was becoming more confident of her, too, as the time passed, for she seemed to prefer him over those
he considered his rivals-Tyler Crowley, Eric Yorkie, and even, sporadically, myself. He would routinely sit
on her side of our table before class began, chattering at her, encouraged by her smiles. Just polite
smiles, I told myself. All the same, I frequently amused myself by imagining backhanding him across the
room and into the far wall... It probably wouldn't injure him fatally...
Mike didn't often think of me as a rival. After the accident, he'd worried that Bella and I would bond
from the shared experience, but obviously the opposite had resulted. Back then, he had still been
bothered that I'd singled Bella out over her peers for attention. But now I ignored her just as thoroughly
as the others, and he grew complacent.
What was she thinking now? Did she welcome his attention?
And, finally, the last of my torments, the most painful: Bella's indifference. As I ignored her, she ignored
me. She never tried to speak to me again. For all I knew, she never thought about me at all.
This might have driven me mad-or even broken my resolution to change the future-except that she
sometimes stared at me like she had before. I didn't see it for myself, as I could not allow myself to look
at her, but Alice always warned us when she was about to stare; the others were still wary of the girl's
problematic knowledge.
It eased some of the pain that she gazed at me from across a distance, every now and then. Of course,
she could just be wondering what kind of a freak I was.
"Bella's going to stare at Edward in a minute. Look normal," Alice said one Tuesday in March, and the
others were careful to fidget and shift their weight like humans; absolute stillness was a marker of our
kind.
I paid attention to how often she looked my direction. It pleased me, though it should not, that the
frequency did not decline as the time passed. I didn't know what it meant, but it made me feel better.#p#分页标题#e#
Alice sighed. I wish...
"Stay out of it, Alice," I said under my breath. "It's not going to happen."
She pouted. Alice was anxious to form her envisioned friendship with Bella. In a strange way, she missed
the girl she didn't know.
I'll admit, you're better than I thought. You've got the future all snarled up and senseless again. I hope
you're happy.
"It makes plenty of sense to me."
She snorted delicately.
I tried to shut her out, too impatient for conversation. I wasn't in a very good mood-tenser than I let any
of them see. Only Jasper was aware of how tightly wound I was, feeling the stress emanate out of me
with his unique ability to both sense and influence the moods of others. He didn't understand the
reasons behind the moods, though, and-since I was constantly in a foul mood these days-he disregarded
it.
Today would be a hard one. Harder than the day before, as was the pattern.
Mike Newton, the odious boy whom I could not allow myself to rival, was going to ask Bella on a date.
A girl's choice dance was on the near horizon, and he'd been hoping very much that Bella would ask him.
That she had not done so had rattled his confidence. Now he was in an uncomfortable bind-I enjoyed his
discomfort more than I should-because Jessica Stanley had just asked him to the dance. He didn't want
to say "yes," still hopeful that Bella would choose him (and prove him the victor over his rivals), but he
didn't want to say "no" and end up missing the dance altogether. Jessica, hurt by his hesitation and
guessing the reason behind it, was thinking daggers at Bella. Again, I had the instinct to place myself
between Jessica's angry thoughts and Bella. I understood the instinct better now, but that only made it
more frustrating when I could not act on it.
To think it had come to this! I was utterly fixated on the petty high school dramas that I'd once held so in
contempt.
Mike was working up his nerve as he walked Bella to biology. I listened to his struggles as I waited for
them to arrive. The boy was weak. He had waited for this dance purposely, afraid to make his
infatuation known before she had shown a marked preference for him. He didn't want to make himself
vulnerable to rejection, preferring that she make that leap first.
Coward.
He sat down on our table again, comfortable with long familiarity, and I imagined the sound it would
make if his body hit the opposite wall with enough force to break most of his bones.
"So," he said to the girl, his eyes on the floor. "Jessica asked me to the spring dance."
"That's great," Bella answered immediately and with enthusiasm. It was hard not to smile as her tone
sunk in to Mike's awareness. He'd been hoping for dismay. "You'll have a lot of fun with Jessica."
He scrambled for the right response. "Well..." he hesitated, and almost chickened out. Then he rallied. "I