New Moon Post 9

"Edward let me fall" (20. 458).
This quote hit me hard the first time I read it. It seemed just about the worst thing to say after Edward and Bella’s reunion. Not only that, it just didn’t fit. This one short sentence was so out of place I couldn’t believe I read it. Right smack at the end of the paragraph when the Volturi vampires, Edward, Alice and Bella continue their path to the Volturi headquarters through the hole in the alley. In order for Bella to get to the bottom of the hole, she has to jump down, and Edward just drops her safely into the arms of Alice then rejoins her in a matter of seconds. It wasn’t like he was going to leave her, or he was going to drop her intentionally, or he was trying to get rid of her. It was the most insignificant event in the book yet this one sentence made all the difference. It gives the reader the feeling of an end. Or of some terrible thing to proceed. Yet nothing.
But after much ignorant criticizing, I realized that this quote really stood apart. And it was extremely important in understanding the scene.
This sentence, however short, gives us a fraction of the thoughts occupying Bella’s mind at this very moment. The moment before she drops in the hole. Or more accurately, memories. Not just any thoughts but memories. Months, seeming years ago, Edward had “let her fall” only not as literally. I can only imagine what horrors must be creeping, uninvited, through her mind at this fraction of a second. What if Edward lets me fall, again? What if this whole, Edward-letting-me-fall trend is to continue? How many times am I to be dropped? Is this the last time Edward will ever let me fall?
These are the questions I would be asking at that moment. Will I fall again? Or more importantly, will he be the cause of my fall?
This questions of four words is probably the most influential to me in the whole book if not the series.
“Edward let me fall.”