told her I had to think about it."
"Why would you do that?" she demanded. Her tone was one of disapproval, but there was the faintest
hint of relief there as well.
What did that mean? An unexpected, intense fury made my hands clench into fists. Mike did not hear
the relief. His face was red with blood-fierce as I suddenly felt, this seemed like an invitation-and he
looked at the floor again as he spoke.
"I was wondering if...well, if you might be planning to ask me."
Bella hesitated.
In that moment of her hesitation, I saw the future more clearly than Alice ever had.
The girl might say yes to Mike's unspoken question now, and she might not, but either way, someday
soon, she would say yes to someone. She was lovely and intriguing, and human males were not oblivious
to this fact. Whether she would settle for someone in this lackluster crowd, or wait until she was free
from Forks, the day would come that she would say yes.
I saw her life as I had before-college, career...love, marriage. I saw her on her father's arm again, dressed
in gauzy white, her face flushed with happiness as she moved to the sound of Wagner's march.
The pain was more than anything I'd felt before. A human would have to be on the point of death to feel
this pain-a human would not live through it.
And not just pain, but outright rage.
The fury ached for some kind of physical outlet. Though this insignificant, undeserving boy might not be
the one that Bella would say yes to, I yearned to crush his skull in my hand, to let him stand as a
representative for whoever it would be.
I didn't understand this emotion-it was such a tangle of pain and rage and desire and despair. I had
never felt it before; I couldn't put a name to it.
"Mike, I think you should tell her yes," Bella said in a gentle voice.
Mike's hopes plummeted. I would have enjoyed that under other circumstances, but I was lost in the
aftershock of the pain-and the remorse for what the pain and rage had done to me.
Alice was right. I was not strong enough.
Right now, Alice would be watching the future spin and twist, become mangled again. Would this please
her?
"Did you already ask someone?" Mike asked sullenly. He glanced at me, suspicious for the first time in
many weeks. I realized I had betrayed my interest; my head was inclined in Bella's direction.
The wild envy in his thoughts-envy for whoever this girl preferred to him-suddenly put a name to my
unnamed emotion.
I was jealous.
"No," the girl said with a trace of humor in her voice. "I'm not going to the dance at all."
Through all the remorse and anger, I felt relief at her words. Suddenly, I was considering my rivals.
"Why not?" Mike asked, his tone almost rude. It offended me that he used this tone with her. I bit back
a growl.
"I'm going to Seattle that Saturday," she answered.
The curiosity was not as vicious as it would have been before-now that I was fully intending to find out
the answers to everything. I would know the wheres and whys of this new revelation soon enough.
Mike's tone turned unpleasantly wheedling. "Can't you go some other weekend?"
"Sorry, no." Bella was brusquer now. "So you shouldn't make Jess wait any longer-it's rude."
Her concern for Jessica's feelings fanned the flames of my jealousy. This Seattle trip was clearly an
excuse to say no-did she refuse purely out of loyalty to her friend?
She was more than selfless enough for that. Did she actually wish she could say yes? Or were both
guesses wrong? Was she interested in someone else?
"Yeah, you're right," Mike mumbled, so demoralized that I almost felt pity for him. Almost.
He dropped his eyes from the girl, cutting off my view of her face in his thoughts. I wasn't going to
tolerate that.
I turned to read her face myself, for the first time in more than a month. It was a sharp relief to allow
myself this, like a gasp of air to long-submerged human lungs.
Her eyes were closed, and her hands pressed against the sides of her face. Her shoulders curved inward
defensively. She shook her head ever so slightly, as if she were trying to push some thought from her
mind.
Frustrating. Fascinating.
Mr. Banner's voice pulled her from her reverie, and her eyes slowly opened. She looked at me
immediately, perhaps sensing my gaze. She stared up into my eyes with the same bewildered expression
that had haunted me for so long.
I didn't feel the remorse or the guilt or the rage in that second. I knew they would come again, and come
soon, but for this one moment I rode a strange, jittery high. As if I had triumphed, rather than lost.
She didn't look away, though I stared with inappropriate intensity, trying vainly to read her thoughts
through her liquid brown eyes. They were full of questions, rather than answers.
I could see the reflection of my own eyes, and I saw that they were black with thirst. It had been nearly