Abruptly, I remembered what had happened to Paris when Romeo came back. The stage directions were simple: They fight. Paris falls.

After all the thousand times I’ve told you I love you, how could you let one word break your faith in me?

As he intended, no doubt, I forgot all about my worries, and concentrated on remembering how to inhale and exhale.

As if he’d never existed? That was insanity. It was a promise that he could never keep, a promise that was broken as soon as he’d made it.

As long as you like me the best. And you think I’m good-looking—sort of. I’m prepared to be annoyingly persistent.

As much as I struggled not to think of him, I did not struggle to forget. I worried—late in the night, when the exhaustion of sleep deprivation broke down my defenses—that it was all slipping away. That my mind was a sieve, and I would someday not be able to remember the precise color of his eyes, the feel of his cool skin, or the texture of his voice. I could not think of them, but I must remember them. Because there was just one thing that I had to believe to be able to live—I had to know that he existed. That was all. Everything else I could endure. So long as he existed.

At least I could be with him again before I died. That was better than a long life.

Attention is never a good thing, as any other accident-prone klutz would agree. No one wants a spotlight when they’re likely to fall on their face.

Bears don’t want to eat people. We don’t taste that good. Of course, you might be an exception. I bet you’d taste good.

Because she’d rather you became one of the eternal damned than get married.

Before you, Bella, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars—points of light and reason… And then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire; there was brilliancy, there was beauty. When you were gone, when the meteor had fallen over the horizon, everything went black. Nothing had changed, but my eyes were blinded by the light. I couldn’t see the stars anymore. And there was no more reason for anything.

Bella, honey, we only protect people from one thing—our one enemy. It’s the reason we exist—because they do.

Besides, the only kind of heaven I could appreciate would have to include Edward.

By the end of the day, the silence was becoming ridiculous. I didn’t want to be the one to break it, but apparently that was my only choice if I ever wanted him to talk to me again.

Change was coming. I could feel it. It wasn’t a pleasant prospect, not when life was perfect the way it was.