"Because... ?"
He took a deep breath and stared through the windshield at the thick, rolling clouds that seemed to press down, almost within reach.
"When we hunt," he spoke slowly, unwillingly, "we give ourselves over to our senses... govern less with our minds. Especially our sense of smell. If you were anywhere near me when I lost control that way... " He shook his head, still gazing morosely at the heavy clouds.
"... So you're saying you would probably eat me?"
Fredward put his head down, his face in his hands. He looked sad. "It's like... say it's someone's birthday, like Jessica's. So you buy her a little box of gourmet chocolates and you put them in your purse. And even though they look so delicious, you never dream of eating them. So then, you get home, and Charlie wants to take you to... er, a Chinese buffet or something. And you're really hungry, so you're pretty excited. You get there, and you have the Egg Drop soup, and you eat some BBQ pork, and then you have some Chow Mein... some General Tso's chicken... a Wonton... some rice... and since it's a buffet, you probably want to try a bit of everything, and so that's what you end up doing.
"So you eat all that, and you're sitting there chatting with Charlie and you're pretty satisfied. Everything you ate was pretty standard, exactly what you thought it was going to be, pretty average but okay. And then, all of the sudden, you remember the gourmet chocolates in your purse, you know, the ones you brought along but vowed not to eat, because they're for Jessica. But then you realize that the only thing in the world that you want, the only thing that can satisfy you at that moment, is to eat the chocolates in your purse that are for Jessica."
I shook my head to ward off the yawns. "I think I get what you're trying to say," I said.
But our eyes held, and the silence deepened—and changed. Flickers of the electricity250 I'd felt this afternoon began to charge the atmosphere as he gazed unrelentingly into my eyes. It wasn't until my head started to swim that I realized I wasn't breathing.251 When I drew in a jagged breath, breathing in the stillness, he closed his beautiful eyelids.
"Bella, I think you should go inside now." I think you should go inside now, I joked in my head. His low voice was rough, and his eyes were on the clouds again.252
I opened the door, and the arctic draft253 that burst into the car helped clear my head. Afraid I might stumble in my woozy state,254 I stepped carefully out of the car and shut the door behind me without looking back. The whir of the automatic window unrolling made me turn.
"Oh, Bella?" he called after me, his voice more even.255 He leaned toward the open window with a faint smile on his lips.
"Yes?"
"Tomorrow it's my turn to W."
250. Sex hormones.
251. Metaphorically, Bella is drowning in sex hormones.
252. Fredward's eyes are riding high. This is a drug reference.
253. This is an exaggeration.
254. This is a drug reference.
255. A little less odd than usual. This footnote is a play on the multiple meanings of the word 'even.'