"Do you feel sick?" he asked; he'd seen me like this before, earlier, at the Forks High School.
"No—that wasn't the same kind of fainting at all. I don't know what happened." I shook my head apologetically. "I think I forgot to breathe."
"I can't take you anywhere like this."
"It's not like I'm dizzy all the time, Fredward." I rolled my eyes, but it only made me more dizzy. "Your family is going to think I'm insane anyway, what's the difference?"
He measured my expression for a moment. "I'm very partial to that color with your skin," he offered unexpectedly, complimenting my blouse yet again. I flushed with pleasure, and looked away.
"Look, I'm trying really hard not to think about what I'm about to do, so can we go already?" I asked.
"And you're worried, not because you're headed to meet a houseful of vampires, but because you think those vampires won't approve of you, is that correct?"
"That's right," I answered immediately, hiding my surprise at his casual use of the word.
He shook his head. "You're incredible. I've never met anyone like you."
I realized, as he drove out of the main part of town, that I had no idea where he lived. He'd always just driven up or droven away in that sleek, stylish, dependable Volvo of his. Being taken to his lair, in my Crap Truck of all things, was an irreplaceable experience and one which I experienced with both eyes open.
We passed over the bridge at the Calaway River, the bridge where Grammy Duck had had her accident, and followed the road winding northward, upward towards the Yukon territories that Grampy Duck had started his first colony in the last century. The houses flashing past us grew further and farther apart, getting bigger as we continued deeper into the territories. And then we were past the other houses altogether, driving through the fern and trees of the misty forest. I was trying to decide whether to ask or be patient, whether to say this was taking forever or just think it, when he turned abruptly into an unpaved road. It was unmarked, barely visible among the forest of ferns. The fern-forest encroached on both sides, leaving the road ahead only discernible for

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Chapter 15

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