"But I'm not saying goodbye."
"Don't you see? That's what proves me right. I care the most, because if I can do it..." Would I ever be unselfish enough to do the right thing? I shook my head in despair. I would have to find the strength. She deserved a life. Not what Alice had seen coming for her. "If leaving is the right thing to do..." And it had to be the right thing, didn't it? There was no reckless angel. Bella didn't belong with me. "Then I'll hurt myself to keep from hurting you, to keep you safe."
"But it wouldn't stop from hurting me," Bella mumbled softly, almost painfully as she thought of that.
As I said the words, I willed them to be true.
She glared at me. Somehow, my words had angered her. "And you don't think I would do the same?" she demanded furiously.
"Would you?" Jacob asked.
Bella looked thoughtful for a moment; she was so lost in Edward's thoughts that it was hard to gather her own. "Yes, if I knew it was better for him... I would have to, wouldn't I?" she said, but she was shaking her head at the same time, she knew it couldn't be better for him if she left so it was ridiculous to even think of that.
So furious - so soft and so fragile. How could she ever hurt anyone? "You'd never have to make the choice," I told her, depressed anew by the wide difference between us.
She stared at me, concern replacing the anger in her eyes and bringing out the little pucker between them.
There was something truly wrong with the order of the universe if someone so good and so breakable did not merit a guardian angel to keep her out of trouble.
"I have a guardian vampire and that's better," Bella said.
"Um... that doesn't sound better to me," Jacob shook his head and Bella just shrugged.
Well, I thought with dark humor, at least she has a guardian vampire.
I smiled. How I loved my excuse to stay. "Of course, keeping you safe is beginning to feel like a full-time occupation that requires my constant presence."
She smiled, too. "No one has tried to do away with me today," she said lightly, and then her face turned speculative for half a second before her eyes went opaque again.
"Yet," I added dryly.
"Yet," she agreed to my surprise. I'd expected her to deny any need for protection.
How could he? That selfish jackass! How could he do this to us? Rosalie's piercing mental shriek broke through my concentration.
Bella flinched as she read this... at the hostility in Rosalie's thoughts.
"Shut up, Blondie," Jacob hissed.
"Easy, Rose," I heard Emmett whisper from across the cafeteria. His arm was around her shoulders, holding her tight into his side - restraining her.
Sorry, Edward, Alice thought guiltily. She could tell Bella knew too much from your conversation...and, well, it would have been worse if I hadn't told her the truth right away. Trust me on that.
I winced at the mental picture that followed, at what would have happened if I'd told Rosalie that Bella knew I was a vampire at home, where Rosalie didn't have a fa?ade to keep up. I'd have to hide my Aston Martin somewhere out of state if she didn't calm down by the time school was over. The sight of my favorite car, mangled and burning, was upsetting - though I knew I'd earned the retribution.
"Still... you don't have to take it out on the car," Jacob said horrified, and there was a longing look in his head that stated clearly that he wanted to see said car.
Jasper was not much happier.
Bella flinched again.
I'd deal with the others later. I only had so much time allotted to be to be with Bella, and I wasn't going to waste it. And hearing Alice had reminded me that I had some business to attend to.
"I have another question for you," I said, tuning out Rosalie's mental hysterics.
"Shoot," Bella said, smiling.
"Do you really need to go to Seattle this Saturday, or was that just an excuse to get out of saying no to all your admirers?"
She grimaced at me. "You know, I haven't forgiven you for the Tyler thing yet. It's your fault that he's deluded himself into thinking I'm going to prom with him."
"Oh, he would have found a chance to ask you without me - I just really wanted to watch your face."
"Jerk," Bella muttered.
I laughed now, remembering her aghast expression. Nothing I'd ever told her about my own dark story had ever made her look so horrified. The truth didn't frighten her. She wanted to be with me. Mind-boggling.
"If I'd asked you, would you have turned me down?"
"Probably not," she said. "But I would have cancelled later - faked an illness or a sprained ankle."
How strange. "Why would you do that?"
Jacob chuckled and Bella rolled her eyes; the answer was so obvious.
"He calls you absurd for missing things but this guy is even worse," Jacob laughed.
She shook her head, as if she was disappointed that I did not understand at once.
"You've never seen me in gym, I guess, but I would have thought that you would understand."
Ah. "Are you referring to the fact that you can't walk across a flat, stable surface without finding something to trip over?"