Life and Death

by Stephenie Meyer

  “You would have come,” she promised.

  I tried to speak calmly. “No doubt about it.”

  She frowned at our hands. “And then, as I tried to rearrange my schedule in a pointless attempt to avoid you, there you were—in that close, warm little room, the scent was maddening. I so very nearly took you then. There was only one other frail human there—so easily dealt with.”

  It was so strange, seeing my memories again, but this time with subtitles. Understanding for the first time what it had all meant, understanding the danger. Poor Mr. Cope. I flinched at the thought of how close I’d come to being inadvertently responsible for his death.

  “But I resisted. I don’t know how. I forced myself not to wait for you, not to follow you from the school. It was easier outside, when I couldn’t smell you anymore, to think clearly, to make the right decision. I left the others near home—I was too ashamed to tell them how weak I was, they only knew something was very wrong—and then I went straight to Carine, at the hospital, to tell her I was leaving.”

  I stared in surprise.

  “I traded cars with her—she had a full tank of gas and I was afraid to stop. I didn’t dare to go home, to face Earnest. He wouldn’t have let me go without a fight. He would have tried to convince me that it wasn’t necessary… .

  “By the next morning I was in Alaska.” She sounded ashamed, as if she was admitting some huge display of cowardice. “I spent two days there, with some old acquaintances … but I was homesick. I hated knowing I’d upset Earnest, and the rest of them, my adopted family. In the pure air of the mountains it was hard to believe you were so irresistible. I convinced myself it was weak to run away. I’d dealt with temptation before, not of this magnitude, not even close, but I was strong. Who were you, an insignificant human boy”—she grinned suddenly—“to chase me from the place I wanted to be? Ah, the deadly sin of pride.” She shook her head. “So I came back… .”

  I couldn’t speak.

  “I took precautions, hunting, feeding more than usual before seeing you again. I was sure that I was strong enough to treat you like any other human. I was arrogant about it.

  “It was unquestionably a complication that I couldn’t simply read your thoughts to know what your reaction was to me. I wasn’t used to having to go to such circuitous measures, listening to your words in Jeremy’s mind… . His mind isn’t very original, and it was annoying to have to stoop to that. And then I couldn’t know if you really meant what you were saying, or just saying what you thought your audience wanted to hear. It was all extremely irritating.” She frowned at the memory.

  “I wanted you to forget my behavior that first day, if possible, so I tried to talk with you like I would with any person. I was eager, actually, hoping to decipher some of your thoughts. But you were too interesting, I found myself caught up in your expressions … and every now and then you would move and the air would stir around you… . The scent would stun me again… .

  “Of course, then you were nearly crushed to death in front of my eyes. Later I thought of a perfectly good excuse for why I acted at that moment—because if I hadn’t saved you, if your blood had been spilled there in front of me, I don’t think I could have stopped myself from exposing us for what we are. But I only thought of that excuse later. At the time, all I could think was, Not him.”

  She shut her eyes, her expression agonized. For a long moment she was silent. I waited eagerly, which probably wasn’t the brightest reaction. But it was such a relief to finally understand the other half of the story.

  “In the hospital?” I asked.

  Her eyes flashed up to mine. “I was appalled. I couldn’t believe I had put us in danger after all, put myself in your power—you of all people. As if I needed another motive to kill you.” We both flinched as that word slipped out, and she continued quickly. “But the disaster had the opposite effect. I fought with Royal, El, and Jessamine when they suggested that now was the time … the worst fight we’ve ever had. Carine sided with me, and Archie.” She frowned sourly when she said his name. I couldn’t imagine why. “Earnest told me to do whatever I had to in order to stay.” She shook her head, a little indulgent smile on her lips.

  “All that next day I eavesdropped on the minds of everyone you spoke to, shocked that you kept your word. I didn’t understand you at all. But I knew that I couldn’t become more involved with you. I did my very best to stay as far from you as possible. And every day the perfume of your skin, your breath … it hit me as hard as the very first day.”

  She met my eyes again, and hers were oddly tender.

  “And for all that,” she continued, “I’d have fared better if I had exposed us all at that first moment, than if now, here—with no witnesses and nothing to stop me—I were to hurt you.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, Beau.” She touched my cheekbone lightly with her fingertips. A shock ran through me at this casual contact. “Beau, I couldn’t survive hurting you. You don’t know how it’s tortured me”—she looked down, ashamed again—“the thought of you, still, white, cold … to never see your face turn red again, to never see that flash of intuition in your eyes when you see through my pretenses … I couldn’t bear it.” She lifted her glorious, agonized eyes to mine. “You are the most important thing to me now. The most important thing to me ever.”

  My head was spinning at this rapid change in direction. Just minutes ago I’d thought we were talking about my imminent death. Now, suddenly, we were making declarations.

  I gripped her hand tighter, staring into her golden eyes.

  “You already know how I feel. I’m here because I would rather die with you than live without you.” I realized how melodramatic that sounded. “Sorry, I’m an idiot.”

  “You are an idiot,” she agreed with a laugh, and I laughed with her. This whole situation was idiocy—and impossibility and magic.

  “And so the lion fell in love with the lamb,” she murmured. The word was like another electric jolt to my system.

  I tried to cover my reaction. “What a stupid lamb.”

  She sighed. “What a sick, masochistic lion.”

  She stared into the forest for a long time, and I wondered what she was thinking.

  “Why … ?” I began, but then paused, not sure how to continue.

  She looked at me and smiled; sunlight shimmered off her face, her teeth. “Yes?”

  “Tell me why you ran away from me before.”

  Her smile faded. “You know why.”

  “No, I mean, exactly what did I do wrong? I need to learn how to make this easier for you, what I should and shouldn’t do. This, for example”—I stroked my thumb across her wrist—“seems to be all right.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong, Beau. It was my fault.”

  “But I want to help.”

  “Well …” She thought for a moment. “It was just how close you were. Most humans instinctively shy away from us, are repelled by our alienness… . I wasn’t expecting you to come so close. And the smell of your throat—” She broke off, looking to see if she’d upset me.

  “Okay.” I tucked my chin. “No throat exposure.”

  She grinned. “No, really, it was more the surprise than anything else.”

  She raised her free hand and placed it gently on the side of my neck. I held very still, recognizing that the chill of her touch was supposed to be a natural warning, and wondering why I couldn’t feel that. I felt something else entirely.

  “You see?” she said. “Perfectly fine.”

  My blood was racing, and I wished I could slow it down. It must make everything so much more difficult for her—the thudding pulse in my veins.

  “I love that,” she murmured. She carefully freed her other hand. My hands fell limp into my lap. Softly she brushed her hand across the warm patch in my cheek, then held my face between her small, cold hands.

  “Be very still,” she whispered.

  I was paralyzed as she suddenly leaned into me, resting h
er cheek against my chest—listening to my heart. I could feel the ice of her skin through my thin shirt. With deliberate slowness her hands moved to my shoulders and her arms wrapped around my neck, holding me tight against her. I listened to the sound of her careful, even breathing, which seemed to be keeping time with my heartbeats. One breath in for every three beats, one breath out for another three.

  “Ah,” she said.

  I don’t know how long we sat without moving. It could have been hours. Eventually, the throb of my pulse quieted. I knew at any moment it could be too much, and my life could end—so quickly that I might not even notice. And I still wasn’t afraid. I couldn’t think of anything, except that she was touching me.

  And then, too soon, she unwrapped her arms from around my neck and leaned away. Her eyes were peaceful again.

  “It won’t be so hard again,” she said with satisfaction.

  “Was that very hard for you?”

  “Not nearly as bad as I imagined it would be. And you?”

  “No, that wasn’t … bad for me.”

  We smiled at each other.

  “Here.” She picked up my hand—easily, like she didn’t even have to think about it—and placed it against her cheek. “Do you feel how warm you’ve made me?”

  And it was almost warm, her usually icy skin. But I barely noticed, because I was touching her face, something I’d been dreaming and fantasizing about constantly since the first day I’d seen her.

  “Don’t move,” I whispered.

  No one could be still like a vampire. She closed her eyes and turned into a statue.

  I moved even more slowly than she had, careful not to make one unexpected move. I stroked her cheek, let my fingertips graze across her lavender eyelids, the shadows in the hollows under her eyes. I traced the shape of her straight nose, and then, so carefully, her perfect lips. Her lips parted and I could feel her cool breath on my fingertips. I wanted to lean in, to inhale her scent, but I knew that might be too much. If she could control herself, so could I—if only on a much smaller scale.

  I tried to move in slow motion so that she could guess everything I would do before I did it. I let my palms slide down the sides of her slender neck, let them rest on her shoulders while my thumbs followed the impossibly fragile curve of her collarbones.

  She was much stronger than I was, in so many ways. I seemed to lose control of my hands as they skimmed over the points of her shoulders and down across her sharp shoulder blades. I couldn’t stop myself as my arms wrapped around her, pulling her against my chest again. My hands crossed behind her and wrapped around either side of her waist.

  She leaned into me, but that was the only movement. She wasn’t breathing.

  So that gave me a time limit.

  I bent down to press my face into her hair for one long second, inhaling a deep lungful of her scent. Then I forced myself to peel my hands off her and move away. One of my hands wouldn’t obey completely; it trailed down her arm and settled on her wrist.

  “Sorry,” I muttered.

  She opened her eyes, and they were hungry. Not in a way to make me afraid, but in a way that made the muscles in the pit of my stomach tighten into knots and sent my pulse hammering through my veins again.

  “I wish … ,” she whispered, “I wish that you could feel the … complexity … the confusion … I feel. That you could understand.”

  She raised her hand to my face, then ran her fingers quickly through my hair.

  “Tell me,” I breathed.

  “I don’t know if I can. You know, on the one hand, the hunger—the thirst—that, being what I am, I feel for you. And I think you can understand that, to an extent. Though”—and she half-smiled—“as you are not addicted to any illegal substances, you probably can’t empathize completely.

  “But …” Her fingers touched my lips lightly, and my heart raced. “There are other things I want, other hungers. Hungers I don’t even understand myself.”

  “I might understand that better than you think.”

  “I’m not used to feeling so human. Is it always like this?”

  “For me?” I paused. “No, never. Never before this.”

  She put her hands on both sides of my face. “I don’t know how to be close to you. I don’t know if I can.”

  I put my hand over hers, then leaned forward slowly till my forehead was touching hers.

  “This is enough,” I sighed, closing my eyes.

  We sat like that for a moment, and then her fingers moved into my hair. She angled her face up and pressed her lips to my forehead. The rhythm of my pulse exploded into a jagged sprint.

  “You’re a lot better at this than you give yourself credit for,” I said when I could speak again.

  She leaned away, taking my hands again. “I was born with human instincts—they may be buried deep, but they exist.”

  We stared at each other for another immeasurable moment; I wondered if she was as unwilling to move as I was. But the light was fading, the shadows of the trees almost touching us.

  “You have to go.”

  “I thought you couldn’t read my mind.”

  She smiled. “It’s getting clearer.”

  A sudden excitement flared in her eyes. “Can I show you something?”

  “Anything.”

  She grinned. “How about a faster way back to the truck?”

  I looked at her warily.

  “Don’t you want to see how I travel in the forest?” she pressed. “I promise it’s safe.”

  “Will you … turn into a bat?”

  She burst into laughter. “Like I haven’t heard that one before!”

  “Right, I’m sure you get that all the time.”

  She was on her feet in another invisibly fast motion. She offered me her hand, and I jumped up next to her. She whirled around and looked back at me over her shoulder.

  “Climb on my back.”

  I blinked. “Huh?”

  “Don’t be a coward, Beau, I promise this won’t hurt.”

  She stood there waiting with her back toward me, totally serious.

  “Edythe, I don’t … I mean, how?”

  She spun back to me, one eyebrow raised. “Surely you’re familiar with the concept of a piggyback ride?”

  I shrugged. “Sure, but …”

  “What’s the problem, then?”

  “Well … you’re so small.”

  She blew out an exasperated breath, then vanished. This time I felt the wind from her passage. A second later, she was back with a boulder in one hand.

  An actual boulder. One that she must have ripped out of the ground, because the bottom half was covered in clinging dirt and spidery roots. It would be as high as her waist if she set it down. She tilted her head to one side.

  “That’s not what I meant. I’m not saying you’re not strong enough—”

  She flipped the boulder lightly over her shoulder, and it sailed well past the edge of the forest and then crashed down to earth with the sound of shattering wood and stone.

  “Obviously,” I went on. “But I … How would I fit?” I looked at my too-long legs and then back to her delicate frame.

  She turned her back to me again. “Trust me.”

  Feeling like the stupidest, most awkward person in all of history, I hesitantly put my arms around her neck.

  “Come on,” she said impatiently. She reached back with one hand and grabbed my leg, yanking my knee up past her hip.

  “Whoa!”

  But she already had my other leg, and instead of toppling backward, she easily supported my weight. She moved my legs into position around her waist. My face was burning, and I knew I must look like a gorilla on a greyhound.

  “Am I hurting you?”

  “Please, Beau.”

  Embarrassed as I was, I was also very aware that my arms and legs were wrapped tightly around her slender body.

  Suddenly she grabbed my hand and pressed my palm to her face. She inhaled deeply.

  “Eas
ier all the time,” she said.

  And then she was running.

  For the first time, I felt actual fear for my life. Terror.

  She streaked through the forest like a bullet, like a ghost. There was no sound, no evidence that her feet ever touched the ground. Her breathing never changed, never indicated any effort. But the trees flew by at deadly speeds, always missing us by inches.

  I was too shocked to close my eyes, though the cool air whipped against my face and burned them. It felt like I was sticking my head out the window of an airplane in flight.

  Then it was over. We’d hiked hours this morning to reach Edythe’s meadow, and now, in a matter of minutes—not even minutes, seconds—we were back to the truck.

  “Exhilarating, isn’t it?” Her voice was high, excited.

  She stood motionless, waiting for me to unwind my legs and step away from her. I did try, but I couldn’t get my muscles to unfreeze. My arms and legs stayed locked while my head spun uncomfortably.

  “Beau?” she asked, anxious now.

  “I might need to lie down,” I gasped.

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  It took me a few seconds to remember how to loosen my fingers. Then everything seemed to come undone at the same time, and I half-fell off her, stumbling backward until I lost my footing and finished the other half of the fall.

  She held out her hand, trying not to laugh, but I refused her offer. Instead, I stayed down and put my head between my knees. My ears were ringing and my head whirled in queasy circles.

  A cold hand rested lightly against the back of my neck. It helped.

  “I guess that wasn’t the best idea,” she mused.

  I tried to be positive, but my voice was hollow. “No, it was very interesting.”

  “Hah! You’re as white as a ghost—no, worse, you’re as white as me!”

  “I think I should have closed my eyes.”

  “Remember that next time.”

  I looked up, startled. “Next time?”

  She laughed, her mood still flying.

  “Show-off,” I muttered, and put my head down again.

  After a half-minute, the swirling motion slowed.

  “Look at me, Beau.”

  I lifted my head, and she was right there, her face just inches from mine. Her beauty was like a sucker punch that left me stunned. I couldn’t get used to it.