too precious to deserve this fate. I couldn't allow my life to collide with hers, to destroy it.
But I couldn't stay away from her either. Alice was right about that.
The monster inside me hissed with frustration as I wavered, leaning first one way, then the other.
My brief hour with her passed all too quickly, as I vacillated between the rock and the hard place. The bell rang, and she started collecting her things without looking at me. This disappointed me, but I could hardly expect otherwise. The way I had treated her since the accident was inexcusable.
"Bella?" I said, unable to stop myself. My willpower already lay in shreds. She hesitated before looking at me; when she turned, her expression was guarded, distrustful.
I reminded myself that she had every right to distrust me. That she should. She waited for me to continue, but I just stared at her, reading her face. I pulled in shallow mouthfuls of air at regular intervals, fighting my thirst.
"What?" she finally said. "Are you speaking to me again?" There was an edge of resentment to her tone that was, like her anger, endearing. It made me want to smile. I wasn't sure how to answer her question. Was I speaking to her again, in the sense that she meant?
No. Not if I could help it. I would try to help it.
"No, not really," I told her.
She closed her eyes, which frustrated me. It cut off my best avenue of access to her feelings. She took a long, slow breath without opening her eyes. Her jaw was locked.
Eyes still closed, she spoke. Surely this was not a normal human way to converse. Why did she do it?
"Then what do you want, Edward?"
The sound of my name on her lips did strange things to my body. If I'd had a heartbeat, it would have quickened.
But how to answer her?
With the truth, I decided. I would be as truthful as I could with her from now on. I didn't want to deserve her distrust, even if earning her trust was impossible.
"I'm sorry," I told her. That was truer than she would ever know. Unfortunately, I could only safely apologize for the trivial. "I'm being very rude, I know. But it's better this way, really."
I would be better for her if I could keep it up, continue to be rude. Could I? Her eyes opened, their expression still wary.
"I don't know what you mean."
I tried to get as much of a warning through to her as was allowed. "It's better if we're not friends." Surely, she could sense that much. She was a bright girl. "Trust me."
Her eyes tightened, and I remembered that I had said those words to her before - just before breaking a promise. I winced when her teeth clenched together - she clearly remembered, too.
"It's too bad you didn't figure that out earlier," she said angrily. "You could have saved yourself all this regret."
I stared at her in shock. What did she know of my regrets?
"Regret? Regret for what?" I demanded.
"For not just letting that stupid van squish me!" she snapped.
I froze, stunned.
How could she be thinking that? Saving her life was the one acceptable thing I'd done since I met her. The one thing that I was not ashamed of. The one and only thing that made me glad I existed at all. I'd been fighting to keep her alive since the first moment I'd caught her scent. How could she think this of me? How dare she question my one good deed in all this mess?
"You think I regret saving your life?"
"I know you do," she retorted.
Her estimation of my intentions left me seething. "You don't know anything."
How confusing and incomprehensible the workings of her mind were! She must not think in the same way as other humans at all. That must be the explanation behind her mental silence. She was entirely other.
She jerked her face away, gritting her teeth again. Her cheeks were flushed, with anger this time. She slammed her books together in a pile, yanked them up into her arms, and marched toward the door without meeting my stare.
Even irritated as I was, it was impossible not to find her anger a bit entertaining. She walked stiffly, without looking where she was going, and her foot caught on the lip of the doorway. She stumbled, and her things all crashed to the ground. Instead of bending to get them, she stood rigidly straight, not even looking down, as if she