---

TWILIGHT
By
Stephenie Meyer

Contents
PREFACE
1. FIRST SIGHT
2. OPEN BOOK
3. PHENOMENON
4. INVITATIONS
5. BLOOD TYPE
6. SCARY STORIES
7. NIGHTMARE
8. PORT ANGELES
9. THEORY
10. INTERROGATIONS
11. COMPLICATIONS
12. BALANCING
13. CONFESSIONS
14. MIND OVER MATTER
15. THE CULLENS
16. CARLISLE
17. THE GAME
18. THE HUNT
19. GOODBYES
20. IMPATIENCE
21. PHONE CALL
22. HIDE-AND-SEEK
23. THE ANGEL
24. AN IMPASSE
EPILOGUE: AN OCCASION

---

Twilight


STEPHENIE MEYER




LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY
New York Boston


Text copyright  2005 by Stephenie Meyer

All rights reserved.

Little, Brown and Company

Time Warner Book Group
1271 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
Visit our Web site at www.lb-teens.com

First Edition: September 2005

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious.
Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not
intended by the author.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Meyer, Stephanie, 1973—
Twilight : a novel / by Stephanie Meyer. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: When seventeen-year-old Bella leaves Phoenix to live with
her father in Forks, Washington, she meets an exquisitely handsome
boy at school for whom she feels an overwhelming attraction and who
she comes to realize is not wholly human.

ISBN 0-316-16017-2
[1. Vampires — Fiction. 2. High schools — Fiction. 3. Schools — Fiction.
4. Washington (State) — Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.M57188Tw2005
[Fic] —dc22 2004024730

Printed in the United States of America

---

For my big sister, Emily,
without whose enthusiasm this story might still be unfinished.


But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
thou shalt not eat of it:
for in the day that thou eatest thereof
thou shalt surely die.

Genesis 2:17




PREFACE


I'd never given much thought to how I would die — though I'd had
reason enough in the last few months — but even if I had, I would not
have imagined it like this.
I stared without breathing across the long room, into the dark eyes of
the hunter, and he looked pleasantly back at me.
Surely it was a good way to die, in the place of someone else, someone
I loved. Noble, even. That ought to count for something.
I knew that if I'd never gone to Forks, I wouldn't be facing death now.
But, terrified as I was, I couldn't bring myself to regret the decision.
When life offers you a dream so far beyond any of your expectations, it's
not reasonable to grieve when it comes to an end.
The hunter smiled in a friendly way as he sauntered forward to kill me.

1. FIRST SIGHT


My mother drove me to the airport with the windows rolled down. It was
seventy-five degrees in Phoenix, the sky a perfect, cloudless blue. I was
wearing my favorite shirt — sleeveless, white eyelet lace; I was wearing
it as a farewell gesture. My carry-on item was a parka.

---

In the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington State, a small town
named Forks exists under a near-constant cover of clouds. It rains on
this inconsequential town more than any other place in the United
States of America. It was from this town and its gloomy, omnipresent
shade that my mother escaped with me when I was only a few months
old. It was in this town that I'd been compelled to spend a month every
summer until I was fourteen. That was the year I finally put my foot
down; these past three summers, my dad, Charlie, vacationed with me
in California for two weeks instead.
It was to Forks that I now exiled myself— an action that I took with
great horror. I detested Forks.
I loved Phoenix. I loved the sun and the blistering heat. I loved the
vigorous, sprawling city.
"Bella," my mom said to me — the last of a thousand times — before I
got on the plane. "You don't have to do this."
My mom looks like me, except with short hair and laugh lines. I felt a
spasm of panic as I stared at her wide, childlike eyes. How could I leave
my loving, erratic, harebrained mother to fend for herself? Of course she
had Phil now, so the bills would probably get paid, there would be food
in the refrigerator, gas in her car, and someone to call when she got
lost, but still…
"I want to go," I lied. I'd always been a bad liar, but I'd been saying this
lie so frequently lately that it sounded almost convincing now.
"Tell Charlie I said hi."
"I will."
"I'll see you soon," she insisted. "You can come home whenever you
want — I'll come right back as soon as you need me."
But I could see the sacrifice in her eyes behind the promise.
"Don't worry about me," I urged. "It'll be great. I love you, Mom."
She hugged me tightly for a minute, and then I got on the plane, and
she was gone.
It's a four-hour flight from Phoenix to Seattle, another hour in a small
plane up to Port Angeles, and then an hour drive back down to Forks.
Flying doesn't bother me; the hour in the car with Charlie, though, I was
a little worried about.
Charlie had really been fairly nice about the whole thing. He seemed
genuinely pleased that I was coming to live with him for the first time
with any degree of permanence. He'd already gotten me registered for
high school and was going to help me get a car.
But it was sure to be awkward with Charlie. Neither of us was what
anyone would call verbose, and I didn't know what there was to say
regardless. I knew he was more than a little confused by my decision —
like my mother before me, I hadn't made a secret of my distaste for
Forks.

---

When I landed in Port Angeles, it was raining. I didn't see it as an omen
— just unavoidable. I'd already said my goodbyes to the sun.
Charlie was waiting for me with the cruiser. This I was expecting, too.
Charlie is Police Chief Swan to the good people of Forks. My primary
motivation behind buying a car, despite the scarcity of my funds, was
that I refused to be driven around town in a car with red and blue lights
on top. Nothing slows down traffic like a cop.
Charlie gave me an awkward, one-armed hug when I stumbled my way
off the plane.
"It's good to see you, Bells," he said, smiling as he automatically caught
and steadied me. "You haven't changed much. How's Renée?"
"Mom's fine. It's good to see you, too, Dad." I wasn't allowed to call him
Charlie to his face.
I had only a few bags. Most of my Arizona clothes were too permeable
for Washington. My mom and I had pooled our resources to supplement
my winter wardrobe, but it was still scanty. It all fit easily into the trunk
of the cruiser.
"I found a good car for you, really cheap," he announced when we were
strapped in.
"What kind of car?" I was suspicious of the way he said "good car for
you" as opposed to just "good car."
"Well, it's a truck actually, a Chevy."
"Where did you find it?"
"Do you remember Billy Black down at La Push?" La Push is the tiny
Indian reservation on the coast.
"No."
"He used to go fishing with us during the summer," Charlie prompted.
That would explain why I didn't remember him. I do a good job of
blocking painful, unnecessary things from my memory.
"He's in a wheelchair now," Charlie continued when I didn't respond, "so
he can't drive anymore, and he offered to sell me his truck cheap."
"What year is it?" I could see from his change of expression that this
was the question he was hoping I wouldn't ask.
"Well, Billy's done a lot of work on the engine — it's only a few years
old, really."
I hoped he didn't think so little of me as to believe I would give up that
easily. "When did he buy it?"
"He bought it in 1984, I think."
"Did he buy it new?"
"Well, no. I think it was new in the early sixties — or late fifties at the
earliest," he admitted sheepishly.
"Ch — Dad, I don't really know anything about cars. I wouldn't be able
to fix it if anything went wrong, and I couldn't afford a mechanic…"

---

"Really, Bella, the thing runs great. They don't build them like that
anymore."
The thing, I thought to myself… it had possibilities — as a nickname, at
the very least.
"How cheap is cheap?" After all, that was the part I couldn't compromise
on.
"Well, honey, I kind of already bought it for you. As a homecoming gift."
Charlie peeked sideways at me with a hopeful expression.
Wow. Free.
"You didn't need to do that, Dad. I was going to buy myself a car."
"I don't mind. I want you to be happy here." He was looking ahead at
the road when he said this. Charlie wasn't comfortable with expressing
his emotions out loud. I inherited that from him. So I was looking
straight ahead as I responded.
"That's really nice, Dad. Thanks. I really appreciate it." No need to add
that my being happy in Forks is an impossibility. He didn't need to suffer
along with me. And I never looked a free truck in the mouth — or
engine.
"Well, now, you're welcome," he mumbled, embarrassed by my thanks.
We exchanged a few more comments on the weather, which was wet,
and that was pretty much it for Conversation. We stared out the
windows in silence.
It was beautiful, of course; I couldn't deny that. Everything was green:
the trees, their trunks covered with moss, their branches hanging with a
canopy of it, the ground covered with ferns. Even the air filtered down
greenly through the leaves.
It was too green — an alien planet.
Eventually we made it to Charlie's. He still lived in the small, two-
bedroom house that he'd bought with my mother in the early days of
their marriage. Those were the only kind of days their marriage had —
the early ones. There, parked on the street in front of the house that
never changed, was my new — well, new to me — truck. It was a faded
red color, with big, rounded fenders and a bulbous cab. To my intense
surprise, I loved it. I didn't know if it would run, but I could see myself
in it. Plus, it was one of those solid iron affairs that never gets damaged
— the kind you see at the scene of an accident, paint unscratched,
surrounded by the pieces of the foreign car it had destroyed.
"Wow, Dad, I love it! Thanks!" Now my horrific day tomorrow would be
just that much less dreadful. I wouldn't be faced with the choice of
either walking two miles in the rain to school or accepting a ride in the
Chief's cruiser.
"I'm glad you like it," Charlie said gruffly, embarrassed again.
It took only one trip to get all my stuff upstairs. I got the west bedroom
that faced out over the front yard. The room was familiar; it had been

---

belonged to me since I was born. The wooden floor, the light blue walls,
the peaked ceiling, the yellowed lace curtains around the window —
these were all a part of my childhood. The only changes Charlie had
ever made were switching the crib for a bed and adding a desk as I
grew. The desk now held a secondhand computer, with the phone line
for the modem stapled along the floor to the nearest phone jack. This
was a stipulation from my mother, so that we could stay in touch easily.
The rocking chair from my baby days was still in the corner.
There was only one small bathroom at the top of the stairs, which I
would have to share with Charlie. I was trying not to dwell too much on
that fact.
One of the best things about Charlie is he doesn't hover. He left me
alone to unpack and get settled, a feat that would have been altogether
impossible for my mother. It was nice to be alone, not to have to smile
and look pleased; a relief to stare dejectedly out the window at the
sheeting rain and let just a few tears escape. I wasn't in the mood to go
on a real crying jag. I would save that for bedtime, when I would have
to think about the coming morning.
Forks High School had a frightening total of only three hundred and
fifty-seven — now fifty-eight — students; there were more than seven
hundred people in my junior class alone back home. All of the kids here
had grown up together — their grandparents had been toddlers
together.
I would be the new girl from the big city, a curiosity, a freak.
Maybe, if I looked like a girl from Phoenix should, I could work this to
my advantage. But physically, I'd never fit in anywhere. I should be tan,
sporty, blond — a volleyball player, or a cheerleader, perhaps — all the
things that go with living in the valley of the sun.
Instead, I was ivory-skinned, without even the excuse of blue eyes or
red hair, despite the constant sunshine. I had always been slender, but
soft somehow, obviously not an athlete; I didn't have the necessary
hand-eye coordination to play sports without humiliating myself — and
harming both myself and anyone else who stood too close.
When I finished putting my clothes in the old pine dresser, I took my
bag of bathroom necessities and went to the communal bathroom to
clean myself up after the day of travel. I looked at my face in the mirror
as I brushed through my tangled, damp hair. Maybe it was the light, but
already I looked sallower, unhealthy. My skin could be pretty — it was
very clear, almost translucent-looking — but it all depended on color. I
had no color here.
Facing my pallid reflection in the mirror, I was forced to admit that I was
lying to myself. It wasn't just physically that I'd never fit in. And if I
couldn't find a niche in a school with three thousand people, what were
my chances here?

---

I didn't relate well to people my age. Maybe the truth was that I didn't
relate well to people, period. Even my mother, who I was closer to than
anyone else on the planet, was never in harmony with me, never on
exactly the same page. Sometimes I wondered if I was seeing the same
things through my eyes that the rest of the world was seeing through
theirs. Maybe there was a glitch in my brain. But the cause didn't
matter. All that mattered was the effect. And tomorrow would be just
the beginning.

I didn't sleep well that night, even after I was done crying. The constant
whooshing of the rain and wind across the roof wouldn't fade into the
background. I pulled the faded old quilt over my head, and later added
the pillow, too. But I couldn't fall asleep until after midnight, when the
rain finally settled into a quieter drizzle.
Thick fog was all I could see out my window in the morning, and I could
feel the claustrophobia creeping up on me. You could never see the sky
here; it was like a cage.
Breakfast with Charlie was a quiet event. He wished me good luck at
school. I thanked him, knowing his hope was wasted. Good luck tended
to avoid me. Charlie left first, off to the police station that was his wife
and family. After he left, I sat at the old square oak table in one of the
three unmatching chairs and examined his small kitchen, with its dark
paneled walls, bright yellow cabinets, and white linoleum floor. Nothing
was changed. My mother had painted the cabinets eighteen years ago in
an attempt to bring some sunshine into the house. Over the small
fireplace in the adjoining handkerchief-sized family room was a row of
pictures. First a wedding picture of Charlie and my mom in Las Vegas,
then one of the three of us in the hospital after I was born, taken by a
helpful nurse, followed by the procession of my school pictures up to last
year's. Those were embarrassing to look at — I would have to see what
I could do to get Charlie to put them somewhere else, at least while I
was living here.
It was impossible, being in this house, not to realize that Charlie had
never gotten over my mom. It made me uncomfortable.
I didn't want to be too early to school, but I couldn't stay in the house
anymore. I donned my jacket — which had the feel of a biohazard suit
— and headed out into the rain.
It was just drizzling still, not enough to soak me through immediately as
I reached for the house key that was always hidden under the eaves by
the door, and locked up. The sloshing of my new waterproof boots was
unnerving. I missed the normal crunch of gravel as I walked. I couldn't
pause and admire my truck again as I wanted; I was in a hurry to get
out of the misty wet that swirled around my head and clung to my hair
under my hood.

---

Inside the truck, it was nice and dry. Either Billy or Charlie had
obviously cleaned it up, but the tan upholstered seats still smelled
faintly of tobacco, gasoline, and peppermint. The engine started quickly,
to my relief, but loudly, roaring to life and then idling at top volume.
Well, a truck this old was bound to have a flaw. The antique radio
worked, a plus that I hadn't expected.
Finding the school wasn't difficult, though I'd never been there before.
The school was, like most other things, just off the highway. It was not
obvious that it was a school; only the sign, which declared it to be the
Forks High School, made me stop. It looked like a collection of matching
houses, built with maroon-colored bricks. There were so many trees and
shrubs I couldn't see its size at first. Where was the feel of the
institution? I wondered nostalgically. Where were the chain-link fences,
the metal detectors?
I parked in front of the first building, which had a small sign over the
door reading front office. No one else was parked there, so I was sure it
was off limits, but I decided I would get directions inside instead of
circling around in the rain like an idiot. I stepped unwillingly out of the
toasty truck cab and walked down a little stone path lined with dark
hedges. I took a deep breath before opening the door.
Inside, it was brightly lit, and warmer than I'd hoped. The office was
small; a little waiting area with padded folding chairs, orange-flecked
commercial carpet, notices and awards cluttering the walls, a big clock
ticking loudly. Plants grew everywhere in large plastic pots, as if there
wasn't enough greenery outside. The room was cut in half by a long
counter, cluttered with wire baskets full of papers and brightly colored
flyers taped to its front. There were three desks behind the counter, one
of which was manned by a large, red-haired woman wearing glasses.
She was wearing a purple t-shirt, which immediately made me feel
overdressed.
The red-haired woman looked up. "Can I help you?"
"I'm Isabella Swan," I informed her, and saw the immediate awareness
light her eyes. I was expected, a topic of gossip no doubt. Daughter of
the Chief's flighty ex-wife, come home at last.
"Of course," she said. She dug through a precariously stacked pile of
documents on her desk till she found the ones she was looking for. "I
have your schedule right here, and a map of the school." She brought
several sheets to the counter to show roe.
She went through my classes for me, highlighting the best route to each
on the map, and gave me a slip to have each teacher sign, which I was
to bring back at the end of the day. She smiled at me and hoped, like
Charlie, that I would like it here in Forks. I smiled back as convincingly
as I could.

---

Document Outline

• • • 
  • ﾿
    • 
    • ﾿
    • 
    • ﾿
    • 
    • ﾿
    • 
    • ﾿
    • 
    • ﾿
    • 
    • ﾿
    • 
    • ﾿
    • 
    • ﾿
    • 
    • ﾿

---