Midnight Sun (Twilight #1.5)(34)

"Did you already ask someone?" Mike asked sullenly. He glanced at me, suspicious for the first time in many weeks. I realized I had betrayed my interest; my head was inclined in Bella's direction.

The wild envy in his thoughts - envy for whoever this girl preferred to him - suddenly put a name to my unnamed emotion.

I was jealous.

"No," the girl said with a trace of humor in her voice. "I'm not going to the dance at all."

Through all the remorse and anger, I felt relief at her words. Suddenly, I was considering my rivals.

"Why not?" Mike asked, his tone almost rude. It offended me that he used this tone with her. I bit back a growl.

"I'm going to Seattle that Saturday," she answered.

The curiosity was not as vicious as it would have been before - now that I was fully intending to find out the answers to everything. I would know the wheres and whys of this new revelation soon enough.

Mike's tone turned unpleasantly wheedling. "Can't you go some other weekend?"

"Sorry, no." Bella was brusquer now. "So you shouldn't make Jess wait any longer - it's rude."

Her concern for Jessica's feelings fanned the flames of my jealousy. This Seattle trip was clearly an excuse to say no - did she refuse purely out of loyalty to her friend? She was more than selfless enough for that. Did she actually wish she could say yes? Or were both guesses wrong? Was she interested in someone else?

"Yeah, you're right," Mike mumbled, so demoralized that I almost felt pity for him. Almost.

He dropped his eyes from the girl, cutting off my view of her face in his thoughts. I wasn't going to tolerate that.

I turned to read her face myself, for the first time in more than a month. It was a sharp relief to allow myself this, like a gasp of air to long-submerged human lungs. Her eyes were closed, and her hands pressed against the sides of her face. Her shoulders curved inward defensively. She shook her head ever so slightly, as if she were trying to push some thought from her mind.

Frustrating. Fascinating.

Mr. Banner's voice pulled her from her reverie, and her eyes slowly opened. She looked at me immediately, perhaps sensing my gaze. She stared up into my eyes with the same bewildered expression that had haunted me for so long.

I didn't feel the remorse or the guilt or the rage in that second. I knew they would come again, and come soon, but for this one moment I rode a strange, jittery high. As if I had triumphed, rather than lost.

She didn't look away, though I stared with inappropriate intensity, trying vainly to read her thoughts through her liquid brown eyes. They were full of questions, rather than answers.

I could see the reflection of my own eyes, and I saw that they were black with thirst. It had been nearly two weeks since my last hunting trip; this was not the safest day for my will to crumble. But the blackness did not seem to frighten her. She still did not look away, and a soft, devastatingly appealing pink began to color her skin.

What was she thinking now?

I almost asked the question aloud, but at that moment Mr. Banner called my name. I picked the correct answer out of his head while I glanced briefly in his direction. I sucked in a quick breath. "The Krebs Cycle."

Thirst scorched down my throat - tightening my muscles and filling my mouth with venom - and I closed my eyes, trying to concentrate through the desire for her blood that raged inside me.

The monster was stronger than before. The monster was rejoicing. He embraced this dual future that gave him an even, fifty-fifty chance at what he craved so viciously. The third, shaky future I'd tried to construct through willpower alone had crumbled - destroyed by common jealously, of all things - and he was so much closer to his goal. The remorse and the guilt burned with the thirst, and, if I'd had the ability to produce tears, they would have filled my eyes now.

What had I done?

Knowing the battle was already lost, there seemed to be no reason to resist what I wanted; I turned to stare at the girl again.

She had hidden in her hair, but I could see through a parting in the tresses that her cheek was deep crimson now.

The monster liked that.

She did not meet my gaze again, but she twisted a strand of her dark hair nervously between her fingers. Her delicate fingers, her fragile wrist - they were so breakable, looking for all the world like just my breath could snap them.

No, no, no. I could not do this. She was too breakable, too good, 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?