Twilight 3 - Eclipse | Page 4

He hesitated. “You and Jake used to be joined at the hip, and now —”
I cut him off. “Can you get to the point, Dad? What’s your condition — exactly?”
“I don’t think you should dump all your other friends for your boyfriend, Bella,” he said in a stern voice.
“It’s not nice, and I think your life would be better balanced if you kept some other people in it. What
happened last September . . .”
I flinched.
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“Well,” he said defensively. “If you’d had more of a life outside of Edward Cullen, it might not have been
like that.”
“It would have been exactly like that,” I muttered.
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“The point?” I reminded him.
“Use your new freedom to see your other friends, too. Keep it balanced.”
I nodded slowly. “Balance is good. Do I have specific time quotas to fill, though?”
He made a face, but shook his head. “I don’t want to make this complicated. Just don’t forget your
friends . . .”
It was a dilemma I was already struggling with. My friends. People who, for their own safety, I would
never be able to see again after graduation.
So what was the better course of action? Spend time with them while I could? Or start the separation
now to make it more gradual? I quailed at the idea of the second option.
“. . . particularly Jacob,” Charlie added before I could think things through more than that.
A greater dilemma than the first. It took me a moment to find the right words. “Jacob might be . . .
difficult.”
“The Blacks are practically family, Bella,” he said, stern and fatherly again. “And Jacob has been a very,
very good friend to you.”
“I know that.”
“Don’t you miss him at all?” Charlie asked, frustrated.
My throat suddenly felt swollen; I had to clear it twice before I answered. “Yes, I do miss him,” I
admitted, still looking down. “I miss him a lot.”
“Then why is it difficult?”
It wasn’t something I was at liberty to explain. It was against the rules for normal people —human
people like me and Charlie — to know about the clandestine world full of myths and monsters that
existed secretly around us. I knew all about that world — and I was in no small amount of trouble as a
result. I wasn’t about to get Charlie in the same trouble.
“With Jacob there is a . . . conflict,” I said slowly. “A conflict about the friendship thing, I mean.
Friendship doesn’t always seem to be enough for Jake.” I wound my excuse out of details that were true
but insignificant, hardly crucial compared to the fact that Jacob’s werewolf pack bitterly hated Edward’s
vampire family — and therefore me, too, as I fully intended to join that family. It just wasn’t something I
could work out with him in a note, and he wouldn’t answer my calls. But my plan to deal with the
werewolf in person had definitely not gone over well with the vampires.
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“Isn’t Edward up for a little healthy competition?” Charlie’s voice was sarcastic now.
I leveled a dark look at him. “There’s no competition.”
“You’re hurting Jake’s feelings, avoiding him like this. He’d rather be just friends than nothing.”
Oh, nowI was avoidinghim ?
“I’m pretty sure Jake doesn’t want to be friends at all.” The words burned in my mouth. “Where’d you
get that idea, anyway?”
Charlie looked embarrassed now. “The subject might have come up today with Billy. . . .”
“You and Billy gossip like old women,” I complained, stabbing my fork viciously into the congealed
spaghetti on my plate.
“Billy’s worried about Jacob,” Charlie said. “Jake’s having a hard time right now. . . . He’s depressed.”
I winced, but kept my eyes on the blob.
“And then you were always so happy after spending the day with Jake.” Charlie sighed.
“I’m happynow ,” I growled fiercely through my teeth.
The contrast between my words and tone broke through the tension. Charlie burst into laughter, and I
had to join in.
“Okay, okay,” I agreed. “Balance.”
“And Jacob,” he insisted.
“I’ll try.”
“Good. Find that balance, Bella. And, oh, yeah, you’ve got some mail,” Charlie said, closing the subject
with no attempt at subtlety. “It’s by the stove.”
I didn’t move, my thoughts twisting into snarls around Jacob’s name. It was most likely junk mail; I’d
just gotten a package from my mom yesterday and I wasn’t expecting anything else.
Charlie shoved his chair away from the table and stretched as he got to his feet. He took his plate to the
sink, but before he turned the water on to rinse it, he paused to toss a thick envelope at me. The letter
skidded across