Twilight (Twilight, #1)

by Stephenie Meyer

When I landed in Port Angeles, it was raining. I didn’t see it as an omen—just unavoidable.

“How do you do that?” I asked in amazed irritation. “Do what?” He held my key out as he spoke. As I reached for it, he dropped it into my palm. “Appear out of thin air.” “Bella, it’s not my fault if you are exceptionally unobservant.”

When Charlie smiled, it was easier to see why he and my mother had jumped too quickly into an early marriage. Most of the young romantic he’d been in those days had faded before I’d known him, as the curly brown hair—the same color, if not the same texture, as mine—had dwindled, slowly revealing more and more of the shiny skin of his forehead. But when he smiled I could see a little of the man who had run away with Renée when she was just two years older than I was now.

I’d read the first most recently, so I started into Sense and Sensibility, only to remember after I began chapter three that the hero of the story happened to be named Edward. Angrily, I turned to Mansfield Park, but the hero of that piece was named Edmund, and that was just too close. Weren’t there any other names available in the late eighteenth century?

I dove into the road—this car was going to stop, or have to hit me.

It was amazing how instantaneously the choking fear vanished, amazing how suddenly the feeling of security washed over me—even before I was off the street—as soon as I heard his voice.

“Um.” I wracked my brain for something trivial. “I’m going to run over Tyler Crowley tomorrow before school?” He was still squeezing his eyes closed, but the corner of his mouth twitched.

“I was wrong about you on one other thing, as well. You’re not a magnet for accidents—that’s not a broad enough classification. You are a magnet for trouble. If there is anything dangerous within a ten-mile radius, it will invariably find you.”

“I’ve never tried to keep a specific person alive before, and it’s much more troublesome than I would have believed. But that’s probably just because it’s you. Ordinary people seem to make it through the day without so many catastrophes.”

“The only guess I have is that maybe your mind doesn’t work the same way the rest of theirs do. Like your thoughts are on the AM frequency and I’m only getting FM.”

I just listened to the sound of his laugh, committing it to memory.

“What were you thinking tonight, just before I came around the corner? I couldn’t understand your expression—you didn’t look that scared, you looked like you were concentrating very hard on something.” “I was trying to remember how to incapacitate an attacker—you know, self-defense. I was going to smash his nose into his brain.” I thought of the dark-haired man with a surge of hate. “You were going to fight them?” This upset him. “Didn’t you think about running?” “I fall down a lot when I run,” I admitted. “What about screaming for help?” “I was getting to that part.” He shook his head. “You were right—I’m definitely fighting fate trying to keep you alive.”

Nothing seemed clear at first, but as I fell gradually closer to unconsciousness, a few certainties became evident. About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was part of him—and I didn’t know how potent that part might be—that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.

Under the shelter of the cafeteria roof’s overhang, Jessica was waiting, her eyes about to bug out of their sockets. Over her arm, bless her, was my jacket.

“She wants to know if we’re secretly dating. And she wants to know how you feel about me,” he finally said. “Yikes. What should I say?” I tried to keep my expression very innocent. People were passing us on their way to class, probably staring, but I was barely aware of them. “Hmmm.” He paused to catch a stray lock of hair that was escaping the twist on my neck and wound it back into place. My heart spluttered hyperactively. “I suppose you could say yes to the first… if you don’t mind—it’s easier than any other explanation.” “I don’t mind,” I said in a faint voice. “And as for her other question… well, I’ll be listening to hear the answer to that one myself.” One side of his mouth pulled up into my favorite uneven smile.

“He drives like a maniac. It was terrifying.” I hoped he heard that.

“Has he kissed you?” “No,” I mumbled. “It’s not like that.” She looked disappointed. I’m sure I did, too.

I tried to remember how to exhale.

“He looks at you like… like you’re something to eat,”

People are predictable. But you… you never do what I expect. You always take me by surprise.”

“Absolutely, Dad. Besides, the freezer is getting dangerously low on fish—we’re down to a two, maybe three years’ supply.”

“Are you so depressed by Forks that it’s made you suicidal?”

“So you’re worried about the trouble it might cause me—if you don’t come home?”

“You are the most important thing to me now. The most important thing to me ever.”

“And so the lion fell in love with the lamb…,” he murmured. I looked away, hiding my eyes as I thrilled to the word. “What a stupid lamb,” I sighed. “What a sick, masochistic lion.”

“We don’t really know. Carlisle has a theory… he believes that we all bring something of our strongest human traits with us into the next life, where they are intensified—like our minds, and our senses. He thinks that I must have already been very sensitive to the thoughts of those around me. And that Alice had some precognition, wherever she was.” “What did he bring into the next life, and the others?” “Carlisle brought his compassion. Esme brought her ability to love passionately. Emmett brought his strength, Rosalie her… tenacity. Or you could call it pigheadedness,” he chuckled. “Jasper is very interesting. He was quite charismatic in his first life, able to influence those around him to see things his way. Now he is able to manipulate the emotions of those around him—calm down a room of angry people, for example, or excite a lethargic crowd, conversely. It’s a very subtle gift.”

“And you’re worried, not because you’re headed to meet a houseful of vampires, but because you think those vampires won’t approve of you, correct?”

His face softened under my hand, and he sighed. “I keep waiting for it to happen.” “For what to happen?” “I know that at some point, something I tell you or something you see is going to be too much. And then you’ll run away from me, screaming as you go.” He smiled half a smile, but his eyes were serious. “I won’t stop you. I want this to happen, because I want you to be safe. And yet, I want to be with you. The two desires are impossible to reconcile.…” He trailed off, staring at my face. Waiting.

“You take care of my girl, all right?”

“It’s been almost a century that Edward’s been alone. Now he’s found you. You can’t see the changes that we see, we who have been with him for so long. Do you think any of us want to look into his eyes for the next hundred years if he loses you?”

“He called you pretty,” he finally continued, his frown deepening. “That’s practically an insult, the way you look right now. You’re much more than beautiful.”

“Twilight, again,” he murmured. “Another ending. No matter how perfect the day is, it always has to end.”

“No, you’re right, it’s not,” he agreed, his smile fading. “I’d rather treat it like a joke, though, than believe you’re serious.”

“for this to be the twilight of your life, though your life has barely started.