Mark Reads 'Midnight Sun': Chapter 5

In the fifth chapter of Midnight Sun, WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY OH GOD WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY. Intrigued? Then it's time for Mark to read Midnight Sun. 

CHAPTER 5: INVITATIONS

I don't know how to prepare you for this. This may possibly be more offensive and terrifying than everything in all four Twilight books combined.

Essentially:

• High school. Purgatory no longer, it was now purely hell. Torment and fire...yes, I had both.

STOP TALKING ABOUT ANYTHING EVERYTHING.

• It had rankled, knowing that I would hurt the girl. I’d comforted myself with the fact that her pain would be nothing more than a pinprick—just a tiny sting of rejection— compared to mine. Bella was human, and she knew that I was something else, something wrong, something frightening. She would probably be more relieved than wounded when I turned my face away from her and pretended that she didn’t exist.

oh my GOD you are the most arrogant, narcissistic piece of shit EVER TO HAVE EXISTED IN FICTION.

• That afternoon, as soon as school was finished, my role played, I ran to Seattle as I had the day before.

No, SERIOUSLY. RAN. TO SEATTLE. Which is, approximately ONE HUNDRED FUCKING MILES AWAY. :( :( :( :(

• More than a month passed, and every day it got harder.

Stephenie Meyer is so lazy she makes a month pass in her book in just one sentence.

• Each time I tasted the air around the girl, it was the same as the first day—fire and need and brutal violence desperate to break free. It was hard to cling even slightly to reason or restraint in those moments. And, just like that first day, the monster in me would roar, so close to the surface.

You are so revoltingly creepy. Oh god :( :( :(

• The curiosity was the most constant of my torments. The question was never out of my mind: What is she thinking now? When I heard her quietly sigh. When she twisted a lock of hair absently around her finger. When she threw her books down with more force than usual. When she rushed to class late. When she tapped her foot impatiently against the floor. Each movement caught in my peripheral vision was a maddening mystery. When she spoke to the other human students, I analyzed her every word and tone. Was she speaking her thoughts, or what she thought she should say? It often sounded to me like she was trying to say what her audience expected, and this reminded me of my family and our daily life of illusion—we were better at it than she was. Unless I wrong about that, just imagining things. Why would she have to play a role? She was one of them—a human teenager.

THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE ROMANTIC HUNK WE LOVE AND CHERISH. What the fuck.

• Through her conversations with Mike, I was able to add the most important quality to my list, the most revealing of them all, as simple as it was rare. Bella was good. All the other things added up to that whole—kind and self-effacing and unselfish and loving and brave—she was good through and through.

How on EARTH are you able to deduce this? THIS IS NONSENSE.

• These helpful discoveries did not warm me to the boy, however. The possessive way he viewed Bella—as if she were an acquisition to be made—provoked me almost as much as his crude fantasies about her.

no you are not serious. YOU SON OF A BITCH. THIS IS PRECISELY WHAT YOU BECOME. oh my god kill me now

• Jessica, hurt by his hesitation and guessing the reason behind it, was thinking daggers at Bella. Again, I had the instinct to place myself between Jessica’s angry thoughts and Bella. I understood the instinct better now, but that only made it more frustrating when I could not act on it.

oh what the fuck. WHAT IS WITH THIS WEIRD DESIRE FOR ALL THE MEN IN MEYER'S SERIES TO PROTECT ALL WOMEN AROUND THEM? sakldfjas;ldfjhasdfkasdfjkl

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ugh

• Whether she would settle for someone in this lackluster crowd, or wait until she was free from Forks, the day would come that she would say yes.

  I saw her life as I had before—college, career...love, marriage. I saw her on her father’s arm again, dressed in gauzy white, her face flushed with happiness as she moved to the sound of Wagner’s march.

Horrifying fucking creepy. Edward was planning his fucked up marriage scheme since the very beginning. Jesus christ. 

• She had hidden in her hair, but I could see through a parting in the tresses that her cheek was deep crimson now.

  The monster liked that.

  She did not meet my gaze again, but she twisted a strand of her dark hair nervously between her fingers. Her delicate fingers, her fragile wrist—they were so breakable, looking for all the world like just my breath could snap them.

  No, no, no. I could not do this. She was too breakable, too good, too precious to deserve this fate. I couldn’t allow my life to collide with hers, to destroy it.

OH MY FUCKING GOD WHAT THE FUCKING SHIT IS THIS BULLSHIT HOLY FUCKING SHIT WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK

• How could she be thinking that? Saving her life was the one acceptable thing I’d done since I met her. The one thing that I was not ashamed of. The one and only thing that made me glad I existed at all. I’d been fighting to keep her alive since the first moment I’d caught her scent. How could she think this of me? How dare she question my one good deed in all this mess?

I honestly did not expect Edward to be so disgustingly arrogant and I'm shocked that he's portrayed this way. What the fuck, guys. What is this nonsense?

• I saw Bella on her way out of the gym, and I waited where she would not see me for her to pass. As she got closer to Eric’s ambush, I strode forward, setting my pace so that I would walk by at the right moment.

Guys, we are only in the fifth chapter and he is outright stalking her. There are not enough sad faces in the world for this shit.

• I measured Tyler Crowley as a rival, knowing it was wrong to do so. He seemed tediously average and unremarkable to me, but what did I know of Bella’s preferences? Maybe she liked average boys...

  I winced at that thought. I could never be an average boy. How foolish it was to set myself up as a rival for her affections. How could she ever care for someone who was, by any estimation, a monster?

Except you're not being humble or noble, you're being self-centered and PSYCHOTIC. oh my god we aren't even at the end of the chapter yet.

• The jittery high swept through me again when I realized that I was going to go find the girl.

You're not prepared.

• I argued with myself all the way back to Forks, but my less noble side won the argument, and I went ahead with my indefensible plan. The monster was restless but well-fettered. I knew I would keep a safe distance from her. I only wanted to know where she was. I just wanted to see her face.

This is not romantic.

• It was past midnight, and Bella’s house was dark and quiet. Her truck was parked against the curb, her father’s police cruiser in the driveway. There were no conscious thoughts anywhere in the neighborhood. I watched the house for a moment from the blackness of the forest that bordered it on the east. The front door would probably be locked—not a problem, except that I didn’t want to leave a broken door as evidence behind me. I decided to try the upstairs window first. Not many people would bother installing a lock there.

This is not romantic.

• It was her room. I could see her in the one small bed, her covers on the floor and her sheets twisted around her legs. As I watched, she twitched restlessly and threw one arm over her head. She did not sleep soundly, at least not this night. Did she sense the danger near her?

  I was repulsed by myself as I watched her toss again. How was I any better than some sick peeping tom? I wasn’t any better. I was much, much worse.

Then stop fucking spying on Bella while she sleeps.

• Curiosity flared, overpowering self-disgust. The lure of those unprotected, unconsciously spoken thoughts was impossibly tempting.

This is just depressing.

• I wanted very much to go read the titles of her books and CDs, but I’d promised myself that I would keep my distance; instead, I went to sit the old rocking chair in the far corner of the room.

I assure you that you are not keeping your distance, considering that you have just broken into her room and are watching her sleep.

• Right now—with her dark hair tangled and wild around her pale face, wearing a threadbare t-shirt full of holes with tatty sweatpants, her features relaxed in unconsciousness, her full lips slightly parted—she took my breath away. Or would have, I thought wryly, if I were breathing.

NO GUYS THIS IS REALLY FUCKING HAPPENING. :( :( :( :( :( :( :(

• “Edward,” Bella said. I froze, staring at her unopened eyes. Had she woken, caught me here? She looked asleep, yet her voice had been so

  clear...

  She sighed a quiet sigh, and then moved restlessly again, rolling to her side—still fast asleep and dreaming.

  “Edward,” she mumbled softly. She was dreaming of me. Could a dead, frozen heart beat again? It felt like mine was about to. “Stay,” she sighed. “Don’t go. Please...don’t go.” She was dreaming of me, and it wasn’t even a nightmare. She wanted me to stay with her, there in her dream. I struggled to find words to name the feelings that flooded through me, but I had no words strong enough to hold them. For a long moment, I drowned in them. When I surfaced, I was not the same man I had been.

Thanks, Stephenie Meyer, for providing Edward with an utter justification for stalking Bella and watching her sleep. Also, fuck you.

• When change came for one of us, it was a rare and permanent thing. I had seen it happen with Carlisle, and then a decade later with Rosalie. Love had changed them in an eternal way, a way that never faded. More than eighty years had passed since Carlisle had found Esme, and yet he still looked at her with the incredulous eyes of first love. It would always be that way for them.

  It would always be that way for me, too. I would always love this fragile human girl, for the rest of my limitless existence.

NO. FOR FUCKING REAL. Edward Cullen fell in love with Bella because she SPOKE HIS NAME IN HER SLEEP. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST. I CANNOT TOLERATE THIS SHIT AT ALL.

• I loved her, and so I would try to be strong enough to leave her. I knew I wasn’t that strong now. I would work on that one. But perhaps I was strong enough to circumvent the future in another way.

Speechless at this point. Jesus fuck face fuck.

• Deliberately, I took a deep breath, and then another, letting her scent rip through me like wildfire. The room was thick with her perfume; her fragrance was layered on every surface. My head swam, but I fought the spinning. I would have to get used to this, if I were going to attempt any kind of relationship with her. I took another deep, burning breath.

  I watched her sleeping until the sun rose behind the eastern clouds, plotting and breathing.

FUCKING SHOOT ME IN THE FACE.

• I walked silently forward, wondering how best to approach her.

  She made it easy. Her truck key slipped through her fingers as she got out, and fell into a deep puddle.

No, really. He manipulates every moment just to be there for her. ohhhhh gooooodddd.

• Did she hear how my voice wrapped around her name like a caress?

No. No it did not. Also: stop writing words, Stephenie Meyer.

• “I’m sorry, that was rude. I’m not saying it isn’t true” —it was absurd to imagine that I wanted her harmed in any way— “but it was rude to say it, anyway.” “Why won’t you leave me alone?” Believe me, I wanted to say. I’ve tried.

  Oh, and also, I’m wretchedly in love with you.

  Keep it light.

kl;asdjfasdkljklaskl;kl ;asdflkafsd afsdjlasdf lsdfakl;dfskl;ads CURL INTO THE FETAL POSITION AND START CRYING.

Only not really. Because there is finally an amazing page in this stupid half-book. Are you ready? I took a screenshot of it:

THAT'S IT. JUST THE NUMBER "115" ON IT.

Pure genius.