This was the wrong place to have come. The forest was too green and far too much like the scene in last night's dream to allow me to stop thinking about Fredward. Now that there was no longer the sound of my soggy footsteps, the silence was piercing. The ferns stood higher in my head now, now that I was seated, and I knew someone could walk by on the path, three feet away, and not see me. Would this happen, just because it was possible? Anything could happen at any time, I reminded myself, thinking about the flux of the universe.
Here in the trees it was much easier to believe the absurdities that embarrassed me indoors. Nothing had changed in this forest for thousands of years: nothing. And all the myths and legends of a hundred different lands, full of foreign people, seemed much more likely in this green haze than they had in my clear-cut bedroom.
I forced myself to focus on the two most vital questions I had to answer, but I did so unwillingly.
1. Did I love Fredward?
2. Did Fredward love me?
First, I had to decide if it was possible that what Squaw had said about the Cullens could be true. What if Fredward was a vampire like Squaw had said? Was my love for him so unconditional that I would still love him under these circumstances? I shook my head, laughing at myself. The real question was: Could I ever not love Fredward?
Immediately my mind responded with a resounding negative. It was silly159 and morbid to entertain such ridiculous notions. But what, then? I asked myself. There was no rational explanation for how I was alive at this moment. I listened again in my head to the things I'd observed myself: the impossible speed and strength that couldn't possibly be normal, the eye color shifting from black to gold to black to gold to black to gold to black to gold and so on, the inhumane beauty haunting me even in my sleep, the pale, frigid skin I wanted so badly to rub and lick. And more—small things that registered more slowly, despite my fast processing speed—how they never seemed to eat, the disturbing grace with which they moved. And the way He
159. An example of something that is silly is a clown.