The contrast between the two of us was painful. He looked like a god. I looked very average, even for a human, almost shamefully plain.
1. PLACEBO, ?DRAG?
Chapter 3 The last was the picture of Edward and me standing awkwardly side by side.
Edward‘s face was the same as the last, cold and statue-like. But that wasn‘t the most troubling part of this photograph. The contrast between the two of us was painful. He looked like a god. I looked very average, even for a human, almost shamefully plain. I flipped the picture over with a feeling of disgust.
2. BLUE OCTOBER, ?HATE ME? [RADIO EDIT]
Edward‘s perspective
Chapter 3 ?Bella, I don‘t want you to come with me.? He spoke the words slowly and precisely, his cold eyes on my face, watching as I absorbed what he was really saying.
There was a pause as I repeated the words in my head a few times, sifting through them for their real intent.
?You… don‘t… want me?? I tried out the words, confused by the way they sounded, placed in that order.
?No.?
I stared, uncomprehending, into his eyes. He stared back without apology. His eyes were like topaz — hard and clear and very deep. I felt like I could see into them for miles and miles, yet nowhere in their bottomless depths could I see a contradiction to the word he‘d spoken.
3. WEEZER, ?THE WORLD HAS TURNED AND LEFT ME HERE?
Chapter 4 The thick haze that blurred my days now was sometimes confusing. I was surprised when I found myself in my room, not clearly remembering the drive home from school or even opening the front door. But that didn‘t matter. Losing track of time was the most I asked from life.
4. VERTICAL HORIZON, ?BEST I EVER HAD?
Chapter 5 I wondered how long this could last. Maybe someday, years from now — if the pain would just decrease to the point where I could bear it — I would be able to look back on those few short months that would always be the best of my life. And, if it were possible that the pain would ever soften enough to allow me to do that, I was sure that I would feel grateful for as much time as he‘d given me. More than I‘d asked for, more than I‘d deserved. Maybe someday I‘d be able to see it that way.
5. EVANESCENCE, ?MY IMMORTAL?
Chapter 5
6. KEANE, ?EVERYBODY‘S CHANGING?
Chapter 6 I was beginning to get annoyed with myself. I might as well have been packed in Styrofoam peanuts through the last semester.
7. AUDIOSLAVE, ?LIKE A STONE?
Chapter 7 I didn‘t go any closer. I didn‘t want to look in the windows. I wasn‘t sure which would be harder to see. If the rooms were bare, echoing empty from floor to ceiling, that would certainly hurt. Like my grandmother‘s funeral, when my mother had insisted that I stay outside during the viewing. She had said that I didn‘t need to see Gran that way, to remember her that way, rather than alive.
But wouldn‘t it be worse if there were no change? If the couches sat just as I‘d last seen them, the paintings on the walls — worse still, the piano on its low platform? It would be second only to the house disappearing all together, to see that there was no physical possession that tied them in anyway. That everything remained, untouched and forgotten, behind them.
Just like me.
8. U2, ?STUCK IN A MOMENT YOU CAN‘T GET OUT OF?
Chapter 7 I‘d come full circle, and now everything felt like an echo — an empty echo, devoid of the interest it used to have.
9. SALIVA, ?REST IN PIECES?
Chapter 9 How could I explain so that he would understand? I was an empty shell. Like a vacant house — condemned — for months I‘d been utterly uninhabitable. Now I was a little improved. The front room was in better repair. But that was all — just the one small piece. He deserved better than that — better than a one-room, falling-down fixer-upper. No amount of investment on his part could put me back in working order.
10. COLLECTIVE SOUL, ?NOT THE ONE?
Chapter 13 ?Is that what happened? Why the Cullens left??
?I‘m nothing but a human, after all. Nothing special.?
?I‘m nothing but a human, after all. Nothing special,? I explained, shrugging weakly.
11. BLINK 182, ?I MISS YOU?
Chapter 15 ?Bella.?
I smiled and exhaled.
Yes? I didn‘t answer out loud, for fear that the sound of my voice would shatter the beautiful illusion. He sounded so real, so close. It was only when he was disapproving like this that I could hear the true memory of his voice — the velvet texture and the musical intonation that made up the most perfect of all voices.
?Don‘t do this,? he pleaded.
?Please. For me.?
?Please.? It was just a whisper in the blowing rain that tossed my hair and drenched my clothes — making me as wet as if this were my second jump of the day.
