was a short pause, and then she whispered, "I decided it didn't matter."
Shock froze my thoughts for a half-second, and then it all fit together. Why she'd sent her friends away tonight rather than escape with them. Why she had gotten into my car with me again instead of running, screaming for the police...
Her reactions were always wrong - always completely wrong. She pulled danger toward herself. She invited it.
"Why is he taking that so badly?" Bella asked a little confused. "Is it bad that I've accepted him?"
"Um... I'm not sure," Jacob said thoughtfully. "You know this guy... he always reacts the wrong way," he laughed this time and so did Bella.
"I suppose two wrongs do make a right then," Bella chuckled.
"That's not how the saying goes," Jacob shook his head.
"It didn't matter?" I said through my teeth, anger filling me. How was I supposed to protect someone so...so...so determined to be unprotected?
"No," she said in a low voice that was inexplicably tender. "It doesn't matter to me what you are."
She was impossible.
"And so is he," Bella hissed.
"Doesn't make you stop liking him though, does it?" Jacob said.
"Nope," Bella admitted with a smile.
"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...
"I am not crazy, Edward Cullen!" Bella yelled.
"You are yelling at a book right now... that might be considered a bit crazy," Jacob pointed out with barely concealed laughter.
"Shut up!" Bella hissed at him.
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 I was allowed...
"Well, then I wouldn't be cured you idiot, because the reason is that I like you!" Bella yelled again.
"Yep... not crazy at all," Jacob really laughed this time and she glared at him furiously. She might have been a fully grown house cat, instead of a kitten with that glare, Jacob mused, laughing harder.
"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.
"She didn't like it when you questioned her sanity, man," Jacob said laughing.
"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."
"Of course you are," Jacob said.
Not really. It didn't really matter. She didn't care. She knew I was inhuman, a monster, 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.
"And I'm the insane one," Bella grumbled. "Setting aside his hopes..."
"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."
"Liar," Jacob said.
"Hmm... I'm sure that's true... in a way," Bella shrugged.
"And how long have you been seventeen?"
I tried not to smile at the 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 grimaced.
"Don't laugh," she warned. "But how can you come out during the daytime?"
"There's no chance he's not going to laugh at that," Jacob laughed, being caught off guard by that question.
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.
"That one is a little freaky," Bella admitted.
"I know," Jacob said. "What doesn't sleep?"
"Vampire," Bella answer immediately and Jacob rolled his eyes.
She was silent for a moment.
"At all?" she asked.
"Never," I breathed.
I stared into her eyes, wide under the thick fringe of lashes, and yearned for sleep.