In Which I Read Twilight: Chapter 24 -- An Impasse · 4:05pm Feb 23rd, 2018
Bella wakes up in a hospital, Edward at her side. According to him, she’s got a broken leg, four broken ribs, a cracked skull, and bruises everywhere, on top of losing a lot of blood. The explanation he gave to the doctors and Bella’s parents is that she fell down two flights of stairs and out a window. Supposedly, that could plausibly happen to her.
Bella asks Edward how he managed to stop from draining all of her blood. He admits he doesn’t know, and it must’ve been love; it should’ve been impossible.
“Don’t I tasted as good as I smell?” I smiled in response. That hurt my face.
“Even better — better than I’d imagined.”
“I’m sorry,” I apologized.
He raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Of all the things to apologize for.”
“What should I apologize for?”
“For very nearly taking yourself away from me forever.”
Edward, it was her decision. A stupid, stupid decision, but it was hers. You’re not the only person in her life. Stop framing her decisions in terms of you.
Bella asks about James. Edward says Emmett and Jasper took care of him, thereby: A) proving right all my assertions that they should kick the crap out of James immediately, and B) disproving Laurent’s statement that James is “absolutely lethal”. Absolutely lethal, yet he can get killed by two vampires tag-teaming him, and he can’t even kill one of them in the process. Then Bella wonders what Edward’s excuse is for being in Phoenix.
“Oh,” he said, and his forehead smoothed back into marble. “I came to Phoenix to talk some sense into you, to convince you to come back to Forks.” His wide eyes were so earnest and sincere, I almost believed him myself. “You agreed to see me, and you drove out to the hotel where I was staying with Carlisle and Alice — of course I was here with parental supervision,” he added virtuously, “but you tripped on the stairs on the way to my room and… well, you know the rest. You don’t need to remember any details, though; you have a good excuse to be a little muddled about the finer points.”
Not a bad story, in itself, but let’s take a look at this from Charlie’s perspective. He finds out that Bella has a boyfriend, one she’s been keeping secret from him. After a date, she storms into the house, screaming at the boyfriend that she hates him, and tells Charlie that she wants to return to Phoenix immediately. The boyfriend, claiming to care about her, goes out of his way to follow her to Phoenix. Shortly after he finds her, Bella winds up in the hospital with a boatload of injuries which the boyfriend claims she got from falling down two flights of stairs and out a window. Bella immediately goes back to him.
Kinda disturbing, isn’t it?
Renee, who’d flown from Florida in worry, arrives in the room. Edward pretends to be sleeping and Renee briefly voices my own thoughts:
She took in Edward’s still form on the recliner, and tiptoed to my bedside. “He never leaves, does he?” she mumbled to herself.
Bella and Renee exchange pleasantries. Renee reveals that her husband got on a team after all, the Jacksonville Suns (now the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp). Renee initially thinks Bella will want to move to Florida, but Bella denies it; she’s actually grown to love Forks and considers it her home now. Somehow, this dramatic shift in thought, from running away from Forks to wanting to stay there, doesn’t raise any eyebrows.
When Renee leaves, Edward says he thought Bella would want to go Florida; he’d stay in Forks, where he couldn’t hurt her. Bella says she wouldn’t leave Edward and gets anxious. As she gets worked up over the possibility of leaving Edward (yeah, definitely introducing a Clinginess Meter for New Moon), he threatens to knock her out. Really:
“Don’t leave me,” I begged in a broken voice.
“I won’t,” he promised. “Now relax before I call the nurse back to sedate you.”
It’s probably supposed to be sarcasm, but given Edward’s attitude over the book, I think he’s serious.
Edward goes on again about being dangerous, which I’d still like to see. Bella says there’s a simple solution to that: he turns her into a vampire so she can be like him. That way, she won’t be so vulnerable. And the ease with which she decides to give up being human, even as Edward brings up all sorts of valid points opposing her turning, is kind of disturbing.
“Charlie?” he asked curtly. “Renee?”
Minutes passed in silence as I struggled to answer his question. I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. I closed it again. He waited, and his expression became triumphant because he knew I had no true answer.
“Look, that’s not an issue either,” I finally muttered; my voice was as unconvincing as it always was when I lied. “Renee has always made the choices that work for her — she’d want me to do the same. And Charlie’s resilient, he’s used to being on his own. I can’t take care of them forever. I have my own life to live.”
Yeah, fuck them. Bella admits she’s lying to herself about it being easy for them but still wants to be a vampire. They don’t matter, right? No. She has her own life to live. Never mind that they both care deeply for her.
“Exactly,” he snapped, “and I won’t end it for you.”
“If you’re waiting for me to be on my deathbed, I’ve got news for you! I was just there!”
“You’re going to recover,” he reminded me.
I took a deep breath to calm myself, ignoring the spasm of pain it triggered. I stared at him, and he stared back. There was no compromise in his face.
“No,” I said slowly. “I’m not.”
His forehead creased. “Of course you are. You may have a scar or two…”
“You’re wrong,” I insisted. “I’m going to die.”
“Really, Bella.” He was anxious now. “You’ll be out of here in a few days. Two week (sic) at the most.”
I glared at him. “I may not die now… but I’m going to die sometime. Every minute of the day, I get closer. And I’m going to get old.”
You’re so worried about growing old that you want to become a vampire now? That’s not healthy when you’re a teenager. Yes, you’re going to get old. Eventually. Not for decades. And this argument just comes in from nowhere; Bella’s never been concerned about growing old before.
He frowned as what I was saying sunk in, pressing his long fingers to his temples and closing his eyes. “That’s how it’s supposed to happen. How it should happen. How it would have happened if I didn’t exist — and I shouldn’t exist.”
I snorted. He opened his eyes in surprise. “That’s stupid. That’s like going to someone who’s just won the lottery, taking their money, and saying, ‘Look, let’s just go back to how things should be. It’s better this way.’ And I’m not buying it.”
Considering how often lottery winners end up in bankruptcy, taking away their money might the right thing to do in some situations.
Edward says he won’t change her, but Bella points out that he’s not the only vampire she knows. In fact, she deduces that Alice has seen a vision of Bella becoming a vampire. Caught in a deadlock, and each refusing to give an inch, Edward summons the nurse to knock her out with pain meds. So, dang, he wasn’t being sarcastic. He actually drugs her into unconsciousness when he can’t win an argument with her. Even when I give him the benefit of the doubt, he goes for the more abusive route. Such a super dude. The chapter closes as Bella falls asleep. Near the end, I caught this bit of prose:
“I love you,” he whispered.
“Me, too.”
I know what Meyer was going for, but my brain initially parsed it as: “I love you.” “I love me, too.”
Previously, the only disturbing side of the romantic couple was Edward. Bella was just useless, not disturbing. But now, seeing how quickly Bella wants to ditch her mortal life completely, makes me wonder if there’s something seriously wrong with her. She is not right.
So, place your bets. How long before he starts carrying chloroform around in case he gets into more arguments with her?
4803820
He probably already is. He just doesn't use it now because it's easier to cover his tracks by summoning the nurse.
When Bella opens her mouth, I'm starting to hear "But Daddy, I want an Oompa-Loompa now!" I don't suppose there's some egg quality scale we could stick her on?
And yeah, if my daughter came back that injured and adoring the boyfriend she apparently ran away from, I'd be more than a little concerned.
Man, this one chapter seems to have the most intrinsic wrongness of the whole book.
4803915
She was a bad egg.
4803939
Indeed. I bet it gets worse, though, throughout the series.
Well, she is very clumsy, I'm told.