A little introspection is amazing. This chapter opens in a similar way to the previous one, with Bella still pining over Edward. But last chapter, she was doing everything she could to avoid thinking about him, so she came off as dull and insufferable. Here, she actually takes stock of her situation and what she should do about it. I still can’t say I sympathize with her — FOUR MONTHS — but I no longer want to beat her head into paste against a wall.

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Bella and Alice arrive in Volterra to find the streets packed with people for St. Marcus’s Day. After driving as close to Edward as possible (which isn’t that close), Alice tells Bella to just get out of the car and run to him. Bella runs for three pages straight to get to Edward, reaching him right before he steps into the sun.

It was really him, no hallucination this time. And I realized that my delusions were more flawed than I’d realized; they’d never done him justice.

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When Bella wakes up early in the morning, she sees Edward in her room and thinks that either she’s dreaming or she’s dead after drowning. No, I don’t get it, either. After too long, she finally concludes that, yes, the events of the past few days actually happened. Edward comments that he’s technically not supposed to be there, as Charlie banned him from the house.

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After a week, Bella’s still alive; Victoria hasn’t gotten to her yet. Still, she’s nervous and jumpy. To make matters worse, she hasn’t heard from Jacob, through the phone or otherwise. It’s definitely not for a lack of trying on her part, since she’s tried to reach him every day. Occasionally dipping into unhealthy territory:

On Wednesday I called every half hour until after eleven at night, desperate to hear the warmth of Jacob’s voice.

CM + 1

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As Bella, Edward, and Alice leave behind the vampire blood orgy (that’d be a great name for a death metal band), Bella slowly freaks out at what’s going on in the room she just departed. One of the Volturi’s human servants asks if they need anything, but Edward sends her away. According to Edward, she’s aware of what’s going on and is fully aware she could end up as a vampire’s dinner, but goes through with it in the hopes that the Volturi will turn her.

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Before we begin New Moon, I’m happy to announce a new staple to this series, the Clinginess Meter! Whenever Bella — just Bella — says or does something that’s horrifically obsessive about Edward, rather than comment on it, I’ll simply put the quote down and add 1 to the Clinginess Meter. And it needs to be obsessive; simply “I love you” doesn’t count, but “I could never live without you” does.

That settled, on we go!

Clinginess Meter: 0

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In spite of having a human bleeding in front of him, Carlisle immediately takes control of the situation, telling Emmett and Rosalie to get Jasper out of the room. He’s perfected his self-control as a surgeon, after all. Carlisle and Edward take Bella to the kitchen to get her fixed up. Slowly, all the other vampires file away to avoid temptation, leaving Carlisle and Bella alone while he picks out the glass and stitches her up. And the next scene, aside from Carlisle putting antiseptic on the

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Bella wakes up on the beach, Jacob thumping her in the back to get the water out of her lungs. She gradually comes to her senses and puts together that Jacob rescued her. The other werewolves are nearby, asking if she’s okay. She says she’ll live, but Jacob still decides to take her to a hospital. He’d come back because Victoria had slipped past the werewolves and into the ocean. Jacob was scared because he thought she might swim to the beach, where Bella spends a lot of her time, so he raced

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Jacob and Bella start working on the motorcycles immediately. Jacob chats about his sophomore year at school and his two best friends, Quil (sic) and Embry. Almost immediately, they pop over to the garage to see what’s up.

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The vampire waiting for Bella is Alice. Naturally, Bella’s ecstatic about this.

I locked my arms around her, gasping to inhale as much of the scent of her skin as possible. It wasn’t like anything else — not floral or spice, citrus or musk. No perfume in the world could compare. My memory hadn’t done it justice.

CM + 1

Alice is there because, being the seer that she is, she saw Bella jump off the cliff.

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Edward reluctantly runs Bella to his house. When they arrive, they have a discussion on their relationship.

“You can leave me,” I explained. “The Volturi, Victoria… they’re nothing compared to that.”

CM + 1

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Time passes for Bella; Jacob’s given her a way to take her mind off things, so she isn’t nearly as miserable anymore. She’s aware that her behavior is self-destructive, but doesn’t care. Also, days of riding a motorcycle means she actually learns how to ride a motorcycle:

I was getting better with my bike, which meant fewer bandages to worry Charlie. But it also meant that the voice in my head began to fade, until I heard it nore more. Quietly, I panicked.

CM + 1

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Apparently shirtlessness is a symptom of lycanthropy, because the first thing Bella notices about all four of the other members of Jacob’s pack is that they’re void of thoracic covering. Great.

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Bella’s still alive by spring break. She’s settled into a comfortable routine of visiting Jacob on weekends, talking with him whenever he has the time. During a dinner at La Push on the first day of spring break, she and Jacob slip out early for some alone time.

He reached over and took my hand. His skin was blazing on mine.

“Is that one of those wolf things?” I asked him. “The heat, I mean.”

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There’s a brief description on how, several weeks later, everything’s back to the way it was before the Cullens left. Charlie’s set visiting hours for Edward and basically put Bella under house arrest, which I find hard to argue with. Bella’s looking at colleges to keep that option open and, apparently, Edward’s already gone to Harvard. If you’ve ever gone to Harvard, why the fuck would you go back to high school, you stupid son of a bitch?!

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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

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Jacob’s sickness gets worse; according to Billy, he has mono and shouldn’t have visitors for more than a month. To make matters worse for Bella, the phone lines around La Push are acting up, so she can’t call him. Bella, however, is suspicious after looking the disease up online; mono isn’t very infectious and a lot of the symptoms don’t match what Jacob was like before he got sick. Besides, the main way you get mono is by kissing someone else with the virus, and they haven’t been kissing.

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When we last left Bella, she was thinking about whether or not to tell Jacob about the hunting parties out looking for wolves. He’s her best friend, but she thinks he could be a killer. She’s come to a compromise: warn him about the hunters, but also try to convince him to stop eating hikers. She drives over to Jacob’s house, but Billy says Jacob’s still sleeping. So Bella just bangs open the door as loudly as possible without knocking. However, she changes her tune once she sees Jacob asleep

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Jacob’s come to visit Bella — with Jared and Embry waiting in his car, in case the vampire he smells proves to be hostile. He’s angry even as Bella invites him in, and Bella doesn’t like that.

I locked gazes with first Jared and then Embry — I didn’t like the hard way they eyed me; did they really think I would let anything hurt Jacob? — before I shut the door on them.

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The first sentence of the chapter is this:

We made our flight with seconds to spare, and then the true torture began.

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