Meg Cabot: Twilight

"What's not, Susannah?" he asked gently.

"The saying. It's supposed to be, If you love something, set it free. If it was meant to be, it will come back to you. Don't you know? Haven't you read it?"

When I looked up at Father Dominic to see what he thought of this, I saw that he wasn't even looking at me. He was staring down at Jesse on the bed. Father Dominic's blue eyes, I noticed, were as tear-filled as my own.

"Susannah," he said in a strangled voice. "Look."

I looked. And as I moved my head, felt the fingers of the hand I was holding suddenly tighten around mine.

Color that hadn't been there a minute before had flooded Jesse's face. His face was no longer the same color as the sheets. His skin was the same olive tone it had been when I'd first seen him, back in the O'Neils' barn.

And that wasn't all. His chest was rising and falling visibly now beneath the blanket that covered him. A pulse thrummed visibly in his neck.

And, as I stood there, staring down at him, his eyelids lifted . . .

. . . and I was falling, as hard as I did every time he looked at me, into the deep dark pools that were Jesse's eyes . . eyes that weren't just seeing me, but knew me. Knew my soul.

He lifted the hand I wasn't clutching, plucked aside the oxygen mask that had been covering his nose and mouth, and said just one word.

But it was a word that set my heart singing.

"Querida."

Chapter twenty-one

"Suze!"

I heard my mothers voice calling from downstairs.

"Suze!"

I was sitting at my dressing table, admiring my blowout. CeeCee and I had spent the afternoon getting our hair and nails done. CeeCee hadn't needed a blow-out . . . her white-blonde hair is straight on its own. But she'd gotten an updo, then fretted all afternoon that it wouldn't hold.

My blow-out, however, apparently had staying power, because my hair looked as dark and shimmery as it had when I'd stepped from the salon.

"Suze!" my mom called a third and final time.

I glanced at the clock. I'd made him wait nearly five minutes. That seemed long enough.

"Coming," I yelled and grabbed my evening bag and the filmy white stole that went with my dress.

I went to my bedroom door and threw it open. Coming up the stairs as I was about to head down them was Jake, carrying a heavy backpack filled with books. From the library.

"Has hell frozen over?" I asked him as he went by me on his way to his room.

"Don't start with me, I've got finals," he growled. Then, just as he was to the door of his room, he turned and, with all apparent sincerity, said, "Nice dress," and disappeared into the confines of his bachelor cave.

I couldn't help smiling. It was the first compliment I'd ever managed to wring from Jake.

I started down the stairs, one hand lifting the hem of my gown. They were the exact same stairs, I realized, as the ones Mrs. O'Neil had chased me down about, oh, 150-something years ago. I wondered if, in my current ensemble, she'd have mistaken me for a hoochie mama. Somehow, I doubted it.

It's nice, I thought, that we have stairs like this. Stairs a girl can really make an entrance on. I got to the last landing, the one that basically served as a stage for girls who were going to their first Winter Formal to pivot and show off their dress to the people waiting in the living room, and paused, preparing to do just that.

But it was no use. I saw that at once. My stepfather was running around with a spoon filled with something green, urging everyone he encountered to taste it, just taste it. My mom was trying to figure out how her new digital camera worked and not doing the world's best job at it. My youngest stepbrother, David, was talking a mile a minute to my date about some new advances in aeronautics he'd seen on the Discovery Channel.

And Max, the family dog, had his nose buried in the front of my date's tuxedo pants.

I guess it was a pretty typical familial scene, one that I'm sure occurs in millions of homes every night.

So why did tears spring to my eyes at the sight of it?

Oh, not at Andy and his spoon, or my mom and her camera, or David and his complete conviction that anyone wanted to hear the entire transcript of the show he'd watched.

No, it was the fact that the family dog kept thrusting his nose into inappropriate places on my date, and that my date had to keep shoving Max away, that made the tears well up.

Because Max could smell my date. Max could finally smell Jesse.

David noticed me standing there on the landing first. His voice trailed off and he dried up, and just stood there staring. After a minute, everyone was staring.

I hastily blinked my tears away. Especially when Max rushed over and tried to thrust his big furry head beneath my skirt.

"Oh, Susie," my mom cooed and to everyone's surprise - especially her own - managed to snap a picture. "You look beautiful."

Andy, spying another victim, raised his spoon toward me, but my mother cut him off at the pass.

"Andy, don't you go near her with that stuff while she's in that dress," she warned.

That made me smile. When I looked at Jesse, I saw he was smiling, too. A secret smile, just for me - even though now, of course, everyone else could see it, too.

It still took my breath away, same as ever.

"So," I said as casually as I could with a giant lump in my throat. But this one was from joy. "I see you've met Jesse."

Andy summed up their introduction in two words before heading back to the kitchen with his spoon. "He'll do."

My mother was beaming. "So nice to meet you," she said to Jesse. "Now come down here, I want to get your picture together."

I came down the rest of the stairs and went to stand by Jesse's side in front of the fireplace. He looked so tall and handsome in his tux, I could hardly stand it. I didn't even care that my mother was completely mortifying me in front of him. I guess those kind of things don't really matter when you nearly lose your reason for living, then get it back again, against all odds.

"This is for you," Jesse said when I came close enough. He handed me something he'd been holding. It was a single white orchid, the kind you usually only see at funerals. Or on graves.

I took it from him with a wry smile. Only he and I realized the flower's significance. To my mother, who came rushing over to pin it to my dress before she took the picture, it was just a corsage.

"Now, say cheese," she said and took the picture, thankfully without actually making us say it.

Andy reemerged from the kitchen, this time without his spoon, and started looking parental.

"Now, you have her home by midnight, understand, young man?" he said, clearly enjoying being father to a girl instead of a boy for a change.

"I will, sir," Jesse replied.

"One," I said to Andy.

"Twelve thirty," Andy countered.

"Twelve thirty," I agreed. I'd only argued because, well, that's what you do. It didn't really matter what time Jesse had to bring me home by. Not when we had our whole lives together ahead of us.

"Suze," my mom whispered as she fussed with my shawl, "we like him, don't get us wrong. But isn't he a little, well, old for you? After all, he's in college - Jake's age."

If only she knew.

"That makes us about even," I assured her. "Girls mature faster than boys."

Brad chose that moment to come barreling in from the TV room, where he'd been playing video games. When he saw we were still in the doorway, his face twisted with annoyance.

"Haven't you guys left yet?" he demanded and stormed back into the kitchen.

I looked at my mother.

"I see what you mean," she said and patted me on the back. "Have a nice time."

Outside in the crisp evening air, Jesse looked over his shoulder to make sure my parents weren't watching. Then he took my hand.