Jacob Black
We sat in a restaurant I couldn’t remember the name of. It was quite dark in the salon, but bright enough to see each other. We had just eaten our main courses, and were now waiting for the desserts.
“I’m just wondering, but how long are we planning to stay here?” Renesmee asked me.
“What do you mean?”
She looked confused. “It’s just that, well, I mean...we can’t live in a hotel all the time right? Plus, I don’t know how long our savings will last.”
The waitress came with our desserts. “Here you go,” she said and put the plates on our table.
“Thank you,” Renesmee and I both said, and then smiled at each other.
I waited for the blonde woman to leave until I opened my mouth again. “You mean you think we should go back? To La Push?”
“No. No! Not at all.”
“Then what do you mean?”
“I just think maybe we should find some place to live, and then get a job or something.” She grabbed the spoon in her right hand and took some ice cream. She didn’t look up.
“Well, I like the idea, but seriously, where could we get a job?”
“It doesn’t have to be permanent,” she murmured into the table.
I was just about to tell her that I didn’t understand what she meant when she froze. She stared at me in horror, holding her breath. Her eyes were so wide opened, they started to look more like golfballs than eyes. Finally, she let her eyelids drop in concentration.
“Renesmee?” Did I say something wrong? I asked myself.
She hadn’t moved an inch. The only movement she made was opening her eyes again and blinking, but the time between the blinks was very long.
“Wanna go?” I mouthed as I picked up my wallet. I took her continued staring as a yes and put the money on the table. I stood up, walked around the table, took her left hand in my right and turned for the door. I saw her eyes flickering to the opposite corner of the salon. Since I held her hand, I could feel whatever she felt.
The scent that was on her mind was delicious. Indescribable. Unbearable. Too much. It was everything beautiful in the entire universe. Very appealing. Extremely appealing. I had to focus every part of my mind on not killing the young woman. But it was hard. I slipped a few times and thought about ways to allure her with me. I blinked and refocused. Slipped back, blinked and refocused. It was like trying to climb a switchback; when you were just about to raise your hands in victory, you fell back down again. Blinked and refocused. Slipped back, blinked and refocused…
A dark-skinned hand came into my view. It opened the door. I took the small step over the threshold, and waited for the door to close.
It closed.
I was free.
I let go of her hand. “Renesmee, breathe! It’s safe out here, you can breathe now.” The experience she’d just shared with me was growing on my mind. I remembered Bella telling me about something similar to this. She had smelled so...indescribable — I winced at the thought — to Edward that he’d thought about killing her. He’d just wanted to drink her blood, that leech. I believed she’d mentioned an Italian phrase as well, but I couldn’t remember it at the moment.
Renesmee’s expression didn’t change, but slowly, very gently, she took a sip of air. She could hold her breath for a very long time, but not forever like her parents. She sighed, and the tension in her body disappeared a teeny, tiny bit. A human wouldn’t notice.
“You okay? Is the air cleaner out here?”
She looked up at me and blinked in approval. Her breathing was almost back to normal.
“Come, let’s go,” I said quietly and put my arm around her waist. I almost had to drag her with me; her legs would not cooperate.
Our hotel was only two blocks away, so we were there quite soon. We took the elevator up to the fourth floor, where our room was. Neither of us said a word. We didn’t have to; we understood each other anyway.
We went to bed immediately, without brushing our teeth or anything like that. I pulled her closer to me. “My baby,” I murmured into her hair, and then I realized that my words were easily misunderstood. She started trembling in my arms. I lifted my hand and pulled a tear away from her cheek. She put her fingers lightly around my neck. I’m scared. And she really was; everything about her mind was focused on fear.
“I know, I know.” I played with her ringlets. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was scared as well. Scared to death.
What did Carlisle say? she thought.
I went through my memory to remember the conversation. “He said, quote, ‛you have to hunt’. I told him we were just about to leave, and then he said he would call back tomorrow.”
She sighed. Nothing else?
“No.”
Good.
I pressed my lips to her forehead, and she leaned closer to me. “Sweet dreams,” she whispered.
“Sweet dreams.”
She was snoring after five seconds. How could she be so tired? It didn’t make sense. But then I remembered that she was pregnant, and I’d heard pregnancy made you tired.
Wow. A baby. I was going to be a father.
I fell into unconsciousness as well.