[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
"I'm serious."
"Well, then, thanks. Sort of."
I grinned. "You're sort of welcome."
I had to have seven stitches to c lose the cut on my forehead. After the sting of the local anesthetic, there
was no pain in the procedure. Jacob held my hand while Dr. Snow was sewing, and I tried not to think
about why that was ironic.
We were at the hospital forever. By the time I was done, I had to drop Jacob off at his home and hurry
back to cook dinner for Charlie. Charlie seemed to buy my story about falling in Jacob's garage. After
all, it wasn't like I hadn't been able to land myself in the ER before with no more help than my own feet.
This night was not as bad as that first night, after I'd heard the perfect voice inPort Angeles . The hole
came back, the way it always did when I was away from Jacob, but it didn't throb so badly around the
edges. I was already planning ahead, looking forward to more delusions, and that was a distraction.
Also, I knew I would feel better tomorrow when I was with Jacob again. That made the empty hole and
the familiar pain easier to bear; relief was in sight. The nightmare, too, had lost a little of its potency. I was
horrified by the nothingness, as always, but I was also strangely impatient as I waited for the moment that
would send me screaming into consciousness. I knew the nightmare had to end.
The next Wednesday, before I could get home from the ER, Dr. Gerandy called to warn my father that I
might possibly have a concussion and advised him to wake me up every two hours through the night to
make sure it wasn't serious. Charlie's eyes narrowed suspiciously at my weak explanation about tripping
again.
"Maybe you should just stay out of the garage altogether, Bella," he suggested that night during dinner.
I panicked, worried that Charlie was about to lay down some kind of edict that would prohibit La Push,
and consequently my motorcycle. And I wasn't giving it up 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.
"This didn't happen in the garage," I protested quickly. "We were hiking, and I tripped over a rock."
"Since when do you hike?" Charlie asked skeptically.
"Working atNewton 's was bound to rub off sometime," I pointed out. "Spend every day selling all the
virtues of the outdoors, eventually you get curious."
Charlie glared at me, unconvinced.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
"I'll be more careful," I promised, surreptitiously crossing my fingers under the table.
"I don't mind you hiking right there around La Push, but keep close to town, okay?"
"Why?"
"Well, we've been getting a lot of wildlife complaints lately. The forestry department is going to check
into it, but for the time being& "
"Oh, the big bear," I said with sudden comprehension. "Yeah, some of the hikers coming
throughNewton 's have seen it. Do you think there's really some giant mutated grizzly out there?"
His forehead creased. "There's something. Keep it close to town, okay?"
"Sure, sure," I said quickly. He didn't look completely appeased.
"Charlie's getting nosy," I complained to Jacob when I picked him up after school Friday.
"Maybe we should cool it with the bikes." He saw my objecting expression and added, "At least for a
week or so. You could stay out of the hospital for a week, right?"
"What are we going to do?" I griped.
He smiled cheerfully. "What ever you want."
I thought about that for a minute about what I wanted.
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
serious thought and creativity. Doing nothing in the meantime was not appealing. Suppose I got
depressed again, even with Jake? I had to keep occupied.
Maybe there was some other way, some other recipe& some other place.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]