"Are you kidding?" I shivered and reached out to turn the heat on.
I watched Jacob to see if he was just playing tough so I wouldn't worry, but he looked comfortable enough. He had one arm over the back of my seat, though I was huddled up to keep warm.
Jacob really did look older than sixteen-not quite forty, but maybe older than me. Quil didn't have too much on him in the muscle department, for all that Jacob claimed to be a skeleton. The muscles were the long wiry kind, but they were definitely there under the smooth skin. His skin was such a pretty color, it made me jealous.
Jacob noticed my scrutiny.
"What?" he asked, suddenly self-conscious.
"Nothing. I just hadn't realized before. Did you know, you're sort of beautiful?"
Once the words slipped out, I worried that he might take my impulsive observation the wrong way.
But Jacob just rolled his eyes. "You hit your head pretty hard, didn't you?"
"I'm serious."
"Well, then, thanks. Sort of."
I grinned. "You're sort of welcome."
I had to have seven stitches to close the cut on my forehead. After the sting of the local anesthetic, there was no pain in the procedure. Jacob held my hand while Dr. Snow was sewing, and I tried not to think about why that was ironic.
We were at the hospital forever. By the time I was done, I had to drop Jacob off at his home and hurry back to cook dinner for Charlie. Charlie seemed to buy my story about falling in Jacob's garage. After all, it wasn't like I hadn't been able to land myself in the ER before with no more help than my own feet.
This night was not as bad as that first night, after I'd heard the perfect voice in Port Angeles. The hole came back, the way it always did when I was away from Jacob, but it didn't throb so badly around the edges. I was already planning ahead, looking forward to more delusions, and that was a distraction. Also, I knew I would feel better tomorrow when I was with Jacob again. That made the empty hole and the familiar pain easier to bear; relief was in sight. The nightmare, too, had lost a little of its potency. I was horrified by the nothingness, as always, but I was also strangely impatient as I waited for the moment that would send me screaming into consciousness. I knew the nightmare had to end.
The next Wednesday, before I could get home from the ER, Dr. Gerandy called to warn my father that I might possibly have a concussion and advised him to wake me up every two hours through the night to make sure it wasn't serious. Charlie's eyes narrowed suspiciously at my weak explanation about tripping again.
"Maybe you should just stay out of the garage altogether, Bella," he suggested that night during dinner.
I panicked, worried that Charlie was about to lay down some kind of edict that would prohibit La Push, and consequently my motorcycle. And I wasn't giving it up-I'd had the most amazing hallucination today. My velvet-voiced delusion had yelled at me for almost five minutes before I'd hit the brake too abruptly and launched myself into the tree. I'd take whatever pain that would cause me tonight without complaint.
"This didn't happen in the garage," I protested quickly. "We were hiking, and I tripped over a rock."
"Since when do you hike?" Charlie asked skeptically.
"Working at Newton's was bound to rub off sometime," I pointed out. "Spend every day selling all the virtues of the outdoors, eventually you get curious."
Charlie glared at me, unconvinced.
"I'll be more careful," I promised, surreptitiously crossing my fingers under the table.
"I don't mind you hiking right there around La Push, but keep close to town, okay?"
"Why?"
"Well, we've been getting a lot of wildlife complaints lately. The forestry department is going to check into it, but for the time being . . ."
"Oh, the big bear," I said with sudden comprehension. "Yeah, some of the hikers coming through Newton's have seen it. Do you think there's really some giant mutated grizzly out there?"
His forehead creased. "There's something. Keep it close to town, okay?"
"Sure, sure," I said quickly. He didn't look completely appeased.
"Charlie's getting nosy," I complained to Jacob when I picked him up after school Friday.
"Maybe we should cool it with the bikes." He saw my objecting expression and added, "At least for a week or so. You could stay out of the hospital for a week, right?"
"What are we going to do?" I griped.
He smiled cheerfully. "Whatever you want."
I thought about that for a minute-about what I wanted.
I hated the idea of losing even my brief seconds of closeness with the memories that didn't hurt-the ones that came on their own, without me thinking of them consciously. If I couldn't have the bikes, I was going to have to find some other avenue to the danger and the adrenaline, and that was going to take serious thought and creativity. Doing nothing in the meantime was not appealing. Suppose I got depressed again, even with Jake? I had to keep occupied.