Chapter Eight

Oh snap, time for a recap. How was all my American readship’s Labor Day weekend? And a shout-out to my readers in southern British Columbia–how many of y’all crossed the border to shop in Target? Don’t lie to me I know you did.

Edward creep-o-meter: Shrinking back down to a five.

Good Lord.

Bella and Jacob slouch about the res. She asks about the latest pack gossip.

I’ll give you a moment to steel yourselves.

Jacob is reluctant to share, but eventually admits that one of the Quilbry has Impressed–er, imprinted on someone. Emily had two nieces visiting and Quil um, took a liking to Claire.

Why is this so weird?

Claire is two years old.

Even Bella, head-trauma Bella, scream and faint Bella, blatant violator of helmet laws Bella, falls-in-love-with-psychopaths Bella, Bella has the good sense to see that this is, well, illegal.

“But she’s a baby,” I protested.

He looked at me with dark amusement. “Quil’s not getting any older,” he reminded me, a bit of acid in his tone. “He’ll just have to be patient for a few decades.”

Dude you are talking about a two-year-old ugh ugh ugh oh my God there is not enough bleach for my bath water to get the dirt off

Jacob accuses Bella of being judgmental (!) and insists that it won’t be sexual until Claire is legal breeding stock. Until then Quil will just be “the best, kindest big brother” ever.

So, essentially, Quil is just waiting for the toddler to ripen. God damn you, Stephenie.

Bella, stupidly, asks when Jacob will impress, and he’s all “NEVER pout pout pout.” God, this girl is dumb. Coincidentally, that would be an interesting turn of events, in a soul-mate-enabled-world–if your soul mate is madly in love with a terrifying, sociopathic monster, and you know she’s the only one for you but you can never have her. I sort of empathize with Jake here. Um, aside from him blowing off the pedophilia aaauugh God

They ride bikes. They go back to his place. They have a soda and they bond.  Jake asks if Bella was serious about that whole “becoming undead” thing, and she affirms. Oh, no, but is this goodbye, not-boyfriend? Sniffle tear.

“Why? We still have a few years. Can’t we be friends until we’re out of time?”

“Years? No, Jake, not years.” I shook my heard, and laughed once without humor. “Weeks is more accurate.”

Jacob flips out.

There’s a couple of paragraphs of him quivering, blurring, spilling soda, clenching teeth, etc, and I’m hoping for some really awesome, honest-to-God action here, but… he calms himself down. Damn. Okay. Well, on the bright side, this means there’s not a single stupid thing for Edward to worry about and he’s still a smothering jackass.

Jacob insists he’d rather Bella were dead than, you know, one of Satan’s army. This is like SO MEAN and stuff so she leaves, for like, EVER!

Instead of riding her bike back home, safe from her jailers, she rides back to Chez Cullen. What the hell? She is all “DON’T WANNA TALK MMMMOOOOPPPPPE” and stalks off to Edward’s room, to defiantly sleep on his couch.

She wakes up in the bed, with Edward. Eeeyyyikes, it’s like those “Wake Up With the King” commercials. Of course, now that he’s here, and so wonderful and perfect and dazzling, she forgets to be angrier than grizzly bears or whatever stupid thing she threatened earlier.

They make out. Uh. No, wait, yeah! This is actual making out! He wraps one of her legs around him, they roll around on the bed. It’s actually kind of hot, aside from the fact that he’s cold and dead (ew).

I guess the “no tongue-kissing” rule is off.

Bella actually asks this, all “oh did you change your mind about withholding sex from me?” He basically tells her “don’t be silly, I would never have sex with you, I just wanted to be a gigantic tease.” Well, okay, actually he says “I was just trying to illustrate the benefits of the bed you don’t seem to like. Don’t get carried away.”

Don’t get carried away.

That’s the sound of my face hitting my desk repeatedly.

They talk about sex for a full page, without ever actually mentioning it. Yes, just like the first and last time they discussed it in Twilight, this is a page full of eyebrow-wiggling, elbow-nudging, and bush-skirting. In more ways than one.

Edward extricates himself from the naughty dirty “sex” situation (he might be forced to admit that he has no interest in vaginas), by apologizing for… wait.

No, this… really? I can’t believe it. He apologizes for being a smothering jackass. He is now 100% okay with her having friends. This confuses and somehow infuriates me.  We get this chapter where all in one, a. Jacob is a “jerk”, b. Edward is suddenly caring and supportive. What gives?

Bella confesses that Jacob said he’d rather see her dead than as an abhorrent creature of evil. Edward apologizes, and offers to kill him. I’m not even joking. He’s all “oh well I can slip up in my self-control a little bit and kill him for you, if you really want.” Her response is to go “Oh, you!” and try to have sex with him again.

This is just twisted.

Let’s see, she propositions Edward  for sex for the third time of the night, he declines once again (because he is a homoseI mean gentleman), and she asks him about the pretty vampires he had absolutely no interest in while he was visiting Alaska (because he is homoseI mean very particular about women). He reassures her that nothing happened, he never nailed any of them, and Tanya was merely stupefyingly beautiful. Not at all like his perfect, pale, clumsy, whiny, empty-headed, teary-eyed little Bella. Tanya probably had too much of a free will and identity for him.

He sings her to sleep. Because he is the perfect man and not at all boring and we should all aspire to fall in love with a creep just like him.

I love the satisfying sound this book makes when I slam it shut in total contempt.