Twilight
Twilight
Stephenie Meyer
2005
Preface
I'd never given much thought to how I would die — though I'd had reason enough in the last few months — but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this.
I stared without breathing across the long room, into the dark eyes of the hunter, and he looked pleasantly back at me. Surely it was a good way to die, in the place of someone else, someone I loved. Noble, even. That ought to count for something. I knew that if I'd never gone to Forks, I wouldn't be facing death now. But, terrified as I
was, I couldn't bring myself to regret the decision. When life offers you a dream so far
beyond any of your expectations, it's not reasonable to grieve when it comes to an end.
The hunter smiled in a friendly way as he sauntered forward to kill me.
1. First Sight
My mother drove me to the airport with the windows rolled down. It was seventy-five
degrees in Phoenix, the sky a perfect, cloudless blue. I was wearing my favorite shirt —
sleeveless, white eyelet lace; I was wearing it as a farewell gesture. My carry-on item was
a parka.
In the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington State, a small town named Forks
exists under a near-constant cover of clouds. It rains on this inconsequential town more
than any other place in the United States of America. It was from this town and its
gloomy, omnipresent shade that my mother escaped with me when I was only a few
months old. It was in this town that I'd been compelled to spend a month every summer
until I was fourteen. That was the year I finally put my foot down; these past three
summers, my dad, Charlie, vacationed with me in California for two weeks instead.
It was to Forks that I now exiled myself— an action that I took with great horror. I
detested Forks.
I loved Phoenix. I loved the sun and the blistering heat. I loved the vigorous, sprawling
city.
"Bella," my mom said to me — the last of a thousand times — before I got on the
plane. "You don't have to do...
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