How It All Goes Down
The Truth
- Bella wakes up in Edward’s arms. Now she thinks she must have died and gone to heaven. "I’m dead, right?" Bella asks. "I did drown. Crap, Crap, crap! This is gonna kill Charlie" (23.16).
- When reality settles in, Edward tells Bella that Charlie banned him from the house, but his sneaking through Bella’s window has almost become a tradition.
- Edward feels sick to his core for not having reckoned with the danger Laurent and Victoria would pose to Bella, but she tells him it’s time to quit feeling responsible for her life or death.
- Edward reveals that he wanted to commit suicide because he can’t live in a world without her in it. He explains that he lied to her when he said he didn’t love her:
"I didn’t want to do it – it felt like it would kill me to do it – but I hoped that, if you thought I’d moved on, so would you." (23.84) - Of course Bella believed him. She still has trouble accepting that he’s really back for good, as he promises her.
- Edward reveals that he’s been hunting Victoria, not because he thought Bella was in immediate danger, but just for danger prevention. The subject matter of Victoria brings up Jacob. It’s obvious Edward is not in favor of Bella’s relationship with a young (handsome) werewolf.
- Bella thinks that Edward should worry instead about the Volturi, and keep his promise to change her. Edward says, "they count years the way you count days" (23.160). Plus he’s got some other plans up his sleeve to avoid this irritating transformation business.
- Bella has had it:
Was this fixation with keeping me human really about my soul, or was it because he wasn’t sure that he wanted me around that long? (23.169) - She decides to put her mortality to a vote before the Cullen family.