Eclipse Chapter 27 – Pain seasoning.

Previously: Jacob cemented his position as ALSO WORST in a long line of worst of this book.
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Catherine: Bella has to pull over on her drive home because she’s so upset about breaking the heart of the guy who sexually assaulted her and admitted last chapter that he manipulated her with the threat of suicide and purposefully put her in a situation where he HOPED that her boyfriend would beat her up so that she would leave him and he could catch her on the rebound.

I am not as upset, if you can tell.

While Bella is parked on the side of the road bawling her eyes out, Edward shows up to comfort her and she briefly thinks:

“–There was a smaller part of me—smaller, but getting louder and angrier every minute, screaming at the rest of me—that craved a different set of arms. So then there was fresh guilt to season the pain.”

Shit like this is why it’s taken us 3 months to do our month of Eclipse. Mark my words. This book has beaten us. Also, ‘season the pain’ is so weird. What a weird fucking description.

Marines: Well, I don’t know, I feel like I’ve been marinated in this pain for quite a while.

Annie: Also. If I was feeling THAT conflicted about choosing between two men that close to my wedding day, I think I’d be postponing that wedding until I figured it all out. Not to mention that Bella has been through a lot. She has basically been beaten down psychologically by two abusive men as they competed for her like she was an object to be won. Maybe now isn’t the best time to be making such big life-changing decisions like marrying someone and becoming an immortal bloodsucker?

Kirsti: Pfff, Annie. You and your sensible logic. 

Catherine: Logic isn’t TRAGIC and ROMANTIC, Annie. Omg.

Bella begins to cry her father’s name and I thought she wanted her dad for a sec before she revealed that she actually just wanted to get past him before her ugly cry got worse.

Edward drives Bella home and she notes that he doesn’t speed for once. I’m not sure I’ve ever really gone in to how fucking much I hate that Edward whines about how much he just wants to protect Bella and then whips her car around on dangerous wet roads like they’re Toyko fucking drifting. 

K: A+. Vampire reflexes are not an excuse to do stupid shit behind the wheel because, like, MAYBE THE CAR CAN’T HANDLE CHANGING DIRECTIONS THAT FAST, ASSHAT.

Catherine: He is such an asshat.

Bella continues to lose her shit in an epic way over how depressed she is that she had to take her vag off the table for Jacob. She starts hyperventilating and searching for her ‘reserve of strength’ to make it home to her bedroom before she REALLY breaks down and goes full Terms of Endearment.

Was this girl already a complete basket case in book one or did these two jagoffs gaslight her into it?

Annie: They helped push her into basket case mode. They definitely both took turns gas lighting her.

Mari: I’m trying to think of we first met Bella. Wasn’t she hating the sun, the clouds, the color green? Wasn’t she stroking a cactus or something? I might be confusing this with movie!Bella. 

K: Movie!Bella stroked a cactus. Both Bellas hated every kind of weather and the colour green.

Catherine: Edward takes Bella home and she tells him to wait for her upstairs while she does another round of ‘getting past’ her father.

Charlie notices that her face is all red from crying and asks if Jacob is okay. Bella tells him that Jacob is fine (even though she broke his little rapey heart) (A: Poor muffin.) and that she just had to talk to Jacob about ‘some things that were hard’. Charlie’s all ‘was this really the best time?’ and I sort of wish the shock had killed the boy but hey. Charlie tells Bella that he hopes that she didn’t mess up Jacob’s recovery.

Bella realizes that she can’t hold it together much longer and she doesn’t want to cry in front of Charlie so she makes her excuses and bolts upstairs. Once she gets to her room she starts trying to take off her racist wolf bracelet but Edward stops her and tells her to leave it on because ‘it’s part of who you are.’ She’s a racist? Knew it.

Annie: He’s so supportive. ‘No, you keep the bracelet as a reminder of the guy who manipulated and sexually assaulted you.’ What a dickhead.

Catherine: Ugh. Bella has another of her patented breakdowns but remembers that this isn’t as bad as when Edward abandoned her so w/e.

She also mentions that Charlie didn’t come up to check on her all night even though she was loud sobbing because he has a ‘fear of emotional breakdowns’. I disagree. I think he got so used to you sob screaming for months after Edward left that he can honestly sleep through it now. He doesn’t even hear it.

Mari: I can’t even say it’s bad parenting, really. It’s probably just survival adaptation at this point.

Catherine: He’s gotta sleep somehow. 

Bella thinks about the magnets that she tried to force together in the dumbest metaphor in the entire series again and realizes that the magnets WEREN’T Edward and Jacob, silly. They were the two parts of herself that she reserves for Edward and Jacob. Obviously. So it’s totally not still pant-shittingly stupid.

K: It’s been 600 pages, Steph. CAN WE DROP THE BULLSHIT MAGNET ANALOGY YET??

Catherine: Nope! 

Edward holds her all night while she hysterically sobs. Not sure about you guys, but the most I can manage to hysterically sob for is about ten minutes. Twenty if a series finale doesn’t live up to my expectations. (K: I’ve gone an hour or so before, but it was more like 10 minutes of hysterics, 5 minutes of silent weeping, rinse and repeat. So.) Bella suddenly remembers in the middle of the night that she promised herself like 5 pages ago that she’d never let Edward see her cry over Jacob again and this, of course makes her start sobbing all over again which startles Edward.

“Edward said little; he just held me on the bed and let me ruin his shirt, staining it with salt water.”

That’s not, really… I mean unless he was wearing a silk shirt?

K: I literally have a post-it stuck to the page that says “Unless his shirt is silk, it’s not going to be ruined by tears”, so I’m calling SNARK LADY MINDMELD.

Catherine: We’re all synced up! Finally! Next up, menstrual cycles. Anyway, Bella eventually falls asleep (although, because of her somewhat conscious sleeping superpower, she’s still in pain) and morning comes. She feels a bit better the next morning although she feels that she has a new heart hole that will always be there. She opens her eyes and Edward braces for her to start the hysterics again but she tells him that she’s fine and that won’t happen again. Spoiler Alert for you life, Edward: It probably will.

She tells him that she’s sorry that he had to see that and Edward actually asks her if she’s sure that she chose right between him and Jacob. He says that he’s never seen her in so much pain before. I’m way past ever giving Edward points though, so.

She obviously was in MUCH WORSE TRAGIC PAIN after Edward left so she tells him that she’s sure that she did and that he’s the only one she can’t live without. Then she changes the subject by asking him to hand her stupid fucking ‘Wuthering Heights’ again so Meyer can drive home that she read another book besides her own.

How did I end up getting ALL of the Wuthering Heights chapters, btw? And why are there so fucking many??? (M: I think your first question answered your second. It just happens so often, girl, someone was bound to catch them.) (C: BUT WHY MEEEE???) 

Bella reads the passage where Cathy says that she can’t live without whoever the fuck (probably Heathcliff) she was into that week. She tells Edward that she can’t live without him. Well, we know for a fact that she definitely stops showering when he leaves. He quotes Heathcliff (great fucking start, dumbass) and tells her that he can’t live without her either.

Meyer, why would you take your cues from a book with this much fucking repetition? Oh wait, nevermind. I hear it.

K: Meanwhile, I’m full of rage because OH MY FUCKING GOD STOP TRYING TO MAKE OUT LIKE HEATHCLIFF IS A ROMANTIC HERO. HE WAS A BIG BAG OF DICKS WHO RUINED THE LIVES OF LIKE A DOZEN PEOPLE JUST BECAUSE THE GIRL HE LIKED MARRIED SOMEONE ELSE. 

Catherine: He was an industrial sized bag of dicks. No one in the 21st century thinks that dude was a hero. Except Meyer, I guess?  Bella tells him that she’s made a real mess of things and I can’t even remember how much of it was her fault anymore but she’s taking the blame for all of it. I guess Meyer genuinely thinks this is how you write a strong female character and a good role model for teen girls.

Hell, this book is almost over. We can start drinking early today.

Anyway, she tells him that she wants to go see Alice and there’s a section break which I’m just realizing is used SO SPARSELY in this 600 page “novel.” There are no section breaks. Every scene just drags on, filling with mindless stupidity until Meyer feels that the chapter is long enough and Bella can go to sleep now.

Anywho, when they get to the Cullen box Alice has, of course, foreseen that they are coming and is waiting, excitedly on the front porch for them. She thanks Bella before Bella can even speak.

Ya know, I kinda thought in re-reading these books that if nothing else Alice would still be okay but…no. No. She’s awful, too. Everyone is so, so awful.

Of course, Bella is there to tell her that she is going to let Alice plan her wedding. Look forward to that, btw. The wedding is still ahead of us. 

K: Excuse me while I make an urgent trip to the liquor store to stock up. I also need to call my stockbroker and buy shares in Brain Bleach, because we’re gonna be using so much that it drives the stock price through the roof.

(LOL, JK, I don’t have a stockbroker. The stock market is all fake money and it makes zero sense to me)

Catherine: The only thing that makes sense to me anymore is booze. Bella puts some minor limitations on Alice (who already knows what they are, of course. Oh my god how fucking annoying would she be to have a conversation with, seriously.) and Alice asks her if she wants to see her dress. Yes. Seriously. Alice went out and bought a dress because she contri-visioned that Bella would eventually agree to all this.

I think we went over this already by WHY the fuck is Alice not just planning her own wedding if she wants to plan a motherfucking wedding so badly? What is this? Eclipse is the novel where ever character gets exaggerated until they’re 100 times worse than ever.

Alice is now that super pushy bridesmaid who calls you 500 times a day and wants to plan everything and work out the details of every single thing a year in advance. Don’t we all just love reading about such an annoying person?

Also, if Alice keeps having these visions of people telling her things and then she blurts it out and preempts their actually telling her…doesn’t that mean that there would be nothing to see in the vision? Isn’t that a bit of a time paradox? Am I thinking too much about this? Probably, it’s a long book.

Anyway, she pulls Baby!Bella along upstairs to a room-sized (probably communal, since this is a cult) closet and shows the dress to Bella. Apparently it’s very vintage and early 20^th century. It reminds Bella of Anne of Green Gables. It’s also as white as the freshly driven snow of her perpetual virginity.

When Bella sees it she says:

“It’s beautiful. It’s just right for him”.

Which is surprising because I didn’t realize that Edward was gonna be the one wearing the dress.

Annie: In case anyone forgot why they’re going through with the whole wedding thing in the first place. Bella is the main character, but it’s all about Edward. Maybe in a wedding dress.

K: Ugh. Also? Unless this dress has insane puffed sleeves, it’s not an Anne of Green Gables dress and please stop besmirching Anne Shirley by association with you, Bella.

Catherine: STOP BRINGING DOWN THE ACTUALLY GOOD BOOKS, BELLA.

The fact that she went to what Edward would think of it before what she, herself thought of it is…yeah. Not great. 

Alice finally asks her if she likes it and Bella agrees that she does and says it’s just what she needs. Which is a weird response to a dress.

Bella agrees to the dress and tells Alice that she’ll do a great job planning if she can keep herself in check. She then tells Alice that she can be a bridesmaid. I thought that was a bit of a foregone conclusion considering 1. Alice has already planned the entire fucking thing and 2. You don’t have any other friends, Bella. Although we’re of course forgetting that one of Jacob’s clauses for not committing suicide, besides the sexual assault, was that he gets to be her man of honor or something.

K: Oh my God, can you imagine the levels of hilarity if Bella asked Jessica to be her bridesmaid? Like, just picturing Anna Kendrick’s facial expressions in that situation is giving me life right now. 

Catherine: I’m picturing full on disgust. 

Bella finds Edward again and suggests that they go to their meadow for some hot, non-sexual hand-holding and leaving room for Jesus. (M: Her dress will magically turn black as sin if they do anything else before the wedding day. #facts) 

Edward asks why Bella told Alice that they would have the wedding on August 13^th and she tells him that it will give her a month till her birthday. The fact that she thinks that matters even at all tells me she is too young to be getting married or choosing to be turned into an immortal monster.

They discuss whether or not Jacob will want to come for a minute and then Edward asks her why she’s decided to let Alice plan the wedding. Bella basically answers that it’s best if everyone (but not her) have their fun with the wedding so that she can say a proper goodbye to her human loved ones before she dies. I mean, gets turned.

After she explains this Edward looks at her quietly for a long moment and then suddenly announces that the deal is off. Bella’s all WHUT? But he explains that he will turn her but they don’t have to get married first. Methinks he saw the visions of taffeta dancing in Alice’s insane brain box.

He tells her that he feels like she’s trying to make everyone else happy (even though no one asked her to do shit, like always).

Okay, admittedly Edward does go on this huge speech about how he’s clung to this idea of virtue and having to get married out of obstinacy and it has hurt her and that maybe his way is wrong and they should try hers. He starts planning to turn her that night and says that he’s been thinking that if they give her what I believe medical professionals refer to as a buttload of morphine that she might not even feel it.

She tells him to slow down and he’s all don’t worry girl, I remember your other demand too.

Edward starts kissing her and rounding second base and Bella is getting into it and her Inner Goddess is telling her to go for it when she suddenly realizes that she doesn’t want to lose her virginity in a dirty field and tells him to stop.

K: My favourite line is “Already I couldn’t breathe right,” because GIRL. CAN YOU EVER??

Catherine: So she’s all ‘stop’ and he’s all ‘why?’ and she’s like ‘I don’t want to do this’ and he says ‘don’t you?’ and keeps going.

And I’m all:

I mean, look, she is very into it and when she pushes him away a second later he lets her but this happening so soon after the sexual assault scene with Jacob is just too much, Meyer. Just stop. Do you not realize how messed up these messages are? Do you seriously not see that?

Anyway, Edward pulls back and looks at her and his eyes are ‘black fire’, if you were wondering if Meyer could squeeze in another eye description before she wraps this up. He asks her why she asked him to stop and tells her it better not be about him. Which is pretty fucking unfair considering he spent a year now telling her over and over that he doesn’t want to have sex before marriage no matter what and now he’s all FUCK THE PAPERWORK about it.

K: SERIOUSLY. Actual quote: “‘Why?’ he asked again, his voice low and rough. ‘I love you. I want you. Right now.’” BECAUSE SHE SAID NO, YOU DOUCHECANOE. SHE DOESN’T HAVE TO EXPLAIN HERSELF TO YOU.

Catherine: Bella’s like:

“Everything in my world was about him. What a silly thing to expect.”

But she tells him that she wants to do this “right”. Where “wrong” means premarital sex, of course, YOU DIRTY HEATHENS. BLESS THYSELVES IN THE WORD OF MEYER.

She says she wants to do this ‘responsibly’ and tells him that she doesn’t want to be turned until she can leave Charlie and Renee with a good resolution and she wants to give Alice her wedding fun and, most importantly:

“I will tie myself to you in every human way, before I ask you to make me immortal.”

Get out! Get out, man! Run!

She mentions again that she’s doing this to preserve his soul. In case god checks your paperwork at the pearly gates. What’s that? You had sex three days before you got married? TO HELL WITH THEE.

Annie: His soul? First, this is giving me Buffy flashbacks. Second, he’s a fucking vampire. He’s soul-less. Remember that whole thing about who they were fretting about his soul-less-ness? And about how Bella would be losing her soul? No? LOLOL, okay, cool.

Catherine: No. I’ve already been blocking parts of this out. Who are you guys, again? Where am I?

Edward agrees, reluctantly. He tells her that if she changes her mind she knows just where she can catch a later train to fuck station. Hop on that bologna pony if you get me. Do the pants dance. Sex.

Anyway, Bella tells Edward that they now have to go tell Charlie that they’re engaged. She expects that he will be angry and tells Edward that it’s a good thing he’s bulletproof. Haha, because a dad thinking he has ownership of his grown daughter is so cute and funny haha.

Edward puts the ring back on her finger.

“He once again slid my ring into place on the third finger of my left hand. Where it would stay—conceivably for the rest of eternity”.

K: Is it just me, or does “conceivably for the rest of eternity” have this slightly doom-laden, almost threatening feel to it?

Catherine: Definitely. And yes, we have to read about that, too. Let the suffering commence.

Mari: My comments were sparse, mostly because the fact that we spent so much time of wrapping up this book with Bella just crying and crying robbed me of words. It was stupidly unnecessary and also, my life, reading Eclipse. 

 

Next time on Eclipse: THE END. THE END, DAMMIT.