Twilight: But it's a Thriller and I Never Read Twilight

Chapter 35: Eclipse

Once out of those clothes, I felt much cleaner and returned myself to the bed where I opened the rest of the pockets of my backpack, clearing things out. I found my schoolbooks and notebooks with folded paper assignments and scribbled notes. My pens and pencils tumbled out along with a still slick and thick piece of paper a little larger than a bookmark. The plane ticket Esme had given me slipped out onto the floor, and I bent quickly to snatch it as if it would float down the hallway and into Edward's lap.

No one in the house knew about this boarding pass save for me and Esme, I realized, unless Edward had already read her mind and knew she gave it to me. I couldn't be sure the ticket was really a secret, but I didn't want to test to theory by leaving it out in the open for any Cullen to see. I held the ticket close to my chest instead and looked to the door as if it would burst open and Alice or Edward would discover me with it.

I had the means, the only means I would ever have, to leave this place without a word, disappear into the night without a trace and never come back. That thought, despite my surety that Edward was the One and I was making the right choice, terrified me to no end as I held that ticket to me for dear life. I was holding the means to destroy my own life, or as Esme seemed to think, to save it.

I clutched the ticket close to my chest, feeling the rise and fall for a long moment as I waited for Edward to burst through the door and discover the ticket. I couldn't imagine he'd let it slide if he knew what Esme had tried to give me. Or maybe this was a test, like the lesson he'd given me this summer. I didn't want to think that Edward was testing whether I really loved him or not, but he could read minds, every mind but mine.

He must have wondered what I thought of him. After he'd had to beg me to marry him, he must have worried, and this was his way of seeing if I really loved him, if I would really spend the rest of my life with him or if I'd run when things got complicated. It was the only thing that made sense. Edward could read Esme's mind and know that she'd given me a ticket after all. Almost as soon as I came to the conclusion that this was a test, I knew I would never look at that ticket again. Even if I wanted to escape, there was none, not on a plane ride and not in my truck now in pieces.

Returning the ticket to my backpack pocket and zipping it away, I left the bedroom and headed down toward the kitchen where I hoped I could find something to eat. Once I found my way down the glass steps to the living room, I found the house was quiet and cold like it had been abandoned by everything, even the dust and decay that should have followed. As I headed for the kitchen, however, I caught the sight of something moving and turned to find Rosalie sitting quietly before the empty fireplace.

She had noticed me at almost the same time before she tilted her head to assess me. My presence here like this was abnormal. I should have been home with my Dad on a Sunday morning, but instead I was taking up her space. She had never learned to like me, and I had never seen eye to eye with her. I wasn't sure living in the same house would change any of that.

"The others went to clean up your mess," Rosalie said dryly.

I sighed. There wasn't a right way to respond that would make her understand me. I didn't even know if there was a way we could tolerate each other, but her revelation on the night of my bachelorette's party had sunk into me.

"I'm sorry," I told her. "About everything I've done to make you upset with me."

She snorted. "You don't even know what that is."

I shrugged. She was right. "Can you tell me what it is?" I didn't think she was going to, but it was worth a shot. I'd spent a year trying to get on her good side, but nothing I did worked. She still held me at a distance.