Don't wait! Try Yumpu. Start using Yumpu now! Terms of service. Privacy policy. Cookie policy. The skin was soft and withered, bent into a thousand tiny creases that clung gently to the bone underneath. Like a dried apricot, but with a puff of thick white hair standing out in a cloud around it.
Our mouths—hers a wizened picker—spread into the same surprised half-smile at just the same time. Apparently, she hadn't been expecting to see me, either. I was about to ask her a question; I had so many—What was she doing here in my cream?
What had she been up to in the past six years? Was Pop okay, and had they found each other, wherever they were? She paused, too, and then we Goth smiled at the little awkwardness. I didn't have to look to know who it was; this was a voice I would know anywhere—know, and respond to, whether I was awake or asleep… or even dead, I'd bet. The voice I'd walk through fire for—or, less dramatically, slosh every day through the cold and endless rain for.
Even though I was always thrilled to see him—conscious or otherwise—and even though I was almost positive that I was dreaming, I panicked as Edward walked toward us through the glaring sunlight. I panicked because Gran didn't know that I was in love with a vampire—nobody knew that—so how was I supposed to explain the fact that the brilliant sunbeams were shattering off his skin into a thousand rainbow shards like he was made of crystal or diamond?
Well, Gran, yon might have noticed that my boyfriend glitters. It's just something he does in the sun. Don't worry about it… What was he doing? The whole reason he lived in Forks, the rainiest place in the world, was so that he could be outside in the daytime without exposing his family's secret.
Yet here he was, strolling gracefully toward me—with the most beautiful smile on his angel's face—as if I were the only one here. In that second, I wished that I was not the one exception to his mysterious talent; I usually felt grateful that I was the only person whose thoughts he couldn't hear just as clearly as if they were spoken aloud.
But now I wished he could hear me, too, so that he could hear the warning I was screaming in my head. I shot a panicked glance back at Gran, and saw that it was too late. She was just turning to stare back at me, her eyes as alarmed as mine. Edward—still smiling so beautifully that my heart felt like it was going to swell up and burst through my chest—put his arm around my shoulder and turned to face my grandmother. Gran's expression surprised me. Instead of looking horrified, she was staring at me sheepishly, as if waiting for a scolding.
And she was standing in such a strange position—one arm held awkwardly away from her body, stretched out and then curled around the air. Like she had her arm around someone I couldn't see, someone invisible… Only then, as I looked at the bigger picture, did I notice the huge gilt frame that enclosed my grandmother's form.
Uncomprehending, I raised the hand that wasn't wrapped around Edward's waist and reached out to touch her. She mimicked the movement exactly, mirrored it. But where our fingers should have met, there was nothing but cold glass… With a dizzying jolt, my dream abruptly became a nightmare.
There was no Gran. That was me. Me in a mirror. Me—ancient, creased, and withered. Edward stood beside me, casting no reflection, excruciatingly lovely and forever seventeen. He pressed his icy, perfect lips against my wasted cheek. I woke with a start—my eyelids popping open wide—and gasped. Dull gray light, the familiar light of an overcast morning, took the place of the blinding sun in my dream. Just a dream, I told myself. It was only a dream. I took a deep breath, and then jumped again when my alarm went off.
The little calendar in the corner of the clock's display informed me that today was September thirteenth. Only a dream, but prophetic enough in one way, at least.
Today was my birthday. I was officially eighteen years old. I'd been dreading this day for months. All through the perfect summer—the happiest summer I had ever had, the happiest summer anyone anywhere had ever had, and the rainiest summer in the history of the Olympic Peninsula—this bleak date had lurked in ambush, waiting to spring.
And now that it had hit, it was even worse than I'd feared it would be. I could feel it—I was older. Every day I got older, but this was different, worse, quantifiable. I was eighteen. And Edward never would be.
When I went to brush my teeth, I was almost surprised that the face in the mirror hadn't changed. I stared at myself, looking for some sign of impending wrinkles in my ivory skin. The only creases were the ones on my forehead, though, and I knew that if I could manage to relax, they would disappear. I couldn't.
My eyebrows stayed lodged in a worried line over my anxious brown eyes. It was just a dream, I reminded myself again. Just a dream… but also my worst nightmare. I skipped breakfast, in a hurry to get out of the house as quickly as possible. I wasn't entirely able to avoid my dad, and so I had to spend a few minutes acting cheerful. I honestly tried to be excited about the gifts I'd asked him not to get me, but every time I had to smile, it felt like I might start crying.
I struggled to get a grip on myself as I drove to school. The vision of Gran—I would not think of it as me—was hard to get out of my head. I couldn't feel anything but despair until I pulled into the familiar parking lot behind Forks High School and spotted Edward leaning motionlessly against his polished silver Volvo, like a marble tribute to some forgotten pagan god of beauty.
The dream had not done him justice. And he was waiting there for me, just the same as every other day. Despair momentarily vanished; wonder took its place. Even after half a year with him, I still couldn't believe that I deserved this degree of good fortune.
His sister Alice was standing by his side, waiting for me, too. Of course Edward and Alice weren't really related in Forks the story was that all the Cullen siblings were adopted by Dr.
Carlisle Culler and his wife, Esme, both plainly too young to have teenage children , but their skin was precisely the same pale shade, their eyes had the same strange golden tint, with the same deep, bruise-like shadows beneath them. Her face, like his, was also startlingly beautiful. To someone in the know—someone like me—these similarities marked them for what they were.
The sight of Alice waiting there—her tawny eyes brilliant with excitement, and a small silver-wrapped square in her hands—made me frown.
I'd told Alice I didn't want anything, anything, not gifts or even attention, for my birthday. Obviously, my wishes were being ignored.
I slammed the door of my '53 Chevy truck—a shower of rust specks fluttered down to the wet blacktop—and walked slowly toward where they waited. Alice skipped forward to meet me, her pixie face glowing under her spiky black hair. The last thing I wanted was some kind of celebration of the black event. She ignored me. She finally seemed to process my mood.
Did you like the scrapbook your mom sent you? And the camera from Charlie? Of course she would know what my birthday presents were. Edward wasn't the only member of his family with unusual skills. Alice would have "seen" what my parents were planning as soon as they'd decided that themselves.
They're great. You're only a senior once. Might as well document the experience. I took it eagerly, forgetting, for a moment, my glum mood.
His skin was, as always, smooth, hard, and very cold. He gave my fingers a gentle squeeze. I looked into his liquid topa2 eyes, and my heart gave a not-quite-so-gentle squeeze of its own.
Hearing the stutter in my heartbeats, he smiled again. He lifted his free hand and traced one cool fingertip around the outside of my lips as he spoke. That is correct. It was something that could only be picked up in an earlier century. Most people seem to enjoy things like birthdays and gifts. Everyone is supposed to be nice to you today and give you your way, Bella. What's the worst that could happen? Beside me, Edward's smile tightened into a hard line. He sighed. But Edward was dead set against any future that changed me.
Any future that made me like him—that made me immortal, too. An impasse, he called it. I couldn't really see Edward's point, to be honest.
What was so great about mortality? Being a vampire didn't look like such a terrible thing—not the way the Cullens did it, anyway. From her expression, she was up to exactly the kind of thing I'd been hoping to avoid.
Newton about it. She's trading your shifts. She said to tell you 'Happy Birthday. Berty said we needed to see it performed to fully appreciate it—that's how Shakespeare intended it to be presented.
Berty said it was the best. If Bella wants to watch a movie, then she can. It's her birthday. See you tonight, Bella! It'll be fun, you'll see. We're going to be late for class. Edward and I had been together too long now to be an object of gossip anymore.
Even Mike Newton didn't bother to give me the glum stare that used to make me feel a little guilty. He smiled now instead, and I was glad he seemed to have accepted that we could only be friends.
Mike had changed over the summer—his face had lost some of the roundness, making his cheekbones more prominent, and he was wearing his pale blond hair a new way; instead of bristly, it was longer and gelled into a carefully casual disarray. It was easy to see where his inspiration came from—but Edward's look wasn't something that could be achieved through imitation.
As the day progressed, I considered ways to get out of whatever was going down at the Cullen house tonight. It would be bad enough to have to celebrate when I was in the mood to mourn. But, worse than that, this was sure to involve attention and gifts. Attention is never a good thing, as any other accident-prone klutz would agree. No one wants a spotlight when they're likely to fall on their face. And I'd very pointedly asked—well, ordered really—that no one give me any presents this year.
It looked like Charlie and Renee weren't the only ones who had decided to overlook that. I'd never had much money, and that had never bothered me.
Renee had raised me on a kindergarten teacher's salary. Charlie wasn't getting rich at his job, either—he was the police chief here in the tiny town of Forks.
My only personal income came from the three days a week I worked at the local sporting goods store. In a town this small, I was lucky to have a job. Every penny I made went into my microscopic college fund. College was Plan B. I was still hoping for Plan A, but Edward was just so stubborn about leaving me human… Edward had a lot of money—I didn't even want to think about how much. Money meant next to nothing to Edward or the rest of the Cullens.
It was just something that accumulated when you had unlimited time on your hands and a sister who had an uncanny ability to predict trends in the stock market. Edward didn't seem to understand why I objected to him spending money on me—why it made me uncomfortable if he took me to an expensive restaurant in Seattle, why he wasn't allowed to buy me a car that could reach speeds over fifty-five miles an hour, or why I wouldn't let him pay my college tuition he was ridiculously enthusiastic about Plan B.
Edward thought I was being unnecessarily difficult. But how could I let him give me things when I had nothing to reciprocate with? He, for some unfathomable reason, wanted to be with me. Anything he gave me on top of that just threw us more out of balance. As the day went on, neither Edward nor Alice brought my birthday up again, and I began to relax a little.
We sat at our usual table for lunch. A strange kind of truce existed at that table. The three of us—Edward, Alice, and I—sat on the extreme southern end of the table. Now that the "older" and somewhat scarier in Emmett's case, certainly Cullen siblings had graduated, Alice and Edward did not seem quite so intimidating, and we did not sit here alone. My other friends, Mike and Jessica who were in the awkward post-breakup friendship phase , Angela and Ben whose relationship had survived the summer , Eric, Conner, Tyler, and Lauren though that last one didn't really count in the friend category all sat at the same table, on the other side of an invisible line.
That line dissolved on sunny days when Edward and Alice always skipped school, and then the conversation would swell out effortlessly to include me. Edward and Alice didn't find this minor ostracism odd or hurtful the way I would have. They barely noticed it.
People always felt strangely ill at ease with the Cullens, almost afraid for some reason they couldn't explain to themselves. I was a rare exception to that rule. Sometimes it bothered Edward how very comfortable I was with being close to him. He thought he was hazardous to my health—an opinion I rejected vehemently whenever he voiced it.
The afternoon passed quickly. School ended, and Edward walked me to my truck as he usually did. But this time, he held the passenger door open for me.
Alice must have been taking his car home so that he could keep me from making a run for it. I folded my arms and made no move to get out of the rain. I climbed in the opened door, wishing he'd taken the other offer. Edward played with the radio while I drove, shaking his head in disapproval. I didn't like it when he picked on my truck. The truck was great—it had personality. Drive your own car. I was hardly ever bad-tempered with Edward, and my tone made him press his lips together to keep from smiling.
When I parked in front of Charlie's house, he reached over to take my face in his hands. He handled me very carefully, pressing just the tips of his fingers softly against my temples, my cheekbones, my jawline. Like I was especially breakable. Which was exactly the case—compared with him, at least.
His sweet breath fanned across my face. His golden eyes smoldered. As he intended, no doubt, I forgot all about my worries, and concentrated on remembering how to inhale and exhale. His mouth lingered on mine, cold and smooth and gentle, until I wrapped my arms around his neck and threw myself into the kiss with a little too much enthusiasm. I could feel his lips curve upward as he let go of my face and reached back to unlock my grip on him.
Edward had drawn many careful lines for our physical relationship, with the intent being to keep me alive. Though I respected the need for maintaining a safe distance between my skin and his razor-sharp, venom-coated teeth, I tended to forget about trivial things like that when he was kissing me. He pressed his lips gently to mine one more time and then pulled away, folding my arms across my stomach. My pulse was thudding in my ears.
I put one hand over my heart. It drummed hyperactively under my palm. I rolled my eyes. When I perched on the edge of the sofa in front of him, he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me against his chest. It wasn't exactly as comfortable as a sofa cushion would be, what with his chest being hard and cold—and perfect—as an ice sculpture, but it was definitely preferable. He pulled the old afghan off the back of the couch and draped it over me so I wouldn't freeze beside his body.
Romeo was one of my favorite fictional characters. Until I'd met Edward, I'd sort of had a thing for him. And then, a few minutes after their wedding, he kills Juliet's cousin. That's not very brilliant. Mistake after mistake. Could he have destroyed his own happiness any more thoroughly? The movie eventually captured my interest, thanks in large part to Edward whispering Romeo's lines in my ear—his irresistible, velvet voice made the actor's voice sound weak and coarse by comparison.
And I did cry, to his amusement, when Juliet woke and found her new husband dead. All you have to do is throw down one tiny vial of plant extracts…" "What? I'm not even sure how many ways Carlisle tried to kill himself in the beginning… after he realized what he'd become…" His voice, which had grown serious, turned light again. Like I said, it's not as easy for me as it is for a human. I could see it all so clearly—the blinding sun, the heat waves coming off the concrete as I ran with desperate haste to find the sadistic vampire who wanted to torture me to death.
James, waiting in the mirrored room with my mother as his hostage—or so I'd thought. I hadn't known it was all a ruse.
Just as James hadn't known that Edward was racing to save me; Edward made it in time, but it had been a close one. Unthinkingly, my fingers traced the crescent-shaped scar on my hand that was always just a few degrees cooler than the rest of my skin. I shook my head—as if I could shake away the bad memories—and tried to grasp what Edward meant.
My stomach plunged uncomfortably. Abruptly, I was furious. They are the closest thing our world has to a royal family, I suppose.
Carlisle lived with them briefly in his early years, in Italy, before he settled in America—do you remember the story? The most vivid, most wildly colorful canvas there, the largest, was from Carlisle's time in Italy. Of course I remembered the calm quartet of men, each with the exquisite face of a seraph, painted into the highest balcony overlooking the swirling mayhem of color.
Though the painting was centuries old, Carlisle—the blond angel—remained unchanged. And I remembered the three others, Carlisle's early acquaintances. Edward had never used the name Volturi for the beautiful trio, two black-haired, one snow white.
He'd called them Aro, Caius, and Marcus, nighttime patrons of the arts… "Anyway, you don't irritate the Volturi," Edward went on, interrupting ray reverie. My anger turned to horror. I took his marble face between my hands and held it very tightly. I thought we'd established that all the bad luck is my fault? He chuckled. I'm not really that interesting. Abruptly, he pulled himself up into a more formal posture, shifting me to the side so that we were no longer touching.
Edward smiled. After a moment, I heard the sound of the police cruiser pulling into the driveway. I reached out and took his hand firmly. My dad could deal with that much. Charlie came in with a pizza box in his hands. Thanks, Dad. He was used to Edward passing on dinner. I looked at Charlie hopefully. Maybe he had some concept of birthdays as stay-at-home, family affairs—this was my first birthday with him, the first birthday since my mom, Renee, had remarried and gone to live in Florida, so I didn't know what he would expect.
He ought to know better than that—I'd always been coordinationally challenged. The camera glanced off the tip of my finger, and tumbled toward the floor. Edward snagged it before it could crash onto the linoleum. You know how your mother gets—she'll be wanting to see the pictures faster than you can take them. I turned the camera on Edward, and snapped the first picture. Hey, say hi to Alice for me. She hasn't been over in a while. Charlie was crazy about Alice.
He'd become attached last spring when she'd helped me through my awkward convalescence; Charlie would be fore'ter grateful to her for saving him from the horror of an almost-adult daughter who needed help showering. You kids have fun tonight. Charlie was already edging toward the living room and the TV. Edward smiled, triumphant, and took my hand to pull me from the kitchen.
When we got to the truck, he opened the passenger door for me again, and this time I didn't argue. I still had a hard time finding the obscure turnoff to his house in the dark. Edward drove north through Forks, visibly chafing at the speed limit enforced by my prehistoric Chevy. The engine groaned even louder than usual as he pushed it over fifty.
A nice little Audi coupe. Very quiet, lots of power…" "There's nothing wrong with my truck. And speaking of expensive nonessentials, if you know what's good for you, you didn't spend any money on birthday presents. If it was someone you truly loved?
To be irrevocably in love with a vampire is both fantasy and nightmare woven into a dangerously heightened reality for Bella Swan. Pulled in one direction by her intense passion for Edward Cullen, and in another by her profound connection to werewolf Jacob Black, a tumultuous year of temptation, loss, and strife have led her to the ultimate turning point.
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As Seattle is ravaged by a string of mysterious killings and a malicious vampire continues her quest for revenge, Bella once again finds herself surrounded by danger. In the midst of it all, she is forced to choose between her love for Edward and her friendship with Jacob -- knowing that her decision has the potential to ignite the ageless struggle between vampire and werewolf.
With her graduation quickly approaching, Bella has one more decision to make: life or death. But which is which? Whether you're Team Edward or Team Jacob, fall in love with the Twilight series all over again with this beautiful complete collection!
Deeply romantic and extraordinarily suspenseful, The Twilight Saga captures the struggle between defying our instincts and satisfying our desires. Experience the entire breathtaking love story with this perfect gift for new and longtime fans alike. Carlisle Cullen in the Twilight saga movies Why is Bella desolate and haggard? Will Jacob win her over with his infectious affability? Can Edward dare to flout the rules and summon the belligerent ire of the Volturi?
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Twilight - The Score Songbook Anonim. Twilight Songbook Hal Leonard Corp. Love Bites Liv Spencer. The Psychology of Twilight E. David Klonsky,Alexis Black. Twilight and History Nancy Reagin. Categories Uncategorized.
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