"I never noticed before — your hair has red in it," he commented, catching between his fingers a strand that was fluttering in the light breeze.

"Only in the sun."

I became just a little uncomfortable as he tucked the lock behind my ear.

"Great day, isn't it?"

"My kind of day," I agreed.

"What did you do yesterday?" His tone was just a bit too proprietary.

"I mostly worked on my essay." I didn't add that I was finished with it — no need to sound smug.

He hit his forehead with the heel of his hand. "Oh yeah — that's due Thursday, right?"

"Um, Wednesday, I think."

"Wednesday?" He frowned. "That's not good… What are you writing yours on?"

"Whether Shakespeare's treatment of the female characters is misogynistic."

He stared at me like I'd just spoken in pig Latin.

"I guess I'll have to get to work on that tonight," he said, deflated. "I was going to ask if you wanted to go out."

"Oh." I was taken off guard. Why couldn't I ever have a pleasant conversation with Mike anymore without it getting awkward?

"Well, we could go to dinner or something… and I could work on it later." He smiled at me hopefully.

"Mike…" I hated being put on the spot. "I don't think that would be the best idea."

His face fell. "Why?" he asked, his eyes guarded. My thoughts flickered to Edward, wondering if that's where his thoughts were as well.

作者：斯蒂芬妮·梅爾

曾有記者問梅爾如何解釋“暮光之城”系列的火速快銷，她認(rèn)為，這是因?yàn)槊總€(gè)女孩都能在女主人公伊莎貝拉·斯旺身上找到自己的影子?！八皇鞘裁从⑿?，也不識(shí)那些名牌，不酷，就是一般人。而其它文學(xué)作品中女主人公往往非同一般。貝拉是個(gè)好女孩，就是我所想象的十幾歲少女的模樣。”她并認(rèn)為“‘暮光之城’系列之所以被定位為青春小說，是因?yàn)槭甙藲q是人生一段非常讓人注目的時(shí)光，在這段時(shí)間里你可以擁有人生中最壞的創(chuàng)傷，也會(huì)擁有人生中最愉快的記憶。那是一個(gè)迷人的年齡：足夠像成人一樣思考，足夠作出影響一生的決定，并且也足夠墜入愛河，但同時(shí)又年輕得不能獨(dú)立思考事情和作出決定，這也給了我的小說非常大的空間?！?/span>