The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide (73 page)

And… what if she loved Paris? Not like Romeo. Nothing like that, of course. But enough that she wanted him to be happy, too?

Jacob’s slow, deep breathing was the only sound in the room—like a lullaby hummed to a child, like the whisper of a rocking chair, like the ticking of an old clock when you had nowhere you needed to go…. It was the sound of comfort.

If Romeo was really gone, never coming back, would it have mattered whether or not Juliet had taken Paris up on his offer? Maybe she should have tried to settle into the leftover scraps of life that were left behind. Maybe that would have been as close to happiness as she could get.

Chapter 16
“I know you don’t feel exactly the way I do, Bells. I swear I don’t mind. I’m just so glad you’re okay that I could sing—and that’s something no one wants to hear.” He laughed his throaty laugh in my ear.

Edward’s perspective

Chapter 18
“I saw him going to the Volturi… and asking to die.”

Chapter 20
She drove in quick spurts and sudden stops, and the people in the crowd shook their fists at us and said angry words that I was glad I couldn’t understand. She turned onto a little path that couldn’t have been meant for cars; shocked people had to squeeze into doorways as we scraped by. We found another street at the end. The buildings were taller here; they leaned together overhead so that no sunlight touched the pavement—the thrashing red flags on either side nearly met. The crowd was thicker here than anywhere else. Alice stopped the car. I had the door open before we were at a standstill.

She pointed to where the street widened into a patch of bright openness. “There—we’re at the southern end of the square. Run straight across, to the right of the clock tower. I’ll find a way around—”

Her breath caught suddenly, and when she spoke again, her voice was a hiss. “They’re
everywhere
!”

I froze in place, but she pushed me out of the car. “Forget about them. You have two minutes. Go, Bella, go!” she shouted, climbing out of the car as she spoke.

I didn’t pause to watch Alice melt into the shadows. I didn’t stop to close my door behind me. I shoved a heavy woman out of my way and ran flat out, head down, paying little attention to anything but the uneven stones beneath my feet.

Chapter 20
I wished I could ask him exactly what was going to happen now. I wanted desperately to know how we were going to die—as if that would somehow make it better, knowing in advance.

Chapter 22
I couldn’t keep my eyes off of Edward’s face for long. I stared at him, wishing more than anything that the future would never happen. That this moment would last forever, or, if it couldn’t, that I would stop existing when it did.

Edward stared right back at me, his dark eyes soft, and it was easy to pretend that he felt the same way. So that’s what I did. I pretended, to make the moment sweeter.

Edward’s perspective

Chapter 23
“You weren’t going to let go,” he whispered. “I could see that. I didn’t want to do it—it felt like it would kill me to do it—but I knew that if I couldn’t convince you that I didn’t love you anymore, it would just take you that much longer to get on with your life. I hoped that, if you thought I’d moved on, so would you.”

“A clean break,” I whispered through unmoving lips.

“Exactly. But I never imagined it would be so easy to do! I thought it would be next to impossible—that you would be so sure of the truth that I would have to lie through my teeth for hours to even plant the seed of doubt in your head. I lied, and I’m so sorry—sorry because I hurt you, sorry because it was a worthless effort. Sorry that I couldn’t protect you from what I am. I lied to save you, and it didn’t work. I’m sorry.”

Chapter 23
“Don’t promise me anything,” I whispered. If I let myself hope, and it came to nothing… that would kill me. Where all those merciless vampires had not been able to finish me off, hope would do the job.

Edward’s perspective

Chapter 23
“Before you, Bella, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars—points of light and reason…. And then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire; there was brilliancy, there was beauty. When you were gone, when the meteor had fallen over the horizon, everything went black. Nothing had changed, but my eyes were blinded by the light. I couldn’t see the stars anymore. And there was no more reason for anything.”

Edward’s and Bella’s perspectives

Chapter 24
“Your epiphany?” he asked, his voice uneven and strained.

“You love me,” I marveled. The sense of conviction and rightness washed through me again.

Though his eyes were still anxious, the crooked smile I loved best flashed across his face. “Truly, I do.”

My heart inflated like it was going to crack right through my ribs. It filled my chest and blocked my throat so that I could not speak.

The contrast between the two of us was painful. He looked like a god. I looked very average, even for a human, almost shamefully plain.

Chapter 3
The last was the picture of Edward and me standing awkwardly side by side. Edward’s face was the same as the last, cold and statue-like. But that wasn’t the most troubling part of this photograph. The contrast between the two of us was painful. He looked like a god. I looked very average, even for a human, almost shamefully plain. I flipped the picture over with a feeling of disgust.

Edward’s perspective

Chapter 3
“Bella, I don’t want you to come with me.” He spoke the words slowly and precisely, his cold eyes on my face, watching as I absorbed what he was really saying.

There was a pause as I repeated the words in my head a few times, sifting through them for their real intent.

“You… don’t… want me?” I tried out the words, confused by the way they sounded, placed in that order.

“No.”

I stared, uncomprehending, into his eyes. He stared back without apology. His eyes were like topaz—hard and clear and very deep. I felt like I could see into them for miles and miles, yet nowhere in their bottomless depths could I see a contradiction to the word he’d spoken.

Chapter 4
The thick haze that blurred my days now was sometimes confusing. I was surprised when I found myself in my room, not clearly remembering the drive home from school or even opening the front door. But that didn’t matter. Losing track of time was the most I asked from life.

Chapter 5
I wondered how long this could last. Maybe someday, years from now—if the pain would just decrease to the point where I could bear it—I would be able to look back on those few short months that would always be the best of my life. And, if it were possible that the pain would ever soften enough to allow me to do that, I was sure that I would feel grateful for as much time as he’d given me. More than I’d asked for, more than I’d deserved. Maybe someday I’d be able to see it that way.

Chapter 5
As if he’d never existed,
I thought in despair. What a stupid and impossible promise to make! He could steal my pictures and reclaim his gifts, but that didn’t put things back the way they’d been before I’d met him. The physical evidence was the most insignificant part of the equation. I was changed, my insides altered almost past the point of recognition.

Chapter 6
I was beginning to get annoyed with myself. I might as well have been packed in Styrofoam peanuts through the last semester.

Chapter 7
I didn’t go any closer. I didn’t want to look in the windows. I wasn’t sure which would be harder to see. If the rooms were bare, echoing empty from floor to ceiling, that would certainly hurt. Like my grandmother’s funeral, when my mother had insisted that I stay outside during the viewing. She had said that I didn’t need to see Gran that way, to remember her that way, rather than alive.

But wouldn’t it be worse if there were no change? If the couches sat just as I’d last seen them, the paintings on the walls—worse still, the piano on its low platform? It would be
second only to the house disappearing all together, to see that there was no physical possession that tied them in anyway. That everything remained, untouched and forgotten, behind them.

Just like me.

Chapter 7
I’d come full circle, and now everything felt like an echo—an empty echo, devoid of the interest it used to have.

Chapter 9
How could I explain so that he would understand? I was an empty shell. Like a vacant house—condemned—for months I’d been utterly uninhabitable. Now I was a little improved. The front room was in better repair. But that was all—just the one small piece. He deserved better than that—better than a one-room, falling-down fixer-upper. No amount of investment on his part could put me back in working order.

Chapter 13
“Is that what happened? Why the Cullens left?”

“I’m nothing but a human, after all. Nothing special.”

“I’m nothing but a human, after all. Nothing special,” I explained, shrugging weakly.

Chapter 15
“Bella.”

I smiled and exhaled.

Yes? I didn’t answer out loud, for fear that the sound of my voice would shatter the beautiful illusion. He sounded so real, so close. It was only when he was disapproving like this that I could hear the true memory of his voice—the velvet texture and the musical intonation that made up the most perfect of all voices.

“Don’t do this,” he pleaded.

You wanted me to be human,
I reminded him.
Well, watch me.

“Please. For me.”

But you won’t stay with me any other way.

“Please.” It was just a whisper in the blowing rain that tossed my hair and drenched my clothes—making me as wet as if this were my second jump of the day.

Chapter 16
I couldn’t imagine my life without Jacob now—I cringed away from the idea of even trying to imagine that. Somehow, he’d become essential to my survival. But to leave things the way they were… was that cruel, as Mike had accused?