Chapter 6
Sleep was hard to hold on to that night, elusive and slippery, evading her at every turn. She was restless, and her dreams were segmented and disquieting.
Swallowed in the darkest part of the night, everything suddenly felt wrong to Violet. She couldn't quite put her finger on what it was that was bothering her, but it was there nonetheless, that unnamed distress, looming over her and making her feel helpless...powerless.
She knew that the new and improved Edward was partly responsible for these unwelcome feelings. But that wasn't really it...or at least, that was only part of what was troubling her.
Bella wasn't sure what the rest of it was.
Finally, at just after six o'clock in the morning, as the sun was rising up through the gloom in an effort to conquer the sky, Bella decided to give up. There was only one thing she could do when she feeling this way, one way to clear her tangled thoughts.
She dressed quickly and quietly in shorts and a T-shirt. Despite the fact that the September day promised to be warm, it was still early and there was a damp chill in the air. So, as an afterthought, she also pulled a sweatshirt over her head.
She top-toed out of the house and as she stepped outside, she took a deep breath of the dewy air while she put the earbuds from er iPod into her ears.
And then she jumped down from the porch and started running...slowly at first, an even, steady pace. She was actually aware of the gentle rhythm of her feet pounding up from her sols and she concentrated on the tempo, letting it clear her mind as she synchronized her breathing into measured regularity with her footsteps.
As she reached the end of the road, she took a sudden, sharp left, leaving the black top in favour of a gravel trail that appeared between the stands of tall cedar and fir trees. She could feel the crunching of the grave beneath her sneakers vibrating all the way up the muscles of her leg.
As she entered the clearing, at the top of the pasturelands that stretched out before her, the sight of the mountain against the painted backdrop of the dawn made her draw a deep, appreciative breath. Bella had been born and raised in Forks, so every step she took and everything she saw was so familiar.
She settled into an easy pace, allowing her thoughts to drift away, lost in her music and steady cadence of her body's movements. She liked feeling of control she had when she ran, that she was in command of her body, in charge of each muscle's perfectly timed movements. She felt strong as she looked down her long, ground-eating stride, and felt powerful in at least this element of her life.
She slowed only once, when the heavy sweatshirt became too warm for her to wear any longer, and she tugged it over her head, tying it tightly around her waist with its sleeves. But she reached her stride again easily and settled back into her rhythm.
By the time she had ran full circle, reaching her house, her T-shirt was saturated in sweat, and she felt relaxed from head to toe.
It was the car in the driveway, and the man-body perched on the hood waiting for her, that made her lose some of her newfound tranquillity.
He was grinning at her in a way that made her legs feel like they were made of nothing more solid then gelatine. They might have even quivered from something other than her early-morning run.
"What are you doing here?" she asked as she slowed from a jog to a walk and placed her hands on her hips sweeping her long brown hair out of her face. It would take her a few minutes to get her breathing back to normal; longer if he kept smiling at her like that.
He shrugged and said "I couldn't sleep. What about you?"
She opted for the obvious and filled her voice with as much sarcasm as she could. "I live here, actually."
"Ha-ha, smart-ass. I was asking if maybe you couldn't sleep too." He shook his head at her wisecrack. "You know, since you were running at six-thirty in the morning I was gonna see if you wanted to go for a walk or something." He eyes her up and down, looking a little disappointed as he hoped down from the car's hood. "But it looks like you already went without me. That's okay; it was a long shot anyway."
Bella didn't like the way she was suddenly so eager to be near him. Even though they had been nearly inseparable for the past ten years, it now felt urgent to keep him close to her.
"All right, let's go."
"Are you sure?" He seemed sceptical. "I don't want to talk you into it."
"Positive."
They walked for a long time like that, with him tagging along in her wake, not saying a word to each other. It was normal for Bella to take charge once they had entered the cover of the woods; she had done so since they were just like kids. And even though Edward was nearly as familiar out here as she was after all these years, he let her lead anyway, comfortable taking second place to her.
As Bella watched out of the corner of her eye at Edward, she realised just how graceful and slender he was as he climbed over the rocks and branches. And now, more than ever, Bella hoped that this crush of hers would pass soon, so she could get back to the business of being his friend. Otherwise, this was going to be one long- and painful- year.
