” she said.

What an odd conclusion. “But I knew you were safe.”

“But I didn’t know where you were. I—” She came to an abrupt stop, and looked at her hands.

“What?”

“I didn’t like it,” she said shyly, the skin over her cheekbones warming. “Not seeing you. It makes me anxious, too.”

Are you happy now? I demanded of myself. Well, here was my reward for hoping.

I was bewildered, elated, horrified—mostly horrified—to realize that all my wildest fantasies were not so far off the mark. This was why it didn’t matter to her that I was a monster. It was exactly the same reason that the rules no longer mattered to me. Why right and wrong were no longer compelling influences. Why all my priorities had shifted one rung down to make room for this girl at the very top.

Bella cared for me, too.

I knew it could be nothing in comparison to how I loved her—she was mortal, changeable. She wasn’t locked in with no hope of recovery. But still, she cared enough to risk her life to sit here with me. To do so gladly.

Enough that it would cause her pain if I did the right thing and left her.

Was there anything I could do now that would not hurt her? Anything at all?

Every word we spoke here—each one of them was another pomegranate seed. That strange vision in the restaurant had been more on point than I’d realized.

I should have stayed away. I should never have come back to Forks. I would cause her nothing but pain.

Would that stop me from staying now? From making it worse?

The way I felt at this moment, feeling her warmth against my skin…

No. Nothing would stop me.

“Ah,” I groaned to myself. “This is wrong.”

“What did I say?” she asked, quick to take the blame on herself.

“Don’t you see, Bella? It’s one thing for me to make myself miserable, but a wholly other thing for you to be so involved. I don’t want to hear that you feel that way.” It was the truth, it was a lie. The most selfish part of me was flying with the knowledge that she wanted me as I wanted her. “It’s wrong. It’s not safe. I’m dangerous, Bella—please, grasp that.”

“No.” Her lips pouted out stubbornly.

“I’m serious.” I was battling with myself so strongly—half-desperate for her to accept my warnings, half-desperate to keep the warnings from escaping—that the words came through my teeth as a growl.

“So am I,” she insisted. “I told you, it doesn’t matter what you are. It’s too late.”

Too late? The world was bleakly black and white for one endless second as I watched the shadows crawl across the sunny lawn toward Bella’s sleeping form in my memory. Inevitable, unstoppable. They stole the color from her skin, and plunged her into darkness, into the underworld.

Too late? Alice’s vision swirled in my head, Bella’s bloodred eyes staring back at me impassively, expressionless. But there was no way that she could not hate me for that future. Hate me for stealing everything from her.

It could not be too late.

“Never say that,” I hissed.

She stared out her window, and her teeth bit into her lip again. Her hands were balled into tight fists in her lap. Her breathing hitched.

“What are you thinking?” I had to know.

She shook her head without looking at me. I saw something glisten, like a crystal, on her cheek.

Agony. “Are you crying?” I’d made her cry. I’d hurt her that much.

She scrubbed the tear away with the back of her hand.

“No,” she lied, her voice breaking.

Some long-buried instinct had me reaching out toward her—in that one second I felt more human than I ever had. And then I remembered that I was… not. And I lowered my hand.

“I’m sorry,” I said, my jaw locked. How could