More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
“Warned?” I asked blankly. “What are you talking about?” “You didn’t tell her?” Jacob asked, his eyes widening with disbelief. “What, were you afraid she’d take our side?” “Please drop it, Jacob,” Edward said in an even voice.
“He didn’t tell you that his big… brother crossed the line Saturday night?” he asked, his tone thickly layered with sarcasm. Then his eyes flickered back to Edward. “Paul was totally justified in—” “It was no-man’s land!” Edward hissed.
Jacob was staring at us with incredulous eyes. “You didn’t tell her anything at all, did you? Is that why you took her away? So she wouldn’t know that—?” “Leave now.” Edward cut him off mid-sentence, and his face was abruptly frightening—truly frightening. For a second, he looked like… like a vampire. He glared at Jacob with vicious, unveiled loathing.
In the dead silence, all the details suddenly fell into place for me with a burst of intuition. Something Edward didn’t want me to know. Something that Jacob wouldn’t have kept from me. Something that had the Cullens and the wolves both in the woods, moving in hazardous proximity to each other. Something that would cause Edward to insist that I fly across the country. Something that Alice had seen in a vision last week—a vision Edward had lied to me about. Something I’d been waiting for anyway. Something I knew would happen again, as much as I might wish it never would. It was never going to
...more
Edward held me tight to his side, angling his body so that he was still between me and Jacob, and stroked my face with anxious hands. “It’s fine,” he whispered to me. “It’s fine. I’ll never let her get close to you, it’s fine.” Then he glared at Jacob. “Does that answer your question, mongrel?” “You don’t think Bella has a right to know?” Jacob challenged. “It’s her life.”
yeah i'm 100% on jacobs side. re-reading this and i'm wondering why i was team edward tbh 😭 def team both
“Better frightened than lied to.”
“She’s tougher than you think,” Jacob said. “And she’s been through worse.” Abruptly, Jacob’s expression shifted, and he was staring at Edward with an odd, speculative expression. His eyes narrowed like he was trying to do a difficult math problem in his head. I felt Edward cringe. I glanced up at him, and his face was contorted in what could only be pain. For one ghastly moment, I was reminded of our afternoon in Italy, in the macabre tower room of the Volturi, where Jane had tortured Edward with her malignant gift, burning him with her thoughts alone.…
“That’s funny,” Jacob said, laughing as he watched Edward’s face. Edward winced, but smoothed his expression with a little effort. He couldn’t quite hide the agony in his eyes. I glanced, wide-eyed, from Edward’s grimace to Jacob’s sneer. “What are you doing to him?” I demanded. “It’s nothing, Bella,” Edward told me quietly. “Jacob just has a good memory, that’s all.”
“Sure, if you want.” Jacob shrugged. “It’s his own fault if he doesn’t like the things I remember, though.”
He leaned forward, his face earnest now, the bitter sarcasm fading. “I think I might have been wrong before, you know, about not being able to be friends. Maybe we could manage it, on my side of the line. Come see me.”
Jacob dropped the antagonistic façade completely. It was like he’d forgotten Edward was there, or at least he was determined to act that way. “I miss you every day, Bella. It’s not the same without you.”
“Do you feel well enough to go to class?” he whispered when we were past the principal. “Yes,” I whispered back, not quite sure if this was a lie.
What happened? Tell me everything. And screw the protecting me crap, please. I shoved the note at Edward. He sighed, and then began writing. It took him less time than me, though he wrote an entire paragraph in his own personal calligraphy before he slipped the paper back.
Alice saw that Victoria was coming back. I took you out of town merely as a precaution—there was never a chance that she would have gotten anywhere close to you. Emmett and Jasper very nearly had her, but Victoria seems to have some instinct for evasion. She escaped right down the Quileute boundary line as if she were reading it from a map. It didn’t help that Alice’s abilities were nullified by the Quileutes’ involvement. To be fair, the Quileutes might have had her, too, if we hadn’t gotten in the way. The big gray one thought Emmett was over the line, and he got defensive. Of course Rosalie
...more
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
You will tell me next time.
“Is that something you’d like to share there, Mr. Cullen?” Edward looked up innocently and held out the sheet of paper on top of his folder. “My notes?” he asked, sounding confused. Mr. Berty scanned the notes—no doubt a perfect transcription of his lecture—and then walked away frowning.
It was later, in Calculus—my one class without Edward—that I heard the gossip. “My money’s on the big Indian,” someone was saying. I peeked up to see that Tyler, Mike, Austin, and Ben had their heads bent together, deep in conversation. “Yeah,” Mike whispered. “Did you see the size of that Jacob kid? I think he could take Cullen down.” Mike sounded pleased by the idea. “I don’t think so,” Ben disagreed. “There’s something about Edward. He’s always so… confident. I have a feeling he can take care of himself.” “I’m with Ben,” Tyler agreed. “Besides, if that other kid messed Edward up, you know
...more
I WAS HAVING A BAD WEEK.
“Haven’t you noticed yet, Bella, that Edward is just the teeniest bit prone to overreaction?”
Jasper had silently erased all the panic and tension in my body with his curious talent of controlling emotional atmospheres. I’d felt reassured, and let them talk me out of my desperate pleading.
i want jasper. like i'll pay him to calm me down
Sometimes I wondered if he was only pretending that he couldn’t read my mind. How else had he struck upon the one condition that I would have trouble accepting? The one condition that would slow me down.
I would never admit to him how hard it was for me when he was gone—how it brought back the abandonment nightmares. If he knew that, it would make him feel horrible and he would be afraid to ever leave me, even for the most necessary reasons. It had been like that in the beginning, when he’d first returned from Italy. His golden eyes had turned black and he’d suffered from his thirst more than it was already necessary that he suffer. So I put on a brave face and all but kicked him out the door whenever Emmett and Jasper wanted to go.
I think he saw through me, though. A little. This morning there had been a note left on my pillow: I’ll be back so soon you won’t have time to miss me. Look after my heart—I‘ve left it with you.
“I’m staying close to home to hunt. I’ll only be fifteen minutes away if you need me. I’ll keep an eye out for trouble.” Translation: don’t try anything funny just because Edward is gone. Alice was certainly just as capable of crippling my truck as Edward was.
And then tomorrow, Edward would be home. I would survive. Not wanting to be ridiculously early for work, I ate my breakfast slowly, one Cheerio at a time. Then, when I’d washed the dishes, I arranged the magnets on the fridge into a perfect line. Maybe I was developing obsessive-compulsive disorder.
I clutched the papers in both hands as I stared at the picture beneath the caption. A lump rose in my throat. SAVE THE OLYMPIC WOLF Under the words, there was a detailed drawing of a wolf in front of a fir tree, its head thrown back in the act of baying at the moon. It was a disconcerting picture; something about the wolf’s plaintive posture made him look forlorn. Like he was howling in grief. And then I was running to my truck, the flyers still locked in my grip.
I barreled down the wet highway, turning the windshield wipers on high and ignoring the groan of the ancient engine. Fifty-five was the most I could coax out of my truck, and I prayed it would be enough. I had no clue where the boundary line was, but I began to feel safer as I passed the first houses outside La Push. This must be beyond where Alice was allowed to follow.
Before I could cut the engine, Jacob was standing in the door, his face blank with shock. In the sudden silence when the truck-roar died, I heard him gasp. “Bella?” “Hey, Jake!” “Bella!” he yelled back, and the smile I’d been waiting for stretched across his face like the sun breaking free of the clouds. His teeth gleamed bright against his russet skin. “I can’t believe it!”
“How did you get here?” “I snuck out!” “Awesome!” “Hey, Bella!” Billy had rolled himself into the doorway to see what all the commotion was about. “Hey, Bil—!” Just then my air choked off—Jacob grabbed me up in a bear hug too tight to breathe and swung me around in a circle. “Wow, it’s good to see you here!” “Can’t… breathe,” I gasped. He laughed and put me down. “Welcome back, Bella,” he said, grinning. And the way he said the words made it sound like welcome home.
As we walked, I felt myself settling into another version of myself, the self I had been with Jacob. A little younger, a little less responsible. Someone who might, on occasion, do something really stupid for no good reason.
“The fortune-telling bloodsucker can’t see us?” he echoed, his face both fierce and gleeful. “Seriously? That’s excellent!” I clenched my teeth together, and we sat in silence, his face expectant as he waited for me to continue. I glared at him until he realized his mistake. “Oops!” he said. “Sorry.” He locked his lips again.
I just told him that Edward had talked us out of trouble, without revealing the promise we’d had to make, or the visit we were anticipating. Jacob didn’t need to have my nightmares.
I knew Jacob would give me more details than Edward had. He wasn’t afraid of scaring me.
“I’m thinking about what you told me. About when the fortune-teller saw you cliff jumping and thought you’d committed suicide, and how it all got out of control.… Do you realize that if you had just waited for me like you were supposed to, then the bl—Alice wouldn’t have been able to see you jump? Nothing would have changed. We’d probably be in my garage right now, like any other Saturday. There wouldn’t be any vampires in Forks, and you and me…” He trailed off, deep in thought.
“When Sam saw… how you were in the beginning, when Billy told them how Charlie worried when you didn’t get better, and then when you started jumping off cliffs…” I made a face. No one was ever going to let me forget that. Jacob’s eyes flashed up to mine. “He thought you were the one person in the world with as much reason to hate the Cullens as he does. Sam feels sort of… betrayed that you would just let them back into your life like they never hurt you.”
“And yet, you don’t see the fish trying to plant a kiss on the eagle. You never see that.” He grinned a mocking grin.
“I’d much rather he weren’t either one. It would even out the gap between us just a little bit—because he’d still be the most loving and unselfish and brilliant and decent person I’ve ever met. Of course I love him. How hard is that to understand?”
“I think the best place to start would be to look within your own species. That usually works.” “Well, that just sucks!” I snapped. “I guess I’m stuck with Mike Newton after all.” Jacob flinched back and bit his lip. I could see that my words had hurt him, but I was too mad to feel bad about that yet.
“I’m human,” he muttered, his voice almost inaudible.
“It’s not the same thing.” Jacob didn’t look away from the gray waves. “I didn’t choose this.”
“I feel human.” He stared past me, his face far away. His lower lip trembled, and he bit down on it hard.
This was why I was here. This was why I would take whatever reception waited for me when I got back. Because, underneath all the anger and the sarcasm, Jacob was in pain. Right now, it was very clear in his eyes. I didn’t know how to help him, but I knew I had to try. It was more than that I owed him. It was because his pain hurt me, too. Jacob had become a part of me, and there was no changing that now.
“ARE YOU OKAY, JAKE? CHARLIE SAID YOU WERE HAVING A HARD time.… Isn’t it getting any better?”
“Honestly… most of them do,” Jacob admitted slowly. “There are definitely good sides to this—the speed, the freedom, the strength… the sense of—of family.… Sam and I are the only ones who ever felt really bitter. And Sam got past that a long time ago. So I’m the crybaby now.” Jacob laughed at himself.
He looked up at me swiftly, hearing the double edge in my words. “Will he be mad at you?” “Yes,” I admitted. “He really hates it when I do things he considers… risky.”
Jacob shrugged. “So don’t go back. I’ll sleep on the couch.” “That’s a great idea,” I grumbled. “Because then he would come looking for me.”
“Ugh!” I ripped my hand out of his and shoved his head away. Then I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms tightly around them. I glared out toward the horizon, fuming.
“Grow up, Jacob.” “I wish I could,” he murmured quietly. I stared at him, trying to make sense of his response. “What?” Jacob chuckled. “One of those many strange things I mentioned.” “You… can’t… grow up?” I said blankly. “You’re what? Not… aging? Is that a joke?” “Nope.” He popped his lips on the P. I felt blood flood my face. Tears—tears of rage—filled my eyes. My teeth mashed together with an audible grinding sound. “Bella? What did I say?”
I was on my feet again, my hands balled up into fists, my whole frame shaking. “You. Are. Not. Aging,” I growled through my teeth. Jacob tugged my arm gently, trying to make me sit. “None of us are. What’s wrong with you?” “Am I the only one who has to get old? I get older every stinking day!” I nearly shrieked, throwing my hands in the air. Some little part of me recognized that I was throwing a Charlie-esque fit, but that rational part was greatly overshadowed by the irrational part. “Damn it! What kind of world is this? Where’s the justice?”
“Take it easy, Bella.” “Shut up, Jacob. Just shut up! This is so unfair!” “Did you seriously just stamp your foot? I thought girls only did...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
