Chapter Twenty-Two

Ugh, God, where  was I.

Oh, twenty-two. This should be easy.

Bella, Edward, and Alice are escorted to the lobby, and instructed not to leave until night. No idea why. We’ve managed to avoid sparkles thus far. Bella starts to sob (BECAUSE SHE IS A STRONG WOMAN), and Edward has to calm her down (BECAUSE HE LOVES HER.) Gianna, the mortal at the desk, asks if they need anything, and then goes back to ignoring them. Bella asks if she actually knows what’s going on here, and Edward says she does, she’s hoping that they decide to not eat her in the end and turn her to vampirism. Bella is shocked, simply shocked, that a woman could ever possibly want a vampire. Ed kind of gives her a look, but apparently Bella is immune to irony.

She cries some more because Edward’s here~~! and they spend some indeterminate amount of time touching each other until the sun sets. Bella convinces herself that Edward doesn’t want her and is just pretending, because she is as sharp as a wet rag. Eventually a vampire comes out and tells them they’re free to leave now–probably to get all the canoodling out of his office. They get outside, Alice steals yet another car (because stealing from people isn’t against the vampire moral code), and they drive to the airport.

Cue thrilling airplane action. Bella gets a coke to try to stay awake, and Edward disapproves out-loud, because he knows she has a weakness for caffeine. Uh, since when is it not okay for 18-year-olds to drink coke? Oh right. Morrrrrmonnnnnn.

So Bella chugs caffeine to stay awake so she can continue to gaze lovingly at Edward. No, she never asks him what the hell that was all about. Never tries to talk about how he just tried to kill himself. They just pet each other’s faces and gaze.

All of the vampires are waiting for them in Sea-Tac. If I weren’t already bored out of my mind I would do the 20 minutes on Google thing to find out if they arrived during the day. I know Stephenie hasn’t been to Sea-Tac, so she probably doesn’t know that there are huge windows all over the place in this airport. But whatev. Jasper and Alice do some gazing of their own. Carlisle and Esme are all “omg thank you for saving our boy,” while in my head they’re cursing that their diabolical plan to get Edward and Bella out of the picture has failed dramatically. Look, they’re just too nice, all right? There’s got to be something wrong with them. Rosalie is all repentant and crap, and Edward totes hates her for being smug about Bella dying. This is actually why I like Rosalie to begin with (FINALLY a character that is not Super Powerful on the Side of Good), but she dismantles all of that by apologizing to Bella. I’m not sure why. What exactly did she do to Bella? Hey, shouldn’t Alice be apologizing for all of this, since she has a crippling inability to see werewolves for crap’s sake?

They get Bella home. Charlie, evidently, has remembered that he is both a cop and a father, and finds it in him to yell at Edward. Edward sort of ignores him at Bella’s behest and takes her upstairs, and she… falls asleep.

WOOOEEEEE that was exciting stuff.