Midnight Sun - Chapter 17

[esmeandfiction]

I know, I know, it’s been months, but finishing the Courtship of Princess Leia spork took up all my sporking energy for a while. But anyway, that spork is now done and with the WTF announcement of a Midnight Sun animated series coming to Netflix, I should probably get back to this spork.

Anyway, guess what all happened last chapter? That’s right – nothing! Are we FINALLY at the damn sparkling scene??



Okay, after several endless chapters of nothing happening and Wardo wangsting enough to make Kylo Ren, Prince Zuko, Bruce Wayne, Queen Elsa, and Anakin Skywalker all tell him to lighten up, we’re FINALLY at the sparkling scene. Course, it will probably be as slow and tedious as the rest of the book.

The chapter opens right where the previous chapter left off, with Wardo standing in the sun with his eyes closed and wangsting that ”I didn’t want to look at myself now.” Let me remind you for the five thousandth time that we’ve spent all this time and wangsting on SPARKLING.

Bawla screams Wardo’s name and Wardo opens his eyes, thinking that he’ll ”see her running away from all I had revealed myself to be.” Yadda yadda yadda it’s SPARKLING yadda yadda yadda. Also, why are Wardo and Meyer still being so vague as if it’s going to be a BIG SHOCKING REVEAL that Wardo sparkles? Everybody on the planet already KNOWS about Wardo’s sparkling. If you know one thing about Twilight, it’s that the vampires sparkle. This is like if the Star Wars prequels tried to hide that Anakin was Luke and Leia’s father even though everyone already knew that.

And OMG, Bawla is running TOWARDS Wardo in a panic instead of away from him! It turns out that she thinks Wardo’s burning up in the sun and she’s trying to save him! Even though he’s already told that he DOESN’T burn up in the sun and I’m not sure how you can confuse sparkling with burning up. Wardo even tells us that ”Mirrored in her eyes, what I resembled most was a man on fire.” No, what you resemble most is a man wearing an insane amount of body glitter.

And of course, this causes Wardo to gush for the five millionth time about how noble and selfless Bawla is, worrying about him instead of being afraid of him. She asks if it hurts to sparkle (huh, that’s a sentence you don’t type every day) and he says no, all astonished that she’s still not afraid of him even after seeing him fucking SPARKLE.

Wardo spends a whole paragraph yammering about how Bawla gets closer and closer and it’s boring (shocker, I know), and then OMG SHE SMILES! How could she POSSIBLY smile at Wardo’s ultra-terrifying sparkles?

Bawla gets closer and closer and Wardo tells us that ”The sunlight shattered off my arm and whirled against her face.” Which sounds like Wardo’s skin has the power to break sunlight somehow – I seriously doubt that’s what Meyer intended to convey.

Wardo asks if she’s scared and he just CAN’T BELIEVE that she isn’t! Who could POSSIBLY be so brave that they’d be able to look at his sparkly body without running away in terror?

She gets closer and brushes her fingers against his wrist and for the five trillionth time he wishes he could invade her mind. In fact, he calls it ”acutely painful” that he can’t read her thoughts. Have I called him a creeper enough times? Probably, but here’s one more for good measure: CREEPER!

And then, ZOMG, she thinks the sparkling is BEAUTIFUL! Whaaaaaaat? It’s supposed to be the most terrifying thing in the world, how could anyone POSSIBLY think it’s beautiful??

My skin was blazing with the most flagrant symptom of my disease. In the sun, I was less human than at any other time. And she thought I was… beautiful.

I hope Wardo never watches horror movies if he seriously thinks a sparkly guy is the scariest sight in the world. And oh yeah, you might be slightly less human when you’re DRINKING FUCKING BLOOD than when you’re sparkling.

”You aren’t repulsed by my flagrant lack of humanity?”

Though I was fairly sure now what her answer would be, it was still astonishing to me.

“Have I mentioned how ASTONISHING Bawla Sue is? How literally everything she does makes her speshul and unique and Not Like Other Girls?”

She half smiled. “Not repulsed.”

“You should be.”

Her smile widened. “I’m feeling like humanity is pretty overrated.”

And so begins Bawla’s obsession with becoming a sparkly vampire. Here we have the core theme of the Twilight series: humans suck and you should jump at the chance to get rid of your humanity because otherwise you’ll grow OLD.

Wardo tells us that ”She valued humanity so lightly. She didn’t realize the depths of what its loss would mean,” and nice try, Meyer. We all know you value humanity as lightly as Bawla does and you desperately wish you could be one of your imaginary sparkly vampires.

Bawla gets closer and Wardo starts getting horny hungry again. Of course, Bawla apologizes because it’s her fault her blood smells so yummy and Wardo says he needs a minute. He spends a paragraph inhaling her scent and concentrating on resisting the urge to gobble her up, then he tells us that Bawla’s ”eyes were huge with confusion, with concern.” Great, all I need are Early Redemption flashbacks.

He closes his eyes to concentrate some more and we spend two whole pages on him thinking about her yummy blood and how he’s struggling SO DAMN HARD to not eat her. A small part of him can stay rational and curb the rest of him and that part starts calculating how hard it is to resist her blood. Yes, really. He wastes some more of our time focusing on her delicious blood, concentrating on her smell. Then of course, he wonders what Bawla is thinking.

Could she imagine any part of the turmoil inside my mind?

Nope, because her mind is mainly occupied by an endless loop of “Edward is hot Edward is hot Edward is hot Edward is hot Edward is hot Edward is hot.”

Wardo wonders how she can still be so calm and takes some more deep breathes and WILL SOMETHING PLEASE HAPPEN??

Two thousand three hundred sixty-four of her heartbeats later, I felt more in control than I had in many days.

Yes, he was counting her heartbeats. Because he wasn’t creepy enough. Hell, counting heartbeats is something I’d expect from an actual vampire who ate humans.

Also, an average resting heartbeat is between sixty and a hundred beats per minute. If we go for the middle of that average and say Bawla’s heart was beating eighty times per minute, then that would mean he was counting her heartbeats for almost half an hour. Yeah, he was staring at her like a creep and counting her heartbeats for almost half a fucking hour! Let that sink in.

Finally he lies down in the grass, thinking that ”if I portrayed relaxation, she would believe it.” Not after you were being a silent creeper for almost HALF AN HOUR.

Course, I have a feeling that Meyer just picked that heartbeat number at random without bothering to look up how long it would take the heart to actually beat that many times.

And guess what, Wardo rambles for ANOTHER page!

I waited to see if she would speak, but she sat silent as before, thinking whatever it was she might be thinking, alone in this remote place with a monster who reflected the sun like a million prisms.

“A monster who reflected the sun like a million prisms” – well, I gotta admit that’s a phrase I don’t read every day.

I could feel her eyes on my skin, but I didn’t imagine her revolted anymore. The imaginary weight of her gaze—now that I knew it was admiring, that she found me beautiful regardless of everything—brought back that electric current I’d felt with her in the dark, an imitation of life running through my veins.

Oh look, he feels better when he gets his ego stroked. Big surprise.

And guess what, he’s still rambling about how much he’s concentrating on everything about her and how it’s SUCH A STRUGGLE to restrain himself around her and how she’ll have SO MANY QUESTIONS whenever she starts talking and he doesn’t know how to answer them.

I decided to juggle a few more tasks while still tuning in to the ebb and flow of her blood. I would see if the distraction was too much.

He’s juggling tasks? What? All he’s doing is wangsting and counting her heartbeats.

And oh fuck, he’s not done. Now he decides to calculate the amount of wildlife around them. I shit you not. Seriously, he starts mentally naming and classifying all the birds he can hear and figuring out which kinds of fish probably live in the nearby stream based on the kinds of splashes he hears and even starts classifying the INSECTS. Fortunately, we’re spared having to read his actual lists of species names, but this whole section REEKS of Meyer going, “Ha ha, look how SMART my vampires are, much smarter than any dumb human!”

And guess what, he’s STILL not done. Now he tells us, ”If there were currently 4,913 insects in the area of the meadow, which was roughly 11,035 square feet, how many insects on average would exist in the 1,400 square miles of the Olympic National Park? What if insect population dropped 1 percent for each 10 feet of elevation? I brought up in my head a topographic map of the park and started computing the numbers.”



You know a guy desperately needs a hobby when he resorts to doing big math problems about INSECTS in order to distract himself from something. (And no disrespect to people who DO study insects as a hobby, but Wardo has zero passion for insects in and of themselves as far as we know.)

What do you know, HE’S STILL NOT FUCKING DONE!!

Concurrently, I though of the songs I’d heard most rarely in my century of life—nothing common that I’d heard played more than once. Tunes I’d heard walking past the open door of a bar, peculiar family lullabies lisped by children in their cradles as I ran by in the night, discarded attempts by the music students writing their theater projects in the buildings adjacent to my college classrooms. I mouthed through the verses quickly, noting all the reasons each was doomed to failure.

Oooh, look how awesome Wardo is, he can remember all these songs he’s only heard ONCE perfectly and can mouth them while he’s also doing insect math problems! You know what, when Wardo isn’t wangsting, almost all his monologues can be summed up like this:

“I’m better than you I’m better than you I’m better than you I’m better than you I’m better than you I’m better than you I’m better than you I’M BETTER THAN YOU, DAMMIT!”

Wardo reminds us for the five millionth time that Bawla is tempting him SO MUCH and he’s still BURNING, but he’s still in control of himself. Bawla asks what he’s doing and he says he’s singing to himself because ”I didn’t know how to explain what I was doing more clearly.” Wow, Wardo’s a big fat liar, who knew?

Wardo spends another couple of paragraphs yammering about how he’s getting more and more comfortable and maybe he’s passing the test Alice talked about and I think Meyer’s trying to put her readers to sleep.

Then Bawla brushes her finger over the back of his hand and THERE’S THAT ELECTRICITY AGAIN! He also tells us that it stimulates ”A different kind of burning than that in my throat, and even more distracting” and even adds that ”her heart throbbed wetly just a foot from my ear.” Meyer, you can just say that he’s got a vampire boner. You can also write porn to relieve yourself from the sexually repressed lifestyle you were raised in.

Wardo opens his eyes and wonders what Bawla’s thinking for the five millionth time, then he asks if he scares her and she once again says no and OMG, now she puts her WHOLE HAND on his arm!

The electric current felt like an earthquake rocking through my core.

Again, it’s called a boner, which you can somehow still get despite your lack of a circulation system.

Bawla asks if she can touch Wardo some more and he says she can, adding ”You can’t imagine how that feels.” Because, you know, vampires are Better Than You in every way, including boners.

I couldn’t have imagined it before this moment. It was beyond any pleasure I’d ever felt.

Wardo, I’ve probably said this before, but if a Sue touching your arm is really “beyond any pleasure you’d ever felt” when you’re over a century old, you REALLY need to get out more.

They spend some time touching each other’s hands and it’s boring, but then OMG HE PRESSES HER SKIN A BIT TOO HARD! Yes, that’s what passes for conflict. But then, of course, he realizes that he hasn’t actually hurt her, rendering that moment pointless.

Wardo spends a few more boring paragraphs yammering about their hands touching until he finally asks Bawla what she’s thinking, saying ”It’s still so strange for me, not knowing.” Hey Wardo, most of us go our entire lives without being able to read everyone’s minds. You get fucking used to it. Even Bawla points out that ”the rest of us feel that way all the time,” which, of course, causes Wardo to wangst some more.

The vast family of humanity that did not include me. Her people, her kind.

“The inferior peons I sneer at on a regular basis, but I totally wish I were still one of them, believe me!”

Wardo presses her about what she’s thinking which totally isn’t creepy and she admits that she was wishing that she knew what he was thinking.

Her voice was low; a human would have had a hard time hearing her.

Yes Wardo, we heard you the last five thousand times you talked about how inferior humans are.

”I was wishing I could believe that you were real.

You wish that you could believe in a psycho who wants to kill you on a regular basis. O-kay.

And I was wishing that I wasn’t afraid.”

This, of course, causes Wardo to snap back into Emo Mode. OH NOES, she IS scared of him, whatever will he DOOOO?? Surely she’ll walk out on him and never want to see him again! But oh wait, it turns out that she’s not afraid because he’s a vampire. No, she’s afraid because . . . she wants to kiss him. She starts leaning into him and Wardo spends a whole paragraph describing it because Meyer thinks we want to read about it.

Venom flooded my mouth, my free hand moved of its own volition to seize her, my jaws wrenched open as she leaned in to meet me.

See, this is one of the MAJOR problems with Meyer’s writing. This is supposed to be an intense moment of Wardo losing control and almost eating Bawla, but it’s as dry and boring as the rest of Wardo’s narration. There’s no life to it – it feels like Wardo’s narrating it as a detached observer instead of someone who’s actually experiencing it.

I threw myself away from her. The madness hadn’t reached my legs and they launched me all the way back to the far edge of the meadow.

And now in addition to the dry narration, the use of the word “launched” has me imagining Wardo’s legs blasting him off like a rocket.

Wardo worries for a moment that he might have yanked Bawla’s hands off when his legs blasted him off, but then he’s all relieved when he sees that she’s still got her hands. Of course, then he goes back into Emo Mode.

Relief followed by disgust. Loathing. Revulsion. All the emotions I’d feared to see in her eyes today multiplied by a hundred years and the sure knowledge that I deserved them and more. Monster, nightmare, destroyer of lives, mutilator of dreams—hers and mine both.



“I’m such a MONSTER! I hate my vampiric existence and everything about it and I wish I were still human – except that humans are weak and puny and inferior and vampires are better than them in every conceivable way! But I HATE BEING A VAMPIRE, believe me!”

Wardo keeps wansgting about how that COULD have been their first kiss if he hadn’t lost control, oh NOOOOOOO! What if he blew it for good? Whatever will he DOOOO?

Of course, he expects Bawla to start screaming in fear and tell him that she never wants to see him again because Meyer’s addicted to repeating the same shit over and over and OVER. And of course, Bawla says that SHE’S sorry because clearly it’s HER fault that Wardo wants to eat her.

Wardo tells her that he needs a moment and we have another paragraph of him yammering about how she still smells yummy but he doesn’t feel the “monster” right now. Then he wangsts about HOW CAN HE EVER KEEP BAWLA SAFE IF HE CAN’T FEEL THE MONSTER BEFORE IT COMES??

Then he wangsts for ANOTHER paragraph because why the hell not? He thinks about how Alice would tell him that he did protect Bawla because he stopped himself before anything bad happened, but she DOESN’T KNOW WHAT IT WAS LIKE TO LOSE CONTROL LIKE THAT!

Wardo can hear Bawla’s heart is racing faster than usual and he wishes he could comfort her and tell her everything’s okay, but that would be a lie and CAN SOMETHING PLEASE HAPPEN?

Wardo gets closer to Bawla until he’s ”at a conversational distance” and says he’s sorry and Bawla just stares at him.

Her expression was stuck in place. The words didn’t seem to mean anything to her, to register in any way.

Now I’m just thinking about how Bawla always has that same blank expression in the movies.

Wardo has his unfunny line from Twilight where he says ”Would you understand what I meant if I said I was only human?” You know what, it’s not “only human” to come close to KILLING someone, and given the rapey undertones Wardo’s bloodlust has, this feels uncomfortably close to rape apologetics. Like, “Oh, he couldn’t help himself, he’s only human!”

Bawla tries to smile at him, but Wardo can see she’s afraid and this time she’s afraid of HIM!

The scent of her fear saturated the air, tangy and metallic.



What the hell does that even MEAN? How the fuck does FEAR, an insubstantial emotion, SMELL “tangy and metallic”?

(sighs) Wardo keeps wangsting that he SHOULD want her to go away and leave him ”burning and alone” and my GOD Meyer, you’ve overused the burning metaphor to death. He laments that at long last he’s gonna get what he wanted, ”all because she’d leaned in just one inch too close. She’d gotten near enough to smell my scent, and she’d found it pleasant, just as she found my face attractive and all of my other snares compelling.” Notice how once again he’s placing the blame on HER. He lost control because SHE got too close.

Everything about me made her want to move closer to me, just exactly as it was designed to.

Except that you ALSO claim all the time that humans are instinctively REPELLED by your super scary vampire aura and Bawla is so unique and different because she DOESN’T naturally stay away from you. Which is it?

Wardo goes into his spiel about how he’s ”the world’s best predator” and how everything about him is designed to lure humans to him.

It was all so much overkill. What was the point of my charms and lures?

So Meyer can masturbate.

Also, Wardo, you’re NOT charming. You’re a sulky, emo, egotistical dickhead who constantly fantasizes about murder and turns up your nose at all humans who aren’t Bawla and whines about the same shit over and over and over and OVER. There is NOTHING charming about you.

I was no rooted flytrap, waiting for prey to land inside my mouth. Why couldn’t I have been as repulsive on the outside as I was on the inside?

Because then Bawla couldn’t spend 90% of the book gushing about how hot you are.

Now I felt out of control, but not in the same way. All my love and yearning and hope were crumbling into dust, a thousand centuries of grief stretched out in front of me,

Yes, because he fucked up his first kiss with the boring Sue teenager, he’s gonna be in grief for a THOUSAND CENTURIES. I know I’ve said this before, but why the fuck would you WANT a romance where you could NEVER BE HAPPY AGAIN if you lose the person?

and I didn’t want to pretend anymore. If I could have no happiness because I was a monster, then let me be that monster.

Wardo, first off, you wouldn’t know happiness if it smacked you across the face. Second, there’s more to the world than Bawla, believe it or not. Third, are you saying you want to go eat people just because you fucked up your first kiss with Bawla? Lovely. Noble vampire my ass.

Wardo goes crazy running around the meadow like in Twilight and it’s still stupid.

”As if you could outrun me.” I laughed at the thought, the grotesque comedy of the image in my head.

Does Meyer get off from talking about how much humans suck or something?

Anyway, just like in Twilight, Wardo throws a vampire tantrum and starts ripping up trees and we’re treated to a whole page of him describing the tree destruction in detail because Meyer thinks we want that, then Wardo once again tries to fool us into thinking he’s compassionate by saying that he hopes the trees can recover. Yeah, right.

So little effort on my part. I’d not needed to use more than a tiny fraction of my available strength. And still, so much violence. So much harm.

Have we mentioned how superior vampires are? I think Meyer might have to repeat it another four thousand times to make sure we get the message.

But anyway, Bawla didn’t move during his tree-stomping tantrum and she’s still staring at him because of course. After a bit more staring, she slowly moves her hand up in his direction and I think this is supposed to be suspenseful. He yammers for a while about how this reminds him of that first night when he’d heard her say his name in her sleep because we needed to be reminded of that. Then he yammers some more about how it didn’t matter to her that he’s a vampire and we’re supposed to feel for him, but nope, he’s still a dickhead.

Then Wardo has another SIN THINE ASS OFF moment when he realizes that he just can’t BEAR to see her afraid or hurt and that’s why he can’t STAND to leave and ”It stripped me of my ability to make anything close to a good decision.” Wardo, if you really, truly love her and you really are always an inch away from killing her, the smart thing to do is LEAVE. Even with Meyer trying to make Alice’s vision of Bawla going into zombie-mode a thing, you and she have been on speaking terms for less than two weeks. She’ll fucking get over it!

“Don’t be afraid,” I begged in a whisper. “I promise—” No, that had become too casual a word. “I swear not to hurt you. Don’t be afraid.”

Yup, I TOTALLY believe that after you lost it and threw a tree-cracking tantrum.

We have another long paragraph of Wardo slowly getting closer and closer to Bawla until he’s sitting next to her again and GOD, I’M BORED.

”Please forgive me,” I pleaded. “I can control myself. You caught me off guard, but I’m on my best behavior now.”

“YOU caught me off guard! It’s YOUR fault I went nuts!”

Wardo even tells us that it’s ”a pathetic apology,” and of course, in Meyer’s eyes that makes it okay. Of course, Bawla starts smiling from that because she’s an idiot.

And like a fool, I fell back into my immature efforts to be amusing. “I’m not thirsty today, honestly.”

“Amusing,” right. Course, I wouldn’t expect a guy who has no idea what fun is to know anything about how to be amusing.

I actually winked at her. One would think I was thirteen instead of a hundred and four.

Wardo, you NEVER act your actual age. You ALWAYS act like a whiny brat who thinks he’s better than everyone else.

Bawla starts laughing because she’s as immature as Wardo. Wardo asks if she’s all right and then they start touching hands again and Meyer uses up another paragraph on them touching hands and Bawla smiling.

I smiled back, feeling as though I could only just now appreciate the beauty of this place. The sun and the flowers and the gilded air,

GILDED air??? The air is gold-colored or covered with gold??? Is this like how Meyer thinks “venom” is a catch-all phrase for any bodily fluid?



they were suddenly there for me, joyous and merciful. I felt the gift of her mercy, and my stone heart swelled with gratitude.

Gotta say, “my stone heart swelled with gratitude” is another phrase I wasn’t expecting to read today.

But once again, this is completely unearned. As I keep saying Wardo decided that he was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with Bawla when he’d had fewer than five conversations with her and only THEN did he decide to get to know her via a shit-ton of random survey questions. Despite him never shutting up about how wonderful Bawla is, we’ve actually SEEN him do very little with her besides stare at her, wangst about wanting to eat her, and interrogate her with survey questions.

It's sad, even after fifteen years Meyer hasn’t learned “show, don’t tell.”

Anyway, Wardo tells us that this reminds him of when he returned to Carlisle after his people-eating spree.

I’d planned to wait. I wanted my eyes to be golden again before Carlisle saw me. But they were still a strange orange, an amber that tended more toward red.

It still makes no sense why human blood makes their eyes turn red and animal blood makes their eyes turn yellow.

He goes on to tell us that it was SO DIFFICULT to resist eating humans after he’d been nomming them for so long and he didn’t think he’d be able to keep resisting without Carlisle’s guidance, but oh no, what would Carlisle think when he saw Wardo’s eyes??

Would he just send me away? Would he find it difficult to look at me, to see what a disappointment I had become? Was there a penance he would demand? I would do it, whatever he asked. Would my efforts to improve move him at all, or would he just see my failure?

Again, his main motivation in deciding whether or not to eat people is pleasing Carlisle. I’m starting to think I should headcanon that Carlisle has brainwashing powers.

Then Wardo goes into a description of the house the Cullens were currently living in because Meyer thinks we want that and then he tells us that Esme was the one who first saw him coming home. She cries out his name and goes rushing out to him, followed by Carlisle, and Wardo can’t BELIEVE that he’s reading such happy thoughts from their minds.

They have a big happy-sappy reunion, complete with Esme kissing his cheeks and thinking ”Please don’t go away again,” and Carlisle wrapping them up in a group hug while thinking ”Thank you for coming back to us.” Notice how the whole EATING PEOPLE thing is absent from their minds. Just because he came home doesn’t mean he’s kicked the habit of murdering people.

And oh fuck, Wardo starts apologizing before Esme shushes him, thinking ”My boy,” and I want to gag. Then Carlisle stares at him in happiness and we get this.

Though he had to know what the color of my eyes meant, there was no off note to his delight. There’s nothing to apologize for.

There’s nothing to apologize for . . .

There’s nothing to apologize for . . .

THERE’S NOTHING TO APOLOGIZE FOR!!!



Sure, your son just went on a fucking MURDER SPREE, but there’s nothing to apologize for! No need to feel bad about FUCKING MURDER!!!

(takes deep breath) I know I keep bringing up Star Wars, but once again, Star Wars did it better. Leia and Han are both fucking heartbroken about their son turning to the dark side and they both end up giving their lives trying to bring him back, loving him to the very end and beyond, but they don’t treat the dark side like it DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER. Repentance, forgiveness, I get all that, but that’s different from saying that going on a murder spree DOESN’T MATTER and there’s NOTHING TO APOLOGIZE FOR.

(sighs) Moving on. Wardo comes back to the present and tells us that he ”felt the same undeserved acceptance now” (damn right it’s undeserved), and now that she’s forgiven him ”her forgiveness seemed to wash the darkness away.” Because heaven forbid that we have conflict that lasts more than two pages in a Twilight book.

He asks where they were before his tree tantrum and Bawla says ”I honestly don’t remember,” because she’s a dumbass.

I breathed in fire and blew it back out, wishing it would do some actual damage to me.

You’re not the only one who wishes that.

Also, that sentence makes it sound like he’s literally breathing fire like a dragon. Hey, can we get the dragons from Berk and Westeros to burn this guy to a crisp? Let’s throw Smaug in there too for good measure.

Wardo says they were discussing why she was afraid and she says ”Oh, right,” without saying anything else.

Rather than meet my gaze, she started tracing patterns against my palm. I tried to read their sequences, hoping for a picture or even letters—E-D-W-A-R-D-P-L-E-A-S-E-G-O-A-W-A-Y—but I could find no meaning in them. Just more mysteries. Another question she would never answer.

Hey Wardo, here’s a clear message for you – Y-O-U-A-R-E-A-D-I-C-K.

I also love how he’s convinced that there must be some secret meaning to the random motions she’s making on his palm and how he wangsts at the idea of never knowing the secret meaning.

Bawla looks up at Wardo and stares at him for a paragraph and then finally she says something that isn’t completely blank.

”I was afraid,” she began, and I realized gratefully that she was answering my question after all. “Because… for, well, obvious reasons, I can’t stay with you.”

Bawla, believe it or not, most people don’t stay with their first high school crush forever. If you actually gave yourself a chance, you’d get over Wardo.

And of course, since this is Meyer, Wardo helpfully walks us through what Bawla meant.

I could hear that when she said stay, she didn’t mean for this moment in the sunshine, for the afternoon or the week. She meant it the way I wanted to say it to her. Stay always. Stay forever.

Thanks Wardo, I had NO idea that’s what she meant!



I thought of all that would entail if, after all, I forced her to do exactly as she described. If I made her stay forever. Every sacrifice she would bear, every loss she would mourn, every stinging regret, every aching, tearless stare.

I can’t read that with a straight face since I know that Bawla’s going to be turned into the most speshul Sue vampire ever and she’ll have NO regrets whatsoever.

Wardo agrees with her even though BOO HOO he WISHES they COULD stay together!

And OH FUCK, we get more of Meyer attempting to impress us with her ‘knowledge” of Greek mythology.

This was a dangerous path to even hint at. Hades and his pomegranate. How many toxic seeds had I already infected her with? Enough that Alice had seen her pale and grieving in my absence.



Meyer: “See how I’m referencing Greek mythology? Look how SMART my writing is!”

Though it felt as though I, also, had been infected. Hooked. Addicted with no hope of recovery.

Which doesn’t sound like OMG TWU LUV at all. Getting a high when you’re around someone isn’t love, especially when you’re supposedly three seconds away from killing her at any given time.

I couldn’t fully form the picture in my head. Leaving her. How would I survive?

How would you ever SURVIVE if you couldn’t break into her house and stare at her all night?

Alice had showed me Bella’s anguish in my absence, but what would she see of me in that version of the future, if she looked? I couldn’t believe I would be anything more than a broken shadow, useless, crumpled, empty.

Maybe if you actually FOUND A FUCKING HOBBY, you’d realize there was more to life than just staring at Bawla.

Wardo tells her that he SHOULD leave, but he isn’t sure if he CAN, then Bawla says she doesn’t WANT him to leave, which makes him so HAPPY even though he knows he shouldn’t be happy and WILL SOMETHING PLEASE HAPPEN?

Wardo has his incredibly stilted, unnatural line from Twilight: ”But don’t worry. I’m essentially a selfish creature. I crave your company too much to do what I should.” Seriously, read that line out loud and tell me if it sounds the least bit natural. Moreover, if your significant other tells you that they’re incapable of leaving you alone because they’re too selfish and crave your company too much, it’s restraining order time.

But of course, Bawla says she’s GLAD and Wardo tells us that ”She said the words simply, as if this were an obvious thing. As if every girl would be pleased that her favorite monster was too selfish to put her before himself.”

I love how he specifies “girl” there. After all, girls are lovesick idiots. I also love the phrase “her favorite monster.” Seriously, I can’t read that without laughing – way to ruin a supposedly tense moment, Meyer.

Wardo goes all Emo Mode for the umpteenth time and reminds Bawla that in addition to her company, he also craves her BLOOD, saying ”Never forget I am more dangerous to you than I am to anyone else!” Yeah, I think the people you actually ate might beg to differ there.

Of course, Bawla just stares at him and says she doesn’t understand because she doesn’t have two brain cells to rub together, but of course Wardo uses this as an opportunity to marvel at how she’s not afraid. He hems and haws about how to explain things to her and then he spends ANOTHER whole paragraph savoring how her hand feels in his and worrying about how OH NOES, if he tells her this next part she might want to leave him!

Like in Twilight, he starts out by talking about how people have different favorite ice cream flavors and it’s still as dumb here as it was then. Wardo even acknowledges how dumb it is, but then Bawla smiles and he spends YET ANOTHER WHOLE PARAGRAPH waxing poetic about her smile and how it makes him feel all welcome and how OH HE WISHES HE WERE A HUMAN TOO!



Wardo gives her the alcoholic analogy from Twilight, asking if she thinks a recovering alcoholic put in a room filled with all the finest spirits could resist drinking them.

Was I painting too sympathetic a picture of myself? Describing a tragic victim rather than a true villain?

Wardo, you ARE a villain, but as I’ve said many times, it’s not because you’re a vampire. It’s because you’re a fucking PSYCHO.

Bawla just stares at him (of course) and he thinks he needs a better analogy.

”Maybe that’s not the right comparison,” I mused. “Maybe it would be too easy to turn down the brandy. Perhaps I should have made our alcoholic a heroin addict instead.” And cue the infamous exchange from Twilight where Wardo calls Bawla ”exactly my brand of heroin.” After all, nothing says true love like being compared to heroin addiction.

It was surely a horrific admission, and yet, somehow, I felt relief. It was all her doing, her support and understanding. It made my head spin that she could somehow forgive all of this. How?

Because she’s a moron who thinks you’re just too HAWT to actually eat her.

Bawla asks ”Does that happen often?” because that’s how you react when a guy wants to kill you and Wardo doesn’t know how to answer because he doesn’t really have anything to compare it to. He yammers to us that he can’t read actual sensations from people’s minds, just thoughts about said sensations.

How I interpreted thirst wasn’t even exactly the way the rest of my family did. To me, the thirst was a fire burning.

Yes, WE KNOW!! You’ve told us two thousand times!

Jasper described it as a burning, too, but to him it was like acid rather than, chemical and saturating.

And we’re talking about this why?

Rosalie thought of it as a profound dryness, a screaming lack rather than an outside force.

And once again Rosalie sounds like the smart one, since that sounds more like what being excessively hungry or thirsty actually feels like.

Emmett tended to evaluate his thirst in the same way; I supposed that was natural, as Rosalie had been the first and most frequent influence in his second life.

Of fucking course. His view on thirst must be exactly the same as his One True Forever and Ever Love.

Anyway, Wardo tells us that even though he knows about times when they had difficulty resisting and when they couldn’t resist, he can’t know how ”potent” their thirst was.

Every second gone hurt me more than they ever had—seconds I could never have with her again. I wished we didn’t need to spend those precious seconds on something so distasteful.

Yes, the possibility that you might kill the one you supposedly love – so DISTASTEFUL. Also, this is laughable that Wardo’s worried about wasting seconds together when they spend most of their time together just staring at each other like idiots.

Wardo tells her that he talked to Emmett and Jasper about it. Since Jasper is their most recent “vegetarian,” he pretty much sees all humans as the same and ”He hasn’t had time to grow sensitive to the differences in smell, in flavor,” which actually seems like something that would happen when you ARE eating humans. If you’re eating humans on a regular basis, you’d probably notice that some of them smell better than others and some of them taste better than others.

Of course, Wardo goes back into Emo Mode once he blurts out the word “flavors,” and then Bawla tells him that she needs to know the truth without him worrying about scaring her, which of COURSE causes him to launch into another paragraph about how wonderful she is.

I needed to accept that through some miracle, Bella was able to know the darkest things about me and not be terror-stricken. Able to not hate me for it. If she was strong enough to hear this, I also needed to be strong enough to speak the words.

Seriously, HOW MANY FUCKING TIMES has Wardo gushed over how he just CAN’T BELIEVE that Bawla isn’t afraid of him?

(sighs) Wardo explains that Jasper didn’t know if he’s ever run into someone who’s blood smelled as yummy to him as Bawla’s does to Wardo. Emmett, meanwhile, has had it happen twice ”once stronger than the other.” Bawla asks if this has ever happened to Wardo before and of course, it’s NEVER happened to him, which is of course a sign that Bawla must be his One True Forever and Ever Love.

Bawla asks what Emmett did with those two people who smelled good to him and Wardo YET AGAIN goes into Emo Mode, along with some more of Meyer pretending that he gives a shit about humans.

How could I tell her about these two innocent victims? Humans with hopes and fears, people with families and friends who loved them, imperfect beings who deserved the chance to improve, to try. A man and a woman with names now inscribed on simple headstones in obscure graves.

Oh FUCK YOU, Wardo! How many people have YOU killed, hmmm? I can say one thing for certain – it was far more than TWO people! And oh yeah, you’ve admitted that some of them were alcoholics, some were drug addicts, and some were mentally ill. You also told us that some of them felt REMORSE for what they did, but according to you, THEY didn’t “deserve the chance to improve, to try.”

In short, you have NO RIGHT to get all sob-sob about the two people Emmett ate, especially since you see humans as inferior beings anyway.

Oh, and here’s a fun tidbit. Wardo tells us that every time one of the Cullens eats a human, Carlisle requires the whole family to attend the victim’s funeral. Yeah, an entire family no one knows and whom the deceased didn’t know either suddenly showing up at a funeral totally won’t get people talking.

Were we a tiny bit less damned because we had listened to those who knew them best describe their shortened lives? Because we bore witness to the tears and cries and pain? The monetary aid we’d anonymously provided to make sure there was no unnecessary physical suffering seemed crass in retrospect. Such a weak recompence.

Wardo and Meyer are REALLY laying it thick here. Wardo, I don’t believe for ten seconds that you actually give a shit about ANY of your family’s victims. I know YOU sure as hell didn’t attend any of the funerals for the people YOU ate.

Bawla figures out what Emmett did to the two people whose blood especially tempted him, which of course causes Wardo to launch into yet another spiel.

Her expression was mournful now. Did she condemn Emmett while she gave me so much mercy? His crimes, though much greater than two, were less in total than mine. It pained me that she would think badly of him. Was this—the specificity of two victims—the offense she would balk at?



Let me remind you that he’s talking about MURDER. He’s worried that OH NOES Bawla might think badly of Emmett because he MURDERED PEOPLE. How COULD she think badly of Wardo’s awesome brother because of a little thing like murder??

Also, let me remind you that Bawla has never even SPOKEN to Emmett at this point.

Wardo tries to ease things by saying ”Even the strongest of us fall off the wagon, don’t they?” and I want to punch something. Wardo, when alcoholics and drug addicts fall off the wagon, it doesn’t usually result in FUCKING MURDER. Also, two people in your family have NEVER “fallen off the wagon” – Carlisle and Rosalie. Yes, Rosalie killed her rapists, but that was motivated by revenge, not hunger, and she didn’t eat her victims. Neither Carlisle nor Rosalie have EVER tasted human blood, showing that yes, it IS possible to keep yourself from “falling off the wagon.”

Could this be forgiven, too?

Perhaps not.

OH NO, what if Bawla doesn’t want to be with Wardo anymore because he and his family have fucking MURDERED PEOPLE?? Sure, ALL the Cullens except Carlisle and Rosalie have eaten humans somewhere down the line (even the Stepford Wife Esme), but why should that matter when TWU LUV is involved?

And then, OH NOES, Bawla flinches away a bit! Whatever could this mean? Well of course it means that Wardo’s going to launch into yet ANOTHER wangsty spiel.

So here was her limit. I’d thought she’d been extraordinarily kind and merciful, too forgiving, in truth.

No, she was just distracted by your hotness. It had nothing to do with being “extraordinarily kind and merciful.”

Also, as you’ll see later, she generally doesn’t give a CRAP about the people vampires murder on a regular basis. All those tourists the Volturi lure to their deaths? She doesn’t give a shit. The rampant murders committed by Victoria’s newborn army? She doesn’t give a shit. The possibility that SHE HERSELF might murder people after she’s changed? She doesn’t give a shit. Hell, you guys will lend your cars out to people-eating vampires in Breaking Dawn so they can go hunting outside the Forks area and will she give a shit? Nope!

But actually, she’d simply underestimated my depravity.

Again, what she cares about is your hotness, that’s all.

He goes on to wangst that she must not have believed that Wardo ever actually murdered people and only thought he faced temptation, but always rose above it.

I’d told her that same night how, despite our best efforts, my family made mistakes. Had she not realized that I’d been confessing to murder.

Again, she was too busy drooling over your hotness to care.

Also, allow me to remind you of this wonderful little exchange from the Twilight movie.

“I’ve killed people before.”

“I don’t care.”

Yeah, I know it’s from the movie, not the book, but it illustrates the level of compassion Bawla has for the people you and your family have murdered.

Of course, Wardo wangsts that oh noooooo, this means goodbye, she’ll never want to see him again, how will he ever say goodbye while still letting her know that he loves her?

”I mean,” she explained suddenly, no edge in her tone, “is there no hope, then?”

What, you thought Bawla actually CARED about the people Emmett murdered? Don’t be silly, she was just worried that this meant Wardo might not be able to resist eating HER!

Wardo is, of course, just ecstatic that Bawla doesn’t care about a silly little thing like his brother murdering innocent people – after all, this means that she DOESN’T want to leave him, and that’s the important thing! He quickly tries to assure her that of COURSE there’s hope for them! After all, the people Emmett ate were strangers – he wasn’t in love with them and he wasn’t as experienced in resisting the thirst as he is now, so that makes it okay!

But Bawla asks if things would have been different if they’d met ”in a dark alley or something,” and Wardo finally fesses up and admits that he came close to killing her that first day in class (but he DOESN’T confess to how he almost MURDERED THE ENTIRE CLASS to get to her).

”When you walked past me,” I admitted, “I could have ruined everything Carlisle has built for us, right then and there. If I hadn’t been denying my thirst for the last, well, too many years, I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself.”

I love how his main concern there is that he could have ruined everything Carlisle built for them. Now how he almost MURDERED TWENTY PEOPLE. Nope, what matters is that he almost forced his family to move again, horror of horrors! Compassionate my ass.

And of course, he’s not done wangsting at us.

I could see the classroom so clearly in my mind. Perfect recall was more a curse than a gift.

Even when he’s wangsting, he finds the time to brag about how superior vampires are, what a surprise.

Did I need to remember with such precision every second of that hour? The fear that had dilated her eyes, the reflection of my monstrous countenance in them?

Hey Meyer, your Thesaurus Syndrome is showing again.

They way her scent had destroyed every good thing about me?

Oh, it was her scent that destroyed everything good about you, was it? Nice to see that you’re still blaming her for the incident.

Also, I fail to see how it’s possible to destroy everything good about you when there was nothing good about you in the first place.

Bawla says she didn’t understand why Wardo took such an instant dislike to her on that first day and Wardo holds our hand by telling us that she understands perfectly that he DID hate her then, ”Almost as much as I’d desired her.”

Don’t tempt me to compare you to a certain racist genocidal Disney villain, Wardo, but you’re starting to sound like him.

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”To me, it was like you were some kind of demon, summoned straight from my personal hell to ruin me.”

(points up) Wardo, now you’re sounding even MORE like said racist genocidal Disney villain.

He rambles to her about how close he came to killing her and how he spent class plotting different ways to murder her, ”And I fought each of them back, thinking of my family, what I could do to them.” One again, his primary concern was that he might oh noes force his family to move again and disappoint his vampire daddy, not that he almost MURDERED TWENTY PEOPLE. Yeah, I know I’m repeating myself, but Wardo keeps forcing me to do it.

I had to run out, to get away before I could speak the words that would make you follow…. You would have come.”

And . . . why would she have come? “The words that would make her follow” sounds like Wardo has hypnotic powers like a traditional vampire, but Meyerpires don’t have hypnotic powers. So what are “the words that would make her follow”?

Wardo worries some more about oh no, what will Bawla think of him now and what does she think of how sure he is that she WOULD have followed him on that first day?

Well, it turns out that she just says that she’d ”Without a doubt” have followed him because he’s just THAT HAWT. Of COURSE she would have followed a total stranger to her death!

What was that about Bawla being such a strong character, again?

Wardo spends another paragraph wangsting about how their hands are still together and he’s SO AFRAID that they’ll have to come apart, then he tells her about how he went crazy again when she walked out on him when he was trying to reschedule classes.

I so very nearly took you then. There was only one other frail human there—so easily dealt with.”

Thanks for reminding us about how you almost murdered the receptionist in order to snack on Bawla, Wardo. Thanks also for reminding us of how you still look down on all humans who aren’t Bawla (and that you look down on Bawla too, for that matter).

Wardo keeps explaining stuff to her, telling us that ”I found myself using more and more distressing words. They were the right words, the truthful words, and they were also so ugly.”

Okay, so WHAT ugly words did you use? Care to tell us? Knowing this is Meyer, who thinks “damn” is an ugly word, they were probably incredibly tame.

Wardo tells her the stuff about running away to Alaska and coming back because he didn’t like “feeling a coward” and he’s just summarizing shit we already know. When he gets to the Van of Doom, of course he’s all amazed by how UNDERSTANDING Bawla is about why he behaved the way he did in the hospital.

Then he tells her about the fight he had with his family about whether or not to kill Bawla because she saw too much and of course he’s amazed that ”She didn’t shiver now, or betray any fear.” Yeah, the fact that she’s giving ZERO reaction to all this talk about killing her doesn’t make her look brave – it just make her look like she’s not comprehending any of it because she’s too distracted by Wardo’s hotness.

I wondered privately, not for the first time, where I would be now if I had not acted so instinctively that day in the school parking lot. If—as I’d just grotesquely described to her—I had stood by and let her die, then revealed myself to the human witnesses in the most monstrous way possible.

He would have sucked her corpse dry and then lapped her yummy blood off the van – personally, I think that’s a pretty hilarious image.

My family would have had to flee Forks immediately. I imagined their reactions to that version of events would have been…mostly the opposite.

The opposite of WHAT? Did Meyer cut something out and forget to fix the text up afterwards?

Also, I love how their first concern would be having to MOVE. Not the deaths of Bawla and Tyler (I also love how Wardo doesn’t even take Tyler into consideration even though HE probably would have died too), but just that they’d have to MOVE.

Rosalie and Jasper would not have been angry. A trifle smug, perhaps, but understanding.

They’d understand that he just COULDN’T HELP HIMSELF when he licked the blood off the van!

Carlisle would have been deeply disappointed, but still forgiving.

Heaven forbid Saint Carlisle ever be ANGRY at Wardo for anything.

Would Alice have mourned the friend she never got to meet?

Seeing as how she didn’t have her vision of being lovers friends with Bawla until AFTER the Van of Doom incident, then no, she wouldn’t have mourned the “friend” she never had because she never would have had the vision in the first place with Bawla DEAD, moron.

Only Esme and Emmett would have reacted in a manner nearly identical with their first reactions:

So when he said “the opposite,” he meant “the opposite of their reactions to how the incident played out in real life”? Meyer could have made that clearer.

Esme with concern for my well-being,

But no concern for the two kids who just DIED or their families. So COMPASSIONATE.

Emmett with a shrug.

Yessir, the compassion just drips off these folks.

Wardo then wonders if he would have realized that the girl he just let die was his ONE TRUE FOREVER AND EVER LOVE.

Even that early, after just a few words exchanged, my fascination with her was strong.

Because she smelled tasty and you couldn’t read her tiny mind. That was literally IT.

But could I have guessed the vastness of the tragedy?

Ah yes, it’s such a VAST tragedy because Bawla was destined to be Wardo’s One True Forever and Ever Love. If anyone else had gotten run over, there would have been no reason to give a shit.

I thought not. I would have ached, certainly, and then gone about my empty half life never realizing how very much I had lost. Never knowing actual happiness.

The happiness of . . . staring at her, and . . . wondering what she’s thinking, and . . . staring at her some more, and . . . asking her survey questions, and . . . breaking into her house to stare at her while she sleeps. Yup, your life would be totally empty without that.

Wardo thinks that it would have been easier on him if she had just gotten run over than if he ends up eating her now because now he’ll know the DEVASTATION of losing her. Once again, it’s all about how it affects HIM. Nevermind that SHE’D have a slightly longer life if he killed her now than if he’d let her get run over (and Tyler? Who’s Tyler? It doesn’t matter that HE’D probably be dead too because his name’s not Bella.)

I contemplated her kind, sweet face,

(snorts)

so dear to me now, so much the center of my world. The only thing I wanted to look at for the rest of time.

Sheesh Wardo, FIND A HOBBY! THIS IS NOT HEALTHY!

(sighs) Will this chapter ever end? (sighs again) Wardo tells Bawla about how he’d have been better off if he’d let her get run over than if he ate her now (once again, no concern for HER well-being in either scenario), and she just asks why because she’s a moron.

”Isabella…

(sings) “Isabella, your boyfriend’s here . . .”

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Bella.” It was a pleasure just to say her name. It felt like a kind of avowal. This is the name to which I belong.

God, why is Meyer so obsessed with using possessive language to describe TWU LUV? I get it, she thinks people should have no lives outside of their ONE TRUE FOREVER AND EVER LOVE, but that doesn’t make it any healthier or less pathetic.

Wardo takes Bawla’s hands and declares that he could NEVER LIVE WITH HIMSELF if he ever hurt her!

The thought of you, still, white, cold… to never see you blush scarlet again, to never see that flash of intuition in your eyes when you see through my pretenses… it would be unendurable.”

Wardo: “If you were anyone else, however, I would have no problem chowing down on you.”

”You are the most important thing to me now. The most important thing to me ever.”

I know I’m a broken record of a broken record at this point, but my point still stands: FIND A FUCKING HOBBY! If a bitchy teenage girl is “the most important thing in your life ever,” that’s not a sign of OMG TWU LUV – it’s just a sign that you have no life.

Wardo hopes that Bawla understands how his words are totally inefficient to describe the depth of his feelings for her and I think I’m gonna puke.

”You already know how I feel, of course,” she said, her voice not much louder than a whisper. “I’m here… which, roughly translated, means I would rather die than stay away from you.”



Let me remind you again that they’ve been on speaking terms for approximately ten days max. TEN. FUCKING. DAYS. And Bawla’s already declaring that she would rather DIE than stay away from him!

Also let me remind you that this ISN’T supposed to just be a hormonal teenager being melodramatic – Meyer honestly thinks this is TRUE LOVE.

God, I feel sorry for Charlie and Renee. Their ONLY CHILD declares that she would rather DIE than stay away from the psycho who wants to kill her and she doesn’t give a single thought about how that would affect her parents.

Wardo is all elated that Bawla wants him and at the same time he’s all devastated that she wants to risk her life to be with him and CAN SOMETHING PLEASE HAPPEN?

She scowled, her eyes still lowered. “I’m an idiot.”

Well I’m not gonna disagree with that one.

I laughed at her conclusion. From a certain angle,

Or a certain point of view?

she had a point. Any species that ran so headlong into the arms of its most dangerous predator wouldn’t survive long. It was a good thing she was an outlier.

God, HOW MANY FUCKING TIMES does Wardo drill it into our skulls that Bawla is SO Not Like Other Girls??

”You are an idiot,” I teased gently. And I would never stop being grateful for it.

Don’t we all want a guy who likes his women stupid? Yes, I know that Wardo’s joking around, but given his sexist track record and given how Bawla isn’t exactly overflowing in the brains department, I’m not inclined to be nice.

They laugh together about what an idiot Bawla is and Wardo waxes poetic some more about how happy he is with her. Yes, it’s as exciting as it sounds.

Though it was impossible, we belonged together.

And why show the process of them falling in love when Wardo can just tell us that they’re in TRUE LOVE FOREVER AND EVER?

Everything was wrong with this picture--

You’ve got that right, at least.

a killer and an innocent leaning close, each basking in the presence of the other, totally at peace. It was as if we’d somehow ascended to a better world, where such impossibilities could exist.

A better world where you can have the hots for a guy who wants to KILL YOU. Such a wonderful world!

And because we haven’t wasted enough time, Wardo then starts rambling about how this reminds him of a painting. Yes, really. He tells us about how when he and Carlisle used to look for new places to live, they ”canvassed” the area. Yes, she really uses the word “canvassed” right after mentioning a painting.



Wardo tells us that Carlisle liked to visit the parish churches when they traveled to new places because they reminded him of his old life and one time they visited ”an old Quaker meetinghouse” in Pennsylvania that had a small painting on the wall.

The artist was clearly untrained, his style amateurish. And yet, there was something in the simple, poorly wrought image that managed to convey an emotion.

(groans) Meyer, just WHY do you think Wardo sneering at everything and everyone makes him an appealing character? I seriously don’t get it. There’s a difference between loveable scoundrels like Han Solo and Tony Stark and assholes who just think everything and everyone is beneath them.

But even though the artist’s skill is so inferior, Wardo admits that he felt drawn to the animals in the painting and the ”kinder universe the artist had envisioned.” Naturally, Meyer doesn’t tell us WHAT in the painting makes the world “kinder” or what kinds of animals there are or what the animals are doing.

That leads to Wardo’s stupid ”And so the lion fell in love with the lamb …” quote. Does Meyer actually think she’s quoting the Bible here? The Bible has no such quote. The quote she probably thinks she’s referring to, Issaiah 11: 6, goes as follows: “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.” Yes, there’s a reference to a lamb and a lion, but there’s NOTHING about them falling in love. The verse is about how in the world to come, all creatures will be able to live peacefully together and there will be no more need for animals to eat each other – NOT about a lion and lamb fucking.

Also, it took me two minutes on Google to find the exact verse. Meyer, I thought you were so smart because you know how to use Google.

Bawla and Wardo have their dumb ”What a stupid lamb.” . . . “What a sick, masochistic lion.” exchange and of course Wardo feels the need to ramble at us some more.

I wasn’t sure that was a true statement, though. In one light, yes, I was deliberately causing myself unnecessary pain and enjoying it, the textbook definition of masochism. But the pain was the price… and the reward was so much more than the pain. Really, the price was negligible. I would pay it ten times over.

Why does this feel like someone told Meyer the actual definition of masochism and this is her trying to backpedal?

Also, it’s still really sad that in fifteen years Meyer still hasn’t learned about “show, don’t tell.”

And of course we’re still not done. Bawla asks Wardo exactly why he ran from her before so she can be careful with what she does and Wardo tells us ”How like her to take responsibility on herself.” Yes, WE GET IT, Bawla is the smartest, most responsible Sue in the world! How many times have I said this?

”Well… it was just how close you were. Most humans instinctively shy away from us, are repelled by our alienness….

Except that we never see any EVIDENCE of this. In fact, we see evidence of the OPPOSITE – humans are always getting super-horny for vampires.

I wasn’t expecting you to come so close.”

Does Meyer think we’ll forget how special and amazing Bawla is if she doesn’t mention it every five seconds?

Wardo says her throat smelled especially tasty and Bawla says she won’t expose her throat to him and CAN THIS CHAPTER PLEASE END?? Wardo then says he’s fine now because he was taken by surprise the other time and demonstrates it by running his thumb over her neck and telling us ”The electric pulse that only she could awaken started to thrum through my body.” Why does Meyer think your One True Forever and Ever Love should be the ONLY person who can ever make you horny?

Bawla gets horny and Wardo tells us that ”I couldn’t remember ever feeling this alive; I doubted I ever had, even when I’d been alive.” Once again, we’ll have to take Meyer’s word about it cause I sure don’t feel alive – I feel like I’m about to die of boredom.

Wardo takes Bawla’s face into his hands and he wants to kiss her SO BADLY, but he still doesn’t completely trust himself not to lose control and I DON’T FUCKING CARE. He orders Bawla to ”Be very still” and then leans in close to her. We get a whole paragraph of him pressing his cheek against her neck and yes, it’s as exciting as it sounds. Then we have a whole page of him lowering his head to listen to her heartbeat and that’s also as exciting as it sounds. Was this book written as a cure for insomnia?

And guess what, we’re still not done with the thrills. Wardo says it’s ”time for the final test,” and he breathes in her yummy smell while imagining himself chowing down on her. He spends ANOTHER entire page yammering about how delicious and satisfying her blood would be and how it would put out the fire in his throat because we totally want to read about the same shit over and over and over. Can this chapter PLEASE FUCKING END??

For the first time in three quarters of a century—the span I had survived without human blood—I would be totally sated. My body would feel strong and whole.

And since when does living on animal blood make you weaker? Hell, that would actually be an interesting idea to explore, but then Meyer couldn’t brag about how superior the Cullens are fifty times a page.

Anyway, Wardo suddenly realizes that DUN DUN DUN eating Bawla doesn’t have the same appeal to his mind anymore. He also realizes that ”there was no separate monster and had never been one. Eager to disconnect my mind from my desires, I had—as was my habit—personified that hated part of myself to distance it from the parts that I considered me.” Well, he’s right for the wrong reason. He’s right about there being no separate monster, but that’s because the rest of him is horrible as well.

Better to see myself as the whole, bad and good, and work with the reality of it.

You’re gonna have to look for a long time to see the “good” in yourself, Wardo.

Also, has Bawla disappeared? She doesn’t seem to be doing anything.

Of course, Wardo’s still yammering because the book hates me. I’m even having trouble summarizing because it’s SO FUCKING BORING.

Oh, Wardo tells us that ”the bite of her scent” is ”a welcome counterpoint to the glut of other physical sensations that overwhelmed me as I held her.” Great, he wants to eat AND rape her.

Wardo rambles for a while about how he probably caused himself to get overwhelmed by worrying about getting overwhelmed and it’s boring, then we get this.

Even Alice’s nightmare vision was suddenly less vibrant, the colors leeching away. Its power to shake me was ebbing, because, and this was obvious now, that future was entirely impossible. Bella and I would leave this place hand in hand, and my life would finally begin.

Okay, I guess the book’s over now since the conflict’s been completely resolved, right? Yeah, of course everyone already knows that Wardo’s not gonna eat Bawla because they know how Twilight goes, but that actually makes suspense more important. In a book like this, there’s no suspense about the what, so all the suspense is about the how and the why. People will want to see how Wardo struggles with his thirst and why he falls in love with Bawla.

Well, Meyer’s given no reason for him to fall in love with Bawla other than “she’s the most perfectest Sue in the world,” and now Wardo’s told us in absolute certainty that it’s IMPOSSIBLE for him to eat her now, so why should we keep reading? In a better book, that kind of complete certainty would lead to a downfall, but we all know that ain’t gonna happen.

I’m seriously baffled at how determined Meyer is to kill any and all suspense in her books. We already KNOW Wardo’s not going to eat Bawla – we don’t need Meyer to pat us on the head and reassure us that it won’t happen. It’s like if after Palpatine took over the galaxy, Padme then turned to the audience and said “Don’t worry, everything will be okay because my kids will fight in the Rebellion and save the galaxy from his tyranny!”

Moving on. Wardo is ”eager for the rest of my life to unfold.” Yeah, an eternity of you and Bawla staring at each other, what fun. He pulls back from Bawla’s touch and tells her that it "won’t be so hard again” (yeah, since you just declared it IMPOSSIBLE that you will ever eat her). She asks if it was hard on him, he says it wasn’t as hard as he thought it was, then asks if it was hard for her (dear God, Meyer, how do you write so many innuendos without realizing it?). She says it wasn’t bad at all, then we get some more Bawla worshipping.

She made it look so easy, being embraced by a vampire. But it must take more courage than she let on.



Wardo, Bawla isn’t comfortable with you because she’s brave. It’s because she’s too STUPID to have any sense of self-preservation when she’s in the presence of your hotness.

And of course, the chapter’s still not over because why would it be?

(sighs) Bawla smiles at Wardo and he gets all giddy, then he takes her hand and presses it against his cheek and he rambles at us about how OH WOW HE’S BEING SPONTAINIOUS WHEN TOUCHING HER! But then he asks her ”Do you feel how warm this is?” and her smile fades. For a moment he’s worried that he did something wrong, but then she tells him ”Don’t move,” and of course we get some more human bashing because isn’t that fun?

Her request was easily accomplished. I froze myself into the absolute stillness that humans were incapable of duplicating.

Let me just respond to that by saying that I’ve seen human statues perform at Disney World and it was honestly kind of creepy how they were able to be SO still that you wouldn’t even notice them at first. But yeah Wardo, humans CAN train their bodies to be completely still.

He closes his eyes as she slowly touches different parts of his face and it’s so fucking boring that I’m this close to tearing my hair out. Can we get back to the stupid sporkable stuff, please?

I wanted… so many things. Things I had not felt any need for in my entire immortal life before I met her. Things I was sure I had not wanted before I was immortal, either.

Yeah, because if there’s one thing teenage boys NEVER think about, it’s sex.

And I felt that some of them, things I’d always thought impossible, might, in fact, be very possible.

Wardo, YOU KNOW HOW THE DENALI SISTERS FUCK HUMANS ON A REGULAR BASIS WITHOUT HARMING THEM. YOU KNOW IT’S POSSIBLE FOR VAMPIRES AND HUMANS TO HAVE SEX WITHOUT THE HUMANS BEING HARMED.

And of course, this gets Wardo into a wangstfest about how even though he’s totally in charge of his thirst now, he’s still oh-so-much stronger than her and he ”must always think of her fragility.” Yes, we get it, Bawla is fragile and delicate and weak.

Wardo grasps a lock of her hair and then touches her face again and laments that he wishes she could understand the ”complexity” of his feelings. She asks him to explain it to her and why isn’t the chapter OVER ALREADY?

I’ve told you, on the one hand, the hunger, the thirst, that”—I gave her an apologetic half smile—“deplorable creature I am, I feel for you. And I think you can understand that, to an extent. Though as you are not addicted to any illegal substances, you probably can’t empathize completely.

Because nothing’s more romantic than your boyfriend comparing you to heroin, right?

I also love how he just takes it as a given that she’s never been addicted to anything. She’s just too GOOD to have ever tried recreational drugs, right?

”There are other hungers,” I continued. “Hungers I don’t even understand, that are foreign to me.”

So in a hundred years, he’s NEVER popped a boner before. Right. After all, if you get attracted to anyone before you meet your One True Forever and Ever Love, then your True Love is tainted!

Bawla says she ”may understand that better than you think.” After all, she’s been horny for Wardo since the first moment she saw him.

”I’m not used to feeling so human,” I admitted. “Is it always like this?”

Does Wardo seriously think that humans walk around in always-aroused mode?

Bawla responds that’s it’s never been like this for her, ”Never before this.” Again, you can NEVER feel attraction to ANYONE before meeting your One True Forever and Ever Love.

Wardo wangsts some more about how he doesn’t know how to be close to her and keep her safe at the same time and PLEASE END THE CHAPTER!! I’M FUCKING BEGGING YOU!!

Bawla rests her head on his chest and Wardo gains the courage to wrap his arm around her and kiss her head. Yay. She says he’s ”better at this than you give yourself credit for” because of course. Wardo lets her know that he still has ”human instincts” even though they’re ”buried deep.”

They sit there doing nothing for who knows how long with Wardo spending a whole paragraph telling us about how he lost track of time. Speaking of time, Meyer’s WASTING her readers’ time.

FINALLY Wardo tells Bawla that they should be going – or rather, that Bawla should be going since he’s in charge of everything she does. He tells us that ”She would have human needs she was neglecting” and I love the implication that Bawla would forget to eat or pee when she’s around Wardo.

Wardo remembers how long the walk to the meadow was (you’re telling me!), but then he gets an idea on how to get to her car faster. He tells her that he wants to ”show you how I travel in the forest.” Bawla looks unsure at this idea, which surprises Wardo since she’s ”usually so curious and fearless.” (snorts) Citation needed there, Wardo.

After assuring her that it will be safe, Bawla asks if he’ll turn into a bat. No, he won’t, because Meyer went out of her way to shit on everything that makes vampires cool. After bursting out laughing and spending a whole paragraph yammering about how good it feels to be able to laugh and be himself around Bawla, he stands up and offers his hand, but she’s hesitant to take it.

”Come on, little coward,” I coaxed. “Climb on my back.”

I just love my significant other calling me “little coward,” don’t you? Wardo, FUCK YOU TO FUCKING HELL!!



And of course, he’s not done being a douche. She’s still hesitating and he’s not sure whether she’s ”wary” or if she ”just wasn’t sure exactly how to approach me.” And Wardo, being Wardo, decides ”that the latter was the problem” and he’ll just ”[make] it easy for her.”

Yes, he just grabs her and hoists her onto his back. Why would you expect anything different from Wardo?

He yammers some more about how amazing it feels to be in such close contact with her and how he’s so happy that he hardly notices how yummy she smells and PLEASE CAN THIS CHAPTER END? I AM BEGGING YOU! Reading this book is like being trapped in limbo.

(sighs for the umpteenth time) Wardo tells us that he’s always loved running at vampire speed, but now that he’s got Bawla on his back, he realizes that running by himself could NEVER measure up to running with Bawla. Have I mentioned that this guy has no life?

One qualm nagged at me.

Does it have to do with how this chapter is lasting forever?

I’d been in a hurry to get her home as soon as that seemed to be her wish.

“As soon as that seemed to be her wish”? Is the editor home?

However… surely we should have concluded that most momentous interlude with a proper finale, a sort of seal on our new understanding? A benediction.

I love how Wardo calls that dull-as-fuck conversation a “most momentous interlude” that needs a “benediction.” I also love how Meyer expects me to take that seriously.

Wardo wants ”a true kiss” and rambles about how he used to think it was just IMPOSSIBLE to do that with Bawla, but now that Meyer’s patted us on the head and let us know that everything’s gonna be okay, he thinks he can do it now.

The electricity ricocheted around the inside of my stomach and I wondered why humans had thought to name such a wild sensation butterflies.

Because it feels like butterflies wildly flapping their wings around in your stomach. Why am I, a mere human, having to explain that to Wardo’s giant vampire brain?

They reach Bawla’s truck and Bawla doesn’t feel well.

I was in dire need of practice with human. I hadn’t even thought of the possibility of motion sickness.

In a different book, a vampire being so used to vampire speed that they don’t realize it could make humans sick would be fine, but here it just feels like yet another shot at how pathetic and weak humans are.

Wardo puts her down on the grass and orders her to put her head between her knees because of course. He tells us how worried he is about her and how he feels ”like an ass” and I can just imagine how Meyer thought she was being so gutsy for using that word.

Bawla says she should have had her eyes closed and Wardo orders her to ”Remember that for next time” because of course he takes it for granted that he’s going to piggyback her around again – it’s not like what Bawla wants matters or anything.

He gets on the ground next to her and yammers for the five millionth time about how his horniness for Bawla is even more intense than his thirst. My Word document for this chapter’s spork is 41 pages long at this point, by the way. Anyway, he tells Bawla that he was thinking about something while running.

Her eyes narrowed. “About not hitting the trees, I hope.”

I chuckled as she tried to hold back a grin. “Silly Bella.

Trix are for kids.

Running is second nature to me. It’s not something I have to think about.”

“Ha ha, you silly human, thinking that we superior vampires aren’t automatically perfect at running!”

Wardo says he was thinking of how he wanted to try something with her and puts his hands on her face, ”leaving her plenty of room to move away if this was unwelcome.” I sense damage control. The book also makes sure to let us know that he ”used an eighth of a second to recalibrate, testing every system in my body to be completely positive that nothing would take me off guard.” Wow, he used a whole EIGHTH OF A SECOND – he’s really working overtime.

After making sure he’s got everything under control except his erection and holding his breath, Wardo kisses her.

Though I’d thought I was prepared, I was not entirely ready for the combustion.

It turned out that Wardo DID burn up in the sun after all! Burn, baby, BURN!!

But of course we have no such luck. Wardo’s just being purple about how oh-so-exhilarating the kiss is.

It felt as if a new sun was bursting into being where our mouths met, and my whole body was filled to a shatter point with the brilliant light of it.

Funny how even with all this purple, Wardo and Meyer still give us zero sense of what the kiss is actually like.

Bawla quickly gets horny as fuck and throws her arms around him, pressing further into the kiss until Wardo feels her lips getting warmer from fresh blood flowing into them and decides not to risk things further, so he gently pushes out of the kiss. Bawla says ”Oops” when she realizes she got carried away because of course it’s her responsibility to make sure Wardo doesn’t get too hungry.

Is the chapter over yet? PLEASE is it over yet?

I couldn’t help but think what her innocent actions might have precipitated just a few hours ago.

Again, we must be reminded that it would be BAWLA’S fault if Wardo eats her.

And of course, the chapter still isn’t over. I think I’m being punished for something. Bawla wonders if she should give Wardo space and Wardo says ”It’s tolerable” and I’m SO FUCKING BORED that I’m having trouble coming up with snarky things to say. Seriously, this book is the same shit over and over and over and OVER.

Ward rambles for another few paragraphs about how he’s keeping his thirst in check and it’s nothing we haven’t already heard five thousand times.

I would have never believed how in control I was able to be now. This was a very rapid progress indeed.

Look at that. Even Meyer admits that she’s rushing through Wardo’s progression because she’s too lazy to actually explore it. How can a book be so rushed and so slow at the same time?

Blah blah blah, Wardo thinks that he should get her home but he’s enjoying himself too much, blah blah blah, he helps her up and she still seems to be dizzy, blah blah blah, Wardo’s an ass again.

”Are you still faint from the run?” I asked. “Or was it my kissing expertise?” I laughed out loud.

Can someone please stake this guy? PLEASE?

Bawla says she isn’t sure and Wardo takes this as an opportunity to declare that he should drive. She doesn’t like the idea, but three guesses whether or not he’ll respect her wishes.

If she were driving, I would need her to keep both hands on the wheel and I could do nothing to distract her. If I were driving, however, there would be much more leeway.

What do you know, what Bawla wants doesn’t even enter his big vampire brain, such a surprise.

Also, three guesses whether or not he’ll be an ass.

”I can drive better than you on your best day. You have much slower reflexes.” I smiled so that she would know I was teasing. Mostly.

I know I’ve already said this two billion times, but WHY ARE WE SUPPOSED TO THINK THIS GUY’S THE PERFECT MAN? Why would you WANT a guy who’s always talking about how weak and pathetic you are and how he’s better than you at everything?



Bawla doesn’t ”argue with the facts,” but she points out that Wardo’s driving might be rough on both her truck and her nerves.

I tried to do the dazzling thing she’d accused me of before. I still wasn’t exactly sure what qualified. “Some trust, please, Bella?”

Wardo, given that you don’t trust your girlfriend to take two steps without you, you’ve got NO room to talk about trust.

Bawla takes her key out of her pocket and tries to assert herself for once by saying no, but of course she starts stumbling on the way to her truck, which of course drives Wardo to remind her that he’s ”already expended a great deal of personal effort at this point to keep you alive” and that ”friends don’t let friends drive drunk” and that she’s ”intoxicated by my very presence.” Ain’t this guy so humble?

Of course, Bawla caves because that’s what she always does. Is the chapter over yet? Of course not. Bawla asks if she affects him the same way he affects her and of course that gets Wardo rambling at us again about how she’s changed everything for him.

For the first time in a hundred years, I was grateful to be what I was. Every aspect of being a vampire—all but the danger to her--

Being a danger to other people is perfectly fine, though.

was suddenly acceptable to me, because it was what had let me live long enough to find Bella.

Again, it’s hard to believe that Wardo actually wants to be human again when he’s putting humans down every chance he gets. I also love how the boring Sue was totally worth shedding his humanity for.

The decades I had endured would not have been so difficult had I known what was waiting for me,

“All those years of wasting my immortal life repeating high school forever were suddenly worth it!”

that my existence was advancing toward something better than I could have imagined.

That better thing being . . . staring at Bawla 24/7. Have I mentioned that this guy has no fucking life and can’t even imagine having one?

He rambles some more about how his entire century of life had been preparing himself for this point even though he was unaware of it and the prose couldn’t get more purple if it tried. He says he’s not sure how long this new self of his can sustain this level of control, but ”I never wanted to go back to the old me. That Edward seemed unfinished now, incomplete. As though half of him was missing.” We’re really hitting all the cliches of being incomplete without your soulmate, aren’t we? Look Meyer, if you want us to buy that Bawla and Wardo are just SO EMPTY AND INCOMPLETE WITHOUT EACH OTHER, then maybe show them doing something halfway interesting once in a while.

Then Wardo tells us that there’s no way the old him could have enough control to do what he’s doing now, which is kiss Bawla’s jaw, then her chin, then the area by her ear, then her chin again. The chapter FINALLY ends with him reminding her that he should drive because he’s got ”better reflexes” than her, blah blah blah he’s an asshole.

My GOD, this chapter was a chore to get through. I’d celebrate finally being done with it, but I’ve still got a LOT of the book to go.

Comments

[esmeandfiction]

It's sad that even after all these years Meyer still doesn't realize what a creep Wardo is and still thinks he's the perfect man and he and Bella have the truest true love that ever did true love.

[kudzumac]

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out Meyer's messed up views about Edward were brought about by some form of normalization for that behavior. It'd be sadder with that context, but sadly, abuse getting normalized for a victim is, well, part of the cycle, and most likely the most devious part of said cycle along with the Love Bombing part of it.

... I listen to a lot of Reddit stories on YouTube and may have picked up a thing or two from them. But even then, that might not save someone from missing red flags.

Still, the fact that this is getting an animated adaptation is... surprising. Maybe the studio working on it will cut down on a lot of material we've seen so far, and focus on events moving well, once the villains of the first book finally show up. James and his crew.

... I am now dreading what will happen when those three show up in this because I have a feeling Edward will both see them as "Beneath him" for eating humans and going "They're so totally a threat to my sweet doll Bella! Source? Trust me, bro!"

Anyway, in terms of my spitefic series for Midnight Sun? Troy's just going to chill until the evil Vampires show up. I may have to figure out the repercussions of Charlie getting evidence of Wardo watching Bella Sleep and save that for the next entry. Whenever that may be.