Breaking Dawn

And then, like in my vivid nightmare last night, the scene abruptly transformed. Everything I saw in the mirror looked completely different, though nothing actually was different.

What happened to change everything was that a soft little nudge bumped my hand—from inside my body.

In the same moment, Edward’s phone rang, shrill and demanding. Neither of us moved. It rang again and again. I tried to tune it out while I pressed my fingers to my stomach, waiting. In the mirror my expression was no longer bewildered—it was wondering now. I barely noticed when the strange, silent tears started streaming down my cheeks.

The phone kept ringing. I wished Edward would answer it—I was having a moment. Possibly the biggest of my life.

Ring! Ring! Ring!

Finally, the annoyance broke through everything else. I got down on my knees next to Edward—I found myself moving more carefully, a thousand times more aware of the way each motion felt—and patted his pockets until I found the phone. I half-expected him to thaw out and answer it himself, but he was perfectly still.

I recognized the number, and I could easily guess why she was calling.

“Hi, Alice,” I said. My voice wasn’t much better than before. I cleared my throat.

“Bella? Bella, are you okay?”

“Yeah. Um. Is Carlisle there?”

“He is. What’s the problem?”

“I’m not… one hundred percent… sure. . . .”

“Is Edward all right?” she asked warily. She called Carlisle’s name away from the phone and then demanded, “Why didn’t he pick up the phone?” before I could answer her first question.

“I’m not sure.”

“Bella, what’s going on? I just saw—”

“What did you see?”

There was a silence. “Here’s Carlisle,” she finally said.

It felt like ice water had been injected in my veins. If Alice had seen a vision of me with a green-eyed, angel-faced child in my arms, she would have answered me, wouldn’t she?

While I waited through the split second it took for Carlisle to speak, the vision I’d imagined for Alice danced behind my lids. A tiny, beautiful little baby, even more beautiful than the boy in my dream—a tiny Edward in my arms. Warmth shot through my veins, chasing the ice away.

“Bella, it’s Carlisle. What’s going on?”

“I—” I wasn’t sure how to answer. Would he laugh at my conclusions, tell me I was crazy? Was I just having another colorful dream? “I’m a little worried about Edward.… Can vampires go into shock?”

“Has he been harmed?” Carlisle’s voice was suddenly urgent.

“No, no,” I assured him. “Just… taken by surprise.”

“I don’t understand, Bella.”

“I think… well, I think that… maybe… I might be . . .” I took a deep breath. “Pregnant.”

As if to back me up, there was another tiny nudge in my abdomen. My hand flew to my stomach.

After a long pause, Carlisle’s medical training kicked in.

“When was the first day of your last menstrual cycle?”

“Sixteen days before the wedding.” I’d done the mental math thoroughly enough just before to be able to answer with certainty.

“How do you feel?”

“Weird,” I told him, and my voice broke. Another trickle of tears dribbled down my cheeks. “This is going to sound crazy—look, I know it’s way too early for any of this. Maybe I am crazy. But I’m having bizarre dreams and eating all the time and crying and throwing up and… and… I swear something moved inside me just now.”

Edward’s head snapped up.

I sighed in relief.

Edward held his hand out for the phone, his face white and hard.

“Um, I think Edward wants to talk to you.”

“Put him on,” Carlisle said in a strained voice.

Not entirely sure that Edward could talk, I put the phone in his outstretched hand.

He pressed it to his ear. “Is it possible?” he whispered.

He listened for a long time, staring blankly at nothing.

“And Bella?” he asked. His arm wrapped around me as he spoke, pulling me close into his side.

He listened for what seemed like a long time and then said, “Yes. Yes, I will.”

He pulled the phone away from his ear and pressed the “end” button. Right away, he dialed a new number.

“What did Carlisle say?” I asked impatiently.

Edward answered in a lifeless voice. “He thinks you’re pregnant.”

The words sent a warm shiver down my spine. The little nudger fluttered inside me.

“Who are you calling now?” I asked as he put the phone back to his ear.

“The airport. We’re going home.”

Edward was on the phone for more than an hour without a break. I guessed that he was arranging our flight home, but I couldn’t be sure because he wasn’t speaking English. It sounded like he was arguing; he spoke through his teeth a lot.

While he argued, he packed. He whirled around the room like an angry tornado, leaving order rather than destruction in his path. He threw a set of my clothes on the bed without looking at them, so I assumed it was time for me to get dressed. He continued with his argument while I changed, gesturing with sudden, agitated movements.

When I could no longer bear the violent energy radiating out of him, I quietly left the room. His manic concentration made me sick to my stomach—not like the morning sickness, just uncomfortable. I would wait somewhere else for his mood to pass. I couldn’t talk to this icy, focused Edward who honestly frightened me a little.

Once again, I ended up in the kitchen. There was a bag of pretzels in the cupboard. I started chewing on them absently, staring out the window at the sand and rocks and trees and ocean, everything glittering in the sun.

Someone nudged me.

“I know,” I said. “I don’t want to go, either.”

I stared out the window for a moment, but the nudger didn’t respond.

“I don’t understand,” I whispered. “What is wrong here?”

Surprising, absolutely. Astonishing, even. But wrong?

No.

So why was Edward so furious? He was the one who had actually wished out loud for a shotgun wedding.

I tried to reason through it.

Maybe it wasn’t so confusing that Edward wanted us to go home right away. He’d want Carlisle to check me out, make sure my assumption was right—though there was absolutely no doubt in my head at this point. Probably they’d want to figure out why I was already so pregnant, with the bump and the nudging and all of that. That wasn’t normal.

Once I thought of this, I was sure I had it. He must be so worried about the baby. I hadn’t gotten around to freaking out yet. My brain worked slower than his—it was still stuck marveling over the picture it had conjured up before: the tiny child with Edward’s eyes—green, as his had been when he was human—lying fair and beautiful in my arms. I hoped he would have Edward’s face exactly, with no interference from mine.

It was funny how abruptly and entirely necessary this vision had become. From that first little touch, the whole world had shifted. Where before there was just one thing I could not live without, now there were two. There