Midnight Sun(94)

Abruptly, I realized that this was very hard for her to admit, because she truly believed it. And I was no
better than that coward, Mike, asking for her to confirm her feelings before I'd confirmed my own. It
didn't matter that I felt I'd make my side abundantly clear. It hadn't gotten through to her, and so I had
no excuse.
"You're wrong," I promised. She must hear the tenderness in my voice.
Bella looked up to me, her eyes opaque, giving nothing away. "You can't know that," she whispered.
She thought that I was underestimating her feelings because I couldn't hear her thoughts. But, in truth,
the problem was that she was underestimating mine.
"What makes you think so?" I wondered.
She stared back at me, the furrow between her brows, biting her lips. For the millionth time, I wished
desperately that I could just hear her.
I was about to beg her to tell me what thought she was struggling with, but she held up a finger to keep
me from speaking.
"Let me think," she requested.
As long as she was simply organizing her thoughts, I could be patient. Or I could pretend to be.#p#分页标题#e#
She pressed her hands together, twining and untwining her slender fingers. She was watching her hands
as if they belonged to someone else while she spoke.
"Well, aside from the obvious," she murmured. "Sometimes... I can't be sure-I don't know how to read
minds-but sometimes it seems like you're trying to say goodbye when you're saying something else."
She didn't look up.
She'd caught that, had she? Did she realize that it was only weakness and selfishness that kept me here?
Did she think less of me for that?
"Perceptive," I breathed, and then watched in horror as pain twisted her expression. I hurried to
contradict her assumption. "That's exactly why you're wrong, though-" I began, and then I paused,
remembering the first words of her explanation.
They bothered me, though I wasn't sure I understood exactly. "What do you mean, 'the obvious'?"
"Well, look at me," she said.
I was looking. All I ever did was look at her. What did she mean?
"I'm absolutely ordinary," she explained. "Well, except for the bad things like all the near death
experiences and being so clumsy that I'm almost disabled. And look at you." She fanned the air toward
me, like she was making some point so obvious it wasn't worth spelling out.
She thought she was ordinary? She thought that I was somehow preferable to her? In whose
estimation? Silly, narrow-minded, blind humans like Jessica or Ms. Cope? How could she not realize that
she was the most beautiful...most exquisite...
Those words weren't even enough. And she had no idea.
"You don't see yourself very clearly, you know," I told her. "I'll admit you're dead-on about the bad
things..." I laughed humorlessly. I did not find the evil fate who haunted her comical. The clumsiness,
however, was sort of funny. Endearing. Would she believe me if I told her she was beautiful, inside and
out? Perhaps she would find corroboration more persuasive. "But you didn't hear what every human
male was thinking on your first day."
Ah, the hope, the thrill, the eagerness of those thoughts. The speed with which they'd turned to
impossible fantasies. Impossible, because she wanted none of them.
I was the one she said yes to.
My smile must have been smug.
Her face was blank with surprise. "I don't believe it," she mumbled.
"Trust me just this once-you are the opposite of ordinary."
Her existence alone was excuse enough to justify the creation of the entire world. She wasn't used to
compliments, I could see that. Another thing she would just have to get used to. She flushed, and
changed the subject. "But I'm not saying goodbye."
"Don't you see? That's what proves me right. I care the most, because if I can do it..." Would I ever be
unselfish enough to do the right thing? I shook my head in despair. I would have to find the strength.
She deserved a life. Not what Alice had seen coming for her. "If leaving is the right thing to do..." And it
had to be the right thing, didn't it? There was no reckless angel. Bella didn't belong with me. "Then I'll
hurt myself to keep from hurting you, to keep you safe."
As I said the words, I willed them to be true.
She glared at me. Somehow, my words had angered her. "And you don't think I would do the same?"
she demanded furiously.
So furious-so soft and so fragile. How could she ever hurt anyone? "You'd never have to make the
choice," I told her, depressed anew by the wide difference between us.
She stared at me, concern replacing the anger in her eyes and bringing out the little pucker between
them.
There was something truly wrong with the order of the universe if someone so good and so breakable
did not merit a guardian angel to keep her out of trouble.