Chapter Nine

Hmmm, I’m getting ahead again. Time to start future-dating these.

Edward creep-o-meter: 3 — I know, I’m alarmed too.

So Bella comes home from her kidnapping and house arrI mean sleepover and Charlie has left her a note. While he’s actually here. Why didn’t he just tell her?

The note is about calling Jacob. Apparently he feels really bad for telling Bella to go off and die instead of becoming a vampire. Bella’s all “HMPH!” and stomps upstairs, as Charlie chides her for not being forgiving.

Bella has her mind set on laundry. Yes, readers, laundry. We are about to have a very exciting  laundry sequence.

Some of Bella’s clothes are missing, as well as her pillow. First she figures Alice popped them in the wash, because, well, I guess we all have friends who, um, randomly do our laundry for us? But her clothes are not in the wash, and neither are they in her hamper. I know you guys are on the edge of your seats here.  Unfortunately, the thrilling conclusion to “Where in the World is Bella’s Red Blouse?” will have to continue later, because Edward has arrived.

Edward’s golden eyes were wide, his nostrils flared, his lips pulled back over his teeth.

u r so pretty

Edward, faster than anyone can see him, runs up to Bella’s room, and then back downstairs. He grabs Bella around the waist and pulls her into the kitchen, looking around for laundry thieves. Edward indicates that someone has been here, one of his people. No, he doesn’t mean a gay man–although that would explain the missing blouse.

Don’t worry, though! It’s no one we know. I would hate for Victoria to sully her 0 line record for this series.

Clearly, they both reason, clearly whoever it was is just looking for Bella, and doesn’t seem to want to eat anybody. Charlie comes in at this point, demanding to know what they’re hissing about, and when he sees Edward’s furious face and Bella’s panicked one, he assumes they are fighting.

Charlie’s expression changed. Abruptly, he was grinning. “If you two are having a fight… well, don’t let me interrupt.”

Still grinning, he put his bowl in the sink and sauntered out of the room.

That’s our Charlie. Dad of the Year material right there.

Edward insists that they leave, and gives his “brothers” some calls we don’t get to understand because he’s just talking that fast. Apparently this is yet another vampire power.

I let him drag me along then, too panicked to think clearly. Charlie met my frightened eyes with a smug grin, which suddenly turned to confusion. Edward had me out the door before Charlie could say anything.

What, exactly, is the point of Charlie’s character? We are told he is a cop, yet he has never once demonstrated this through action or behavior, or even talking about work. His daughter is, he assumes, fighting with her boyfriend, and then he watches Edward drag her out while she looks terrified. And Charlie just stands there. He doesn’t chase after them, shout, demand to know what’s going on, he just lets a boy he openly dislikes literally drag his daughter out the door.

So, clearly, Stephenie reasoned that Bella must have a father, because she’s not immaculately conceived (although at this point it wouldn’t have surprised me). And hey, a cop father would be interesting, because “cop” is a masculine profession. And that’s where she stopped? You can argue that Charlie is stunted and unused to being a father, but Jesus, is he unused to being a law officer as well?

I hate these books so much.

Edward and Bella race to the Cullen mansion, where Edward heckles Alice for not Seeing someone pawing through Bella’s room. Alice stands up for herself, and Edward is about to just keep being a dick when.. he.. stops and apologizes.

This is really starting to confuse me. I guess Bella is making him “more human” or someone told Stephenie that her male lead was “a sociopathic asshole” or something.

Nobody seems to put two and two together on the whole “new vampires” thing from chapter one, and Victoria hating Bella’s guts. Seriously. No one thinks “Wait, maybe Victoria is making the vampires and she sent one of them to root through Bella’s underwear for some messed up reason!”

Instead they assume it’s the Volturi making sure that Bella is a vampire. Which I guess uh. Going through her clothes would totally prove.

Esme tries to argue that maybe this whole thing is a coincidence. Honestly, at this point, I’m reeling from the fact that the plot of a Twilight book was introduced before chapter twenty. Seriously. And there was even some foreshadowing of it in the first chapter. I’m floored.

Everyone agrees to a rotating schedule of watching Bella’s house in case someone else sneaks in to try on her jeans. Bella sort of just stands there as everyone argues about who’s trying to kill her and what they should do about it. Not exactly the most proactive character we’ve ever seen.

They go back. Charlie is smug because he thinks they’re still fighting. Jesus, whatever, Dad. Do us all a favor and just don’t be a character. I’d rather a Charlie Brown style adult we never see the face of and never actually understand.

Jacob called again. Poor guy.

She calls him the next morning (after warning Edward that she’s going to let Jake off the hook). Jacob apologizes rather fervently and offers up a life of servitude. But they’re totally not werewolf soulmates or anything. Bella sort of brings up that someone was kind of in her house yesterday and all the vamps are spooked, which means Edward takes the phone and he and Jacob have a Male Bonding Moment over how best to protect their clumsy, useless, mutual love interest.

Bella is like a Mac Guffin made human. She serves absolutely no purpose but to drive the plot. I never thought I’d see a main character that is, in all actuality and simplicity, a freaking plot device.

Anyway, we get a play-by-play of the conversation, which is basically “Edward said this. Then he paused. Then Edward said this. Then he had a longer pause.” It goes on for about a page and a half. Bella just sits there stupidly as everyone hustles to save her from the Laundry Vampire.  She finally gets the phone back, and Jacob is all “yeah we totes got this covered, I’m coming up there to scent out your panty thief.”

Annnd that’s it. Another chapter down. God damn it, these are so boring.

Chapter Three

Oh, God did I have a day at work. They’ve dropped me right in the middle of a Charlie Foxtrot and it’s driving me to drink Mike’s Hard Pink Lemonade, for crap’s sake.

But oh, look, a new chapter of Eclipse. Surely this will bolster my mood.

Edward creep-o-meter: 6

Edward and Bella are flying back from Florida.

Wait, huh? Hang on. Did I skip a chapter?

…No, yeah, there’s my end-of-chapter notes from the last chapter, screeching in all-caps about The Truck Incident. So I didn’t miss anything. Well, other than the obvious. Someone taught Stephenie to skip things.

Edward and Bella are flying back from Florida. It’s  convenient that Smeyer skipped all that unnecessary vampire-in-sunlight fodder, because then she’d have to explain how Edward was able to stay out of natural light all day while on vacation visiting his girlfriend’s mother.

My mom would have dragged that boy out with us. Well, and then, sparkling would happen, and my mom would probably say “Is this related to one of those Japanese cartoon things you keep watching?”

Anyway.

Bella’s mother catches on to the fact that Edward and Bella are “serious.” More serious than she thought. Serious is a good word for it. I also like “calamitous.” Or maybe “unpalatable.” Renée makes comments to how protective Edward is and how intense they are and how Bella moves around him like a satellite. No, really.

“The way you move–you orient yourself around him without even thinking about it. When he moves, even a little bit, you adjust your position at the same time. Like magnets… or gravity. You’re like a… satellite, or something. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Bella and Edward are special, okay? And apparently we only came to Florida so that Renée could remind us. Again. Just how special they are.

Again, if my mother saw that behavior in me? She’d start looking for other signs of control and abuse, too. But then, my mother and I don’t know what truest of true loves is like, on account of us thinking Twilight is a crock of cowplop. Frowny face.

Charlie is waiting up for Bella (and Edward, I guess) to return. Edward is stiff and standoffish before they even get in the door. Charlie soon reveals why–Jacob has been calling all night, looking for Bella. Oh, right, her other boyfriend. Before she can reminisce too long on her fond memories of using him as an emotional crutch, the phone rings.

Jacob demands to know if Bella is… going to school tomorrow.

K, bye. Click.

Okay then.

Bella obsesses and worries over why Jacob cares about her attendance for two and a half pages. She eventually comes to the conclusion that she was gone for three days, and becoming a vampire takes three days, so clearly Jacob thought she’d been bitten. Bella’s never ever been wrong so I’m sure that’s what it is.

Actually, I’m having a problem thinking of the last time Bella came to a conclusion that wasn’t wrong. The misogyny runs so deep in these novels it kills me.

So, anyway, the next day they go to school. Whoa, they jump right to the action here. Kudo’s to Smeyer’s editors, whoever they are. Jacob is waiting at school. Edward is pleased to point out to Bella how very wrong she was yet again. Jake and Ed glower at each other for a while. By the way, Jacob, at sixteen, is six foot seven inches tall, and tightly muscled–like, body-builder muscled. Right.

Edward confronts Jacob, after a short bit of pleading with Bella to stay in the car, which she for some reason doesn’t do. I was prepared to have her just follow his orders like always, but I guess it’s just really important to the plot that she hear this.

Edward is like “I can read your mind, and I know what you came here to say, so thanks for showing up to warn us, see you later.” Not suspicious in the least. Bella’s all “Teehee what?” which makes Jacob realize that Edward hasn’t told her anything at all about what’s going on.

It turns out that Emmett crossed the treaty line on Saturday. Paul and him came to words. Yeah, not blows, just words. Despite the fact that werewolves are here specifically to kill vampires, nobody fought, and nobody got hurt.

Bella tries to ask about what’s going on, only to have Edward shush her constantly. Jacob finds it in him to get righteously indignant on Bella’s behalf, which only makes Edward suddenly look all scary and stuff (he’s totes terrifying).

All at once, Bella puts together what we’ve all realized since Alice had that stupid vision.

1. Edward didn’t want her to know something.
2. Jacob wouldn’t have kept it from her.
3. Edward wanted her out of the city to keep her from knowing this something.
4. Alice had a vision about it and then
5. EDWARD FREAKING LIED TO HER
6. Also, vampires are dreamy.

This all adds up to, OH MY GOSH, YOU GUYS, VICTORIA IS BACK! Are you scared? Man, me too. There is nothing more terrifying than the vague threat of a redheaded hobopire who is not even important enough to have a single line in the novel she is the supposed villain of. A villain who does not actually accomplish anything except make a lot of grown men run around in the woods like silly pagans, and cause the female character to vomit and cry in turns.

And so, predictably, Bella starts crying.

Edward is all “Now look what you’ve done! She’ll never calm down in time for nappy-bye!” I mean, actually, he defends himself for lying to her and trying to keep something important to her from her.

He was… wait for it…

Protecting her.

Jacob, for his part, plays a total badass, and he’s not taking any of Edward’s crap.

“Do you really think hurting her is better than protecting her?” he murmured.

“She’s tougher than you think,” Jacob said. “And she’s been through worse.”

With that, Jacob begins to remember, as clearly as he can, how depressed and downright pitiful Bella was when Edward left. Specifically so Edward will pick through his mind and find it.

Poor poor Eddie is all pained and stuff as he is forced to invade Jacob’s privacy, read his mind, and find clear memories of Bella suffering. We all feel really bad for him. Jacob just laughs and grins.

Guys, I seriously love this new “asshole” Jacob. It’s about time somebody slapped Edward around.

“Overprotective, isn’t he?” Jacob said, talking just to me. “A little trouble makes life fun. Let me guess, you’re not allowed to have fun, are you?”

Edward glowered, and his lips pulled back from his teeth ever so slightly.

“Shut up, Jake,” I said.

Jacob laughed. “That sounds like a no. […]”

SERIOUSLY guys I like Jacob more now.

A grown-up finally shows up to shoo everyone off to class. Edward and Bella pass notes in English, where Edward describes the whole “yeah your flavorless archenemy is back to kill you and also we argued with some werewolves” debacle. I wonder if it’s more that he’s too embarrassed to have Bella around to see that stuff. “We almost had her! Then we got in a fight with some dogs over who was better at Counter-Strike.”

Bella says that Florida was a bad idea–they wouldn’t have been near Victoria to hear if she was going to come after Charlie. Edward counters, not at all creepily, that he’s not sending her anywhere alone, because who knows what could happen.

You know, the way he keeps harping on her bad luck, it’s almost like he’s purposefully laying the foundation for later, when he actually does hurt her, and can just say “Oh, you know Bella’s luck. She made friends with another werewolf, and he beat the tar out of her.”

For some reason, they pass notes back and forth about the many ways in which Edward would save her from a crashing plane. Yeah, he’s just that perfect and strong. God, this is boring.

In Calculus, which is the only class Bella doesn’t share with Edward–

Wait, hold up. Edward can manipulate the faculty however he wants, and there manages to be one class he doesn’t share with Bella? I call BS.

Well, anyway, in Calculus, the guys are taking bets on either Jacob or Edward in a fight. Mike bets on Jacob.

Uh, the end.

Well, at least her truck still ended intact in this one.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Lukas texted me at work today to say “I can’t tell if you are kidding about the Twilight thing.”

What part was most believable, you guys? Mormon vampire divorce, or Jasper insisting on being called Jasmine?

Chapter twenty-four is, arguably, the last chapter in this horrible book. I say “arguably” because again, for some reason, there is an epilogue, instead of… I don’t know… a chapter twenty-five.

I’m sorry to get your hopes up, but Edward does not get staked at this point in the series.

Edward carries Bella to his house, because–remember–she’s not allowed to drive anywhere.

Wait, I’m sorry. According to a commenter from a few weeks ago, she is allowed to drive (which is very kind of Edward, to give her permission to drive her own car), it’s just that Edward is better at it, even though we’ve never heard anything that at all corroborates the apparently fan-held fact that Bella sucks at driving. Edward is really very chivalrous, and I’m sorry for thinking he’s a controlling dirtbag with the personality of a can of Pringles.

While they’re piggy-backing it, Bella explains to Edward that she has no problem trusting him–trusting that he won’t leave again–but she doesn’t trust herself to not drive him away, because she is oh so tragic and boring at the same time. Yep, remember, it’s all her fault. She then tells him that she doesn’t fear the Volturi as much as him, because all the silly Volturi can do is kill her. Edward can leave her, and there’s just nothing compared to that.

When Edward looks appropriately horrified, Bella complains that he shouldn’t be sad. Uh, what? You just said that him leaving you was worse than dying. Ohh no, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad about that! Sorry, pumpkin!

“So–since you’re staying. Can I have my stuff back?” I asked, making my tone as light as I could manage.

Haha, yeah! Remember that one time? He totally stole her things? That was hilarious!

“Your things were never gone,” he told me. “I knew it was wrong, since I promised you peace without reminders. It was stupid and childish, but I wanted to leave something of myself with you. The CD, the pictures, the tickets–they’re all under your floorboards.”

Okay, first of all, Edward knew it was wrong to not theft her things. It was stupid and childish to not steal from her. What? Second, couldn’t he just do what a normal guy does and give her a freaking t-shirt or something? No, he’s just going to pack away her belongings, like some kind of blood-sucking squirrel.

Bella suddenly decides that she knew the whole time. That some part of her, deep down inside, knew that Edward still cared about her. Gee, where was that Bella for the 400+ pages of mind-numbing sobbing and whining? (Sorry, I mean, gosh Bella, you’re so brave and strong.)

This is her given reason for why she hears voices.

Not joking! She tells Edward that she knew, all along, that he still loved her, and so she heard his voice in her head when she attempted to kill herself uh did things that were like so totally reckless and dangerous.

She just knows this has to be the case, too. Her words bring her a “sense of conviction” and “rightness.” Yes, folks. Bella hearing voices is not a manpire power, nor is it because she is textbook schizophrenic or even pants-on-head retarded.

Edward loved me. The bond forged between us was not one that could be broken by absence, distance, or time. And no matter how much more special or beautiful or brilliant or perfect than me he might be, he was as irreversibly altered as I was. As I would always belong to him, so would he always be mine.

It’s because she knew ~*Edward still loved her*~

Oh. My. God.

Edward takes a moment to tell her how brave and strong (BRAVE AND STRONG!!!!!) she is for surviving without him. Oh, I have no idea how she managed the 16 years before. Apparently all Ed did was curl up into the foetal position, rock back and forth, and chant “I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay.” If this is true, then, yeah, I guess Bella is a Real American God Damn Hero. All she had to do was pass out in the woods, wake up four months later, and start bitching about the hole in her chest.

They finally get to the FRIGGING HOUSE augh. The Cullens all sit around their dining table–why do they have a dining table? Nobody knows!–and Bella delivers her grand speech.

Which, essentially, is “omg can u make me a vmapire now? pllllzzzzz??”

I mean, sure, she brings up a good point–sometime in the future, Marcus is going to come down here and play Six Degrees From Kevin Bacon with everybody using his Magical Relationship Radar, and nobody wants that.  So Bella puts it to a vote. I still can’t decide if this makes sense or is absolutely retarded. The fate of her soul is being decided by democracy?

Edward counters that the Volturi won’t be able to find Bella, because their resident tracker does it by reading brainwaves or some crap, and since Bella is (as of this book) immune to vampires, he won’t be able to find her! Tadaaa. Forget all about how James could track her, Jasper could manipulate her emotions, Alice can see her in the future, and uh, Carlisle cares about her? As of New Moon, Bella is immune to vampire powers, okay, and no take-backsies.

Emmett, the bro vampire, thinks this is an excellent idea. Jasper agrees because he is a boy, and the girls disagree because they are soft women.

Anyway, the voting. Edward says no, duh. Everybody else says yes, except for Rosalie.

“I don’t mean that I have any aversion to you as a sister. It’s just that… this is not the life I would have chosen for myself. I wish there had been someone to vote no for me.”

I THOUGHT CARLISLE SAVED YOU???!

I miss Rosalie the Bitch. Well, anyway, that means the vote is Yes, so Edward goes into the other room and breaks things. Not joookkinnng~ he marches off and we hear crashes from off-stage. Remember, ladies, if a man has a temper, it’s a good thing, because it means he is passionate about protecting you!

Bella, being the font of reason and logic she is, turns to Alice and says “Okay, my room or yours?” Alice’s eyes get huge, and Edward comes back into the room, screaming bloody murder.

He was in my face before I had time to blink, bending over me, his expression twisted in rage. “Are you insane?” He shouted. “Have you utterly lost your mind?”

He’s so sweet and protective of her! Alice tries very politely to tell Bella that she’s not ready to just turn a woman to her side. She’s not up for that kind of commitment. Well, okay, then maybe Carlisle will do it! Bella’s sort of a slut, it seems.

Edward interjects at this point that they don’t have to turn her now. They can just wait a few years. Let him dangle it over her head. He can withhold it as punishment for later, when she insists on seeing her friends against his wishes. God forbid Bella actually get things her way for once in this series.

Er, anyway, Edward reminds Bella that she still has parents, and they will naturally come looking for her. He suggests that it would be less conspicuous if they just waited until Bella graduated from high school and moved out of Charlie’s house. Isn’t this just delaying the inevitable? Also, aren’t we expecting a bit much from Charlie to notice that his daughter has become a vampire?

Everyone agrees to wait until after graduation, and Edward carries Bella back home. He then attempts to bargain with her. Yeah, I know he just said “we’ll wait until graduation” but now he says he wants to her to wait five years instead.

“No way. Nineteen I’ll do. But I’m not going anywhere near twenty. If you’re staying in your teens forever, then so am I.”

It’s a good thing all these kids are apparently Mormon. When she’s supposed to be 21, she’s going to regret she ever said that.

Edward realizes that bargaining for time isn’t going to work, so he switches targets–they have to get married first.

Yes. Yes. You just read that right. They are waiting until marriage before they bite each other. It’ll be special that way. Your first bite is  always special. And once you’ve been bitten, you can’t go back to being unbitten! It’ll be more meaningful when it’s with your husband.

To make this even more hilarious, Bella–Miss True Eternal Love, dying without her beloved, cannot go a day without seeing his face, hallucinates when he’s not there, the model covert-Christian soulmate-lover herself–freaking panics at the idea of marrying him. She was prepared to spend eternity with her one true love. Taking his name and filing joint taxes though–that’s not a commitment she’s ready for.

Bella gives some watered-down excuse about how her parents got divorced, and then quickly switches gears to how her mother wouldn’t approve. Edward calls her on her BS, but smugly holds it over her head. If she wants him to bite her, then she has to do exactly what he says. Not at all creepy.

Edward makes some joke about rings and Bella shrieks. Charlie wakes up, Edward hides in the closet (like he’s been doing for the last two books HEYO). Charlie attempts to talk to Bella about how she’s in trouble for running off. He asks if she can’t give him one good reason to not ship her off to Jacksonville. She’s all “you can’t make me ptbbbbbbb.” Her explanation for what was going on is that Edward heard about her cliff diving and she had to go to L.A. to explain in person.

This puts Charlie in a state, roaring about how Edward didn’t do crap for her when she was clinically depressed for almost a year, and, essentially, how he is a rotten kid. All true.

“I want you to stay away from him, Bella. I don’t trust him. He’s rotten for you. I won’t let him mess you up like that again.”

“Fine,” I said curtly.

Charlie rocked back onto his heels. “Oh.” He scrambled for a second, exhaling loudly in surprise. “I thought you were going to be difficult.”

“I am.” I stared straight into his eyes. “I meant, ‘Fine, I’ll move out.'”

As Dad looks about ready to have a heart attack, she starts cooing about how she doesn’t want to leave, but if he wants her to stay, he’s going to have to be nice to Edward. After all, he wants Bella to stay with him, right?

Wow.

Poor abused Charlie is forced to “think about it” as Bella demands her privacy. Edward reappears and half-heartedly insists she not start anything with Charlie over him. She reluctantly agrees not to, and then…

“Besides…” I grinned. “If Charlie kicks me out, then there’s no need for a graduation deadline, is there?”

Good God! She’s learning! Oh my Lord, are we going to have two passive-aggressive manipulative sissies in this series?

Anyway, something about souls, yadda yadda, nobody gives a crap.

Chapter Seventeen

I know you guys were really worried that Victoria was waiting in Bella’s home, ready to eat her, so I’ll save you some tension. Alice is standing in the living room, looking incredibly confused to see Bella.

Bella throws herself into Alice’s arms, crying out her name in ecstasy. No, really. I’m serious. Then of course, she starts crying, and Alice has to carefully extricate herself, on account of Bella smelling delicious and Alice being stupid and thirsty.

For once, in the year since the Cullens left, Bella now feels like everything is okay. Oooookay. Vampire addiction much?

Also, Alice wants very much to know why Bella is still alive. Bella quickly assumes that Alice saw her fall–she corrects her with “I saw you jump.” She’d warned Edward that this would happen, but he was convinced that Bella wouldn’t break her promise to not do stupid things. Edward doesn’t know Bella very well.

Alice is here to help Charlie deal with the suicide of his daughter. Only, uh, here she is. Bella insists she wasn’t trying to kill herself, it was just for fun, and Alice flat-out doesn’t buy it. And besides, didn’t Alice see Jacob jumping in to save her?

Remember how Alice is most sensitive to non-humans? Well, guess what. She can’t see werewolves. Yes, werewolves are invisible in her visions. Their only predator, the only other thing that can take them out, and she can’t see them. She is weresighted.

How ridiculously convenient for the plot, wouldn’t you say?

This comes up after Bella finally spills the beans that Jacob is a werewolf (so much for keeping the secret). Even though none of the vamps ever said word one about werewolves and how they’re dangerous and how they can kill vampires, Alice knows enough about them to know that they have a stupid short temper and young ones, especially, are known for loosing it.

Oh, P.S., Victoria is here trying to kill her. Why Alice didn’t have visions of that is beyond me. And she wouldn’t have seen the werewolves trying to save Bella. Why did it take a suicide attempt to bring her here?

…Does Alice want Bella to die? OMG please say yes

Bella relates the whole story, sans her Edward hallucinations. Alice comments on how Bella must not be doing so hot now that they’ve left, and she’s all “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA NO REALLY HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.” Alice mentions in passing that maybe she shouldn’t have come, and Bella has a panic attack, throwing her arms around the vampire again and begging her not to leave.

This girl needs some serious medication.

Jacob calls at this moment to check to see if Bella is still alive. When she confirms, he hangs up on her. HA! I love this kid.

Uh, let’s see. Alice is in this chapter, which you’d think would please me a great deal, but it’s still incredibly boring. Alice hunts, uh, Bella cleans and is now super happy because her magical super fun family of vampires still remembers her, uh… Edward doesn’t hang out with the family much anymore because he’s just so tortured and angsty… and Charlie finally comes home, depressed over his dead friend. Alice apolgizes over the horrible timing of her visit, but of course Charlie is okay to have her over. And Bella goes to bed.

Yawn.

Bella wakes up to Charlie and Alice talking about her in the kitchen. Charlie explains that for the first week, Bella didn’t eat or drink anything, and wouldn’t move. (Despite that Bella explains she only missed one day of school during her period of depression). He didnt let the doctor see her though, because he was afraid it would scare her. Riiight. Renee came up from Florida after that to take her back with her, but as soon as they started packing clothes, Bella snapped out of it, and threw a fit, screaming about how she could never leave. Ooookay. After that, she would move and eat and you know, sustain herself, but she broke all her CDs, she didn’t read or watch TV, and she never called her friends back. Hey, her friends actually gave it an effort! So I guess I can agree with their decision to just give the hell up on her. Oh, also, she screamed in her sleep. Did we ever mention that?

Man, Bella is a freaking mess. We are supposed to feel sorry for her, we are supposed to empathise with how much she truly loved Edward, but she’s just pathetic. She’s worse than that, she’s near psychotic. These are not normal behaviors for being dumped. These are not normal behaviors, period. Someone should have checked her into a ward a long, long time ago.

Psychiatry is for everyone, Bella.

Charlie clearly blames Edward for all of this, but not to any sort of realistic extent, like, you know, physical or emotional abuse. I mean, every girl goes completely catatonic for a week after they get dumped, right?

“Not like someone… left her, but like someone died.” His voice cracked.

It was like someone had died–like I had died. Because it had been more than just losing the truest of true loves, as if that were not enough to kill anyone. It was also losing a whole future, a whole family–the whole life that I’d chosen…

Sooooo sick of how truest of true lovingly truly loved she was. You two had nothing in common. He berated you, insulted you, controlled you, used you, and let’s be honest, you only loved him because he was gorgeous.

Augh.

Charlie and Alice both sound like they’re pretty fed up with Edward, at least, which I can appreciate. Bella decides to pretend to wake up at this point. Charlie leaves for the res to help his friend’s family sort out their affairs, and Bella catches up with Alice. The Cullens are doing random stupid things (back in school or remarried again or whatever), while Alice was trying to research her previous family.

“My birth was announced… and my death. I found my grave. I also filched my admissions sheet from the old asylum archives. The date on the admission and the date on my tombstone are the same.”

Snap. Life basically sucks for Alice. But do you see her curling up in a ball, sobbing and vomiting everywhere? No. Why weren’t these books about Alice?

Uh, Bella does chores. It’s… it’s really awesome, you guys. There’s a ring at the door, and since Alice can’t See who it is, they assumed werewolves. God, Alice, your power really sucks.  Alice vacates as Bella goes to check the door.

And now I am finally caught up.

Chapter Nine

God, how did I get so bleeding far ahead? I’m on chapter 18 in my actual reading. I have to find something else to do on my afternoon break.

Okay, chapter nine, let’s see… oh right, this one.

I was like a lost moon–my planet destroyed in some cataclysmic, disaster-movie scenario of desolation–that continued, nevertheless, to circle in a tight little orbit around the empty space left behind, ignoring the laws of gravity.

Ow that hurts. Lost moon? Seriously? Are we that unabashedly codependent?

It’s okay, because Bella has Jacob to distract her from all her terrible, horrible problems. Or just the one. Which isn’t even a problem. She’s still too stupid to realize that the Cullens have done her a favor.

Jacob gives Bella a box of candy hearts for Valentine’s Day, and jokes about her being his valentine and slave for life. Oh, but Bella knows he isn’t joking, she knows, and tries ever so hard to think of a way to reestablish their boundaries. She does this by saying she can’t bike on Friday, she’s got to go to a movie with her “friends.” When Jacob’s face falls, she reneges on her steadfast ironclad strong-willed indomitable determination to Just Be Friends, and invites him too.

I’m not sure how she didn’t “accidentally” end up with more boyfriends this way.

Random mortal friend #27: Who’s that guy you’re with, Bella? New boyfriend?
Bella: Oh, no, he just thinks he is.
Random mortal friend #27: Uh. Are you going to tell him he’s not your boyfriend?
Bella: Well I tried! I told him he was too young. But then sort of called him beautiful, shared an overlong hug, and invited him to a movie.

It hurts to know that people like this actually exist.

So Bella invites Mike to a movie, since it looks like she lied about the movie thing to begin with. Lying seems just about as easy as breathing to her. Mike starts to get the Wrong Idea so she quickly orders him to invite everyone else they know, too. Poor Mike. He needs to kill himself or be an injun or something to get this girl’s attention.

Well, as luck would have it, everybody either cancels because they don’t like Bella, or they’re sick with some flu. So it’s just Bella, Jacob, and Mike. Oh, this couldn’t possibly get awkward.

“I remember this guy,” he said in a low voice as Mike parked across the street. “The one who thought you were his girlfriend. Is he still confused?”

Bella: Gee, Jacob, are we talking about Eric, Tyler, Mike, or Edward?

The boys posture needlessly at each other and play “Bella likes me more” for the whole day. Bella has to sneak Jacob into the theater, because he’s ~*so much younger*~ than her. They sit on either side of her and subtly try to hold her hands. Then suddenly Mike gets sick and they go home. Woooo! I think the Golf Channel is probably more exciting than this.

Jacob and Bella wait in the lobby while Mike ralphs in the bathroom. Jacob puts an arm around her, and she protests, leaning away from him. So, he grabs her hand, and asks if she likes him better than Mike, or any of the other guys she knows. Ah, very mature.

“But that’s all,” he said, and it wasn’t a question.

It was hard to answer, to say the word. Would he get hurt and avoid me? How would I stand that?

Uh, I don’t know, like an adult? Oh, I have an idea, why don’t you keep lying and pretending like he’s your boyfriend, so he doesn’t get hurt! I’m sure that’ll work out super for both of you in the end.

Jacob insists he’s okay with her just liking him as a friend. He asks if it’s still “the other one,” and quickly adds that she doesn’t have to talk about it. Good, I really don’t know if I can stand more of this melodrama.

Anyway, they finally address the issue of Jacob liking her more than she likes him, and he insists that isn’t something that bothers him, as long as she’s okay. When Mike finally stumbles out of the bathroom, they drive home. Jacob is burning up now too, but swears he feels fine. Bella immediately assumes the flu, but we know what it is–werewolf puberty.

Bella angsts some about how she’s damaged, empty, broken, wasted, etc., and that Jacob is wasting his time. Booooohoohoo. She justifies her need to use him as a crutch, though. Yet again, we are shown that Bella is more than capable of doing stupid, horrible things (taking cold medicine to sleep, insulting her father, using Jacob), but we are treated to a dissertation on how she would normally never, ever do this. Someone is in denial about their perfect little Mary Sue.

Jacob decides that maybe he is feeling ill, and excuses himself out.

“It’s just that, I know how you’re unhappy a lot. And, maybe it doesn’t help anything, but I wanted you to know that I’m always here. I won’t ever let you down–I promise that you can always count on me. Wow, that does sound corny. But you know that, right? That I would never, ever hurt you?”

This paragraph made me love Jacob. Edward never did or said anything like this–all he’s ever done is hurt Bella, and then Smeyer shoves in our faces how he really only did it because he loves her. Jacob is a good kid. He actually seems to care about Bella and want her to flourish, have fun, live life, unlike Edward’s whole tepid “no if i made u a vmapire u would miss prom” BS.

However, the fact that later Jacob is just as abusive and manipulative as Edward makes me hate Smeyer even more.

Jacob leaves, promising to call when he gets home. Bella goes inside, wishing Jacob were just her brother. Fun fact, did you know Stephenie’s brother is named Jacob? Self-insertion characters indeed. Bella waits by the phone, but Jacob never calls. When she calls back, it takes eight rings for Billy to pick up and say “Oh, uh, yeah, he’s too ‘sick’ to call. Right, ‘sick.’ No no no, don’t come over here, just stay at your wolf-free home. Uh huh. Yeah. Bye.”

So Bella throws up some (the flu, not the melodrama, this time), and passes out on the bathroom floor. She spends the whole day there sleeping on a towel.

Charlie claimed that he had to work, but I suspected that he just wanted access to a bathroom.

Chica, your father sucks.

So Bella gets better 24 hours later, which is a real drag, because I was really getting into that riveting throwing-up action. Do you guys see why it was hard for me to muster the strength to even recap this? Bella finally gets a hold of Jacob, who still sounds like crap. It’s the werewolf. Flu. Werewolf flu. He’s totally not a werewolf!

And so he hangs up.

Uh, end of chapter.

Wow, I am so wasting my time with this book.

Chapter Eight

You didn’t think I was serious, did you?

Jacob begins the arduous process of teaching Bella how to ride a motorcycle. Or, rather, he would, if the author herself knew anything about riding a motorcycle.

They finally get the stupid thing started, and as Bella begins to accelerate forward, she, of course, hears Edward’s voice in her head.

“This is reckless and childish and idiotic, Bella,” the velvet voice fumed.

I love how she never imagines him apologizing for hurting her, or telling her how much he loves her. He just orders her around some more.

She’s so surprised to hear his voice in her head that she falls over, bike on top of her. Her psychotic Edisode is all “I told you so,” even though he was the one who made her fall, and Jacob helps her back up.  The more she tries the bike, the more she hallucinates Edward trying to control her some more, which, for some reason, makes her happy. When she finally starts zooming down the road, his voice distracts her to the point where she misses her turn, forgets how to turn, and slams on the brakes. She fishtails and ends up with her head in the ground.

Despite the fact that she was going so fast it was “blowing my skin against my skull and flinging my hair back behind me with enough force that it felt like someone was tugging on it,” and the fact that she wasn’t wearing a helmet, the stupid bitch is not dead. The bike lands on her, she takes a face dive, and she just sort of bleeds from her head a little. That’s it.

Jacob insists on driving her to the hospital. Bella resists, because the hospital, will, of course, ask questions. Good God. He takes off his shirt and wraps it around her head, puts the bikes in the back of the truck. The drop the bikes off at his garage, she goes home to change out of her bloody, muddy clothes, and then they go to the ER. Yes. She took a dive, head-first, from a motorcycle going at least 45 miles an hour, but she’s cool enough to make a couple of pitstops before moseying on down to the hospital. Jesus Christ. Is there any semblance of realism in these books?

Also, she hopes that the ER can stitch her up quickly, so she can try to kill herself again tonight. Edward, my love, I’m coming! ♥

She takes some time to stare at Jacob while he’s missing a shirt.

Jacob noticed my scrutiny.

“What?” he asked, suddenly self-conscious.

“Nothing. I just hadn’t realized before. Did you know, you’re sort of beautiful?”

Once the words slipped out, I worried that he might take my impulsive observation the wrong way.

Wow. Way to “break it off,” you little slut. I’m sure he won’t get the wrong idea now.

Anyway, she has seven stitches in her head, ho hum. Bella’s very clumsy so she’s used to this sort of thing by now. Remember, guys? Remember her one flaw? Remember how very clumsy she is? She tells her father that she fell and hit her head on a hammer in Jacob’s garage, which Charlie doesn’t really give a second thought to. I love how she can lie without a second thought.

She seems to be healing, at any rate. The pain of losing her ~*one true love*~ isn’t as intense now that she’s got delusions and Jacob the Wonder Rebound to keep her distracted.

We get a time-skip of about two weeks, and narrative is introduced by way of saying that Bella was in the ER again and this time Charlie doesn’t buy the “I fell” excuse.

“Maybe you should just stay out of the garage altogether, Bella,” he suggested that night during dinner.

I panicked, worried that Charlie was about to lay down some kind of edict that would prohibit La Push, and consequently my motorcycle. And I wasn’t giving it up–I’d had the most amazing hallucination today. My velvet-voiced delusion had yelled at me for almost five minute before I’d hit the brake too abruptly and launched myself into the tree.

Some people use drugs, or sex with strangers. Bella uses head injury.

“This didn’t happen in the garage,” I protested quickly. “We were hiking, and I tripped over a rock.”

“Since when do you hike?” Charlie asked skeptically.

You know, a good father would have gone “mysterious injuries, bizarre cover-up stories… what is that boy doing to you?” Charlie just sort of lets her convince him it’s because she was working at a sporting goods store and it “rubbed off” on her.

In all fairness, I like that Bella is actually, you know, doing things in life, even if her reasons are self-destructive and harmful on multiple levels. Now that Edward is gone, she seems to have some modicum of freedom, freedom that Jacob is keen to encourage in her. It’s too bad everyone keeps telling me that Smeyer later writes Jacob as a major flaming douche bag. I guess she realized that she’d made Jacob more likable than her supposed hero and had to fix it, fast.

Bella complains to Jacob that Charlie is getting nosy, and he suggests they cool the bikes. Bella tries to think of some other possible way she could encourage her mental trauma, and decides that they should try to find that one meadow where vampires transform from creepy, subtly malignant, abusive metrosexuals, into creepy, subtly malignant, abusive and sparkling metrosexuals.

Jacob, an injun, already knows everything there is to know about hiking. He plots out a course for their hike, joking about seeing the “super bear.” When they finally get to where they’re going, he’s surprised to see that Bella didn’t take the clearly marked trail. Yeah, so was I. But Bella felt ~*so safe*~ around Edward, so being dragged off into the woods never registered on her non-existent danger senses.

There’s some pretty riveting hiking going on here, but I’ll spare you the details. Bella eventually asks if Jacob’s heard from Embry since he joined Samentology. Jacob says he hasn’t, gets all bummed, and puts an arm around Bella. Her justification for not shaking it off and attempting to reestablish their boundaries is he just looked sooo sad. Good God, I hate this bitch.

Anyway, they don’t find the meadow, and agree to try tomorrow. I seriously feel like I just wasted 10 minutes of my life reading this chapter. Why won’t something happen. Is this honestly how Stephenie thinks a book should go? 19 chapters of absolutely nothing and then seven chapters of hastily cobbled-together contrivances that might pass for plot in an alternate reality where all of us have goatees, scars, or eye-patches? For Christ’s sake, she could have cut all this “character development” bull she’s so freaking proud of and condensed her whole hateful, virulent series into one God damn book.

Please, Stephenie, please, inflict your midlife crisis on someone else.

Chapter Six

I was going to play my level 80 Blood Elf mage in World of Warcraft all night, because I am a lonely, bitter nerd, with no life or social activity, and so I could never possibly understand the intricacies and complexities of utter vampire devotion…

But the servers seem to be down.

So you guys get a recap.

Jacob immediately sets to work disassembling the bikes while Bella watches. He chatters on about everything and Bella is just happy to have him fill the void in her bleeding, broken soul. He mentions his friends, Quil and Embry (yeah. I know), and as luck would have it, they show up! We get a brief description of what they look like without knowing which is which, and then it’s never really clarified. So they are now going to be known as the Quilbry.

Quilbry both seem pretty hot for Bella right away, like every other man in this part of the country. When they find out that Jacob is working on the bikes, though, suddenly it’s all testosterone. Bella makes some comment to the effect of “they’re talking about mechanical stuff and I’m just a girl, teehee,” which only makes me love her that much more. Really. I would lovingly leave her to die in a desert.

Bella eventually excuses herself because she has to go home and make dinner for Charlie. You know how it is, living with a man–it’s always “do my laundry” this and “get back in the kitchen” that. She assures Jacob that she’ll be back tomorrow, and the Quilbry snicker and elbow each other. When Bella adds that Jacob needs to give her riding lessons, his friends make a dirty joke and Jacob smacks them. We don’t actually know what the dirty joke is, because sex is naughty and wrong. But describing literal and symbolic gore with as much detail as possible is okay.

Bella leaves as Jacob wrassles with his crazy friends, marveling at how she’s actually happy. Yes, using someone as your emotional medication will do that. Charlie is suspicious, now, of all times, and asks questions about what she did all day. She avoids the whole dangerous motorcycle trying-to-indirectly-commit-suicide thing and just says she hung out with Jacob. Bella goes up to bed, weary, knowing she’ll have her (infamous) screaming nightmare again, and…

Wakes up in the morning with no problems.

Hey, that Jacob kid is really good for what ails you.

Lots of narrative about how she’s afraid the numbness will come back, but focusing on using her crutch seeing Jacob staves it off. They both go to the dump, in the rain, to look for carparts. Bella comments on how nice and cheerful Jacob is. Yeah, it’s almost like he’s a normal kid without a crippling social defect like I don’t know being a self-loathing manic-depressive who threatens to kill his girlfriend when she tongue-kisses him.

It’s riveting.

They joke about how it seems like one of the Quilbry likes Bella, and Bella insists he–whichever one he is-is too young. A year and a few months, Jacob points out stiffly, as he is now talking about himself, is not too young. They immediately get into a competition wherein life experience earns you extra years on your age. Yeah. Guess who wins that one. I’ll give you a hint–it’s not the person who’s spent 17 years just lying around waiting to be paired up with a controlling pulse-less freak.

They’re in the garage when Charlie stops by. He’s surprised to see his daughter happy. I’m surprised he even freaking noticed. It looks like the whole block comes down to have spaghetti. It’s a good old-fashioned Lost Tribe of Israel family dinner.

It’s super riveting.

Bella comes home, writes her mom an email, and, oh, right, she has the screaming nightmare again. This time, Sam Uley is in it. Why does she keep having prophetic dreams? Is there a reason? You can spoil me on this one, readers. Is this going to be her vampire power?

So she wakes up and eats breakfast and goes to school and crap the running commentary on every daily event is back. I’m not sure which I would rather go with–the melodramatic description of her broken heart, or the “Then I did this. Then I did this. Then this happened” style narrative.

At lunch, Bella realizes things like some of her friends are now single, some of them have changed their hair, and other things that would have been obvious to people were they not wrapped up in their own self-created drama consisting largely of “WAAAH WHO’S GOING TO DRIVE ME EVERYWHERE NOW.”

The conversation turns somehow to the bear/wolf/wolfman people keep seeing. Lauren, the bitch from last book (she was a bitch because she didn’t like Bella), is making fun of people who think they’ve seen it. Bella jumps in with “No, these crusty guys at work were talking about it yesterday.”

And everybody just stares at her.

They try to recover–Mike quicker than the others–and include her in the conversation. Hey guys, Bella’s back! Yaaaaay.

After the conversation, Angela thanks Bella for jumping in for her, and then says it’s good to have her back.

You know, here’s a thought. Maybe my circle of friends is somehow paranormal, but if one of us was depressed and refusing to leave the house, for whatever reason (say, “my parents have divorced and in only a few months remarried to people I’ve never even met,” or “I just found out my ex-girlfriend is a psychotic character-assassinating bitch and I’m terrified everyone believes what she said and now hates me,”) we march over there, demand that they answer their phone or the door, and we drag them out of the God damn house. We don’t just sit and watch them suffer silently, hoping that maybe if we just ignore their depression it will go away.

Where does Bella find these people?

Chapter Five

Completely off-topic, but Prince of Persia blew my freaking mind. Easily worth the two traded-in-games-that-came-free-with-our-PS3 and $30.

Chapter five begins at Bella’s part-time job. That’s right. She has a job. See, Stephenie is sensitive to women’s rights. Bella works at Newton’s, the sports store owned by Mike’s family. Two grizzled old camper-type-guys are talking about running into a black bear, bigger than a grizzly. Why didn’t they describe it as a big, black grizzly? Nobody knows! Is that foreshadowing I smell? I don’t know why the hell a werewolf would look like a bear, but whatever!

Bella drives home, and explains how… no, you know what. You get a quote.

I always had nightmares now, every night. Not nightmares, really, not in the plural, because it was always the same nightmare. You’d think I’d get bored after so many months, grow immune to it. But the dream never failed to horrify me, and only ended when I woke myself with screaming. Charlie didn’t  come in to see  what was wrong anymore, to make sure there was no intruder strangling me or something like that–he was used to it now.

I’m going to rephrase that in outraged, big girl English.

Bella has night terrors every night for four months.

Every night for four months she wakes up screaming.

Every night for four months.

Charlie learns to ignore it. Charlie, a cop, learns to ignore the fact that, after finding his little girl unconscious, alone, and disoriented in the woods, she wakes herself up screaming every night.

What. THE. HELL.

You know, I’ve been accused multiple times of overthinking this series. I’ve been told I need to set aside the criticism and just enjoy it. There is a significant difference between suspending my disbelief and turning my brain off altogether. This would never happen. THIS WOULD NEVER HAPPEN.

Oh GOD I feel like I need to hit something. Did this woman know a God damn thing about realistic human behavior before she wrote this? Jesus H. Christ.

Okay. Let me calm down. Gotta center myself.

Bella describes her nightmare, which is basically just her alone in the woods looking for Edward and he’s not there. Yeah, that’s it. Good, classic symptom of a night terror–dreaming about some impossible task that triggers anxiety. I’d like to point out that night terror sufferers will also exhibit signs of depression. I could just choke somebody right now.

Thinking about how hard life is and how much she hurts now that her controlling abusive boyfriend has dumped her makes her stop the car and curl up on the seat. She explains how now that she looks like hell with pale pasty skin and black circles under her eyes, she could almost pass for a vampire now! Right? RIGHT?! I COULD TOTALLY PASS FOR A VAMPIRE. MAYBE EDWARD WILL COME BACK AND LOVE ME AGAIN. AHAHAHAHAHAHAH.

She stops to think how unfair it is that he broke his promise to stay with her forever and ever and ever, and that he made her promise to not hurt herself. How stupid is that? She should totally not have to follow through on that. Luckily, Bella has stopped her truck right in front of a house selling two broken-down motorcycles. Charlie thinks motorcycles are reckless and stupid, and Charlie doesn’t seem to give a crap about Bella’s well-being, so she immediately decides she’s buying a motorcycle as a means of indirectly killing herself. That’ll show Edward for leaving her.

Good God, I wish I were exaggerating. Bella goes up to the house and asks for the price on the two motorcycles. The kid just gives them to her for free, since they haven’t worked in years. “That’s okay,” Bella says. “I know someone who builds cars.”

Gird yourself, Jacob. You’re Bella’s new emotional crutch.

Bella gets directions down to the Blacks’ place from Charlie (who demands to know what’s wrong as soon as he answers the phone. As if you care, Dad). Jacob is excited to see her. Also, he’s a six-foot-five sixteen year old. CRAP ON A STICK this kid is huge.

Bella comes in, says hi to Billy, makes a big show about how she likes Jacob and missed him. We all know she’s just craving some male attention. Mike doesn’t count because he’s a stupid mortal and won’t live forever or turn into a werewolf that could pass for a bear. Bella gets Jacob alone in his garage and explains the sane part of the situation–she’s got broken motorcycles but don’t tell Charlie.

Now, here’s the hard part. Jacob is… well… I like him. He’s sweet. He’s happy. He’s normal (for now). Bella is almost tolerable around him, because she’s not constantly whining about the gaping oozing squirting rotting hole in her chest. I like Jacob.

Which is probably just going to make me angrier in the long run.

Chapter Four

Today’s update is brought to you by Mother’s Day! Thanks for raising me to be a sensible woman who knows better than to hang around with asshole vampires, Mom!

It’s four months later, and Bella finally wakes up.

Charlie has slammed his fist on the table, and announced he’s sending Bella home. Bella is exhibiting signs of clinical depression–or she would be, if Stephenie knew a single freaking thing about behavioral psychology. Bella is depressed in that she is emotionally dead and doesn’t want to do any of the things she enjoyed doing… which is cheating, because she didn’t enjoy doing anything to begin with. Other than that, her grades are perfect, she never misses days of school, she hasn’t broken curfew, she gets out of bed in the morning, etc. Remember, kids, depression is good for your schoolwork.

How much more readable would this series be if Stephenie knew anything about how people actually work? Edward would be abusive, but only because Carlisle has been perpetuating it, reminding him of what a monster he is and how no one will love him. Bella would be of the classic girlfriend “I will save the badboy” stereotype, and her friends and family would vainly attempt to save her from the maniac she loves and her self-imposed Stockholm Syndrome…

But no. I get “He hurts her because he loves her” and not a single character questions it.

Yawn.

So Bella comes to, four months later, as Charlie has begun telling her that she needs to get some help. I am displeased that it took him four months to have this conversation with her. Charlie is a really crappy dad. Bella doesn’t want to see a shrink, though–they’d lock her away if she said Edward was a vampire. It’s more likely they’d give her some pretty little antipsychotic pills to take. Then when Edward comes back he can medicate her by force, to make sure she stays “good” around him. That’s interesting! It’s never going to happen.

Charlie insists that Bella do something. Bella tepidly agrees that she’ll go out with Jessica or whatever. Who? Oh, right, boring mortal friend, I remember. Charlie tells her she needs to stop waiting for “him,” at which Bella glowers. Edward, it seems, is off-limits. How mature. That’ll help you through your problem. She rushes off to school to avoid further interaction.

Mike looks like he’s worried about her. That’s pretty sweet of him. Jessica, however, has ditched Bella entirely, because uh… I really don’t know, actually. Bella wasn’t much for conversation to begin with, and she didn’t exactly hang out. I don’t know how Jessica would know that Bella is actually any different. Oh well. Jessica is mad at Bella for being such a downer all the time. In Calculus (which is really hard you guys, girls are never good at math), Bella asks Jessica if she wants to see a movie in Port Angeles. NO ROMANCES, OKAY. She’s trying very hard to stay at the “denial” phase. They decide on a zombie movie.

The great thing about Bella’s depression is we don’t get montages of what she does through her entire day. She’s in a “haze” so in the narrative she just… appears in her room! This should really happen more often. Bella has “survived” the last few months by keeping herself in a protective cocoon of haziness and denial, numbing herself to the outside world and trying her best to just not think about anything Edward. Healthy. Super. She even went so far as to dig the stereo out of her truck with her fingernails and keeps it in a garbage bag in her closet. Why she didn’t just throw it away is anyone’s guess.

Jessica picks Bella up. Jessica tries not to be critical/curious of why Bella suddenly wants to do things. When a love song comes on, Bella immediately asks if she can change the station.

Her eyes squinted. “Since when do you like rap?”

Wah wah waahhhhhh! “Her eyes squinted?” As opposed to what, her ears? Bella is all “uh a little while I think whatever,” and tries to pretend like she likes rap. Stupid white girls. To avoid having to interact, she nudges Jessica into one-sided conversation, and Jessica, a chatterbox, gladly delivers.

At the movie, Bella is distraught to realize that the zombie movie has a romantic prologue. NO, she might be forced to face her problems!! She escapes to the lobby for a good 20 minutes, coming back to the zombie bloodbath. Much better. Watching undead creatures eat people is a great way to get her mind off her vampire ex-boyfriend.

At some point, Bella realizes that she looks more like the zombie than the heroine, which confuses and frightens her, so she gets up and leaves again. She wanted to be undead once, but not ugly!!

It was depressing to realize that I wasn’t the heroine anymore, that my story was over.

If only that were the case. I wouldn’t have three more 500+ page books to read.

Jessica is now starting to wonder what the hell is up. Bella comes up with some weak excuse about how the movie was too scary. Whatever. They walk down to get food.

It looks like “wandering alone at night in a town you’re unfamiliar with” is something that women just do. Jessica starts walking quickly and avoiding the eye contact of a group of rough-looking men in the doorway of a bar. Heeyyy they look familiar! Bella stops to stare at them.

Jessica panics as Bella discovers her deathwish, and takes slow, lurching steps into the street, much like a mentally handicapped person. Adrenaline courses through her as she becomes aware of the danger she’d put herself in by associating with these ruffians, and of course, she likes it.

Cue the intense self-destruction!

Jessica catches up to her in the street and grabs her, demanding to know if she’s suicidal or something. Bella answers her “No,” in all seriousness, and Jessica goes like “uhh that was a joke.” Great friends. Awesome. Bella’s just fine, guys, it’s okay. Bella waves her off, telling her that she’ll “catch up in a minute.” As she walks closer to the men, who are now leering at her, she starts to hear Edward’s voice in her head.

Yes, in her moment of need, as she begins to crack, as her mind buckles under the mental strain of, uh, being dumped, she hears the soothing, velvety voice of her ex-boyfriend playing in her head, no doubt as a means of comfort.

“Bella, stop this right now!”

Wow, he even stays in-character and keeps ordering her around! That’s pretty lifelike.

Bella is shocked, thinking she would never hear him again. He orders her to go back to Jessica, because she promised not to do anything stupid. As she stands in the street, his voice starts to fade. So she does what any sane person does, and takes a step closer to danger to hear his voice again. Edward attempts to control her in her head yet again. So seriously, is this a new manpire power, or has Bella really started to lose it in a way not even Smeyer can deny?

Bella closes in on the hooligans and realizes they’re not the same four that had accosted her on that fateful, stupid day, almost a year ago. Oh. Sorry, my mistake, I thought you were someone I knew. She just turns around and walks back to Jessica.

My God. Is it just me or was that whole thing incredibly stupid? So what, Bella’s going to throw herself into danger now just to hear Edward’s voice bossing her around? She’s so God damn retarded.

Jessica’s pissed, and they eat and drive home in silence. Charlie has been worried sick, apparently not expecting that Bella was actually going to go out.

It was a crippling thing, this sensation that a huge hole had been punched through my chest, excising my most vital organs and leaving ragged, unhealed gashes around the edges that continued to throb and bleed despite the passage of time.

Um, ew?

Seriously, this bitch needs medication. I hope she starts hanging out with Jacob soon. I’m not sure how much more I can take of this “haze” and “willful self-destruction.”

Chapter Three

The Significant Other and I just bought a PS3 and Prince of Persia. I’m trying my damnedest to focus on New Moon but… seriously, can you blame me?

In all fairness, I shouldn’t have too much trouble. Chapter three is downright infuriating.

So Edward has begun breaking up with Bella, and deep down inside she suspects this is what’s going on, but he’s conditioned her so well up to this point that she’s desperate to just pretend like nothing is happening. If he left she would just die. Frankly, I wish this were true, but I would settle for Bella realizing it’s not the end of the God damn world when your very first boyfriend-vampire-soulmate dumps your ass.

Edward is distant at school. I’d say he’s cold and stoney, but he’s always like that (and ~*so dreamy*~). Bella hopes that Alice can tell her what’s going on, but she’s absent. Edward tells her that Alice and Jasper left because he was distraught over almost eating her, and Bella is wracked with guilt even though it’s NOT AT ALL HER FAULT. She asks Edward to come over later, and he’s all “yeah whatever.” Bella is hyperventilating by the time she gets to work.

Here is where I would blast the narrative for being so overwrought and melodramatic, but there are two key points to keep in mind here:

1. Bella really doesn’t have anything else in her life besides Edward. She’s ditched her friends, given up on college, and starting steeling herself to abandon her family. Emerging from a harmful relationship like this would be incredibly stressful if you were doing it intentionally. The fact that Edward is dragging it out and causing her as much emotional distress as possible doesn’t make it any better.
2. It gets worse.

Bella starts convincing herself that there’s nothing wrong and Edward just needs time to get over himself what happened. Besides, she just fell down. That’s all. He didn’t slam her into the table and get glass in her arm on purpose. He loves her. She just fell down. She fantasizes for a while at work about how maybe Edward and her can just leave Forks together so his entire family doesn’t relocate. Right, that’s going to happen.

I could go on for a few more point-by-point paragraphs here, but I’ll sum it up succinctly for you all: Edward ignores Bella for the rest of the night, doesn’t stay over like he always does, and then continues ignoring her at school the next day. And then the next day. No explanation of what’s going on. No discussion of how everything has made him feel. He just ignores her. She panics, hyperventilates, desperately believes that they’re just going to leave Forks together, and takes pictures of everybody to prepare. The narrative goes on for several pages before anything happens, and is painful on several levels. I guess I can say I’m glad that Edward will be inadvertently breaking his own cycle of abuse by up and leaving her. Maybe Bella will grow the hell up and, I don’t know, get a life.

The second day, Bella finally decides she’s going to try talking to him. Edward agrees to come over, and beats Bella there. They take a short walk into the woods, and he finally decides to let her know what’s going on.

“Bella, we’re leaving.”

WOOHOO

I mean awww.

She asks if they can just put it off another year. Bella is under the impression that Edward is issuing her yet another order.

“Bella, it’s time. How much longer could we have stayed in Forks, after all? Carlisle can barely pass for thirty and he’s claiming thirty-three now. We’d have to start over soon regardless.”

His answer confused me. I thought the point of leaving was to let his family live in peace. Why did we have to leave if they were going? I stared at him, trying to understood what he meant.

Bella, Queen of Denial.

She finally gets that when he says we he means all the vamps in vamptown, including himself. Bella insists on going with them, completely missing the point yet again. She follows up with “You promised you’d never leave me ever ever ever!” before finally accusing “This is about my soul, isn’t it?” I swear, those are her exact words. She tells Edward he can have it because she doesn’t care. Not even joking.

Edward finally pulls out the big guns and says he doesn’t want her to go because he doesn’t want her. Wow. He’s tired of being human and she’s no good for him. Wowww. Bella begins entering shut-down mode. Before he leaves, he has the gall to make her promise that she won’t do anything stupid or reckless. “I’m thinking of Charlie, of  course. He needs you.” Wowwwww.

Edward finishes his painful involvement in this chapter by telling her he will leave forever and ever and it will be like he never existed. So good bye forever, and stuff. He kisses her on the forehead. When she opens her eyes again, he’s gone.

Let me be the first to say “SO LONG, COCKBITE!”  Good freaking riddance, sister. But man, your first breakup. It sucks, right? Welcome to adulthood. It’ll only make you stronger. Why don’t you go on home, call your mortal friends, bitch about what a controlling jerk he was and how you don’t need him anyway, and take out your frustrations on a pint of Häagen-Dazs?

Bella, as everyone has probably already guessed, does none of the above.

She wanders off alone into the forest.

She trips over something, falls to the ground, curls up in the fetal position, and passes out.

Ugh. Are you serious?

Bella lies on the forest floor in the rain for hours. Night falls. She thinks she hears people calling for her, but whatever, her life is over, etc. She thinks she hears a big animal snufling around her, and then, suddenly, injuns!

Somebody named Sam Uley picks her up and carries her out of the forest, shouting that he found her. A search party was assembled at her house, made up of Charlie and a bunch of Quileute who I guess just happened to be in the area? People are asking if she’s hurt, and Sam replies she seems ok, but she just keeps saying “He’s gone.”

Wow.

Charlie gets her inside, bundles her up, and one of the town doctors has a look at her.

Let’s get a public opinion poll here. Your daughter is found unconscious and disoriented in the middle of the woods, babbling about her possessive and controlling boyfriend, who is nowhere to be found. How many of you would assume he drugged her, dragged her out there, and raped her?

Yeah, I thought so, too.

Well the doctor doesn’t bother to mention, check for, or even ask about drugs or sexual trauma. He takes her freaking pulse and says she seems fine.

Sweet Jesus.

He confirms that the Cullens have left. Carlisle got an awesome and sudden offer in LA and they had to accept it immediately. Okaay. The doctor leaves, the crowd of injuns disperses, Charlie stays up worried sick about his daughter. He gets several calls throughout the night, and one of them actually isn’t about Bella–someone is tattling on the reservation. They have been lighting bonfires. Yeah, in the rain. I don’t get it either. When Charlie hangs up he explains to Bella that those damn dirty redskins are actually celebrating the Cullens’ departure.

Charlie finally asks the questions that needed to be addressed.

“He left you alone in the woods?” Charlie guessed.

Bella just deflects it and asks how he knew where she was. Well, her note, of course. The note she never actually left. It’s in a close approximation of her handwriting, explaining where to find her. Okay. So Edward knew that Bella would go wandering off, disoriented and heartbroken, but he did it anyway? What a swell guy.

“I want to know if Edward left you alone out there in the middle of the woods,” Charlie insisted.

His name sent another wave of torture through me. I shook my head, frantic, desperate to escape the pain. “It was my fault. […]

Of course it was, sweetie. When people abuse you, it’s because you did something to make them angry. It’s always your fault.

[…] He left me right here on the trail, in sight of the house… but I tried to follow him.”

Charlie started to say something; childishly, I covered my ears.

Seriously. The cop father. Not suspecting drugs or sexual trauma. I just can’t imagine this in any sort of realistic world.

Bella gets a terrible feeling about things, and escapes up to her room. Oh, look, the CD Edward made her is gone. And he rifled through her scrapbook and took out every photo of him. How sweet of him to try to protect and honor her by STEALING HER THINGS.

Bella immediately loses autonomy and all sense of time. Guys, I’m not joking. What follows is a direct transcription of exactly what is on the next four pages.

OCTOBER

NOVEMBER

DECEMBER

JANUARY

She just gives. up. We don’t even get a narrative. We don’t even get a montage. We get month names. Bella, is for all intents and purposes, dead, for four months.

And, if you can believe this, it gets worse.