It was unquestionably a complication that I couldn’t simply read your thoughts to know what your reaction was to me. I wasn’t used to having to go to such circuitous measures, listening to your words in Jessica’s mind… her mind isn’t very original, and it was annoying to have to stoop to that. And then I couldn’t know if you really meant what you said. It was all extremely irritating.

I stared because their faces, so different, so similar, were all devastatingly, inhumanly beautiful.

He must see how absorbed I was by him; he must not want to lead me on… so we couldn’t even be friends… because he wasn’t interested in me at all.

He was dangerous. He’d been trying to tell me that all along.

There was no rational explanation for how I was alive at this moment.

She wants to know if we’re secretly dating. And she wants to know how you feel about me.

Jessica’s analyzing everything I do — she’ll break it down for you later.

In that one hour, I thought of a hundred different ways to lure you from the room with me, to get you alone. And I fought them each back, thinking of my family, what I could do to them. I had to run out, to get away before I could speak the words that would make you follow…

How did you get over here so fast?

Wow, you’re green, Bella.