*by Stephenie Meyer*



NEW MOON - chapter 3 - THE END


I felt absolutely hideous in the morning. I hadn’t slept well; my arm burned and my head ached. It didn’t help me outlook that Edward’s face was smooth and remote as he kissed my forehead quickly and ducked out my window. I was afraid of the time I’d spent unconscious, afraid that he might have been thinking about right and wrong again while he watched me sleep. The anxiety seemed to ratchet up the intensity of the pounding in my head.
Edward was waiting for me at school, as usual, but his face was still wrong. There was something buried in his eyes that I couldn’t be sure of - and it scared me. I didn’t want to bring up last night, but I wasn’t sure if avoiding the subject would be worse.
He opened my door for me.
“How do you feel?”
“Perfect,” I lied, cringing as the sound of the slamming door echoed in my head.
We walked in silence, he shortened his stride to match mine. There were so many questions I wanted to ask, but most of those questions would have to wait, because they were for Alice: How was Jasper this morning? What had they said when I was gone? What had Rosalie said? And most importantly, what could she see happening now in her strange, imperfect visions of the future? Could she guess what Edward was thinking, why was he so gloomy? Was there a foundation for the tenuous, instinctive fears that I couldn’t seem to shake?
The morning passed slowly. I was impatient to see Alice, though I wouldn’t really be able to her with Edward there. Edward remained aloof. Occasionally he would ask about my arm, and I would lie.
Alice usually beat us to lunch; she didn’t have to keep pace with a sloth like me. But she wasn’t at the table, waiting with a tray of food she wouldn’t eat.
Edward didn’t say anything about her absence. I wondered to myself if her class was running late - until I saw Conner and Ben, who were in her fourth hour French class.
“Where’s Alice?” I asked Edward anxiously.
He looked at the granola bar he was slowly pulverizing between his fingertips while he answered. “She’s with Jasper.”
“Is he okay?”
“He’s gone away for a while.”
“What? Where?”
Edward shrugged. “Nowhere in particular.”
“And Alice, too,” I said with quiet desperation. Of course, of Jasper needed her, she would go.
“Yes. She’ll be gone for a while. She was trying to convince him to go to Denali.”
Denali was where the one other band of unique vampires - good ones like the Cullens - lived. Tanya and her family I’d heard of them now and again. Edward had run to them last winter when my arrival had made Forks different for him. Laurent, the most civilized member of James’s little coven, had gone there rather than siding with James against the Cullens. It made sense for Alice to encourage Jasper to go there.
I swallowed, trying to dislodge the sudden lump in my throat. The guilt made my head bow and my shoulders slump. I’d run them out of their home, just like Rosalie and Emmett. I was a plague.
“Is your arm bothering you?” he asked solicitously.
“Who cares about ym stupid arm?” I muttered in disgust.
He didn’t answer, and I put my head down on the table.