Reading: Twilight

There's nothing like a snow-day to catch up on your reading! Here’s a summary of Twilightup through page 200.

We left Suze and Paul in the barn sitting in the loft waiting for Jesse to arrive at Mrs. O’Neil’s (the woman who lives in Suze’s house during the time). Suze tells Paul how Jesse doesn’t want another chance to live, and what he is doing is wrong. Paul is mad that Suze is more interested in Jesse than she is in him. She tells him it’s “because he’s honest, and he’s kind, and he puts me ahead of everything else.” To impress Suze, Paul tells her that he’d risk his life to save hers. He also brings up the point that Jesse really isn’t ‘risking his life’ for her because he’s already dead, so he doesn’t have anything to lose. During their conversation it becomes clear that Paul definitely has some feelings for Suze. This whole part of the book seems as if it was ripped out of some huge movie production. The two fall asleep, and when Suze wakes up Paul is there with a pie he had stolen. Once they’re finished, Paul says he has a surprise for her, but it turns out it’s not really a surprise. He ties her up with rope, stuffs a handkerchief into her mouth, and ties her to a pole in the loft. Suze tells Paul that she hates him and will never talk to him again because he’s tying her up like this. Paul brings up the point that she won’t have any memory of being tied up, going to the past, or knowing Jesse when she wakes up the next day. Then he left, most likely to go find Felix Diego.
While being tied up, Suze has a lot of time to think. She goes on ranting about how “a world without Jesse” will be like “a world without my one purpose for living.” Typical “oh-woe-is-me” scene in any book, soap opera, or movie of today’s time. Then she mentions the old saying, “women need men like fish need bicycles.” I first came across this saying last year when I did my research paper over the women’s rights movement. I used the saying as the title of my paper, and my teacher didn’t understand it, most likely because he's a male. If you’re like my teacher and don’t understand it, it basically is saying that women don’t need men to survive and that they can be unless.
Still being up in loft, Suze hears Jesse’s voice coming towards the barn. She tries everything she can to move towards the edge of the loft so she can see Jesse, Jesse the human, not Jesse the ghost. She wanted to see him so bad she banged her legs against the floor boards to make a noise. Then the predictable “who there?” she bangs her legs again and Jesse comes up the loft stairs and sees her tied up happens. Parts like these, especially in scary movies, drive me nuts. I know I’m not the only who thinks “if you hear a creepy noise don’t go looking for where it came from just leave.” She spends what seems like forever and a day noticing all the real like qualities Jesse now possess (compared to when he’s dead). She notices his weight, his body heat, his voice, his eyes, his ability to take up space, his muscles, etc. Jesse unties Suze and asks her the predictable questions of can you speak, what is your name, and who left you here. Suze tells him not to worry about her, but Jesse insists that he’ll have whoever did this horsewhipped. After she’s untied, Jesse starts trying to figure out where exactly Suze has come from. Stupidly, Suze replies using Jesse’s name, problem is he never told her his name. She tells him that they haven’t met, but she knows about him. With this, Jesse goes back into the “guess-where-she-came-from” game. Suze shows him the little portrait she has of him. Seeing this Jesse freaks out because he knows there has only been one copy of this made. She tells him that she knows there’s only one copy, which belongs to his (at the time) fiancé Maria, and that he’s there to marry Maria. Being totally creeped out, Jesse demands to know exactly how Suze knows all of this information (he thinks she’s a friend of Maria’s). She tells him that she’s a mediator from the future and that she’s there to stop him from being murdered. I read this sentence like three times, because she says she’s there to stop him from being murdered. What the heck? She’s not planning on stopping Paul from saving Jesse, which means she’ll never meet Jesse in the future! .
Suze admits that she could never sit there and watch Jesse get murdered after she had seen him alive. After hearing this, Jesse suggests that Suze goes to see Mrs. O’Neil while he goes to find a doctor because he thinks Paul hit her on the head when he tied her up. I don’t blame Jesse. If someone came up to me and said they knew stuff about me and that they were from the future I’d think she was nuts too. Trying to prove herself sane, she tells him that Felix will come tonight, he will strangle him, he will throw his dead body into a grave, and he will be found when Suze’s family puts a hot tub in their deck. She tries everything to convince Jesse that he needs to go back home, but Jesse absolutely refuses. He intends to go to Maria’s the next day to break off their engagement. Suze explains how she used his picture to go back in time and how Paul is trying to find Felix to stop him from murdering him. Jesse still doesn’t believe Suze, and now she is frustrated because she is risking her brain cells to travel back and save his life. I’d totally be frustrated too if I was Suze right now. Jesse doesn’t even give her a chance to really explain what it is and why she’s doing everything. Suze realizes that there is one thing she, and only she knows about Jesse. Suze reminds him that when he was at her house (the movie date night) he told her that he wanted to become a doctor; except he could never become a doctor because he has to take care of his family’s ranch seeing as he is the only son. Because he’d never told anyone that, he was stunned and now he believes that she is from the future.
They go back and forth over whether or not Jesse should leave tonight or stay (Suze, of course, suggesting he should leave, and Jesse suggesting he should stay). They finally reach a conclusion, Jesse will stay tonight, claiming he’s protecting Suze, but he will leave the next day. Jesse asks Suze why exactly she’s trying to save him and instead of say “because I love you” she answers saying “because it isn’t right what happened to you.” Lame! I wonder what would have happened if she would have actually told him why she was there. Next, they hear a voice asking for Jesse, and they knew it definitely wasn’t Mr. O’Neil.
The voice belongs to Felix. He tells Jesse that Maria’s father has sent him to make sure he has everything and is comfortable during his stay. Then he leaves the barn. Seeing as Maria’s father has never sent anyone to visit Jesse before, he realizes that Felix really is out to get him. If I was Suze I’d definitely throw in an “I told you so!”
Paul enters the barn and climbs up to the loft to find Suze and Jesse. Jesse asks if Paul is the guy who tied her up, and when Suze confirms that it was Paul, Jesse takes off and starts fighting Paul. Finally Jesse backs off and when Jesse gets off of Paul “his shirt had gotten unbuttoned a little in the melee…” Figured Mr. Hill would like that bit of vocab. Anyway, Suze explains to Paul that Jesse knows exactly why the two of them are there, and he learns that Suze has changed her view about Jesse’s murder.
While they’re waiting for Felix to come back, Paul falls asleep and Suze and Jesse have a talk. In their conversation Jesse is positive that he will kill Felix. He also asks Suze why she’s trying to save him, again. This time she responds with “because it’s what I do.” Jesse asks if Suze does this for all the ghosts she meets, and she tells him that his case is a special one. You have to admit, it is sweet of Suze to risk her life to not save Jesse’s, although now she’s trying to save it. He thinks Suze is extremely brave for staying in the loft even when she knows something bad is going to happen, no matter what the outcome. Suze explains that she isn’t brave, and that the only reason she shifted was to stop Paul from stopping Felix.

Thanks for reading! I’ll put up another post soon because I’m anxious to figure out what happens between Felix and Jesse.