In Which I Suffer Through New Moon: Chapter 8 -- Adrenaline · 12:36pm Mar 18th, 2018
Bella and Jacob start trying out the motorcycles. It doesn’t go so well, mainly because Bella has no clue as to what she’s doing. It’s kind of endearing; it reminds me of when I was learning a manual transmission. Eventually, Bella manages to put it in gear, learns how to change gears, and tries driving it. But as soon as she starts moving, she hears Edward’s voice again, telling her how stupid she’s being. She loses control of the bike, but since she’s barely moving, she’s not too badly hurt. As Jacob tries to check on her, Bella’s thinking. Deja vu couldn’t be the source of the hallucinations, since she’s doing something unfamiliar, so it must be adrenaline.
Bella tries again and hears Edward’s voice again. This time, it doesn’t distract her and she’s able to start driving the motorcycle. And the description of her driving makes me long for adrenaline-junkie Bella, rather than Edward-junkie Bella:
Suddenly, the gear caught and wrenched me forward.
And I was flying.
There was wind that wasn’t there before, blowing my skin against my skull and flinging my hair back behind me with enough force that it felt like someone was tugging on it. I’d left my stomach back at the starting point; the adrenaline coursed through my body, tingling in my veins. The trees raced past me, blurring into a wall of green.
When a turn comes, she panics and tries to brake. The bike spins out and she’s thrown off the road, cutting open her forehead in the process. Jacob decides to take her to the ER and gives her his shirt to stem the blood flow until then. Yes, the start of Jacob getting shirtless. He says he doesn’t feel cold, even though Bella needs to turn the heat up. As Jacob drives, Bella thinks about how she’s broken her promise to Edward, so she doesn’t feel as guilty about him breaking his, and she thinks about Jacob. We slip back into Twilight’s usual standards when Bella’s thoughts about Jacob are mainly about how so frigging hot like whoa he is. He’s been having a growth spurt, and Bella notices.
Bella gets stitched up in the ER and heads home, giving Charlie a story about falling and hitting a hammer in Jacob’s garage. She has a similar incident the next day and goes to the ER again, with the doctor even informing Charlie she might have a concussion. This time, she claims she tripped while hiking. Charlie’s suspicious, as he should be.
“I’ll be more careful,” I promised, surreptitiously crossing my fingers under the table.
I hate Bella. I really do.
When Charlie advises her to be careful, it’s not vague; there’s been reports of bears in the area. Still, he’s suspicious, so when Bella tells Jacob about this, Jacob decides to cool it with the motorcycles for a little while to keep Bella out of the hospital. He asks her if there’s anything she wants to do to fill up the time; Bella quickly decides on finding the meadow where Edward showed her he was a wimp pretending to be a vampire sparkled. She doesn’t tell Jacob that last fact, though; she just says there was a meadow she found while hiking that she wants to find again.
Before they leave, Jacob sets up a grid system on a map, so they can systematically search the forest for it. Billy notices what they’re doing but, in spite of the bear attacks, doesn’t seem too concerned about it. When Bella and Jacob get out in the forest, she asks about Embry. Unfortunately, Embry’s still with Sam.
Their expedition ultimately ends in failure, but they haven’t covered the whole map yet, so they can try again some other day. They talk about maybe seeing the monster bear and joking about if it’d eat them.
“Bears don’t want to eat people. We don’t taste that good.” He grinned at me in the dark cab. “Of course, you might be an exception. I bet you’d taste good.”
“Thanks so much,” I said, looking away. He wasn’t the first person to tell me that.
First, eyeroll at that last line. Second, humans apparently taste like pork, leading to the phrase “long pork” standing in for human flesh meant to be eaten by cannibals. …Why are you looking at me like that?
That’s the end of the chapter, but today we’re doing something special. You might’ve noticed that, for all Bella did to try to hear Edward’s voice, I never added anything to the Clinginess Meter. That’s because Bella’s clingy statements in this chapter are so messed up that, just this once, I’m giving them their own special section and my reactions to them. All statements are plus 1 unless noted. Without further ado, I present The Fucked-up Shit Bella Says Variety Hour.
Forget cheating. Maybe I’d found a way to generate the hallucinations — that was much more important.
HOLY SHIT, BELLA.
The sheer beauty of [the voice] amazed me. I couldn’t allow my memory to lose it, no matter the price.
SWEET SOLAR CELESTIA, BELLA.
And then to discover the key to the hallucinations! At least, I hoped I had. I was going to test the theory as soon as possible. Maybe they’d get through with me quickly in the ER, and I could try again tonight.
LUNA’S PANTS, BELLA.
I was already planning ahead, looking forward to more delusions, and that was a distraction.
HOLY CRYSTALLINE CADANCE, BELLA.
I’d had the most amazing hallucination today. My velvet-voiced delusion had yelled at me for almost five minutes before I’d hit the brake too abruptly and launched myself into the tree. I’d take whatever pain that would cause me tonight without complaint.
TWILIGHT’S LEFT BUTTCHEEK, BELLA.
I hated the idea of losing even my brief seconds of closeness with the memories that didn’t hurt — the ones that came on their own, without me thinking of them consciously. If I couldn’t have the bikes, I was going to have to find some other avenue to the danger and the adrenaline, and that was going to take some serious thought and creativity.
YOU’RE HORRIFICALLY MESSED-UP, BELLA. I’M RUNNING OUT OF FAKE SWEARS, BELLA.
This might be a very bad thing. But it would be worth it, if I got to hear him.
I’M ALSO INCREASING THE MULTIPLIER ON THE CLINGINESS METER, BELLA.
I mean, look at all that. What the fuck.
Clinginess Meter: 32 x 3
Twilight's left buttcheek, Bella.
Twilight's
left
buttcheek
Flurry Heart's soiled nappy, that girl has issues.
And personally? If my daughter got hospitalized twice in as many days, I'd think twice about letting her see that boy. And be generally concerned that she either attracted or was attracted to abusers, given the Cullens.
… Yikes. I don’t even know what to call this anymore. It was already a train wreck, I need to find a more extreme description.
4819554
Yeah, we've gone past train wreck at this point. By the end, I fully expect Discord will be shooting pool with planets.
The Fucked-up Shit Bella Says Variety Hour = Cinemasins Bonus Round