"What were you thinking?" Jessica snapped. "You don't know them-they could have been psychopaths!"
I shrugged, wishing she would let it go. "I just thought I knew the one guy."
"You are so odd, Bella Swan. I feel like I don't know who you are."
"Sorry." I didn't know what else to say to that.
We walked to McDonald's in silence. I'd bet that she was wishing we'd taken her car instead of walking the short distance from the theater, so that she could use the drive-through. She was just as anxious now for this evening to be over as I had been from the beginning.
I tried to start a conversation a few times while we ate, but Jessica was not cooperative. I must have really offended her.
When we got back in the car, she tuned the stereo back to her favorite station and turned the volume too loud to allow easy conversation.
I didn't have to struggle as hard as usual to ignore the music. Even though my mind, for once, was not carefully numb and empty, I had too much to think about to hear the lyrics.
I waited for the numbness to return, or the pain. Because the pain must be coming. I'd broken my personal rules. Instead of shying away from the memories, I'd walked forward and greeted them. I'd heard his voice, so clearly, in my head. That was going to cost me, I was sure of it. Especially if I couldn't reclaim the haze to protect myself. I felt too alert, and that frightened me.
But relief was still the strongest emotion in my body-relief that came from the very core of my being.
As much as I struggled not to think of him, I did not struggle to forget. I worried-late in the night, when the exhaustion of sleep deprivation broke down my defenses-that it was all slipping away. That my mind was a sieve, and I would someday not be able to remember the precise color of his eyes, the feel of his cool skin, or the texture of his voice. I could not think of them, but I must remember them.
Because there was just one thing that I had to believe to be able to live-I had to know that he existed. That was all. Everything else I could endure. So long as he existed.
That's why I was more trapped in Forks than I ever had been before, why I'd fought with Charlie when he suggested a change. Honestly, it shouldn't matter; no one was ever coming back here.
But if I were to go to Jacksonville, or anywhere else bright and unfamiliar, how could I be sure he was real? In a place where I could never imagine him, the conviction might fade . . . and that I could not live through.
Forbidden to remember, terrified to forget; it was a hard line to walk.
I was surprised when Jessica stopped the car in front of my house. The ride had not taken long, but, short as it seemed, I wouldn't have thought that Jessica could go that long without speaking.
"Thanks for going out with me, Jess," I said as I opened my door. "That was . . . fun." I hoped that fun was the appropriate word.
"Sure," she muttered.
"I'm sorry about . . . after the movie."
"Whatever, Bella." She glared out the windshield instead of looking at me. She seemed to be growing angrier rather than getting over it.
"See you Monday?"
"Yeah. Bye."
I gave up and shut the door. She drove away, still without looking at me.
I'd forgotten her by the time I was inside.
Charlie was waiting for me in the middle of the hall, his arms folded tight over his chest with his hands balled into fists.
"Hey, Dad," I said absentmindedly as I ducked around Charlie, heading for the stairs. I'd been thinking about him for too long, and I wanted to be upstairs before it caught up with me.
"Where have you been?" Charlie demanded.
I looked at my dad, surprised. "I went to a movie in Port Angeles with Jessica. Like I told you this morning."
"Humph," he grunted.
"Is that okay?"
He studied my face, his eyes widening as if he saw something unexpected. "Yeah, that's fine. Did you have fun?"
"Sure," I said. "We watched zombies eat people. It was great."
His eyes narrowed.
"'Night, Dad."
He let me pass. I hurried to my room.
I lay in my bed a few minutes later, resigned as the pain finally made its appearance.
It was a crippling thing, this sensation that a huge hole had been punched through my chest, excising my most vital organs and leaving ragged, unhealed gashes around the edges that continued to throb and bleed despite the passage of time. Rationally, I knew my lungs must still be intact, yet I gasped for air and my head spun like my efforts yielded me nothing. My heart must have been beating, too, but I couldn't hear the sound of my pulse in my ears; my hands felt blue with cold. I curled inward, hugging my ribs to hold myself together. I scrambled for my numbness, my denial, but it evaded me.