By: Ivy Dahl

Summary-

The chapter starts with Bella stumbling into class, so dazed that she doesn’t even realize she’s late. As she’s trying to acclimate to the already ongoing class, Eric and Mike invite her to a beach trip. She mumbles an acceptance, barely paying attention.

This same sense of disconnect follows her throughout her morning, coming to an end when her attention is drawn, like usual, during lunch to the Cullen’s table. Edward isn’t sitting there. Now she can peacefully shut her mind off again. She grabs a lemonade and sits with her friend Jessica, who giggles and gossips as usual, until one sentence pulls Bella out of her daze, “Edward Cullen’s staring at you,” she commented.

It turns out Edward had just been sitting at a different table than his siblings today, one that had completely slipped through Bella’s radar. Almost immediately she notices him beckoning him towards her. She mumbles an excuse to Jessica and goes to sit down at his table. The first thing out of her mouth to Edward is that them sitting together is very odd. He responds that if he’s going to hell, he’ll do it thoroughly. He doesn’t explain what he means by this and just continues to say that Bella’s friends are mad at him for stealing her away from them. They then go on to have a conversation where Bella questions Edward about all the strange things that have happened and about what he is. Like always, he refuses to give anything but cryptic warnings and deflection, and lunch ends.

Bella immediately races to class. As she arrives, her teacher is bringing in boxes with equipment to find out their blood types as a biology lesson. Bella feels extremely faint at the mention of blood and leans her head against her desk, lightheaded. Mike notices this and offers to take her to the nurse. Once outside, and halfway to the nurse’s office, Bella sits down on the sidewalk, wanting to rest for a moment. Through her lightheadedness she hears the voice of Edward Cullen asking Mike what’s wrong with her. His voice offers to carry Bella the rest of the way there. Bella looks up, and before she can get a word out of her mouth, Edward scoops her into his arms, carrying her to the nurses office. When they arrive, he refuses to leave at the request of the nurse. He gets her out of the rest of the school day by telling the nurse that she’s sick and that he’s going to drive her home. Bella asks him if he’s going to the beach party that’s happening, but when he learns the beach, La Push, he declines. He drives her home.

Review-

This confusing relationship between Edward and Bella is obviously taking a huge toll on Bella, even to the point where she’s shutting out almost everything around her that doesn’t involve him. That’s a pretty crazy reaction to someone who you’ve barely known for a couple of weeks and regularly shuns you. But on the other hand, if someone single handedly saved me from a car crash, I’d probably think about them a lot too.

Bella also seems to attract danger and disturbances like a light attracts a moth, which is a going trend that makes me grow more on edge going into every following chapter. I’d give this chapter a 7/10.