Twilight 2 - New Moon | Page 2

not the one exception to his mysterious talent; I
usually felt grateful that I was the only person whose thoughts he couldn't hear just as
clearly as if they were spoken aloud. But now I wished he could hear me, too, so that he
could hear the warning I was screaming in my head.
I shot a panicked glance back at Gran, and saw that it was too late. She was just turning
to stare back at me, her eyes as alarmed as mine.
Edward—still smiling so beautifully that my heart felt like it was going to swell up and
burst through my chest—put his arm around my shoulder and turned to face my
grandmother.
Gran's expression surprised me. Instead of looking horrified, she was staring at me
sheepishly, as if waiting for a scolding. And she was standing in such a strange
position—one arm held awkwardly away from her body, stretched out and then curled
around the air. Like she had her arm around someone I couldn't see, someone invisible…
Only then, as I looked at the bigger picture, did I notice the huge gilt frame that enclosed
my grandmother's form. Unco mprehending, I raised the hand that wasn't wrapped around
Edward's waist and reached out to touch her. She mimicked the movement exactly,
mirrored it. But where our fingers should have met, there was nothing but cold glass…
With a dizzying jolt, my dream abruptly became a nightmare.
There was no Gran.
That was me. Me in a mirror. Me—ancient, creased, and withered.
Edward stood beside me, cast ing no reflect ion, excruciat ingly lo vely and forever
seventeen.
He pressed his icy, perfect lips against my wasted cheek.
"Happy birthday," he whispered.

I woke with a start—my eyelids popping open wide—and gasped. Dull gray light, the
familiar light of an overcast morning, took the place of the blinding sun in my dream.
Just a dream, I told myself. It was only a dream. I took a deep breath, and then jumped
again when my alarm went off. The little calendar in the corner of the clock's display
informed me that today was September thirteenth.
Only a dream, but prophetic enough in one way, at least. Today was my birthday. I was
officially eighteen years old.
I'd been dreading this day for months.
All through the perfect summer—the happiest summer I had ever had, the happiest
summer anyone anywhere had ever had, and the rainiest summer in the history of the
Olympic Peninsula—this bleak date had lurked in ambush, waiting to spring.
And now that it had hit, it was even worse than I'd feared it would be. I could feel it—I
was older. Every day I got older, but this was different, worse, quantifiable. I was
eighteen.
And Edward never would be.
When I went to brush my teeth, I was almost surprised that the face in the mirror hadn't
changed. I stared at myself, looking for some sign of impending wrinkles in my ivory
skin. The only creases were the ones on my forehead, though, and I knew that if I could
manage to relax, they would disappear. I couldn't. My eyebrows stayed lodged in a
worried line over my anxious brown eyes.
It was just a dream, I reminded myself again. Just a dream… but also my worst
nightmare.
I skipped breakfast, in a hurry to get out of the house as quickly as possible. I wasn't
entirely able to avoid my dad, and so I had to spend a few minutes acting cheerful. I
honestly tried to be excited about the gifts I'd asked him not to get me, but every time I
had to smile, it felt like I might start crying.
I struggled to get a grip on myself as I drove to school. The vision of Gran—I would not
think of it as me—was hard to get out of my head. I couldn't feel anything but despair
until I pulled into the familiar parking lot behind Forks High School and spotted Edward
leaning motionlessly against his polished silver Volvo, like a marble tribute to some
forgotten pagan god of beauty. The dream had not done him justice. And he was waiting
there for me, just the same as every other day.
Despair momentarily vanished; wonder took its place. Even after half a year with him, I
still couldn't believe that I deserved this degree of good fortune.
His sister Alice was standing by his side, wait ing for me, too.
Of course Edward and Alice weren't really related (in Forks the story was that all the
Cullen siblings were adopted by Dr. Carlisle Culler and his wife, Esme, both plainly too
young to have teenage children), but their skin was precisely the same pale shade, their
eyes had the same strange golden