Chapter Nine (continued)
Clumsy/hilarious: “‘You were going to fight them?’ This upset him. ‘Didn't you think about running?’
‘I fall down a lot when I run,’ I admitted."
Best. Excuse. Ever.
A true first: “We were in front of Charlie's house. The lights were on, my truck in its place, everything utterly normal. It was like waking from a dream.”
I can honestly say that this is the first time in my life full of consuming stories that I have really and truly wished for the “wake up from a dream” ending.
???: "’Bella? ... Will you promise me something? ... Don't go into the woods alone."
What is this, Friday the 13th?
Not that I don’t wish it were. This book could really use some more needless death.
...Especially Bella’s.
Predictions of the predictable future: “This [not going into the woods], at least, was an easy promise to honor.”
Well, I know where Bella’s going in the very near future by herself.
You just mark my words.
Unintended consequences: “I turned and he was leaning toward me, his pale, glorious face just inches from mine. My heart stopped beating.”
I stood there for a moment, a lustful smile creeping onto my face, then collapsed on the ground in an uncomfortable heap.
I don’t remember much from the trip to the hospital.
They said Edward had panicked and dumped me on the sidewalk in front of Charlie’s house. Luckily Charile was up that night doing something particularly boring as normal and heard the commotion. He was the one that actually took me to the hospital and saved my life and stuff.
I still don’t like him.
I only wish I could have been there to see Edward abandon me. I’m sure his eyes looked dreamy and half-worried as he quickly dumped me on the ground and ran away, every step a picture of grace.
The whole post-date cardiac arrest thing did get the rest of the school gossiping for quite a while though. Don’t those stupid hicks know that’s a perfectly normal reaction to being obsessively infatuated with Edward?
Sheesh. Bunch of weirdos.
Minty fresh: “‘Sleep well,’ he said. His breath blew in my face, stunning me.”
Dude, get a breath mint! What the hell man? I was all into you too and you had to go and ruin it with your stinky breath.
Seriously though, Bella goes on to say that his breath smelled wonderful because it contained the same scent as his jacket.
WTF?
Whose breath smells the same as their clothing? Does this guy order sides of leather with his animal blood?
What a pair these two make.
A desire to nitpick: “‘Hello?’ I asked breathlessly.”
I really want to nitpick here about the fact that it’s technically impossible to ask anything while lacking the breath required for human speech, but Twilight is hardly the first book I’ve read to use this stupid speech tag so, as much as I want to, I can’t hold it against Steph in particular.
Damn.
Little white lies: Jess: “‘Bella?’
Bella: ‘Hey, Jess, I was just going to call you.’
Well, I was, but then I remembered that I hate you. Then I decided not to.
The cold, it burns: “It wasn't until I was in the shower — the water too hot, burning my skin — that I realized I was freezing.”
A few minutes after finally figuring out that I was cold, I realized that I had forgotten to turn on the cold water in the shower at all and now had third degree burns all over me. I chided myself for being so forgetful. A little while later I decided a few horrified screams of pain might be appropriate, so I let loose.
Self-comfort: “I dressed for bed swiftly and climbed under my quilt, curling into a ball, hugging myself to keep warm.”
Yes Bella, keep telling yourself that the cold is the reason you’re curled into a ball hugging yourself at night, not the fact that you’ve fallen in love with a goddamn vampire and are now totally screwed.
An inside look: “My mind still swirled dizzily, full of images I couldn't understand...”
Now I know what it's like to be a ditz.
ZING!
To recap: “About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was part of him — and I didn't know how potent that part might be — that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.”
See, if you had just said all of this earlier, we could have saved ourselves an entire chapter.
Bella does have quite a talent for obvious restatement, however. She should find a way to put that talent to good use.
Maybe she should try being a writer or something.
Chapter Ten
Inner conflict: “It was very hard, in the morning, to argue with the part of me that was sure last night was a dream.”
This was primarily because that part of me was busy arguing with the part of me that kept trying to insist I shouldn’t be arguing with myself like this.
“It’s not healthy!” she kept saying. “People will think you’re crazy!”
Stupid part of me. What does she know?
Doom and gloom: “It was foggy and dark outside my window, absolutely perfect.”
Freakin’ goth chicks. Weirdos.
Friends in the sky: “Hopefully the rain would hold off until I could find Jessica.”
Luckily I’m fast friends with the rain god, Ishkur, so I can probably pull a favor for this one.
He owes me.
Foggy with fog: “It was unusually foggy; the air was almost smoky with it.”
Smoky with fog? Could you possibly come up with any more redundant of a descriptor than that? Wow. The master of truly creative pose as always, Steph.
I love how the air is “almost” smoky with it. Not quite, but almost. The air was so close to being smoky with fog that you could almost taste it, but alas, it was just plain old foggy.
Contradictory weather: “It was such a thick fog that I was a few feet down the driveway before I realized there was a car in it: a silver car.”
Let me get this straight. The fog is not even to the point where you’d consider it “smoky,” but it’s so thick that you can’t see more than a few feet down the driveway?
Someone’s being a little inconsistent again.
She needs a hotline: “‘Do you want to ride with me today?’ he [Edward] asked.... He was really giving me a choice — I was free to refuse, and part of him hoped for that.”
How is Edward the one with mind reading powers, again? Bella is displaying psychic abilities that would make Miss Cleo jealous. She can read Edward’s mind like a book.
A poorly written book, anyway.
Uncanny insight: “I frowned. ‘Do I react badly?’
Edward: ‘No, that's the problem. You take everything so coolly — it's unnatural. It makes me wonder what you're really thinking.’”
Here, Edward displays a frankly unnerving ability to point out a problem with the book that even Steph didn’t seem to catch on to. Even though Steph wrote Edward’s character....
Hmm....
You’d really think she’d learn from... herself.