Twilight 4 - Breaking Dawn | Page 7

without my having to do or know or think too hard about
any of it.

Charlie was furious, of course, but the sweet part was that he wasn’t furious at
me. Renée was the traitor. He’d counted on her to play the heavy. What could he
do now, when his ultimate threat—telling Mom—had turned out to be utterly empty?
He had nothing, and he knew it. So he moped around the house, muttering things
about not being able to trust anyone in this world. . . .

“Dad?” I called as I pushed open the front door. “I’m home.”

“Hold on, Bells, stay right there.”

“Huh?” I asked, pausing automatically.

“Gimme a second. Ouch, you got me, Alice.”

Alice?

“Sorry, Charlie,” Alice’s trilling voice responded. “How’s that?”

“I’m bleeding on it.”

“You’re fine. Didn’t break the skin—trust me.”

“What’s going on?” I demanded, hesitating in the doorway.

“Thirty seconds, please, Bella,” Alice told me. “Your patience will be
rewarded.”

“Humph,” Charlie added.

I tapped my foot, counting each beat. Before I got to thirty, Alice said, “Okay,
Bella, come in!”

Moving with caution, I rounded the little corner into our living room.

“Oh,” I huffed. “Aw. Dad. Don’t you look—”

“Silly?” Charlie interrupted.

“I was thinking more like debonair.”

Charlie blushed. Alice took his elbow and tugged him around into a slow spin to
showcase the pale gray tux.

“Now cut that out, Alice. I look like an idiot.”

“No one dressed by me ever looks like an idiot.”

“She’s right, Dad. You look fabulous! What’s the occasion?”

Alice rolled her eyes. “It’s the final check on the fit. For both of you.”

I peeled my gaze off the unusually elegant Charlie for the first time and saw
the dreaded white garment bag laid carefully across the sofa.

“Aaah.”

“Go to your happy place, Bella. It won’t take long.”

I sucked in a deep breath and closed my eyes. Keeping them shut, I stumbled my
way up the stairs to my room. I stripped down to my underwear and held my arms
straight out.

“You’d think I was shoving bamboo splinters under your nails,” Alice muttered to
herself as she followed me in.

I paid no attention to her. I was in my happy place.

In my happy place, the whole wedding mess was over and done. Behind me. Already
repressed and forgotten.

We were alone, just Edward and me. The setting was fuzzy and constantly in flux—
it morphed from misty forest to cloud-covered city to arctic night—because
Edward was keeping the location of our honeymoon a secret to surprise me. But I
wasn’t especially concerned about the where part.

Edward and I were together, and I’d fulfilled my side of our compromise
perfectly. I’d married him. That was the big one. But I’d also accepted all his
outrageous gifts and was registered, however futilely, to attend Dartmouth
College in the fall. Now it was his turn.

Before he turned me into a vampire—his big compromise—he had one other
stipulation to make good on.

Edward had an obsessive sort of concern over the human things that I would be
giving up, the experiences he didn’t want me to miss. Most of them—like the
prom, for example—seemed silly to me. There was only one human experience I
worried about missing. Of course it would be the one he wished I would forget
completely.

Here was the thing, though. I knew a little about what I was going to be like
when I wasn’t human anymore. I’d seen newborn vampires firsthand, and I’d heard
all my family-to-be’s stories about those wild early days. For several years, my
biggest personality trait was going to be thirsty. It would take some time
before I could be me again. And even when I was in control of myself, I would
never feel exactly the way I felt now.

Human… and passionately in love.

I wanted the complete experience before I traded in my warm, breakable,
pheromone-riddled body for something beautiful, strong… and unknown. I wanted a

real honeymoon with Edward. And, despite the danger he feared this would put me
in, he’d agreed to try.

I was only vaguely aware of Alice and the slip and slide of satin over my skin.
I didn’t care, for the moment, that the whole town was talking about me. I
didn’t think about the spectacle I would have to star in much too soon. I didn’t
worry about tripping on my train or giggling at the wrong moment or being too
young or the staring audience or even the empty