A hundred yards away, Mike Newton was lowering Bella’s limp body to the sidewalk. She slumped unresponsively against the wet concrete, her skin chalky as a corpse. I almost took the door off the car.
Billy wanted me to stay a safe distance from the most important person in my life. It turned out that his concern was, in the end, unnecessary. I was all too safe now.
Before I tell you my story, Jasper said. you must understand that there are places in our world, Bella, where the life span of the never-aging is measured in weeks, and not centuries.
It’s not the face, but the expressions on it. It’s not the voice, but what you say. It’s not how you look in that body, but the thing you do with it. You are beautiful.
And it was different because I’d already lost her so many times, so many ways, in my head. And different because she was never really mine to lose. And different because this wasn’t my fault.
