Previously: Bella is off grounding, but Edward forbids her from seeing Jacob.
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Annie: Bella is at school and she is not as miserable as she usually is. And it’s not just because she’s holding hands with the most perfect person on the planet. Okay, I’m confused. Who is she holding hands with? JLaw? Cumberbatch? Captain America? Thor?
Nope. She’s talking about Edward, of fucking course (K: Ew). Quit trolling us, Bella. Anyway. She’s not miserable because school is winding down and they are looking forward to freedom. So much so that SMeyer botches this well-known phrase:
“Freedom was so close, it was touchable, taste-able.”
Do you mean ‘so close, we could taste it’? Ooookay.
Catherine: Lol. Stephenie ‘what-are-words?’ Meyer, ladies and gentleman.
Marines: It’s so bad it’s taste-able.
Annie: Bella gives us way too many details about what end of the year at school is like for half a page, and then her thoughts are interrupted by her pesky friends talking about grad announcements? Are those really a thing in America? You mail out an announcement to your friends and family about your up-coming high school graduation? Seems strange.
Catherine: It’s a thing. Only some kids actually do it, though. I think it’s mostly super rich kids who do it in order to get presents from distant relatives? Bella would probably not be doing it in real life. Anyway, always assume Americans are up for wasting paper. We love that shit.
Kirsti: I continue to be confused by the American education system, even when supplied with explanations. Why the hell would anyone expect distant relatives to send them gifts for successfully reaching the expected base standard?? This goes into my permanent confusion folder, along with the idea of having senior portraits taken.
Mari: You guys are cute. You can tell it’s chapter 2 and we are still confused about things like grad announcements and senior portraits and not things like why are we still reading this.
Annie: There are some questions that we just can’t ask ourselves, Mari.
Bella tells her friends that she’s no longer grounded and offers to go over to Angela’s house to help her address her announcements. Alice and Angela are excited that Bella is finally free and start inviting her places, but Bella’s not into it. Her friends start planning a weekend outing to celebrate, and Bella goes back to her brooding. She broods about how while Charlie has lifted Bella’s grounding, she’s still not completely free because her second dad, Edward, has his own rules about where she can and can’t go and who she can and can’t see. (Like JACOB).
Bella’s brooding is rudely interrupted by some action going on at her cafeteria table. Angela is trying to get Alice’s attention, but she’s busy having one of her vamp visions. Bella panics a bit because this must mean certain doom. Edward doesn’t seem concerned at all and kicks Alice under the table to bring her out of it. Bella really wants to know what Alice’s vision is all about, but she doesn’t get any alone time with Edward for the rest of the afternoon. Bella thinks that it’s deliberate, but like, they’re at school. It’s hard to find alone time in a school, especially a high school.
K: Ordinarily, I would agree. But considering Edward rearranged his schedule so that they have all the same classes, it seems a little suss.
Mari: Also, since Edward and Bella basically spend their lives ignoring people while gazing into each others’ eyes and petting each others’ lips in the hallway and whatever else, the fact that he doesn’t speak to her all afternoon has to be deliberate.
Annie: At the end of the day, Edward offers to help Mike out with his car so he won’t have to talk to Bella about the thing that’s causing her stress and anxiety. So maybe he is deliberately trying to avoid being alone with her. Eddie, Alice and Bella get into Eddie’s car and he drops Alice off at the Cullens’ and then drives Bella home.
They go into Bella’s house, and she’s still a little pissed off about Edward avoiding her question. She’s at her computer, waiting for it to boot up, and Edward ‘romantically’ pins her fingers so she can’t tap them, and then kisses her so she can’t ask him questions.
I hate this device of using kissing to control, manipulate, or stop someone from talking. It’s such a fucked up, complete douchebag move. He makes out with her until she forgets that she wanted to ask him about Alice’s vision.
Mari: Also kissing until she gets into it because then it’s time to stop. It must be tricky for Edward to toe the line between kissing enough for manipulation but not enough for Bella to truly enjoy it.
K: Totally agree on the “I’m going to kiss you because I don’t want to have a conversation” thing. So, so gross. Also gross? The fact that the kissing includes the phrases “I could taste his scent” (um??) and “securing my face to his” (with a stapler?? 0/10, would not recommend).
Annie: Then Bella reads an email from her mother and spends a whole page reminding us that Renee’s supposed to be a horrible mother and she calls her mom’s marriage to her dad a ‘life-altering mistake’.
Bella broods that even though her mom is a dipshit, she believes that marriage should be taken very seriously.
K: My favourite (read: “WTF EVEN IS THIS?”) section of Bella reminding us about her mother’s existence? “You have to let them go their own way eventually, I reminded myself. You have to let them have their own life.” Um. Is this an eighteen year old girl talking about her mother? Or a 44 year old woman struggling to adapt to the idea of her kid going off to college? Because it sure as fuck sounds like the second one to me.
Mari: Is this the bullshit excuse Meyer is trying to feed us about why Bella would be a-okay with an eternal vampiric commitment but not a marriage? HOKAY GIRL. Still makes no sense, but okay.
Annie: Bella replies to her mother and then shuts down her computer, only to notice that Edward has been supervising her over her shoulder.
Bella is gearing up to be angry again, but is interrupted by Edward, who has noticed the car stereo that his siblings gave Bella for her birthday on a shelf. Eddie isn’t happy that Bella ripped the stereo out of her Wow. Free. Truck back when Bella was trying to rid herself of everything that reminded her of him. The world’s most perfect person guilts her for reacting the way she did and tells Bella that he will replace the stereo, because he doesn’t want to upset his siblings by seeing their gift in such rough shape.
Catherine: But he got rid of all the other stuff he gave her, right? That was all him? But he’s mad about this one thing? WTF?
Annie: Edward is clearly on a scolding kick, because next he takes Bella to task for not yet using the plane tickets Carlisle and Esme gave Bella for her birthday. Edward suggests they use the tickets and go to visit Bella’s mother, first using guilt, then trying bullying. When that doesn’t work, he lays it on thicker, saying that Bella’s grounding has also meant that he has been locked up because he can’t leave Bella unsupervised. Bella puts her foot down and tells Edward that she doesn’t want to rock the boat with Charlie and going away with Edward would do just that.
K: I love the part where she refers to Edward as “so impossibly selfless,” because uh, girl? He’s telling you what to do at least 23 hours and 59 minutes out of the day.
Mari: That unaccounted for minute probably has something to do with him wanting to kill you though so. Not a great minute.
Annie: Bella remembers that she wanted to know about Alice’s vision and she asks Edward about it. Eddie explains that Alice saw Jasper with his old family and they’re bad news. Bella asks Edward why he didn’t tell her earlier about the vision, and Edward explains that he didn’t think Bella had picked up on Alice’s episode. Bella then scolds herself because Edward is gas lighting her she’s letting her imagination get out of control and she is paranoid that Edward is going out of his way to keep things from her.
Catherine: Spoiler alert: Edward is lying. And he apparently needed all day to come up with this lie? Even though in New Moon he said he was an excellent liar.
Mari: Okay, that’s also the book where he was basically being angry at everything in preparation for leaving Bella. He’s not good at lying; he’s just lucky Bella is an idiot.
Annie: They go downstairs to do homework so Charlie won’t be pissed off to come home and catch them upstairs. They cook Charlie his favourite dinner, because she’s sucking up to him, but it makes me question Bella’s cooking skills, because at dinner she says Charlie ‘forces down’ 3 helpings. Forces down? That’s a suspect description for enjoying your favourite dinner. I don’t think Stephenie Meyer understands what those words mean.
K: I’m also wondering why Charlie doesn’t think it’s SUPER FUCKING WEIRD every time your boyfriend goes into the other room whenever you eat. Because that’s super fucking weird.
Mari: He’s probably just grateful whenever Edward leaves. It also explains why he’s forcing down so much food, prolonging dinner, and thus by extension Edward’s presence out of his kitchen. I’d force down every bit of food, too.
Annie: They small talk after dinner and Charlie tells Bella that Billy has invited them over that weekend for a playoff party. Bella doesn’t really say anything, because she knows she wouldn’t be permitted to attend a werewolf party. Then she wonders if it would be okay for Charlie to attend. Girl. No. Fuck you. You may allow Eddie to control you, but your boyfriend will not be dictating who your father spends time with. Absolutely not.
As Bella starts the washing up from dinner, Edward comes in and tells Charlie about the plane tickets. God, he is such a dick. Edward tells Charlie that his mother’s feelings would be hurt if Bella lets the plane tickets expire. Charlie starts to question Bella about the tickets, but she explains the whole story: That there are two plane tickets one for her and one for Edward. Bella swings from being pissed off at Edward, as she should be, to being mad at Charlie. She tells Charlie that she’s not a child and can do whatever she wants now that she’s no longer grounded. Charlie and Bella argue for a while and Charlie regrounds Bella. Bella decides to prove her maturity by threatening to tell her mother on Charlie and threatening to move out.
If I were Charlie, I’d be all ‘Bye, girl, bye!’.
K: YUP.
Annie: Bella tells Charlie that she’s going out, and she and Edward go out to his car, where Bella then fights with Edward about bringing up the tickets in front of Charlie. Legit. He basically did exactly what she told him not to. Edward tells Bella that he did it for her own good, because she was ‘too much of a coward to deal with Charlie’. Edward. You fucking wanker. I hate you so much.
Catherine: That was pretty 50 Shades of fucking Grey on Edward’s part. I mean, we all know that that book was ripoff of Twilight but at times like these it’s amazing how close of a ripoff it was.
K: And in Eclipse especially, the Christian Grey seems to be scarily close to the surface.
Annie: Bella lectures Edward for a bit and asks if he pushed the visit to Renee because of the party at Billy’s. Eddie assures her that she wouldn’t be going to the party no matter what. Because he’s the boss of her. Fuck youuuuuuuu, Eddie.
Mari: I’m already seriously regretting trying to read this book. This is awful.
Annie: It’s sapping my will to live. Welcome to Chapter 2, everybody!
Bella decides she doesn’t want to fight with Edward anymore, and his voice turns to velvet. He should really see a doctor about that. They go visit the vampire family, but are back in time so that Bella doesn’t break her curfew. Edward kisses her on top of her head and says he’ll be back when Charlie is sleeping.
Charlie is waiting for Bella, and says he wants to talk to her, maybe about the way she was talking to him earlier? Nope. He wants to have the sex talk with her. Bella freaks out and begs her father not to have this talk with her and tells him that her mother has already had the sex talk with her. Charlie presses the issue and clearly isn’t going to back down, so Bella tells Charlie that she’s a virgin.
Charlie seems satisfied by this. Gross. And he goes back to his game. (C: Ugh. The message here. I’m barfing.) (K: SAME.) Bella goes upstairs, wondering what she’s going to do with herself and decides she could probably drive out to see Jacob before her keeper returns to supervise her while she sleeps.
Now, in past books, I’m pretty sure they’ve told us that it’s about an hour’s drive out to LaPush. It’s 10:30pm. The drive out would mean that she gets there around 11:30 and then spends… a few minutes out there? An hour? So she’ll be home by 1am at the earliest. Eddie will definitely know she was gone.
Mari: I think that drive went from an hour to 20 minutes at one point. We’re in the third book, so maybe Jacob is her next neighbor now.
Annie: Charlie’s all excited that Bella wants to go see Jacob and tells her she can stay out as long as she’d like. Bella heads out to her truck and tries to start it, only to find Edward the psycho waiting for her. He’s pissed off. Alice’s super powers of contrivance tipped him off to Bella’s decision to go visit the werewolves.
After Edward spends some time wondering out loud about why it is that Alice can’t see the werewolves, he tells Bella that her car will be in working order by the time she goes to school the next morning. This controlling dick took her car apart to control her ability to go and see Jacob. He tells her to leave her window open if she wants him to come watch her sleep, but if she leaves it closed, he’ll know she doesn’t want him there. Like that’s stopped him before.
Just no.
Catherine: Yep. This happens. Even as a mushy-minded 17 year old who was ~~in love~~ with Edward I thought this was some BS the first time I read this. He took her car apart to control her. HE. TOOK. HER. CAR. APART. WHAT. IS. THIS. BOOK.
K: I read a YA book about a girl in a manipulative/abusive relationship recently, and it featured almost the exact same red flags as this chapter. YAY.
Mari: And instead of confronting her when he knew this information, he decided to manipulate her and GOTCHA! her right up to this moment. Why? WHY? Why let it get this far? Because Edward Cullen is a dick and he’s obviously getting some kind of sick satisfaction out of this and out of his power over Bella.
And remember when Edward scoffed at the idea that this car trick would stop Bella? Well, here we are and how I wish we weren’t here.
Annie: Bella goes back inside and Charlie is surprised that she’s back. Bella tells him her truck wouldn’t start, and he offers her his patrol car or to take a look at the truck for her because Charlie really, really ships Bella and Jacob.
Bella tells Charlie she’ll just try it again in the morning. She goes upstairs and is all ‘I’m totes going to leave my window closed.’ But then to end the chapter, she dramatically pushes her window wide open.
Ew. And nope.
Fuchsia-haired, caffeine enthusiast, dog person, Raptors fan, sometimes blogger, music & social media geek, freelancer, human being. She/her.
I am a 30-something year-old human woman who lives in Maine. I'm a freelance writer who mostly spends time that I should be doing that, watching T.V. I also love reading and comic books way too much.
I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and read more than is good for me.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
