The rest of the morning passed in a blur. It was difficult to believe that I hadn't just imagined what Fredward had said, and the way his eyes had looked and his voice had sounded. Maybe it was just a very convincing dream I'd had while walking to English. That seemed more probable than that I really appealed to him on any level. He wasn't just a regular the Forks High School boy; he was Fredward.
So I was as impatient and frightened as Jessica was yesterday when I entered the cafeteria. I wanted to see his face, to see if he'd gone back to the cold, indifferent person I'd known for the last few weeks. Or if, by some miracle, I'd really heard what I thought I'd heard this morning: that he loved me and wanted to take me away to Seattle, maybe forever.
Jessica babbled on and on about her dance plans, surprised that they were even happening—Lauren and Angela had asked the other boys, as per my recommendation, and they were all going together. Jessica was so involved in talking about this while she chewed on a tamale from yesterday that she was completely unaware of my inattention.
Disappointment flooded through me as my eyes unerringly focused on his table. The other four were there, but he was absent. Had he gone home? Was he hiding? Was he under the table? I followed the still-babbling Jessica through the line, crushed. I'd lost my appetite and bought nothing but a bottle of lemonade. I just wanted to go sit down and sulk.
"Fredward Cullen is staring at you again," Jessica said, finally breaking through my abstraction122 with his name. "I wonder why he's sitting alone today."
My head snapped up, but thankfully not off. I followed her gaze to see Fredward, smiling crookedly, staring at me from an empty table across the cafeteria from where he usually sat. Once
121. E.g. Camo, Private Stock, Rainier, Steel Reserve
122. Bella likes to think her thoughts are abstract.