The Realm of Literacy

I don't blame Mervin for not recapping this chapter. It's utterly horrible. This is one of the most pathetic chapters in the entire "Twilight" series because Bella is in one of her most pathetic moments, and that's saying something. As soon as I heard about what happens in this chapter, I thought, "Oh, no, don't tell me this is going to be one of those 'I never loved you anyway!' melodramas." You're absolutely right; Bella has no reason to believe Edward when he gives her that excuse. Not when it's coming right after other excuses that he's made, not when Edward saved her life in the last book, and not when they spent the whole book talking about how nothing else matters but their love.

Bella is alternately pathetic, useless, clingy, stupid, selfish, blind, and manipulative in this chapter. Edward is also in the wrong here. I asked a friend of mine about this chapter and she just brushed the whole thing off by saying, "Yeah, Edward leaves her to protect her, it's a guy thing, that's what guys do, etc." I think that she was possibly thinking of the Spiderman scenario, where Peter Parker turns down Mary Jane in the first film to protect her from villains who may want to use her to hurt him. The difference is that Peter didn't leave Mary Jane in a forest all by herself, leave town, and steal all of her mementos of him.