Previously: Edward kills a spider for Bella and falls in love at midnight.
—
Annie: The chapter opens with Edward following Bella using his creepy powers to watch her through people’s eyes. But not Mike Newton’s, because he has a gross infatuation with Bella and not Jessica because she doesn’t like Bella.
He decides Angela Webber will work as his eye puppet:
“Angela ever was a good choice when her eyes were available. She was kind – her head was an easy place to be.”
Sir, you were not invited. You may not comment on the headspace you are entering without consent.
Catherine: “This girl is very nice and kind, let me use her as my patsy with absolutely no qualms.” Love this guy.
Kirsti: What an absolute fucking dreamboat. Swoon.
Marines: It’s how casually he’s mentioning hijacking people’s thoughts to stalk Bella around high school for me. Also, I love that he’s like “Angela is kind” because he made a big freakin’ deal last chapter about how Bella is the only kind teen as a basis for what she’s so different and dateable.
Annie: Edward finds that sometimes it is the teachers that provide the best views. He thinks it is surprising that all these people think of Bella as being clumsy. Edward reflects on how she does seem to have a hard time walking and standing. Maybe these dumb humans are right. Edward decides Bella is clumsy.
He finds it so funny that he LOLs walking by himself in the halls and the kids give him weird looks. He doesn’t know why he had never noticed her clumsiness before and gets real weird about it:
“Perhaps because there was something very graceful about her in stillness, the way she held her head, the arch of her neck…”
Calm down, you’ve known her for five minutes and four of those minutes don’t count because you’ve been stalking her from a distance.
Mari: Why is he so bad at this? He literally has decades of living and even more access to the thoughts and behaviors of humans than most people ever do and yet he is so flippin’ stupid. I mean, he says “I was surprised watching Bella stumble through the day–tripping over cracks in the sidewalk, stray books, and most often, her own feet– that the people I eavesdropped on though of her as clumsy.” SIR. You have literally watched her fall all over this school from multiple POVs and you are SURPRISED? Thinking she has a graceful NECK doesn’t really account for you being like, “oh! She’s clumsy?” What an airhead.
Annie: Bella stacks it, and Edward laughs again. Edward feels time is moving too slowly until he can see Bella again with his own eyes. When the bell rings, he books it to the cafeteria and picks a new spot at a table that is usually empty.
The Cullen-Hales arrive and they’re not surprised to see Edward at a different table because Alice must’ve warned them about it. Rosalie think-calls him an idiot as she passes him and while Edward knows they have always had a rocky relationship, Rose has been extra irritated with him the last few days. Edward is huffy because she makes everything about herself.
Uh, excuse me, sir? Rosalie makes everything about herself?
Annie: The rest of his siblings walk past him, each think-speaking something to him. And Alice wants to know if she can talk to Bella now. Edward tells her to keep out of it, but Alice tells him it’s only a matter of time. She reminds him of the day’s biology lab. Edward is irritated that the biology teacher has the audacity to, you know, teach stuff as he has been spending all this time ignoring Bella and now he’s sad to miss an hour of sitting beside her.
Edward is watching Bella through the eyes of a freshman. She’s walking with Jessica, who is talking a lot, and Bella isn’t saying anything.
Bella enters the cafeteria and looks over to the Cullen-Hale table. Edward assumes it’s because she’s looking for him:
“She stared for a moment, and then her forehead crumpled and her eyes dropped to the floor. She hadn’t noticed me here.”
Edward thinks Bella looks so sad. He wants to go to her and comfort her, but he doesn’t know how to comfort her.
K: I feel like this is a “do you even own a face?” moment because honestly, I’ve tried replicating it and I feel like I just look like a dog that’s been caught doing the wrong thing.
Mari: idk, that’s kind of fitting.
Catherine: But sitting at a lunch table a foot apart is fine?
Mari: I’m glad we’re all confused by Edward’s random murder rules. If any of us understood his random murder rules, I would start questioning you, a lot.
Annie: We’re all willingly reading this book, so I’m already questioning us and everything.
Edward watches as she buys just a drink and wonders if she’s getting enough nutrition because he doesn’t pay attention to the human diet. So… he’s forgotten what it was like to be a human? Wouldn’t he remember eating?
Mari: He was 17 when he was turned! I know it was a while ago, but I feel like he would AT LEAST remember eating 3 meals a day? Even old people remember shit? THIS IS SO RIDICULOUS.
Annie: He’s frustrated by how fragile humans are, which is cute from the guy who spends all of his time thinking about whether or not he’s going to kill random kids.
Jessica tells Bella that Edward is sitting all by himself and staring at her again. Bella isn’t sad anymore! Because Edward! He was hoping she was upset because he wasn’t there and that was making him smile??? Sure.
K: Again, all I’m picturing here is a dog being all excited when they realise that you didn’t leave after all, you just went to pee.
Annie: He motions Bella over and then winks at her. Jessica asks if Edward is calling Bella over, and Bella tells her maybe Edward needs homework help. He counts this as ‘almost another yes’. Gross. (C: NOPE.)
Bella trips her way over to his table (M: twice) because she’s so clumsy! Edward is breathing through his nose this time making a joke just to himself about feeling the burn. He asks her to sit with him and she does, though she seems nervous. I’d be nervous if my predator invited me to sit down with him, too. He waits for Bella to speak and then continues to be weird:
“Well,” I hesitated, “I decided as long as I was going to hell I might as well do it thoroughly.”
Edward wonders if Bella has taken his words as a warning but instead she tells him she doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Mari: Part of me is like “she can’t heed the warning if she can’t understand it” and the other part of me is like “unintelligible warnings are warning enough, run girl.”
Annie: Edward tells Bella that her friends are upset that he stole her and he may not give her back. Bella looks concerned about this and Edward thinks that’s funny, but it shouldn’t be, because she should be worried. Because he really wants to kill her.
Edward tells Bella that he’s gotten tired of trying to stay away from her so he’s not going to stay away from her anymore. He wants her to see his selfishness because that should warn her about him too.
Whut.
Mari: I think it’s hilarious that Edward is trying to, like, morse code his warnings, saying everything but “I want to kill you at least half the time I’m with you.” Now THAT’S a warning.
Annie: Edward tells her that he always says too much around her. Bella tells him that she doesn’t understand him. Edward takes this as a good sign because it means she will stay. Bella asks if this means that they are friends now, and Edward tells her they could try, but he’s not a good friend for her.
K: He also says that he doesn’t like the sound of being friends because “It wasn’t…enough.” Y.i.k.e.s.
Mari: I think he’d probably like the word “property.” Just a guess.
Annie: Bella points out that he says that a lot, and Eddie tells her that it’s because she won’t listen and if she were smart she would avoid him.
Excuse me, sir. You are the one stalking her, creeping into her bedroom to watch her sleep, putting yourself in her way, calling her to your table and asking her to sit with you. Find me a woman who hasn’t felt like she has to tolerate a man inserting himself into her life to protect herself from his wrath if she were to reject him. I hate this book.
Bella accuses him of questioning how smart she is, but Edward doesn’t understand what she means. He smiles at her in non-apology. Bella asks him that as long as she’s being not smart, can they can be friends? Edward is all yep. Bella stares at her drink, and Edward can’t take the torment of it anymore and asks her what she’s thinking.
Mari: He describes the relief of finally asking her that as the relief of inhaling, but he’s not too sure, because he doesn’t remember needing oxygen or breathing. If you’ll recall, like 3 pages ago, he took a big ole sniff of Bella. You know, on an inhale. Filling his lu… oh, never mind.
Annie: Bella tells him that she’s trying to figure out what he is and he chuckles when she tells him she hasn’t been successful yet. He wants to know what her theories are but she’s too embarrassed to share. He presses her, telling her it’s frustrating and that pisses Bella off. She half-ass calls him out and points out he’s not been telling her things while also making cryptic (read: creepy as all hell) remarks.
Edward is upset to learn that Bella is right. Bella goes on to point out he’s also done a bunch of inexplicably weird things with no explanation. Edward pulls a play right out of the abuser 101 guide, and he accuses her of having a temper. Even though he completely recognizes that her irritation with him is justified.
Mari: Also, Bella doesn’t yell or throw shit or do anything other than say more words than usual? And Edward is like “temper, temper.” Please, launch yourself into the sun my dude.
Annie: Mike Newton is silently shouting at Edward, and Edward chuckles. Bella doesn’t understand why he’s chuckling because she can’t read minds. Edward explains that her boyfriend objects to Edward being weird to her and he laughs again.
Again, Bella tells him she doesn’t know what he’s talking about but all Edward is focused on is how she didn’t know who Edward meant when he referred to Mike as her boyfriend. How fucking immature is this dick?
Bella asks Edward for a favour. She wants him to tell her the next time he decides to ignore her. Edward loves this because it must mean that she doesn’t like it when he ignores her.
He agrees but asks for a favour in return. He wants to hear one theory. They go back-and-forth. Bella has been pretty clear that it’s a no from her so Edward decides to use some “persuasion” (read: manipulation) by asking her while looking deeply into her eyes and whispering. This doesn’t work. He can’t take no for an answer:
“I tried again.
“Please tell me just one little theory,” I pleaded in my soft, non-scary voice, holding her gaze in mine. To my surprise and satisfaction, it finally worked.”
Mari: Yeah, surprise, badgering a woman often works. Congrats.
Annie: Bella asks him if he has been bitten by a radioactive spider, and Edward understand why she was so embarrassed to share this theory. Because it came from a comic book.
Comic books. So embarrassing, am I right?
He teases her about it and she tells him she will figure it out eventually. Edward tells her that he wishes she wouldn’t try because he’s a bad guy ™. Edward can’t answer Bella when she asks if he is dangerous. She says she can’t believe that he’s bad. He tells her that she’s wrong and reaches out taking the lid of her drink. He notes that she doesn’t shy away from him so she isn’t afraid of him yet.
Bella jumps up, worried that they’re going to be late for class, and Edward tells her that he’s not going today. It’s blood typing day and the vampires always skip that so they don’t accidentally end up murdering an entire biology class and their teacher.
Catherine: Like that other time he almost did that.
K: Or that other time he spent an entire lesson thinking about how he’d do that.
Mari: Or all the days in between when he’s just sitting there like a ball of potential for doing that.
Annie: Bella heads to class, because she is a super good human and super good humans do not skip class. Edward waits until she’s gone and pockets her drink lid as a souvenir. Because he’s a fucking psycho.
Edward goes out to his car to listen to Debussy and chill. And he starts to write a song in his head. We all know what song this is meant to be. His songwriting is interrupted by the mental anguish of Mike panicking. He’s laying an unconscious Bella onto wet concrete. Edward also panics and nearly rips the door off his car as he gets out and yells out for Bella.
Bella doesn’t react and this just confirms for Edward that he must stalk her at all times to keep her safe.
Mari: I will reiterate every time: It does not matter how many times Edward/Meyer tell us he is the bad guy and his behavior is bad, if she consistently shows us that he is right and his behavior is in fact good and needed. Having him run to Bella’s side while thinking about how he was right to want to protect her? Contradicts everything Meyer writes in as lip service to Edward being a villain. He just ran to her like a knight in shining armor. Context matters and messages matter and Meyer’s messages fucking suck.
Annie: Mike is too busy being mad at Edward for showing up, so Edward can’t read from his thoughts what happened to Bella. Instead Edward demands to know what happened to Bella, to make Mike think about it. Edward sees through Mike’s memories. Bella didn’t manage so well after blood typing in biology.
K: I’m sure I asked this when we read Twilight back in the day, but it’s worth reiterating: HOW DOES THIS BITCH DEAL WITH HER PERIOD?
Annie: She’s so perfect, she can probably hold it.
Edward holds his breath, as he doesn’t want to catch a whiff of fresh Bella blood. Mike explains that Bella fainted, even though she didn’t prick her finger. Edward is relieved and tastes the air. All he can smell is the totes unappealing blood from Mike. Bella is now semi-conscious and tells Edward to go away. Edward is relieved Bella isn’t in danger. Because it is his job to put her in danger!
Mike explains that he was taking Bella to the nurse. Edward says he’ll do it. Mike and Ed argue over who gets to take Bella to the nurse, when Edward gets all thrilled and terrified to have an excuse to touch her. He picks her up, only touching her jeans and raincoat and holds her as far away from his body as he can. (M: The visual is fantastic if you take a second to imagine Edward holding Bella as from from his body as he can.)
Bella tells Edward to put her down. From looking at her he decides she’s embarrassed and doesn’t like to show weakness but is too limp and weak to stand and walk. All from looking at her. IDK. This seems like some pretty cheatery narration.
Mari: And an excuse to ignore her and do something to her without consent. A day that ends in day, I guess.
Annie: Edward ignores Mike and ignores Bella when she repeatedly asks him to put her down. Edward carries her to the front office. He kicks the door open startling the poor receptionist. Edward explains that Bella fainted in biology and the receptionist goes to get the nurse.
Edward lays Bella down on the cot in the nurse’s office and then moves away from her because he’s getting too excited. Settle that venom boner down, Edward.
K: Annie, no.
Edward explains Bella fainted thanks to blood typing and is amused that Bella is the fainting type. The nurse dismisses Edward, but he lies that he is supposed to stay with Bella. Edward doesn’t understand why Bella has to be so difficult by being hard to lie to and control like all the other stupid humans. The nurse goes to get Bella some ice, and Bella tells Edward he was right to skip biology.
Edward stares at her mouth and wants to move closer to her, which would be bad. (M: He was just carrying her. Come on.) Instead, he tells Bella that she scared him and that she looked dead. Bella wants to know how Edward saw her, because he had skipped class. Edward explains that he had been listening to music in his car, and Bella twitches her mouth in surprise?
IDK, friends. You can’t make up how bad this is. Somehow there are 29 pages still left in this chapter? Oof.
Catherine: The amount of nothing happening that happens in this chapters is astounding. I can only assume that Meyer saw the country-wide toilet paper shortage and really wanted to help us out by giving us pages of useless nonsense to use. What a bro.
K: Considering the paperback is $33 in Australia, that’s some expensive TP…
Mari: Desperate times.
Annie: The nurse comes back with the ice pack, but Bella doesn’t want it, which shows that she doesn’t like to be taken care of, apparently. There is so much cheatery narration. I am tired.
Mike shows up with another bleeding, fainter and Edward takes that chance to order Bella out of the office. Bella wasn’t actually following his orders, though. She wanted to GTFO because she smelled blood. Edward is all “people can’t smell blood” but Bella can. She says it smells like rust and salt, and Edward wonders if she’s even human.
Catherine: As someone who faints at the sight of blood myself, I have no idea what blood smells like because I avoid being near it.
Mari: That fair, but blood does have a smell? Or rather, when blood comes in contact with skin, it does in fact smell metallic? It’s A THING and one that someone with three medical degrees should probably know about. But of course, Meyer just uses it as another opportunity to convince us that Bella is super special because she can smell blood.
The fact that all these students have blood freely flowing from a PIN PRICK? Now that is something I question real hard.
Annie: Mike joins them in the hallway and tells Bella she looks better but in a rude way. Edward has to check himself before he kills Mike for being rude, but Bella gets involved and tells Mike to keep his bloody finger in his pocket. Mike asks if Bella will be coming to the beach this weekend, and Bella reminds him that she’s already agreed to come.
Edward is mad that Bella had given out one of her yeses to Mike. He says he’ll see Bella in gym class and leaves thinking about how perfect but horrible Edward is. Bella isn’t all that excited to go to gym class so Edward tells Bella to sit down and look sick while he uses his vampire skills to trick the receptionist into excusing Bella from class.
Edward notices the receptionist’s heart races because she finds Edward hot, and he considers that maybe Bella’s heart races around him because she too finds him hot. And he likes the thought that Bella, a child, might think he’s hot. Edward thinks about this too much in my opinion. Because I just want this chapter to fucking be over already and I am not here for any of these predatory vibes he’s giving off right now.
K: I’m also not here for the predatory vibes that the receptionist is giving off. Ma’am, you need to refresh your child safety training and/or GET A JOB THAT DOESN’T REQUIRE YOU WORKING NEAR TEENAGERS if you think they’re hot. Because gross.
Mari: It’s not a passing “what an attractive teen” but like heart racing, HEAVY BREATHING because this teen was like “excuse me, Miss?” HEAVY BREATHING. Ma’am, get thy self away from children.
Annie: Bella and Edward head out into the rain, and she lifts her face into the rain. It’s to show that Bella is not like normal human girls, because she lets her face get wet and didn’t wear makeup. Not that she needed to wear makeup because her skin and face are perfect. Of fucking course. (M: I hate it.)
She thanks Edward and asks him if he’ll be joining them on the weekend trip to La Push. It is impossible for Edward to go to La Push. Not that we’re told why.
Edward blames Mike and tells Bella that he doesn’t want to make Mike snap. Bella dismisses the concern about Mike which Edward likes then she walks away from Edward. Which he does not like. So he grabs the back of her jacket and asks her “where do you think you’re going”? Not where are you going. But where do you think you’re going. Because he’s a predatory creep.
K: Everything about this is yikes. I mean, I’m sure it was yikes in Twilight as well, but getting it from Edward’s perspective turns the yikes up to 100.
Annie: That’s the problem with this book. Reading Edward’s perspective is making everything 1000% worse. Meyer should have quit while she was ahead.
Bella tells him that she’s going home. Edward tells her that he promised to get her home safely. He notes that he purposely refers to her weak condition when he mentions her inability to get herself home because he knows she won’t like that. #RelationshipGoals.
Edward needs to practice to make sure he won’t murder her on the trip to Seattle. Bella protests. What about her Wow. Free. Truck? Edward pulls Bella towards his car telling her that Alice will bring it home later.
Mari: Edward is literally pulling her by her jacket.
“Let go!” she said, twisting sideways and nearly tripping.
This is not cute. This is not funny. This is not romantic. They went from ignoring each other to now friends, I guess, but most of their physical interactions have been Edward restraining Bella in some way. The mental image of her twisting away from him and yelling “let go” totally seriously? That’s uncomfortable.
Also uncomfortable is that Edward chalks this all up to him “looking for excuses to touch her,” which makes him think again about how Mrs. Cope reacted to thinking he was hot, with her heart rate and heavy breathing. PLEASE, STOP REMINDING US.
Annie: Edward lets Bella go, and she stumbles.
Bella tells Edward that he’s pushy and he wonders if his super weird behaviours will cause her to say no to him. Edward tells Bella that his car door is unlocked. She stands in the rain getting soaked. Bella again insists that she’s fine to drive herself but stands there getting colder and wetter. He asks her again to get in and this time tells her that he could drag her back. As a threat, I guess? Because he guesses she’s considering running away.
Mari: Bella yells that she’s perfectly capable of driving herself home and he admits to himself that of course she is. He’s just manipulating and gaslighting her in order to spend time with her, because saying “hey, I would enjoy giving you a lift home” is apparently… not an option? And instead he has to force her to do things for her own good for the hell of it?
Annie: Bella gets into the car and Edward is surprised she seems more embarrassed than angry. He has no idea how to court girls as a modern human man.
You could start by not courting girls. Just a suggestion.
Catherine: Or like, at least one who is old enough to vote. Might be a good starting place.
K: But they don’t smell like nommy treats, duh.
Mari: This is like telling me Edward prefers baby food, please stop.
Annie: Reading people’s minds did not help him figure out how to date as a modern human man and even his family was fairly useless in this respect. Edward goes over a brief history of the relationships of his siblings and parents. And all of these romantic stories are bad.
K: Did we know that Esme met Carlisle when she was “a girl” and was so obsessed with him that she always pined for his hotness and was thrilled to wake up a vampire with him standing next to her? Because this is not helping how fucking creepy this book is.
Mari: Edward calls that a normal love story. Honey, no.
Edward starts driving, and Bella recognizes Clair de Lune playing on the car stereo. Edward is glad that they have something in common. Bella watches the rain and Edward experiments with breathing. Apparently wet Bella smells even better than dry Bella:
“I clutched the steering wheel tightly. The rain made her smell better. I wouldn’t have thought that was possible. My tongue tingles in anticipation of the taste.”
Ew.
Edward tries to swallow again and the burning in his throat is making him angry and he’s back to calling Bella the girl.
K: Because he’s a murderer.
Mari: A child-murderer.
Annie: Edward has to be stronger than his urge to eat her. He wonders what he would be doing if he wasn’t the villain of the story and decides he would be learning more about her. So, he asks her what her mother is like. Bella talks about her mother and calls her mother her best friend. I thought she hated her mother?
Catherine: She claims to love her but then treats her like dog shit and calls her by her first name for some reason that is never explained.
Annie: They arrive at Bella’s house and Edward spends half a second wondering if it might be creepy that he knows where she lives. He decides that it isn’t, because Charlie is the sheriff, so everyone knows where he lives.
Edward asks Bella how old she is, which is weird because shouldn’t they be the same age since they’re in the same year at school? Bella laughs when Edward says she doesn’t seem 17 because her mother has always said she was born at 35 years old. An old soul.
This way it’s way less creepy that he’s infatuated with a teenager. Cuz she has an old soul. I see what you’re trying to do there, Meyer. It’s still gross.
Mari: The most Bella does to convince Edward that she’s an old soul is sigh and occasionally be nice to people. What an old soul.
Annie: Edward explains how this all makes sense and explains Bella‘s maturity because she parents her mother. Bella says that Edward doesn’t seem like a regular Junior either but he distracts her! By asking her about her stepfather.
This chapter has gone on for way too long.
K: And about 80% of it has been absolutely pointless. You’re nearly there, pal.
Annie: Bella says she approves of her stepfather because she just wants her mother to be happy. Edward asks if her mother would let Bella choose whoever made her happy. Edward feels he’s being stupid to ask such a question because what mother would ever approve of him being with her daughter. Edward is trying to figure out if Bella’s heart rate, facial expressions and breathing means she’s in love with him. (C: Ughhhhh. This is so exhausting.)
They talk about whether or not Bella thinks Edward could be scary. Bella thinks he could be scary if he wanted to, but Bella isn’t frightened of him right now. (M: This question is scary, Bella, keep up.)
Bella asks about his family and his birth parents and siblings. Edward doesn’t want her asking too many questions so he tells her that he needs to collect his siblings from school and that he should get her truck home to her before her father gets home. So she doesn’t have to explain what happened in class to her father.
Bella tells Edward there are no secrets in Forks. Edward laughs, because LOL secrets. He tells her to have a good time at the beach and explains that he won’t be at school the next day because he has plans with Emmett this weekend. Edward is upset that he’s made these plans, but he doesn’t want to cancel them now in case his family notices how obsessed he’s getting with Bella.
Bella tells him to have a good time and Edward doesn’t want to leave poor, soft, vulnerable Bella to her own devices. He tells her not to be offended, but she’s super accident prone so could she please be careful at the beach this weekend. He’s sad because in truth, she’s actually better off and safer away from him. And then we get this fun, weird, italicized quote:
“Run, Bella, run. I love you too much, for your good or mine.“
Bella does take offence and leaves Edward’s car in a huff. Oof. And we’re almost done.
But I have to drop the last sentence here in its entirety because it is fucking horrifying:
“I curled my hand around the key I just picked from her jacket pocket and inhaled her scent deeply as I drove away.”
Holy shit.
Catherine: Y I K E S.
K: I’ve just realised why this narration is so truly disturbing – it’s like reading a romance book written by Joe Goldberg from You.
Annie: But we’re finally done this fucking chapter, so I’m out.
Favorite comment from last post:
So we can look forward to: Wow. Save. Me. Twilight from the trucks point of view. the Anti Bella Brigade. Twilight from Lauren and Jessica’s point of view. Garlic and Wooden Stakes. Twilight from Mike’s point of veiw. With Edward wanting to kill this kid simply for liking Bella, he’s gonna need them. Ungrateful Girl. Twilight from Charlie’s point of view. Dumb and Dumber. Twilight from Jacob’s point of view. Girl with Brains. Twilight from Leah’s point of view. — Snickerdoodles
Corresponding Twilight Chapter: Chapter 05 – Incredibly Bad For You.
Next time on Midnight Sun: Rosalie’s jealousy in Chapter 07.
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.
