Midnight Sun(20)

Emmett waited for me outside the door of our Spanish class. He read my wild expression for a moment.
How did it go? He wondered warily.
"Nobody died," I mumbled.
I guess that's something. When I saw Alice ditching there at the end, I thought...
As we walked into the classroom, I saw his memory from just a few moments ago, seen through the
open door of his last class: Alice walking briskly and blank-faced across the grounds toward the science
building. I felt his remembered urge to get up and join her, and then his decision to stay. If Alice needed
his help, she would ask...
I closed my eyes in horror and disgust as I slumped into my seat. "I hadn't realized that it was that close.
I didn't think I was going to...I didn't see that it was that bad," I whispered.
It wasn't, he reassured me. Nobody died, right?
"Right," I said through my teeth. "Not this time."
Maybe it will get easier.
"Sure."
Or, maybe you kill her. He shrugged. You wouldn't be the first one to mess up. No one would judge you
too harshly. Sometimes a person just smells too good. I'm impressed you've lasted this long.
"Not helping, Emmett."
I was revolted by his acceptance of the idea that I would kill the girl, that this was somehow inevitable.
Was it her fault that she smelled so good?
I know when it happened to me..., he reminisced, taking me back with him half a century, to a country
lane at dusk, where a middle-aged women was taking her dried sheets down from a line strung between
apple trees. The scent of apples hung heavy in the air -the harvest was over and the rejected fruits were
scattered on the ground, the bruises in their skin leaking their fragrance out in thick clouds. A freshmowed
field of hay was a background to that scent, a harmony. He walked up the lane, all but oblivious
to the woman, on an errand for Rosalie. The sky was purple overhead, orange over the western trees.
He would have continued up the meandering cart path and there would have been no reason to
remember the evening, except that a sudden night breeze blew the white sheets out like sails and
fanned the woman's scent across Emmett's face.
"Ah," I groaned quietly. As if my own remembered thirst was not enough.
I know. I didn't last half a second. I didn't even think about resisting.
His memory became far too explicit for me to stand. I jumped to my feet, my teeth locked hard enough
cut through steel.
"Esta bien, Edward?" Senora Goff asked, startled by my sudden movement. I could see my face in her
mind, and I knew that I looked far from well.
"Me perdona," I muttered, as I darted for the door.
"Emmett-por favor, puedas tu ayuda a tu hermano?" she asked, gesturing helplessly toward me as I
rushed out of the room.
"Sure," I heard him say. And then he was right behind me.
He followed me to the far side of the building, where he caught up to me and put his hand on my
shoulder.
I shoved his hand away with unnecessary force. It would have shattered the bones in a human hand, and
the bones in the arm attached to it.
"Sorry, Edward."
"I know." I drew in deep gasps of air, trying to clear my head and my lungs.
"Is it as bad as that?" he asked, trying not to think of the scent and the flavor of his memory as he asked,
and not quite succeeding.
"Worse, Emmett, worse."
He was quiet for a moment.
Maybe...
"No, it would not be better if I got it over with. Go back to class, Emmett. I want to be alone."
He turned without another word or thought and walked quickly away. He would tell the Spanish teacher
that I was sick, or ditching, or a dangerously out of control vampire. Did his excuse really matter? Maybe
I wasn't coming back. Maybe I had to leave.
I went to my car again, to wait for school to end. To hide. Again.
I should have spent the time making decisions or trying to bolster my resolve, but, like an addict, I found
myself searching through the babble of thoughts emanating from the school buildings. The familiar
voices stood out, but I wasn't interested in listening to Alice's visions or Rosalie's complaints right now. I
found Jessica easily, but the girl was not with her, so I continued searching.
Mike Newton's thoughts caught my attention, and I located her at last, in gym with him. He was
unhappy, because I'd spoken to her today in biology. He was running over her response when he'd
brought the subject up...
...I've never seen him actually talk to anyone for more than a word here or there. Of course he would
decide to find Bella interesting. I don't like the way he looks at her.
But she didn't seem too excited about him. What did she say? 'Wonder what was with him last Monday.'
Something like that. Didn't sound like she cared. It couldn't have been much of a conversation...
He talked himself out of his pessimism in that way, cheered by the idea that Bella had not been