The Twilight Saga Collection part 2(257)

It didn’t look hard.

Clenching my teeth as I concentrated, I tried to copy his casual step into empty air.

Ha! The ground seemed to move toward me so slowly that it was nothing at all to place my feet—what shoes had Alice put me in? Stilettos? She’d lost her mind—to place my silly shoes exactly right so that landing was no different than stepping one foot forward on a flat surface.

I absorbed the impact in the balls of my feet, not wanting to snap off the thin heels. My landing seemed just as quiet as his. I grinned at him.

“Right. Easy.”

He smiled back. “Bella?”

“Yes?”

“That was quite graceful—even for a vampire.”

I considered that for a moment, and then I beamed. If he’d just been saying that, then Emmett would have laughed. No one found his remark humorous, so it must have been true. It was the first time anyone had ever applied the word graceful to me in my entire life… or, well, existence anyway.

“Thank you,” I told him.

And then I hooked the silver satin shoes off my feet one by one and lobbed them together back through the open window. A little too hard, maybe, but I heard someone catch them before they could damage the paneling.

Alice grumbled, “Her fashion sense hasn’t improved as much as her balance.”

Edward took my hand—I couldn’t stop marveling at the smoothness, the comfortable temperature of his skin—and darted through the backyard to the edge of the river. I went along with him effortlessly.

Everything physical seemed very simple.

“Are we swimming?” I asked him when we stopped beside the water.

“And ruin your pretty dress? No. We’re jumping.”

I pursed my lips, considering. The river was about fifty yards wide here.

“You first,” I said.

He touched my cheek, took two quick backward strides, and then ran back those two steps, launching himself from a flat stone firmly embedded in the riverbank. I studied the flash of movement as he arced over the water, finally turning a somersault just before he disappeared into the thick trees on the other side of the river.

“Show-off,” I muttered, and heard his invisible laugh.

I backed up five paces, just in case, and took a deep breath.

Suddenly, I was anxious again. Not about falling or getting hurt—I was more worried about the forest getting hurt.

It had come on slowly, but I could feel it now—the raw, massive strength thrilling in my limbs. I was suddenly sure that if I wanted to tunnel under the river, to claw or beat my way straight through the bedrock, it wouldn’t take me very long. The objects around me—the trees, the shrubs, the rocks… the house—had all begun to look very fragile.

Hoping very much that Esme was not particularly fond of any specific trees across the river, I began my first stride. And then stopped when the tight satin split six inches up my thigh. Alice!

Well, Alice always seemed to treat clothes as if they were disposable and meant for one-time usage, so she shouldn’t mind this. I bent to carefully grasp the hem at the undamaged right seam between my fingers and, exerting the tiniest amount of pressure possible, I ripped the dress open to the top of my thigh. Then I fixed the other side to match.

Much better.

I could hear the muffled laughter in the house, and even the sound of someone gritting her teeth. The laughter came from upstairs and down, and I very easily recognized the much different, rough, throaty chuckle from the first floor.

So Jacob was watching, too? I couldn’t imagine what he was thinking now, or what he was still doing here. I’d envisioned our reunion  —if he could ever forgive me—taking place far in the future, when I was more stable, and time had healed the wounds I’d inflicted in his heart.

I didn’t turn to look at him now, wary of my mood swings. It wouldn’t be good to let any emotion take too strong a hold on my frame of mind. Jasper’s fears had me on edge, too. I had to hunt before I dealt with anything else. I tried to forget everything else so I could concentrate.

“Bella?” Edward called from the woods, his voice moving closer. “Do you want to watch again?”

But I remembered everything perfectly, of course, and I didn’t want to give Emmett a reason to find more humor in my education. This was physical—it should be instinctive. So I took a deep breath and ran for the river.

Unhindered by my skirt, it took only one long bound to reach the water’s edge. Just an eighty-fourth of a second, and yet it was plenty of time—my eyes and my mind moved so quickly that one step was enough. It was simple to position my right foot just so against the flat stone and exert the adequate pressure to send my body wheeling up into the air. I was paying more attention to aim than force, and I erred on the amount of power necessary—but at least I didn’t err on the side that would have gotten me wet. The fifty yard width was slightly too easy a distance. . . .