"What is it?" he asked anxiously - distracted, but not enough. The bleakness did not entirely leave his eyes.
"Needles," I explained, looking away from the one in my hand. I concentrated on a warped ceiling tile and tried to breathe deeply despite the ache in my ribs.
"Afraid of a needle," he muttered to himself under his breath, shaking his head. "Oh, a sadistic vampire, intent on torturing her to death, sure, no problem, she runs off to meet him. An IV, on the other hand..."
I rolled my eyes. I was pleased to discover that this reaction, at least, was pain-free. I decided to change the subject.
"Why are you here?" I asked.
He stared at me, first confusion and then hurt touching his eyes. His brows pulled together as he frowned. "Do you want me to leave?"
"No!" I protested, horrified by the thought. "No, I meant, why does my
mother think you're here? I need to have my story straight before she gets back."
"Oh," he said, and his forehead smoothed back into marble. "I came to Phoenix to talk some sense into you, to convince you to come back to Forks." His wide eyes were so earnest and sincere, I almost believed him myself. "You agreed to see me, and you drove out to the hotel where I was staying with Carlisle and Alice - of course I was here with parental supervision," he inserted virtuously, "but you tripped on the stairs on the way to my room and... well, you know the rest. You don't need to remember any details, though; you have a good excuse to be a little muddled about the finer points."
I thought about it for a moment. "There are a few flaws with that story. Like no broken windows."
"Not really," he said. "Alice had a little bit too much fun fabricating evidence. It's all been taken care of very convincingly - you could probably sue the hotel if you wanted to. You have nothing to worry about," he promised, stroking my cheek with the lightest of touches. "Your only job now is to heal."
I wasn't so lost to the soreness or the fog of medication that I didn't respond to his touch. The beeping of the monitor jumped around erratically - now he wasn't the only one who could hear my heart misbehave.
"That's going to be embarrassing," I muttered to myself.
He chuckled, and a speculative look came into his eye. "Hmm, I wonder..."
He leaned in slowly; the beeping noise accelerated wildly before his lips even touched me. But when they did, though with the most gentle of pressure, the beeping stopped altogether.
He pulled back abruptly, his anxious expression turning to relief as the monitor reported the restarting of my heart.
"It seems that I'm going to have to be even more careful with you than usual." He frowned.
"I was not finished kissing you," I complained. "Don't make me come over there."
He grinned, and bent to press his lips lightly to mine. The monitor went wild.
But then his lips were taut. He pulled away.
"I think I hear your mother," he said, grinning again.
"Don't leave me," I cried, an irrational surge of panic flooding through me. I couldn't let him go - he might disappear from me again.
He read the terror in my eyes for a short second. "I won't," he promised solemnly, and then he smiled. "I'll take a nap."
He moved from the hard plastic chair by my side to the turquoise faux-leather recliner at the foot of my bed, leaning it all the way back, and closing his eyes. He was perfectly still.
"Don't forget to breathe," I whispered sarcastically. He took a deep breath, his eyes still closed.
I could hear my mother now. She was talking to someone, maybe a nurse, and she sounded tired and upset. I wanted to jump out of the bed and run to her, to calm her, promise that everything was fine. But I wasn't in any sort of shape for jumping, so I waited impatiently.
The door opened a crack, and she peeked through.
"Mom!" I whispered, my voice full of love and relief.
She took in Edward's still form on the recliner, and tiptoed to my bedside.
"He never leaves, does he?" she mumbled to herself.
"Mom, I'm so glad to see you!"
She bent down to hug me gently, and I felt warm tears falling on my cheeks.
"Bella, I was so upset!"
"I'm sorry, Mom. But everything's fine now, it's okay," I comforted her.
"I'm just glad to finally see your eyes open." She sat on the edge of my bed.
I suddenly realized I didn't have any idea when it was. "How long have they been closed?"
"It's Friday, hon, you've been out for a while."
"Friday?" I was shocked. I tried to remember what day it had been when... but I didn't want to think about that.
"They had to keep you sedated for a while, honey - you've got a lot of injuries."
"I know." I could feel them.
"You're lucky Dr. Cullen was there. He's such a nice man... very young, though. And he looks more like a model than a doctor..."
"You met Carlisle?"
"And Edward's sister Alice. She's a lovely girl."
"She is," I agreed wholeheartedly.
She glanced over her shoulder at Edward, lying with his eyes closed in the chair. "You didn't tell me you had such good friends in Forks."
I cringed, and then moaned.
"What hurts?" she demanded anxiously, turning back to me. Edward's eyes flashed to my face.
"It's fine," I assured them. "I just have to remember not to move." He lapsed back into his phony slumber.
I took advantage of my mother's momentary distraction to keep the subject from returning to my less-than-candid behavior. "Where's Phil?" I asked quickly.
"Florida - oh, Bella! You'll never guess! Just when we were about to leave, the best news!"
"Phil got signed?" I guessed.
"Yes! How did you guess! The Suns, can you believe it?"
"That's great, Mom," I said as enthusiastically as I could manage, though I had little idea what that meant.
"And you'll like Jacksonville so much," she gushed while I stared at her vacantly. "I was a little bit worried when Phil started talking about Akron, what with the snow and everything, because you know how I hate the cold, but now Jacksonville! It's always sunny, and the humidity really isn't that bad. We found the cutest house, yellow, with white trim, and a porch just like in an old movie, and this huge oak tree, and it's just a few minutes from the ocean, and you'll have your own bathroom -"
"Wait, Mom!" I interrupted. Edward still had his eyes closed, but he looked too tense to pass as asleep. "What are you talking about? I'm not going to Florida. I live in Forks."
"But you don't have to anymore, silly," she laughed. "Phil will be able to be around so much more now... we've talked about it a lot, and what I'm going to do is trade off on the away games, half the time with you, half the time with him."
"Mom." I hesitated, wondering how best to be diplomatic about this. "I want to live in Forks. I'm already settled in at school, and I have a couple of girlfriends" - she glanced toward Edward again when I reminded her of friends, so I tried another direction - "and Charlie needs me. He's just all alone up there, and he can't cook at all."
"You want to stay in Forks?" she asked, bewildered. The idea was inconceivable to her. And then her eyes flickered back toward Edward. "Why?"
"I told you - school, Charlie - ouch!" I'd shrugged. Not a good idea.
Her hands fluttered helplessly over me, trying to find a safe place to pat. She made do with my forehead; it was unbandaged.
"Bella, honey, you hate Forks," she reminded me.
"It's not so bad."
She frowned and looked back and forth between Edward and me, this time very deliberately.
"Is it this boy?" she whispered.
I opened my mouth to lie, but her eyes were scrutinizing my face, and I knew she would see through that.
"He's part of it," I admitted. No need to confess how big a part. "So, have you had a chance to talk with Edward?" I asked.
"Yes." She hesitated, looking at his perfectly still form. "And I want to talk to you about that."
Uh-oh. "What about?" I asked.
"I think that boy is in love with you," she accused, keeping her voice low.
"I think so, too," I confided.
"And how do you feel about him?" She only poorly concealed the raging curiosity in her voice.