TWILIGHT (The Twilight Saga, Book 1)

It was the light. It was still the gray-green light of a cloudy day in the forest, but it was clearer somehow. I
realized there was no fog veiling my window.
I jumped up to look outside, and then groaned in horror.
A fine layer of snow covered the yard, dusted the top of my truck, and whitened the road. But that
wasn't the worst part. All the rain from yesterday had frozen solid — coating the needles on the trees in
fantastic, gorgeous patterns, and making the driveway a deadly ice slick. I had enough trouble not falling
down when the ground was dry; it might be safer for me to go back to bed now.
Charlie had left for work before I got downstairs. In a lot of ways, living with Charlie was like having my
own place, and I found myself reveling in the aloneness instead of being lonely.
I threw down a quick bowl of cereal and some orange juice from the carton. I felt excited to go to
school, and that scared me. I knew it wasn't the stimulating learning environment I was anticipating, or
seeing my new set of friends. If I was being honest with myself, I knew I was eager to get to school
because I would see Edward Cullen. And that was very, very stupid.
I should be avoiding him entirely after my brainless and embarrassing babbling yesterday. And I was
suspicious of him; why should he lie about his eyes? I was still frightened of the hostility I sometimes felt
emanating from him, and I was still tongue-tied whenever I pictured his perfect face. I was well aware
that my league and his league were spheres that did not touch. So I shouldn't be at all anxious to see him
today.
It took every ounce of my concentration to make it down the icy brick driveway alive. I almost lost my
balance when I finally got to the truck, but I managed to cling to the side mirror and save myself. Clearly,
today was going to be nightmarish.
Driving to school, I distracted myself from my fear of falling and my unwanted speculations about
Edward Cullen by thinking about Mike and Eric, and the obvious difference in how teenage boys
responded to me here. I was sure I looked exactly the same as I had in Phoenix. Maybe it was just that
the boys back home had watched me pass slowly through all the awkward phases of adolescence and
still thought of me that way. Perhaps it was because I was a novelty here, where novelties were few and
far between. Possibly my crippling clumsiness was seen as endearing rather than pathetic, casting me as a
damsel in distress. Whatever the reason, Mike's puppy dog behavior and Eric's apparent rivalry with him
were disconcerting. I wasn't sure if I didn't prefer being ignored.
My truck seemed to have no problem with the black ice that covered the roads. I drove very slowly,
though, not wanting to carve a path of destruction through Main Street.
When I got out of my truck at school, I saw why I'd had so little trouble. Something silver caught my eye,
and I walked to the back of the truck — carefully holding the side for support — to examine my tires.
There were thin chains crisscrossed in diamond shapes around them. Charlie had gotten up who knows
how early to put snow chains on my truck. My throat suddenly felt tight. I wasn't used to being taken
care of, and Charlie's unspoken concern caught me by surprise.
I was standing by the back corner of the truck, struggling to fight back the sudden wave of emotion the
snow chains had brought on, when I heard an odd sound.
It was a high-pitched screech, and it was fast becoming painfully loud. I looked up, startled.
I saw several things simultaneously. Nothing was moving in slow motion, the way it does in the movies.
Instead, the adrenaline rush seemed to make my brain work much faster, and I was able to absorb in
clear detail several things at once.
Edward Cullen was standing four cars down from me, staring at me in horror. His face stood out from a
sea of faces, all frozen in the same mask of shock. But of more immediate importance was the dark blue
van that was skidding, tires locked and squealing against the brakes, spinning wildly across the ice of the
parking lot. It was going to hit the back corner of my truck, and I was standing between them. I didn't
even have time to close my eyes.
Just before I heard the shattering crunch of the van folding around the truck bed, something hit me, hard,
but not from the direction I was expecting. My head cracked against the icy blacktop, and I felt
something solid and cold pinning me to the ground. I was lying on the pavement behind the tan car I'd
parked next to. But I didn't have a chance to notice anything else, because the van was still coming. It
had curled gratingly around the end of the truck and, still spinning and sliding, was about to collide with
me again.
A low oath made me aware that someone was with me, and the voice was impossible not to recognize.
Two long, white hands shot out protectively in front of me, and the van shuddered to a stop a foot from
my face, the large hands fitting providentially into a deep dent in the side of the van's body.
Then his hands moved so fast they blurred. One was suddenly gripping under the body of the van, and
something was dragging me, swinging my legs around like a rag doll's, till they hit the tire of the tan car. A
groaning metallic thud hurt my ears, and the van settled, glass popping, onto the asphalt — exactly
where, a second ago, my legs had been.
It was absolutely silent for one long second before the screaming began. In the abrupt bedlam, I could
hear more than one person shouting my name. But more clearly than all the yelling, I could hear Edward
Cullen's low, frantic voice in my ear.
"Bella? Are you all right?"
"I'm fine." My voice sounded strange. I tried to sit up, and realized he was holding me against the side of
his body in an iron grasp.
"Be careful," he warned as I struggled. "I think you hit your head pretty hard."
I became aware of a throbbing ache centered above my left ear.
"Ow," I said, surprised.
"That's what I thought." His voice, amazingly, sounded like he was suppressing laughter.
"How in the…" I trailed off, trying to clear my head, get my bearings. "How did you get over here so
fast?"
"I was standing right next to you, Bella," he said, his tone serious again.
I turned to sit up, and this time he let me, releasing his hold around my waist and sliding as far from me as
he could in the limited space. I looked at his concerned, innocent expression and was disoriented again
by the force of his gold-colored eyes. What was I asking him?
And then they found us, a crowd of people with tears streaming down their faces, shouting at each other,
shouting at us.
"Don't move," someone instructed.
"Get Tyler out of the van!" someone else shouted.
There was a flurry of activity around us. I tried to get up, but Edward's cold hand pushed my shoulder
down.
"Just stay put for now."
"But it's cold," I complained. It surprised me when he chuckled under his breath. There was an edge to
the sound.
"You were over there," I suddenly remembered, and his chuckle stopped short. "You were by your car."
His expression turned hard. "No, I wasn't."
"I saw you." All around us was chaos. I could hear the gruffer voices of adults arriving on the scene. But I
obstinately held on to our argument; I was right, and he was going to admit it.
"Bella, I was standing with you, and I pulled you out of the way." He unleashed the full, devastating
power of his eyes on me, as if trying to communicate something crucial.
"No." I set my jaw.
The gold in his eyes blazed. "Please, Bella."
"Why?" I demanded.
"Trust me," he pleaded, his soft voice overwhelming.
I could hear the sirens now. "Will you promise to explain everything to me later?"
"Fine," he snapped, abruptly exasperated.
"Fine," I repeated angrily.
It took six EMTs and two teachers — Mr. Varner and Coach Clapp — to shift the van far enough away
from us to bring the stretchers in. Edward vehemently refused his, and I tried to do the same, but the
traitor told them I'd hit my head and probably had a concussion. I almost died of humiliation when they
put on the neck brace. It looked like the entire school was there, watching soberly as they loaded me in
the back of the ambulance. Edward got to ride in the front. It was maddening.
To make matters worse, Chief Swan arrived before they could get me safely away.
"Bella!" he yelled in panic when he recognized me on the stretcher.
"I'm completely fine, Char — Dad," I sighed. "There's nothing wrong with me."
He turned to the closest EMT for a second opinion. I tuned him out to consider the jumble of inexplicable
images churning chaotically in my head. When they'd lifted me away from the car, I had seen the deep
dent in the tan car's bumper — a very distinct dent that fit the contours of Edward's shoulders… as if he
had braced himself against the car with enough force to damage the metal frame…
And then there was his family, looking on from the distance, with expressions that ranged from
disapproval to fury but held no hint of concern for their brother's safety.
I tried to think of a logical solution that could explain what I had just seen — a solution that excluded the