A million thoughts chased each other through my head as I drove aimlessly into the night.
For a long time I circled through the streets, going nowhere, thinking of Bella and the incredible release of having the truth known. No longer did I have to dread that she would find out what I was. She knew. It didn't matter to her. Even though this was obviously a bad thing for her, it was amazingly liberating for me.
"Well, that's nice to hear," Bella said; all his thoughts had been so negative before.
More than that, I thought of Bella and requited love. She couldn't love me the way I loved her - such an overpowering, all-consuming, crushing love would probably break her fragile body.
"Hmph," Bella huffed, she was stronger than he thought she was.
But she felt strongly enough. Enough to subdue the instinctive fear. Enough to want to be with me. And being with her was the greatest happiness I had ever known.
For a while - as I was all alone and hurting no one else for a change - I allowed myself to feel that happiness without dwelling on the tragedy. Just to be happy that she cared for me. Just to exult in the triumph of winning her affection. Just to imagine day after day of sitting close to her, hearing her voice and earning her smiles.
I replayed that smile in my head, seeing her full lips pull up at the corners, the hint of a dimple that touched her pointed chin, the way her eyes warmed and melted...
Bella was blushing from this description.
Her fingers had felt so warm and soft on my hand tonight. I imagined how it would feel to touch the delicate skin that stretched over her cheekbones - silky, warm...so fragile.
Silk over glass...frighteningly breakable.
I didn't see where my thoughts were leading until it was too late. As I dwelt on that devastating vulnerability, new images of her face intruded on my fantasies.
Lost in the shadows, pale with fear - yet her jaw tight and determined, her eyes fierce, full of concentration, her slim body braced to strike at the hulking forms that gathered around her, nightmares in the gloom...
Jacob hissed at this description and Bella shuddered.
"Ah," I groaned as the simmering hate that I'd all but forgotten in the joy of loving her burst again into an inferno of rage.
I was alone. Bella was, I trusted, safe inside her home; for a moment I was fiercely glad that Charlie Swan - head of the local law enforcement, trained and armed - was her father. That ought to mean something, provide some shelter for her.
Jacob chuckled. "Ah, so that point eases his mind a little."
She was safe. It would not take me so very long to avenge the insult...
No. She deserved better. I could not allow her to care for a murderer.
But...what about the others?
Bella was safe, yes. Angela and Jessica were also, surely, safe in their beds.
"He has a point," Jacob hissed. "That man can't be allowed to just walk free... you're not the only one in danger."
"True," Bella said, but she was hoping for imprisonment.
Yet a monster was loose in the streets of Port Angeles. A human monster - did that make him the humans' problem? To commit the murder I ached to commit was wrong. I knew that. But leaving him free to attack again could not be the right thing either.
The blond hostess from the restaurant. The waitress I'd never really looked at.
"You can't like the idea of him hurting them or someone like them," Bella said, though the girls were annoying, they didn't deserve that.
Both had irritated me in a trivial way, but that did not mean they deserved to be in danger.
Either one of them might be somebody's Bella.
That realization decided me.
I turned the car north, accelerating now that I had a purpose. Whenever I had a problem that was beyond me - something tangible like this - I knew where I could go for help.
Alice was sitting on the porch, waiting for me. I pulled to a stop in front of the house rather than going around to the garage.
"Carlisle's in his study," Alice told me before I could ask.
"Ah, he goes to his dad," Bella smiled.
"Thank you," I said, tousling her hair as I passed.
Thank you for returning my call, she thought sarcastically.
"Oh." I paused by the door, pulling out my phone and flipping it open. "Sorry. I didn't even check to see who it was. I was...busy."
"Yeah, I know. I'm sorry, too. By the time I saw what was going to happen, you were on your way."
Bella shivered as she wondered just how much Alice had seen.
"It was close," I murmured.
Sorry, she repeated, ashamed of herself.
It was easy to be generous, knowing that Bella was fine. "Don't be. I know you can't catch everything. No one expects you to be omniscient, Alice."
"Thanks."
"I almost asked you out to dinner tonight - did you catch that before I changed my mind?"
She grinned. "No, I missed that one, too. Wish I'd known. I would have come."
Though Bella did want to meet Alice, she was quite happy that she'd had that dinner with Edward alone.