Reading: Twilight

So I finally finished Twilight , and it took me that whole time to realize that I had been reading the last book of the Mediator series first! Oh well, here’s your summary through page 245, or the end of the book.

Suze hears a scraping at the barn door. It’s loud enough that Jesse and Paul, who’s even asleep, hear it too. Instantly, they all know exactly who it is, it’s Felix. The next thing they know, Felix is climbing up the ladder to the loft. When he reaches the top ”his head was turned in the direction of Jesse’s supine form – he didn’t see anything else. “ There’s some more vocab for Mr. Hill! As Felix gets closer to the three Paul grabs Suze giving Jesse the opportunity to take care of Felix on his own.
Jesse and Felix start rambling on in Spanish, and Paul translates their every word into English for Suze. Felix admits that it was Maria who sent him to take care of Jesse. The two square off (I’m picturing the typical scene from like an old western movie when the guys circle around each other), and Suze is still being restrained by Paul, who claims that it’s a ‘fair fight.’ Not soon after Paul declared the fair fight, Felix pulled out a knife. Suze warns Jesse by screaming ‘knife,’ giving away her and Paul’s hiding spot in the loft. However, Jesse manages to pull the knife he kept in his boot. Now that there are knives involved Suze is worrying that someone is going to get killed, but Paul reminds her that someone dying is what they want to happen. With a few more words, their hiding spot is completely blown. Felix snatches Suze from Paul and has her with his knife to her throat (such a classic image in any CSI, NCIS, Law and Order, Criminal Minds, or action movie). Of course the next logical thing happens; Felix orders Jesse to drop his knife or he’ll kill Suze. Jesse shows his love, and drops the knife. Paul tells Suze to shift, but this completely confuses Suze. She finally understands Paul, and realizes that Felix is touching her and she just has to picture a place where she can shift back to. But Felix tosses Suze and charges towards Jesse.
Suze falls on a lantern that was left in the loft, it broke, and all of the hay set on fire. Sound familiar? It’s kind of likeThe Great Chicago Fire story, the about the cow who broke the lantern and set the barn on fire, right? The fire spreads quickly and Suze is secluded from the group by an orange ring of fire. Meanwhile, the boys are still fighting and Paul is still hiding in the corner of the loft. Jesse twists Felix’s arm behind his back, hits him across the face, and sends Felix flying over the ledge of the loft. His body hits the floor and the sound of bones breaking echo throughout the barn. Jesse did it, he killed Felix, and now he’ll be able to live. The next thing Suze saw was Jesse wrapped in a blanket coming through the smoke and flames. Oh how precious, Suze risked her life time traveling to save Jesse’s life, and now Jesse’s risking his life to save Suze’s! Once again from the corner, Paul keeps telling Suze to shift. Jesse tells Suze that they’re going to have to jump from the loft, but as the floor boards begin to break underneath them, they count down from three and jump. Instead of falling to the ground Suze feels like she’s flying, but really she’s shifting. Ok jumping from a barn, really? I don’t know if I’d be able to do that, well maybe I could, but only if my life was on the line. That ‘free falling’ feeling freaks me out kind of.
After Suze comes to from her flying/shifting, she sees the familiar backside of her house. Then Paul is kneeling over her and shaking her. He does this because when he came to she wasn’t moving. Suze claims she’s fine until she remembers Jesse, but since Jesse didn’t die she shouldn’t be able to remember him. When Suze tries to get up from the ground she sees Jesse lying in the grass a few feet away. Both Paul and Suze are confused as to how Jesse, the real and alive Jesse, ended up in the real world with them. She tries anything and everything to wake Jesse up but nothing works, and even though he has a pulse, he’s still unresponsive. Suze orders Paul to go into her and get her mom’s car keys so they can take Jesse to the hospital.
When the three arrive at the hospital, Jesse is immediately hooked up to an oxygen mask. The doctors ask Suze the routine questions like what kind of insurance Jesse has, what his Social Security number was, and if he has any family around. After Jesse is admitted, Suze calls FD to tell him how the real Jesse is now in the hospital. Paul and Suze fill FD in on what has happened. FD suggests that Paul goes and finds his grandfather, Dr. Slaski, who is still in the hospital while he comforts Suze. He leaves and now it’s only Suze and FD by Jesse’s bedside. FD tells Suze he can help with Jesse’s insurance situation so he can get more tests done. He leaves and now Suze is left. She sits down next to Jesse’s bed and starts crying uncontrollably, wishing that her dad’s ghost will appear. Someone calls her name and right as she looks up to lash out at whoever is calling her name, she realizes it’s Jesse, but only in ghost form.
Suze is confused as to how there could still be a ghost Jesse when the really Jesse was lying in the hospital bed next to her. Jesse doesn’t even know what has happened to the ‘real’ him and asks Suze to explain why he’s lying in a hospital bed. He’s furious that Suze went after Paul, even after he’d told her not to. She gives detail about how Jesse killed Felix, how the barn caught on fire, and how she shifted and brought him to the present with her. Jesse reaches over to kiss Suze, but in the process his hand slips and touches the leg of his living body. Instantly Jesse is sucked away and into the body. “Jesse’s body had come forward through time, yes. But not his soul, because two of the same souls could not exist in the same dimension.”
FD enters the room with the good news; he tells Suze that he has figured out a plan for Jesse’s insurance, and that she shouldn’t give up hope. While comforting Suze, FD tells her that “you did what you did because you loved him, Susannah. You loved him enough to let him go. There’s no greater gift you could have given him.” Even though what FD says is true I don’t know if I’d be able to go through everything Suze has gone and is going through. To just have the one thing, or in Suze’s case, the one person you really love ripped away from you like that, life would be completely different.
Suze once again brings up the saying ”If you really love something, set it free. If it was meant to be, it will come back to you.” Then, miraculously, Jesse’s hand begins to move on the bed and his face is refilled with color. His breathing and beating of his pulse become visible. I was excited when I found out Jesse survived. I felt bad for Suze and thought she deserved a happy ending.
The scene switches completely from the hospital to Suze’s bedroom. It’s the day of the Mission’s Winter Formal. Answering her mother’s call, Suze leaves her room with her hair done, her beautiful dress on, and ready to meet her date. Of course she has the perfect stair case to make her entrance on. You know the kind with the landing where you can stop and give everyone in the room the chance to admire you. However, instead of making the planned entrance, everyone in the room is preoccupied with something else. The next thing she noticed made her begin to cry; she saw her dog rubbing up against and sniffing her date. No surprise, Jesse is her date, but she’s surprised that her dog can smell her date. This is a major sign to her that he really is alive and in the present just like any other human being. It appears that Jesse has made a good impression with everyone there, except Suze’s mother. The only flaw she finds in Jesse is that he is too old for Suze because he’s college aged. To prove her mother wrong, Suze pulls the ‘girls mature faster than boys so technically we’re even” card.
The couple leaves and heads to the Mission where they run into FD. He tells Jesse that he has found him a job as a tour guide at the local Historical Society Museum, where he’ll be able to tell everyone how the city was like way back when. Of course this job is only temporary until he is able to get accepted into medical school.
At the dance, Suze bumps into Paul who tells her she was right about everything( If only every guy was man enough to admit those words). It turns out Dr. Slaski is it out of the hospital, is doing fine, and is ‘reclaimed’ by his grandson. Suze tells Paul that she knows he put Ms. Gutierrez’s money into the church’s “most neediest fund” (I know most neediest is terrible grammar, but it’s what they call it in the book) and was able to donate it to Ms. Gutierrez’s family. Then (the big emotional climax) Paul tells Suze that he should have known all along that they’d never work out. He realizes exactly how much Suze really does love Jesse and how much she would go through to save him. Paul explains how he’s never felt that way about anyone before, let alone Suze, and it’s never been enough to risk his life to save someone.
Suze and Jesse slow dance the night away, until they’re interrupted by her father’s ghost. She talks to her father and thanks him for sending Jesse’s ghost (Jesse told her that if her father didn’t tell him to go to the hospital that she would have lost him forever). The two have a predictable father-daughter conversation about her disobeying her dad and going back in time. Suze and her father both realize that it’s time for him to move on, but that means he’ll lost forever.
When she’s done talking to her father, Jesse tells her that he could see her father, which means that Jesse is now a mediator just like Suze. (Sarcastically) Oh how romantic now the two can save the ghost world together! She spends the rest of the night held close by Jesse soaking in every piece of evidence leading to the fact that he is real.

Phew, that was a long one! Over all I enjoyed this book, well except for the ending. I think Meg Cabot could have finished up with more of a bang, rather than just letting the story flat-line. Stay tuned for summaries from the next book on my list, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.