24. An Impasse

Chapter Synopsis

Bella wakes up in yet another unfamiliar white room. This time, she is in an uncomfortable bed with tubes twisted around her hands. She sees Edward there and immediately apologizes and he forgives her. (???) Bella asks him what happened, and he explains that he was almost too late to save her, and that he was very angry with himself about that.

We discover Bella’s mom is there in the hospital and that Alice called her. Bella wants to know what story they told her mom. Edward says they fed her a story that Bella fell down two flights of stairs and went through a window. Bella asks how badly she is hurt, and Edward tells her she has a broken leg, ribs, a crack in her skull, and lots of bruises. She had to have blood transfusions, which made her smell funny to Edward. Bella asks how he sucked the venom out, and he tells her it was very difficult, but he did it anyway.

Throughout their chat, Bella is told they did, indeed, kill James. Edward tells her Alice, Carlizzle and everyone loves her too, and that Alice saw the home video James made and knows where she came from now. Bella asks what reason Edward gave for being in the hospital. The story goes: Edward came to Phoenix to retrieve Bella and take her back to Forks. Bella then went to the hotel where he, Carlizzle and Alice were staying, and klutzy Bella fell down the stairs and broke through a window — Alice had fun faking the evidence. Edward leans down to kiss her, and Bella’s heart literally stops, but (unfortunately) only for a moment.

Edward hears Bella’s mom coming down the hall, and pretends to be asleep in the chair. Renee dotes on her daughter, and Bella discovers that she has been out a few days and that Phil has been signed with a team and that they were moving to Jacksonville. But Bella argues that she wants to stay in Forks. Renee realizes Edward is must be part of the reason, teasing Bella that Edward is in love with her. Bella tries to get her mom to go home, because Edward is still there, and her mother does leave the two for a bit. A nurse comes in to administer more pain meds, but Bella refuses them.

Edward “wakes up” and comes back to her bed, saying he is surprised Bella wants to stay in Forks and not move to Florida with her mother. He tries to convince her to go to Florida so that he can’t hurt her any more.  She asks if he wants her to go away, and he explains he doesn’t, but that it is safer for her (blah blah blah… same argument).  Edward says he won’t leave her because he can’t be away from her, even if it might kill her.

Bella asks why he didn’t let the venom spread so she could be a vampy like him, and he gets mad because Alice wasn’t supposed to tell her about that. He avoids the question, and they argue more about Bella wanting to become a vampire so she can be with Edward the rest of their lives. This argument continues for a while, and Bella points out that she is going to get old and die eventually, but Edward will not change his mind. Bella guesses Alice must have seen her being turned into a vampire in one of her visions, but Edward argues that Alice also saw Bella dead — and she’s not.

Edward wants her to get all hopped up on drugs so (not the cough medicine kind) so she’ll calm down, but Bella’s afraid he’ll leave. The nurse comes in to give her more drugs anyway, and Edward promises to stay with Bella as long as it makes her happy. He kisses Bella and she thanks him, loopily. Before she passes out, she tells him she is betting on Alice’s vision.

Best Worst Lines

“‘It was impossible… to stop,’ he whispered. ‘Impossible, but I did.’ He looked up finally, with half a smile, ‘I must love you.’ (460)   (If it’s impossible, Ed, it means it can’t be done.)

“‘Don’t I taste as good as I smell?’ I smiled in response. That hurt my face.

‘Even better — better than I’d imagined.’

‘I’m sorry.’ I apologized.” (460)

“He leaned in slowly; the beeping noise accelerated wildly before his lips even touched me. But when they did, though with the most gentle of pressure, the beeping stopped altogether.

He pulled back abruptly, his anxious expression turnign to relief as the monitor reported the restarting of my heart.” (463)

“‘Don’t leave me,’ I begged in a broken voice.

‘I won’t,’ he promised. ‘Now relax, before I call the nurse back to sedate you.'” (471)

“‘You are my life. You’re the only thing it would hurt me to lose.’ I was getting better at this. It was easy to admit how much I needed him.” (474)

“‘I’m hardly a lottery prize,’ he growled.

‘That’s right, you’re much better.'” (476)

“‘Stay.’ The word was slurred.” (479)   (This is very much like the ‘wow’ in three syllables. Can you slur a word with one syllable and four letters? You can elongate it. We’re not sure how it works, unless you have a lisp?)

Things That Really Irk Us

Heart stopping when he kisses her? Fuck that noise. Hate it. A lot. We can think of better ways to make her heart stop — like killing her, for real.

Renee is annoying in this chapter because she feels like that ‘hip’ mom who seems to have the same fascination with Carlizzle as Bella does with Edward. Then emphasizes how YOUNG Bella is. *gag*

Edward is being stupid. It’s nothing new. Threatening to leave and making her get stressed in the hospital — GREAT boyfriend.

Final Thoughts

We only have the epilogue to go, and we are still lacking a plot. It was there for 50 pages or so, but now it’s gone. It seemed to slip away when James died. We don’t think we’ll ever get it back again. Damn.

Go to the Epilogue.