Chapter Seven

Edward creep-o-meter: The big guy gets a reprieve–this is Rosalie’s chapter!

Rosalie comes into Bella’s room, and asks to talk.

“He so rarely leaves you alone,” she said. “I figured I’d better make the best of this opportunity.”

Ugh God why doesn’t anyone see what’s wrong with this.

Rosalie wants to talk about how she became a vampire, and why Bella shouldn’t. Are you ready? Okay, here goes:

In the 30’s, Rosalie’s fiancee and a bunch of his friends gang raped her to death, so Carlisle found her dying (somehow), bit the crap out of her, and made her a Vampire Girlfriend just for Edward.

The reason Bella shouldn’t become a vampire is because then she couldn’t have babies.

For those of you at home playing “Severe Character Dysfunction Bingo,” you can count the two of those as freebies.

I wish I could tell you that more happens in this chapter. But it’s just pages of Rosalie explaining how she used to be a vain, selfish child, and then she was raped to death, and now she’s a vain, selfish vampire. It turns out the reason she saved Emmett from the bear however long ago is because he looks just like the baby Rosalie’s mortal friend had.

So everything Rosalie does is for babies.

Because the only way you can be a real woman is to breed.

I actually liked that Rosalie was a bitch, the only member of this big ridiculously perfect family that wasn’t a God damn saint. And it turns out she’s just another vehicle for Stephenie Meyer’s outdated views on the accepted role of a woman. We at least get to hear a little about how Rosalie hunted down the men who raped her and killed them horribly, but it’s only a little, and it’s completely overshadowed by Rosalie’s pleading with Bella, “oh please think of all the babies you could have!”

Rosalie goes a little into how Edward was never into girls, like, at all, not even when they dragged him to the vampire commune in Alaska.

“Even when we first met Tanya’s clan in Denali–all those females!–Edward never showed the slightest preference.”

Okay, first of all, did it really never occur to anyone that Edward might be gay? Call me crazy, but last I heard, one of the key symptoms of gayness is “disinterest in the opposite sex.” I’m just saying.

And secondly, why is Rosalie talking about this like it’s a breeding program? “We put Edward in the pen with Annabelle and the other females, but it just didn’t take. We might try an AI later.”

So, anyway, babies. Have them. Don’t be tempted by beautiful invulnerable near-omniscient immortality. Babies.

THE NEXT DAY

Bella is blowing off Nothing Wrong With Mike for the like, 250th time, when Jacob comes screeching into the parking lot on his Bad Influence brand motorcycle. He shouts “Run!” and Bella makes a break for it, throws herself behind him on the bike, and they escape, while Alice watches in cold fury.

Jacob realized that since Alice can’t See werewolves, she wouldn’t be able to See him rescuing her from them at school the next day.

Seriously, guys, Jacob is freaking rad.