The Twilight saga has in particular captured my attention. I had my head buried in so many history books for years, I actually have never read a novel even close to being similar before. I read as a child, skipped it except for Crowley and other weird stuff as a teen, and then went right to history, so, pleasure reading is relatively new. I don't post as many excerpts from, for example Amelia Peabody, because that is exactly what I expect myself to read - fancy language and all.
I am amazed when friends, e.g. MJ, tell me how good Twilight is. I saw the first movie, uh, ok, then saw the second, and I realized something, something about myself. I read the book, and am still amazed that this teenage vampire love story could not only be a movie, but widely popular! Hilarious. It's so over the top, even for me. To read so much angst is hard, but I kind of get it.
I can relate to the way Bella feels sometimes. She has physiological responses to Edward she can't ignore, and vice versa. Heart beating fast, uneven breathing, lightheadedness, things she can't comprehend. Without a choice, she just, falls. She can't even help it.
....................................
When he parked in front of my house, he reached over to take my hand. He touched me very carefully, pressing the tips of his fingers softy against my shoulder. "You should be in a good mood, today of all days," he whispered. His sweet breath fanned across my face.
"And if I can't be in a good mood?" I asked, my breathing uneven.
His golden eyes smoldered. "Too bad."
My head was already spinning by the time he leaned over and and pressed his icy lips against mine. My pulse was thudding in my ears. I put one hand over my heart. It drummed hyperactively under my palm.
"Do you think I'll ever get better at this?" I wondered mostly to myself. "That my heart might someday stop trying to jump out of my chest whenever you touch me?"
"I really hope not," he said, a bit smug.
I rolled my eyes.
It was Jacob himself. Jacob was simply a perpetually happy person, and he carried that happiness with him like an aura, sharing it with whoever was near him. Like an earthbound sun, whenever someone was within his gravitational pull, Jacob warmed them. It was natural, a part of who he was. No wonder I was so eager to see him.
I always had nightmares now, every night. Not nightmares really, not in the plural, because it was always the same nightmare. You'd think I'd get bored after so many months, grow immune to it. But the dream never failed to horrify me, and only ended when I woke myself up with screaming.
My nightmare probably wouldn't even frighten someone else...... .......there had never been anything more than just this empty, dreary wood, and there would never be anything more for me, nothing but nothing.
I wondered how long this could last. Maybe someday, years from now - if the pain would decrease to the point where I could bear it - I would be able to look back on those few short months that would always be the best of my life. And, if it were possible that the pain would ever soften enough to allow me to do that, I was sure I would feel grateful for as much time as he'd given me. More than I'd asked for, more than I deserved. Maybe someday I would be able to see it that way.
But what if the hole in my chest never got any better? If the raw edges never healed? If the damage was permanent and irreversible?
As if he'd never existed. What a stupid and impossible promise to make! He could never talk to me or see me again, but that didn't put things back the way they'd been before I'd met him. The physical evidence was the most insignificant part of the equation. I was changed, my insides altered almost past the point of recognition. Even my outsides looked different....But I was not beautiful, and I probably looked closer to a zombie.
Even more, I had never meant to love him. One thing I truly knew - knew it in the pit of my stomach, in the center of my bones, knew it from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet, knew it deep in my empty chest - was how love gave someone the power to break you.
I'd been broken beyond repair.
(Charlie to Alice about Bella) "Now and then I see something in her eyes, and I wonder if I've ever grasped how much pain she's really in. It's not normal..... it frightens me. Not like someone.......left her, but like someone died." His voice cracked.
It was like someone had died - like I had died. Because it had been more than just loosing the truest of loves, it was also losing a whole future, a whole family.....
Charlie went on in a hopeless tone. "I don't know if she's ever going to get over it- I'm not sure if it's in her nature to heal from something like this. She's always been such a constant little thing. She doesn't get past things, change her mind."
"She's one of a kind," Alice agreed in a dry voice.
What a disaster. how could I have alienated him so completely in such a short amount of time?
"Can't I be friends with you both at the same time?" I asked, my voice not hiding an ounce of the hurt I felt.
He shook his head slowly.
"I do not like the way things are."
What if you sincerely believed something was true, but you were dead wrong? What if you were so stubbornly sure that you were right, that you wouldn't even consider the truth?
Time had not made me immune to the perfection of his face, and I was sure I would never take any aspect of him for granted. My eyes traced over his features........I saved his eyes for last, knowing that when I looked into them I was likely to lose my train of thought. Staring into his eyes always made me feel extraordinary - sort of like my bones were turning spongy. I was also a little lightheaded, but that could have been because I'd forgotten to keep breathing. Again.
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