In Which I Tolerate Eclipse: Chapter 4 -- Nature · 2:57pm Apr 30th, 2018
With the threat of Victoria looming over her, Bella’s week isn’t the greatest. All the Cullens try to reassure her that she and Charlie are safe — there’s seven of them and one of Victoria, after all — but no matter what they say, she’s in a constant state of very low panic. Jasper can calm her down with his powers (why isn’t Bella immune to that, like with Edward’s and Aro’s mindreading and Jane’s pain projection?), but that naturally wears off once she leaves him. Part of her stress is because Edward took her to Florida to avoid Victoria, but Alice brushes it off:
“Haven’t you noticed yet, Bella, that Edward is just the teeniest bit prone to overreaction?”
I giggled a little, I admit. Unfortunately, that died down when we hear that Edward needs to leave for a little while to hunt.
It was always a bad day when Edward was away.
I would never admit to him how hard it was for me when he was gone — how it brought back the abandonment nightmares.
CM + 2
Even with Edward gone, Alice promises to stay close, only fifteen minutes away.
Bella wakes up on a Saturday with nothing to do before her work shift and whittles away the time doing nothing. Remember the lengthy passages from the first book where we heard exactly how Bella put her CD player on the table? It’s kind of like that, only this is deliberate and actually works at creating a sense of boredom. At one point, Bella fiddles with the magnets on the fridge, putting them all into a straight line except for two with opposite polarities that won’t play nice together, no matter her demands. SYMBOLISM. When she goes to work, she hears Mike and his mother arguing about a post-graduation trip to Seattle. His mother’s not having it:
“You and Tyler can think of something else to do. You are not going to Seattle until the police stop whatever it is that is going on there.”
However, it’s a light day for work, so Bella gets the day off. Before she leaves, she volunteers to throw out a stack of flyers. She glances at one; it’s a plea to protect wolves, complete with a drawing of a wolf.
It was a disconcerting picture; something about the wolf’s plaintive posture made him look forlorn. Like he was howling in grief.
MORE SYMBOLISM. Anyway, Bella immediately gets the decision to drive to La Push and talk to Jacob. Since it was an unpredictable decision, Alice couldn’t see it coming and wouldn’t’ve been prepared. Bella makes it over the treaty boundary; she and Jacob warmly greet each other. They go for a walk and have a bit of conversation before Jacob asks about Edward.
“What I’m asking is… everything is just back to the way it was before he left? You forgave him for all of that?”
I took a deep breath. “There was nothing to forgive.”
I wanted to skip past this part, the betrayals, the accusations, but I knew that we had to talk it through before we’d be able to move on to anything else.
Jacob’s face puckered up like he’d just liked a lemon. “I wish Sam had taken a picture when he found you that night last September. It would be exhibit A.”
Damn right, Jacob. He asks about what, specifically, happened. Bella explains and Jacob listens intently, barring one instance where he reacts with glee upon learning that Alice can’t get visions of werewolves. Jacob then gives his version of the incident with the werewolves, the Cullens, and Victoria. It’s the same as Edward’s version: Victoria played cat-and-mouse with both sides over the boundary line, things got heated, Carlisle and Jasper calmed everyone down, Victoria got away. Jacob has his own commentary on Jasper’s emotional manipulation abilities:
”Really annoying, that’s how it feels. Only you can’t be annoyed until afterwards.”
Jacob’s surprised when Bella tells him that his and Edward’s stories are identical, but accepts it. That particular line of conversation trails off and Jacob reflects that, when Bella jumped off that cliff, Alice wouldn’t have seen anything if she’d waited for him, and everything would be normal-ish between the two of them. Since Alice’s vision was the catalyst for the Cullens eventually returning to Forks, if she’d waited, they’d still be gone.
It was disconcerting the way he said this, like it would be a good thing to have no vampires in Forks. My heart thumped unevenly at the emptiness of the picture he painted.
CM + 1
Jacob also mentions that Sam’s mad at Bella.
“When Sam saw… how you were in the beginning, when Billy told them how Charlie worried when you didn’t get better, and then when you started jumping off cliffs…”
I made a face. No one was ever going to let me forget that. (Well, they shouldn’t.)
Jacob’s eyes flashed up to mine. “He thought you were the one person in the world with as much reason to hate the Cullens as he does. Sam feels sort of… betrayed that you would just let them back into your life like they never hurt you.”
Damn straight, Sam. Of course, Bella guesses that Sam isn’t the only one who thinks that way. She starts to retort, only for Jacob to divert their attention by spotting an eagle snatching a fish from the ocean. He points out, for all the predator-prey interactions between those types of eagle and fish, that you never see a fish trying to kiss an eagle.
I grinned back tightly, though the acid taste was still in my mouth. “Maybe the fish was trying,” I suggested. “It’s hard to tell what a fish is thinking. Eagles are good-looking birds, you know.”
“Is that what it comes down to?” His voice was abruptly sharper. “Good looks?”
“Don’t be stupid, Jacob.”
“Is it the money, then?” he persisted.
“That’s nice,” I muttered, getting up from the tree. “I’m flattered that you think so much of me.” I turned my back on him and paced away.
“Aw, don’t get mad.” He was right behind me; he caught my wrist and spun me around. “I’m serious! I’m trying to understand here, and I’m coming up blank.”
Me too, Jacob. Bella says Edward’s kind and wonderful and decent and all sorts of things we’ve never seen from him, and that Jacob will never understand. Jacob says Bella should date within her species and an argument ensues about whether Jacob still counts as human. During the course of it, Bella realizes that, like it or not, Jacob’s a part of her life now, and his pain hurts her, too.
Clinginess Meter: 11
You know, Jacob should try getting over his lost love, too, the same way Bella should’ve gotten over her lost love in the last book. I’m a bit more lenient for him, since he’s nowhere near as bad as Bella was, but he’s still looking kind of clingy.
I suppose it would wreck the symbolism if I pointed out how turning one of the magnets one hindred eighty degrees would resolve their differences. Or maybe that's foreshadowing for a coming character derailment.
In any case, clingy though he may be, Jacob has a legitimate point. This relationship is unhealthy on multiple levels, thought his own with Bella isn't looking much better the more he pushes the issue.
4850613
I was thinking the exact same thing. Does Bella just not know how magnets work? Then again, she doesn't seem to understand how relationships in general work, so maybe she is just incapable of thinking scientifically.
4850618
Fixed that for you.
A celebration like this should maybe be saved for the finale, but I keep thinking about it and it's one of my favorite things ever on the internet, and you deserve to see it.
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