Our Infinite Sadness

Absence

At the hospital, Edythe told Carlisle what had happened. He understood that on rare occasions, humans smelled especially compelling, and although he had never faced this temptation himself, he insisted that he empathized.

As always he gave her more credit than she felt she deserved. He praised her for resisting the compulsion to kill the Swan boy and all the other children, but she confessed that she deeply regretted leaving him alive, particularly on the second opportunity, in the administration block, when the collateral damage would have been negligible.

"I don't think he is entirely human," she insisted. "He is stronger than the rest of them, and his mind is a complete blackout; he actively confounds me. And worst of all, he anticipates and sometimes even preempts my moves, almost as though he, himself, is some kind of telepath. I know that next time I see him, I will kill him, regardless of the circumstances. I have to get clear of this place. I need to empty my head. Carlisle, lend me your keys. I don't trust myself to run."

Carlisle grimaced with understanding. He saw what Emilia had seen. Bloodlust. Her mouth full of venom, her muscles bunched into coils, her flat black eyes.

Edythe clutched the keys as though they were a life line. Carlisle's twelve cylinder Mercedes AMG S55 wasn't as fast as her Aston Martin, but its huge gas tank would get her to the Arctic Circle on less than a third as many fuel stops.

"Where will you go?"

She took a deep breath and recalled a pair of depthless chocolate eyes, and for a moment she imagined herself lost in them forever. She said, "I suppose I ought to make practical use of this trip, to persuade myself that it's motivated by more than abject cowardice. Maybe I'll give Terrence one more try."

"Please don't be unfair or unkind to him. He thinks the world of you."

"Yes he does," she bitterly conceded. "I owe him my final answer. The fair and kind thing would be to deliver it in person."

_____

Ben's first day at Forks Public High School had gone better than he could have hoped for, despite a couple isolated rings of dissonance from the strange Cullen family. He had no difficulty putting them out of his mind.

He dumped his book bag at the foot of the staircase and fought against the compulsion to regale Zoey with the highlights of the day. Instead he attended to his mental agenda and called Renée while going through the kitchen cabinets to work up a grocery list.

"Hey, Mom, if now's a bad time I'll call back."

"Don't be ridiculous honey," she chided, and yet she did so with a stage-whisper. She explained in hushed tones, "The realtor's here. We're going through options."

"Then I definitely shouldn't keep you."

"No, Phil's got it."

She had a thousand questions, no doubt, but to her credit in Ben's estimation, she worked backward, starting with school. Yes, he'd met a lot of nice people; yes, he'd liked all his teachers. He told her that the school offered Choir after all, an invitation-only class, off the menu.

"They invited you I hope."

"Yes," he said, but he didn't go into details. Instead he hit her with the biggest news of the day. "I'm on the varsity Ski Team."

"The what? You know, I'm not even going to ask."

Then she worked backward some more and wanted to know how Charlie was doing.

"Charlie's great. Did you know he bought me a truck?

"He didn't!"

"Yes, he did."