The truth was I had told Jacob about Edward's mind reading, but Edward got halfway through New Moon, where it explained everything, and stopped. He didn't like the depressed tone, he informed me, pain burdening his golden eyes.
And Jacob was so busy at a near-faint in Edward's presence that he'd forgotten.
Edward was pretty hard to miss, but it was ironic in a bad way (at least, in my mind) that Jacob once ogled Edward's beauty with envy yet now found his beauty to be "a sight for sore eyes". Assuming an eighteen-year-old could have "sore eyes" (I always thought that phrase was supposed to be in reference to old people; now it seemed more for people with wisdom, which was endowed upon Jacob; as silly as he was behaving around Edward now, it was almost impossible to remember that).
The morning after Jacob's great confession, I was lying in bed, cringing. The toes I'd banged in my wrath the day before against the wall were smarting. It felt so awful, especially when I tried to spread my toes. I couldn't; the muscles were too tightly clenched. It hurt so much I almost couldn't even dwell on the heartbreak consuming me thicker than those flames.
I should've walked through them, I thought bitterly as I winced repeatedly.
Charlie didn't come in my room all day. It was only as night fell that he entered my room, concern pressing his lips into a small frown.
"Bells? You okay?"
I wanted to nod, but I shook my head, tears sliding down my cheeks as my heart and toes throbbed excruciatingly at his words and seemed to push moisture out of my eyes.
"What's wrong, kiddo?"
"M-my toes," I shakily answered.
He looked carelessly into my eyes, and remembrance lit his. From the look on his face, it was as if he was told Voldemort was coming to Forks to murder us all with the "Avada Kuh-whatever" stupid Harry Potter crap. He looked as if he knew he was doomed. There was no escape.
"What happened with Edward?" he inquired, completely forgetting about my toes.
I groaned, trying unsuccessfully to pry my toes apart with my mind. "I don't know. Look, my toes really hurt. I need aspirin or something." Again, tears poured automatically from my eyes, but this time, I knew they were only from the failed attempt.
Charlie tore his eyes from mine and silently left. When he returned, he gave me two pills and a glass of water.
"Feel better," he said before vanishing.
I swallowed my pills with the water and groaned, my father's words parading in my head. I knew my foot would be okay in the end, but what about my heart?
As I closed my eyes, I wished I had been Harry Potter and that Voldemort had murdered me at birth. That Renée had not tried to save me but had saved her own life instead.