Chapter-by-Chapter: New Moon, Chapter 7

Reading the next chapter of New Moon was the second job on my to do list for the day in my Bullet Journal last Saturday, so naturally, I did three other things before I got to it. Then I nearly had a heart attack when it appeared that this chapter is roughly forty pages long. Except it isn't. I'd missed the end of Chapter 7 and so had flicked all the way through to where Chapter 9 began. Relax safe in the knowledge that this one is only about 18 pages long.

And it's titled: Repetition.

So hopefully we can skip over all the repetitive bits.

What Happens?

Bella is reminded of her time a year ago in Forks before coming to an arrangement with Jacob which allows them to spend more time together. In between working on their homework, they get the bikes finished before eventually getting together to try riding them for the first time.

Thoughts as I read:

I love that this chapter is called 'Repetition'. The whole book could have been called Repetition! Bella keeps on repeating herself about how bad she feels and than how weird she feels to be happy. Though given the fact that the last chapter ended with Bella realising she'd been in Forks a full year, I'm going to guess that something is going to happen which repeats the events of the previous year. Are more vampires going to show up? Or is it just going to be she's repeating the same stuff with Jacob over and over again?

We'll read on to find out.

Bella's doing something drastic though we're not sure exactly where she is, just that she's driving through some trees and she's really nervous about something and knows that whatever she's decided to do is a bad idea. I'm guessing she's going to visit the house where Edward and the gang lived.

And why is she doing this?

The other part was the strange sense of repetition I'd felt at school today, the coincidence of the date. The feeling that I was starting over – perhaps the way my first day would have gone if I'd really been the most unusual person in the cafeteria that afternoon.

Called it!

She's wanting to hear Edward's voice in her head again so she's testing the limits, trying to see what she has to do to make him speak to her like that again. And I'm right, she's heading to the house, to reassure herself that despite Edward's assertions that 'it will be as if I'd never existed' that he did actually exist. It would have been amazing if Edward had found some way to remove the house; that would really mess with Bella's head.

Except he didn't obviously. It's still there looking empty and creepy. She pulls up outside and walks right up to the porch, waiting to see whether or not Edward warns her off. He doesn't. And Bella doesn't have the guts to peer in the window; it'll either be bare and empty, or all their stuff will still be in there and she isn't sure which would be worse.

So she leaves:

I turned my back on the gaping emptiness and hurried to my truck. I nearly ran. I was anxious to be gone, to get back to the human world. I felt hideously empty, and I wanted to see Jacob. Maybe I was developing a new kind of sickness, another addiction, like the numbness before. I didn't care. I pushed my truck as fast as it would go as I barreled towards my fix.

Did I not call this too? Bella has a highly addictive personality.

And Jacob is waiting for her. So this is another element of repetition as they go to the shed where he's working on the bikes. The bike shed. Heh.

He's got one of the bikes actually looking like a bike by now, which impresses Bella. He also comments on the fact that he gets a little obsessive when he has a project, you're not the only one, mate. He's actually regretting the work taking so little time because he's worried that Bella is only coming by because of the bikes. She suggests that if all else fails they can do homework together. That sounds like a code to me. "Hey, Jacob, mind if I come over to do some… homework" *wink* They arrange to do this twice a week in order to keep their fathers happy.

Back at school the next day and Mike and Angela are happy to wipe the slate clean but Jess is less so. In fact, Mike is so happy with this new and improved Bella that he actually asks her out to see a film with him, just as friends, of course. But she's already got homework plans with Jacob that night so she brushes him off for a week. Poor Mike's a bit disappointed by this which is another example of repetition from the year before when he apparently did something similar. I think I remember that, didn't Bella try pushing him off onto Jess?

And then it's more time spent with Jacob; working on the bikes, doing homework. Eventually Jacob changes the plans slightly, telling Bella that she can come up to his but she has to wait for him to call. Obviously the bikes are going to be ready and they'll be able to take them out. Or at least put the finishing touches on them.

I'm right because these books are fairly predictable.

Jacob calls up and tells Bella that they have a date. Bella rushes over there and sure enough, there's a pair of motorbikes waiting for her when she arrives. They load them onto the truck and head off to some place that Jake knows.

They're driving along the cliffs beside the beach when Bella spots a group of people standing right on the edge. As Bella watches one of the guys just steps off it and completely freaks her out. She's about ready to jump out the car and rush for an ambulance for the apparently suicidal guys, but Jacob finds it all funny; the guy is just cliff diving. There's not much for people in La Push to actually get up to so they have to come up with these strange hobbies. If Bella had known about this she could have saved herself the trouble of getting the motorbikes.

When she learns that Jacob is into cliff diving as well, she's determined that he teach her how to do that as well. We also learn that the guy who jumped is Sam, presumably the same Sam who cropped up in Bella's dream recently. According to Jacob Sam and his gang are like extreme do gooders, calling themselves 'protectors'. Jacob tells her some story about a run in that he Quil and Embry had with them a while ago. I'm sure it's terribly important to the upcoming story but it's also kind of boring so we'll move on.

Bella brings it up again when they pull up and off load the motorbikes. Now Jacob reveals that everyone looks up to Billy because one of his ancestors was the last chief but they never used to bother with Jacob, until now. It seems like Sam would like to recruit Jacob to the gang. There's odd stuff going on in La Push; Embry's started hanging out with Sam as well, after missing a couple of weeks of school.

Billy wasn't much help when he brought it up with him either. Jacob gets a little upset so Bella hugs him to make it all better. Then they get into a discussion about their age difference again. Bella's two years older and can't start dating him. They almost touch on the topic of vampires when he comments on how pale she is, but then it's time to get on with riding the bikes.

Except that's a chapter for another week.

I think I would enjoy Bella's relationship with Jacob a lot more if we didn't have all the Edward stuff still cropping up. I am looking forward to eventually getting to the bottom of all the mysterious La Push stuff.