She was immediately on the defensive. "I'm not surprised you heard something you didn't like. You know what they say about eavesdroppers."
Eavesdroppers never hear good of themselves, that was the saying.
"I warned you I would be listening," I reminded her.
"And I warned you that you didn't want to know everything I was thinking."
Ah, she was thinking of when I'd made her cry. Remorse made my voice thicker.
"You did. You aren't precisely right, though. I do want to know what you're thinking - everything. I just wish...that you wouldn't be thinking some things."
"Um... he's being confusing again," Jacob said.
More half-lies. I knew I shouldn't want her to care about me. But I did. Of course I did.
"That's quite a distinction," she grumbled, scowling at me.
"But that's not really the point at the moment."
"Then what is?"
She leaned toward me, her hand cupped lightly around her throat. It drew my eye - distracted me. How soft that skin must feel...
Focus, I commanded myself.
"Do you truly believe that you care more for me than I do for you?" I asked. The question sounded ridiculous to me, like the words were scrambled.
Her eyes were wide, her breathing stopped. Then she looked away, blinking quickly. Her breath came in a low gasp.
"You're doing it again," she murmured.
"What?"
"Dazzling me," she admitted, meeting my eyes warily.
"What did he do to dazzle you?" Jacob asked and Bella shrugged... how could she know?
"Oh." Hmm. I wasn't quite sure what to do about that. Nor was I sure that I didn't want to dazzle her. I was still thrilled that I could. But it wasn't helping the progression of the conversation.
"It's not your fault." She sighed. "You can't help it."
"Are you going to answer my question?" I demanded.
She stared at the table. "Yes."
That was all she said.
"Yes, you are going to answer, or yes, you really think that?" I asked impatiently.
More chuckling from Jacob and this time Bella joined him.
"Yes, I really think that," she said without looking up. There was a faint undertone of sadness in her voice. She blushed again, and her teeth moved unconsciously to worry her lip.
Abruptly, I realized that this was very hard for her to admit, because she truly believed it. And I was no better than that coward, Mike, asking for her to confirm her feelings before I'd confirmed my own. It didn't matter that I felt I'd make my side abundantly clear. It hadn't gotten through to her, and so I had no excuse.
"You're so right, man, how could you be so hypocritical?" Jacob stated. "And I thought you were a gentleman."
"You're wrong," I promised. She must hear the tenderness in my voice.
Bella looked up to me, her eyes opaque, giving nothing away. "You can't know that," she whispered.
She thought that I was underestimating her feelings because I couldn't hear her thoughts. But, in truth, the problem was that she was underestimating mine.
"Hmph," Bella said. Yes, she was underestimating his feelings, that was clear to her, but him thinking that he wasn't doing the same thing... he didn't know how much she cared about him. She didn't know how much her book self cared about him, but it had to be more than she did right now reading this book, and she knew that she already cared about him a lot.
"What makes you think so?" I wondered.
She stared back at me, the furrow between her brows, biting her lips. For the millionth time, I wished desperately that I could just hear her.
I was about to beg her to tell me what thought she was struggling with, but she held up a finger to keep me from speaking.
"Let me think," she requested.
As long as she was simply organizing her thoughts, I could be patient.
"I don't believe you," Jacob chuckled.
Or I could pretend to be.
And he laughed smugly at that.
She pressed her hands together, twining and untwining her slender fingers. She was watching her hands as if they belonged to someone else while she spoke.
"Well, aside from the obvious," she murmured. "Sometimes... I can't be sure - I don't know how to read minds - but sometimes it seems like you're trying to say goodbye when you're saying something else." She didn't look up.
"No way... never does anything like that," Jacob said sarcastically.
She'd caught that, had she? Did she realize that it was only weakness and selfishness that kept me here? Did she think less of me for that?
"Perceptive," I breathed, and then watched in horror as pain twisted her expression. I hurried to contradict her assumption. "That's exactly why you're wrong, though - " I began, and then I paused, remembering the first words of her explanation.
They bothered me, though I wasn't sure I understood exactly. "What do you mean, 'the obvious'?"
"Well, look at me," she said.
"There is nothing wrong with the way you look," Jacob said to her, there was no joking in his voice as he said this.
Bella blushed a little with the sincerity of his voice.
I was looking. All I ever did was look at her. What did she mean?
"I'm absolutely ordinary," she explained. "Well, except for the bad things like all the near death experiences and being so clumsy that I'm almost disabled. And look at you." She fanned the air toward me, like she was making some point so obvious it wasn't worth spelling out.
She thought she was ordinary? She thought that I was somehow preferable to her? In whose estimation? Silly, narrow-minded, blind humans like Jessica or Ms. Cope? How could she not realize that she was the most beautiful...most exquisite...