Eclipse - Stephenie Meyer [103]
“What’s with you, Jake? You’re like a zombie.”
“I got about two hours of sleep last night, and four the night before,” he told me. He stretched his long arms slowly, and I could hear the joints crack as he flexed. He settled his left arm along the back of the sofa behind me, and slumped back to rest his head against the wall. “I’m exhausted.”
“Why aren’t you sleeping?” I asked.
He made a face. “Sam’s being difficult. He doesn’t trust your bloodsuckers. I’ve been running double shifts for two weeks and nobody’s touched me yet, but he still doesn’t buy it. So I’m on my own for now.”
“Double shifts? Is this because you’re trying to watch out for me? Jake, that’s wrong! You need to sleep. I’ll be fine.”
“It’s no big deal.” His eyes were abruptly more alert. “Hey, did you ever find out who was in your room? Is there anything new?”
I ignored the second question. “No, we didn’t find anything out about my, um, visitor.”
“Then I’ll be around,” he said as his eyes slid closed.
“Jake . . . ,” I started to whine.
“Hey, it’s the least I can do — I offered eternal servitude, remember. I’m your slave for life.”
“I don’t want a slave!”
His eyes didn’t open. “What do you want, Bella?”
“I want my friend Jacob — and I don’t want him half-dead, hurting himself in some misguided attempt —”
He cut me off. “Look at it this way — I’m hoping I can track down a vampire I’m allowed to kill, okay?”
I didn’t answer. He looked at me then, peeking at my reaction.
“Kidding, Bella.”
I stared at the TV.
“So, any special plans next week? You’re graduating. Wow. That’s big.” His voice turned flat, and his face, already drawn, looked downright haggard as his eyes closed again — not in exhaustion this time, but in denial. I realized that graduation still had a horrible significance for him, though my intentions were now disrupted.
“No special plans,” I said carefully, hoping he would hear the reassurance in my words without a more detailed explanation. I didn’t want to get into it now. For one thing, he didn’t look up for any difficult conversations. For another, I knew he would read too much into my qualms. “Well, I do have to go to a graduation party. Mine.” I made a disgusted sound. “Alice loves parties, and she’s invited the whole town to her place the night of. It’s going to be horrible.”
His eyes opened as I spoke, and a relieved smile made his face look less worn. “I didn’t get an invitation. I’m hurt,” he teased.
“Consider yourself invited. It’s supposedly my party, so I should be able to ask who I want.”
“Thanks,” he said sarcastically, his eyes slipping closed once more.
“I wish you would come,” I said without any hope. “It would be more fun. For me, I mean.”
“Sure, sure,” he mumbled. “That would be very . . . wise . . .” His voice trailed off.
A few seconds later, he was snoring.
Poor Jacob. I studied his dreaming face, and liked what I saw. While he slept, every trace of defensiveness and bitterness disappeared and suddenly he was the boy who had been my very best friend before all the werewolf nonsense had gotten in the way. He looked so much younger. He looked like my Jacob.
I nestled into the couch to wait out his nap, hoping he would sleep for a while and make up some of what he’d lost. I flipped through channels, but there wasn’t much on. I settled for a cooking show, knowing, as I watched, that I’d never put that much effort into Charlie’s dinner. Jacob continued to snore, getting louder. I turned up the TV.
I was strangely relaxed, almost sleepy, too. This house felt safer than my own, probably because no one had ever come looking for me here. I curled up on the sofa and thought about taking a nap myself. Maybe I would have, but Jacob’s snoring was impossible to tune out. So, instead of sleeping, I let my mind wander.
Finals were done, and most of them had been a cakewalk. Calculus, the one exception, was behind me, pass or fail. My high school education was over. And I didn’t really know how I felt about that. I couldn’t look at it objectively, tied up as it was with my human life being over.
I wondered