Midnight Sun(61)

That was exactly the kind of mistake that I had to avoid.
My eyes ran over her face again and again, examining it for changes. Mortals changed all the time-I was
sad at the thought of missing anything...
I thought she looked...tired. Like she hadn't gotten enough sleep this weekend. Had she gone out?
I laughed silently and wryly at how much that upset me. So what if she had? I didn't own her. She wasn't
mine.
No, she wasn't mine-and I was sad again.
One of her hands twitched, and I noticed that there were shallow, barely healed scrapes across the heel
of her palm. She'd been hurt? Even though it was obviously not a serious injury, it still disturbed me. I
considered the location, and decided she must have tripped. That seemed a reasonable explanation, all
things considered.
It was comforting to think that I wouldn't have to puzzle over either of these small mysteries forever.
We were friends now-or, at least, trying to be friends. I could ask her about her weekend-about the
beach, and whatever late night activity had made her look so weary. I could ask what had happened to
her hands. And I could laugh a
little when she confirmed my theory about them.
I smiled gently as I wondered whether or not she had fallen in the ocean. I wondered if she'd had a
pleasant time on the outing. I wondered if she'd thought about me at all. If she'd missed me even the
tiniest portion of the amount that I'd missed her.
I tried to picture her in the sun on the beach. The picture was incomplete, though, because I'd never
been to First Beach myself. I only knew how it looked in pictures...
I felt a tiny qualm of unease as I thought about the reason why I'd never once been to the pretty beach
located just a few minutes run from my home. Bella had spent the day at La Push-a place where I was
forbidden, by treaty, to go. A place where a few old men still remembered the stories about the Cullens,
remembered and believed them.
A place where our secret was known...
I shook my head. I had nothing to worry about there. The Quileutes were bound by treaty, too. Even had
Bella run into one of those aging sages, they could reveal nothing. And why would the subject ever be
broached? Why would Bella think to voice her curiosity there? No-the Quileutes were perhaps the one
thing I did not have to worry about.
I was angry with the sun when it began to rise. It reminded me that I could not satisfy my curiosity for
days to come. Why did it choose to shine now?
With a sigh, I ducked out her window before it was light enough for anyone to see me here. I meant to
stay in the thick forest by her house and see her off to school, but when I got into the trees, I was
surprised to find the trace of her scent lingering on the trail there.
I followed it quickly, curiously, becoming more and more worried as it led deeper into the darkness.
What had Bella been doing out here?
The trail stopped abruptly, in the middle of nowhere in particular. She'd gone just a few steps off the
trail, into the ferns, where she'd touched the trunk of a fallen tree.
Perhaps sat there...
I sat where she had, and looked around. All she would have been able to see was ferns and forest. It had
probably been raining-the scent was washed out, having never set deeply into the tree.
Why would Bella have come to sit here alone-and she had been alone, no doubt about that-in the
middle of the wet, murky forest?
It made no sense, and, unlike those other points of curiosity, I could hardly bring this up in casual
conversation.
So, Bella, I was following your scent through the woods after I left your room where I'd been watching
you sleep... Yes, that would be quite the ice breaker.
I would never know what she'd been thinking and doing here, and that had my teeth grinding together
in frustration. Worse, this was far too much like the scenario I'd imagined for Emmett-Bella wandering
alone in the woods, where her scent would call to anyone who had the senses to track it...
I groaned. Not only did she have bad luck, but she courted it.
Well, for this moment she had a protector. I would watch over her, keep her from harm, for as long as I
could justify it.
I suddenly found myself wishing that Peter and Charlotte would make an extended stay.
8. Ghost
I did not see much of Jasper's guests for the two sunny days that they were in Forks. I only went home at
all so that Esme wouldn't worry. Otherwise, my existence seemed more like that of a specter than a
vampire. I hovered, invisible in the shadows, where I could follow the object of my love and obsessionwhere
I could see her and hear her in the minds of the lucky humans who could walk through the
sunlight beside her, sometimes accidentally brushing the back of her hand with their own. She never
reacted to such contact; their hands were just as warm as hers.
The enforced absence from school had never been a trial like this before. But the sun seemed to make
her happy, so I could not resent it too much. Anything that pleased her was in my good graces.