Previously: Bella got bitten and Edward sucked the poison out of her like it was a snake bite.
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Kirsti: Once again, I get a chapter that starts with Bella waking up in an unfamiliar room and describing it in far too much detail. This time, it’s a hospital. She tries to pull out her canula, and Edward’s all “NO, I FORBID IT”. I mean, probably her doctor does too, but whatever. Edward’s the one who tells her not to. Bella looks at his face and “I realised again that I was alive, this time with gratitude and elation.” Ugh.
Annie: I second that ugh. Why isn’t this book over yet?
K: NEARLY. WE’RE SO CLOSE, FRIENDS.
She apologises and there’s like a million lines of boring dialogue about how she can’t remember what happened and she needs to call her parents. Edward tells her to chill because her mother’s in the cafeteria getting something to eat. Obviously, Bella freaks because usually one doesn’t tell one’s mother when one is attacked by a vampire, but Edward says they told her she fells down two flights of stairs and through a window. “You have to admit, it could happen.” I hate you so hard.
Catherine: Bella didn’t want to tell her mother when she was hit by a car either. Renee is apparently privy to very little information about Bella’s dumb life.
Marines: “Two flights of stairs,” makes me laugh. Pretty sure it was a commenter who already pointed out that that usually involves some kind of turn. And then she apparently kept rolling with so much velocity that she made it through a window. Perfection.
K: Bella’s clumsiness knows no bounds, Mari.
Bella asks how bad her injuries are, and he rattles them off – broken leg, broken ribs, cracked skull, bruises and blood loss. She had to have a couple of transfusions, and “I didn’t like it – it made you smell all wrong for a while.” Is…is that meant to be romantic? Because it’s not. It’s just really fucking creepy.
Mari: Also, it’s not a nice thing to hear coming from your boyfriend? Like “hey, you’ve got a broken leg, broken ribs, a cracked skull but the worst part of this all is that you smelled a little weird for a while. It was the worst.”
What an ass wipe.
K: Seriously.
Bella asks how he was able to stop drinking her blood, and he basically shrugs. Then he thinks for a while and says, “I must love you.” Which is basically code for “I mean, why else would I not murder your face off??”, right? She apologises some more – this time for tasting “better than I’d imagined” (ew), and he eyerolls a little. Apparently she should actually be apologising for nearly dying. Which she does.
Then she asks what happened to James, and Edward tells her that Jasper and Emmett basically pulled him apart. But then they had to leave because there was too much Bella blood. Bella asks if Alice saw the tape and the revelation that James killed the vampire that turned her. She has, and Edward is not well pleased: “His voice was even, but his face was black with fury.” He… he’s so angry that he changed ethnicities?! What the fuck.
Mari: We can’t even blame it on oxygen deprivation because he’s a vampire. He’s changed ethnicities, y’all. That’s some racist shit.
K: I wrote this post like 3 weeks ago, and I continue to be baffled by that line.
Bella mopes about having a needle in her hand, then asks why Edward’s there. LOL. He sad pandas, but she says she just wants to make sure they have their stories straight before her mother gets back. Edward’s forehead goes back to being a chunk of concrete, and he says their cover story is that he flew all the way to Phoenix to convince her to come back to Forks. She agreed to see him at the hotel he was staying at – with parental supervision, obviously – and then she fell down the stairs and through a window. Even though it’s fake, it furthers my theory that she’s an infomercial person.
Bella would totally try to cut bread with a doorstop.
Catherine: Ya gotta admit, it is possible.
Mari: In the same world where any of the rest of this crud is possible: Stephenie Meyer’s dreams.
K: Bella tells him their story is full of holes, but apparently Alice danced around creating evidence. We’re then treated to several paragraphs of Edward “stroking my cheek with the lightest of touches” or giving her a kiss “with the most gentle of pressure” and the heart rate monitor going completely nutso. Seriously, someone call a cardiologist while this bitch is in hospital.
Mari: He peck kisses her and we’re supposed to believe that her heart monitor stops and then when he pulls away, it starts up again. THIS IS NOT ROMANTIC. KILLING YOUR PROTAGONIST WITH CHASTE KISSES IS MORE AKIN TO FAINTING GOATS THAN ROMANCE.
K: Except that fainting goats are adorable and Bella is an idiot.
They chastely kiss some more, then he says her mother’s coming back. Edward pretends he’s taking a nap. Bella’s thrilled to see her mother, who grumbles about how Edward never leaves. Apparently Bella was unconscious for several days, but we don’t actually find out how many because Bella can’t remember what day it was when she went to James’ Ballet School of Murder. Still, she’s shocked to learn that it’s Friday. Probably because she has unnatural reactions to everything ever…
Renee gushes about how nice Carlisle and Alice are, then says that Phil got signed by a team in Florida. Bella’s reaction is typically Bella-esque: “‘That’s great, Mom,’ I said as enthusiastically as I could manage, though I had little idea what that meant.”
Catherine:If any news is not about Edward it can go fuck itself.
Annie: Is Bella a complete fucking simpleton? Even if you’re not a sports person, you could probably figure out what ‘getting signed by a team’ means. Like. If you know what the words getting, signed, by, a and team mean? Then you have a basic idea of what this means. Bella’s ‘I’m intelligent AF’ thing is losing credibility…
K: Just like when she was all “I don’t know about cars, but I’ve heard of a BMW before”. STFU, Bella.
Renee gushes some more because Bella’s going to love Florida, but Bella interrupts to say that she’s staying in Forks, because her entire fucking life is about Edward now.
Okay, FINE. She actually says that settled in at school and has friends and Charlie needs her because he can’t cook for shit blah blah blah. Renee’s all “LOL SURE” and looks at Edward pointedly. Then she points out that Bella fucking hates Forks. Then we’re treated to an entire page of mother-daughter chat about Edward while he fake-naps in the corner. Bella basically lies her ass off until Renee nods approvingly and looks at the clock because Bella waking up is totally interfering with her husband phoning time.
Mari: Her daughter has literally been unconscious for two days and she’s like, “gotta jet!” Worst.
K: I mean, by Traumaland standards, she’s somewhere in the middle of the pack. But yeah.
Bella tells her to go home and get some sleep, but Renee says she’s been sleeping at the hospital because someone burnt down the dance studio around the corner and clearly the neighbourhood has gone to shit. (M: Not because she’s concerned about Bella, or anything.) Renee leaves, Edward smirks, and says he’s surprised that she doesn’t want to move to Florida. (M: Florida doesn’t want her.)
Bella points out that sparkly vampires don’t do well in sunny climates. Edward “almost smiled, but not quite“, and says he’d stay in Forks or somewhere else where he can’t hurt her. Bella hyperventilates and wibbles about how the pain is going to kill her. A nurse comes in and strongly suggests Bella take some more painkillers on account of all the monitors are going crazy again, but Bella refuses. Edward does his marble act again. The nurse glares at him on her way out. Legit, lady.
Edward strokes Bella’s face some more and says he won’t leave. For those of you playing at home, “His eyes were dark, closer to black than gold today.” Then we’re treated to another page of Whose Fault Are Bella’s Injuries debate blah blah angst angst. Bella decides that Edward’s trying to talk himself into leaving her again. She wants him to promise to never EVER leave her, and his reply is “I don’t seem to be strong enough to stay away from you, so I suppose that you’ll get your way…whether it kills you or not.”
Yeah, let’s just go ahead and use one of these, shall we?
So many red flags that Enjolras died of flag waving exhaustion…
Seriously, though. That reply is basically “If you die, it’s your own fault”, yes???
Catherine: As per usual. Edward wants Bella to die so badly you’d think he was us.
Annie: A+ assessment. Not exactly what you should ever be looking for in a romantic partner. Or business partner. Or dance partner. Or in any kind of partner, really.
Mari: Bella’s response is, “good,” which is not the response you should be aiming for in your own life. Don’t be Edward; Don’t be Bella. The end.
K: Why did we dedicate so many thousand words to this book? Mari just summed it up in two sentences. Bonus points for including a semi-colon.
Anyway, Bella asks why he saved her rather than just letting the venom turn her into a vampire. “Edward’s eyes seemed to turn flat black” (A: Magic eyes shots!) and he turns to stone some more. But with added nostril flaring. Bella says that men and women need to be equal in relationships and that if she was a vampire, then they’d be equal. And he wouldn’t have to save her all the time.
Annie: I literally choked on my wine here. Like, Bella, girl. Are you trying to convince us you’re a feminist by telling us that you want your boyfriend to kill you and turn you into an immortal monster? So you’ll be equal? YOU NEED TO BE MURDERED AND TURNED INTO A MONSTER IN ORDER TO HAVE EQUALITY IN YOUR RELATIONSHIP? LOL Okay, there.
Mari: She says that boys and girls need to save each other equally in relationships and I’m wondering why any saving needs to be involved at all? Can’t you work on yourself until you feel like a functional and complete human being, find someone who feels like a functional and complete human being and then share your time together? No? Murder and monsters and immortality? Cool.
K: Everything about this is awful.
Edward angries some more and says she’s the one who saved him. And he will never ever EVER turn her into a vampire. Bella gets pissy, he reminds her of the pain, she insists it’s her problem and she can take three days. He gets angry some more because she’s not supposed to know how becoming a vampire works. He’s all “What about your parents?” and Bella does an impression of a goldfish.
Eventually, she insists that they’ll cope, and she can’t spend her whole life taking care of them. And then she gets all “I’M GOING TO DIE SOMEDAY” and…look, you guys, I’m trying to care. But I just don’t. This chapter is so many pages and it’s all incredibly dull. It’s literally the same conversation over and over and over again. This time around, Edward swears he’ll never turn her into a vampire, and Bella’s all “Cool story, bro. I know other vampires.”
Edward’s eyes turn black AGAIN (M: I’m pretty sure they aren’t turning any other color and they are just STAYING black, but lol. You know. SMeyer.) and he says Alice would never. Apparently he looks terrifying, and Bella joins some dots and realises that Alice has already had a vision of Vamp!Bella. Edward insists that Alice is wrong. Bella disagrees. I give zero fucks. Edward declares that they’re at an impasse. Then he tells her to get some rest because he’s the boss of her. Or something. He calls the nurse and says Bella needs more pain meds, which is totally not his decision to make and is also a really gross way of shutting her up.
Bella admits that she doesn’t want to go to sleep and Edward smiles crookedly so we finally get to have some alcohol wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. (C:SHOTS!) He says that as long as it makes her happy, he’ll be there. The nurse drugs her up, Edward strokes her face some more, they exchange I-love-yous YET AGAIN, Bella says she’s betting on Alice, and she passes out.
HURRAH. THIS NEVER ENDING CHAPTER OF POINTLESSNESS IS OVER.
Next time on Twilight: We all rejoice because it’s the epilogue!
I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and tweet about the random crap that happens to me on public transport more than I should.
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I'm a caffeine enthusiast, dog person, and Toronto Raptors fan. Former communications manager to the non-profit stars, now a freelance writer and communications advisor. Up next, conquering the galaxy one bad ukulele cover and road trip at a time.
I am a 24 year-old human woman who lives in Maine. I'm a freelance writer who mostly spends time that I should be doing that, watching T.V. I also love reading and comic books way too much.