Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie; I'm just tinkering with them a little

I hope to update every few days, I won't have you waiting more than a week hopefully. Well hope you enjoy it, and please review...feedback always helps

Chapter 1- Not nineteen forever

One ill-fated decision to go right at the calla lilies had led me here. In retrospect left would have been arguably the lesser of two evils leading me to the buffet table, where the only peril to await me was Veronica Parson's transparent attempts goad me for gossip and some rather bland tomato and basil salad, salad didn't usually propel you into an emotional unravelling after all.

But I haven't turned left I had turned right, and there before me stood the source of the heart palpitations I was now experiencing. I think the hardest part is I went away; put hundreds of miles and ten years between us and it didn't matter. He still stood there before me having grown, having obviously undergone a transition of sorts from teen hood into adulthood and yet, he was unchanged. His beauty pristine and unhampered with; a wonderfully preserved blast from the past that had my very sanity on a knife edge.

We stood for a while and took each other in, postponing the inevitable. He considered me for a while before speaking, I'm glad he had the courage to, all my words seemed to had collected in the bottom of my throat forming a lump.

His eyes stoic. "You haven't changed."

He was right I hadn't, at least not to his eyes; I was still acting like he was the second coming. Realising before I went into a state of complete emotional regression, I should probably resource some of my skills as a supposed capable adult and perhaps hazard an attempt at speech.

"It looks that way to you I'm sure, but deceiving appearances and all that you know? I'm quite different from the girl you used to know."

I managed, a fully formed sentence evidently within my grasp. And then he closed the gap some, leaning in, he placed a hand on my wrist and breathed.

"I hope that's not true" and suddenly the lump was back.

There I was under his full gaze and barely holding all the different pieces of me together that threatened to crumble or combust or be completely obliterated by his sheer presence.

So in a last ditch effort at self preservation I turned to leave. The grip on my wrist tightening some not hostile just firm.

"Are you walking out on me again, you seem to make a habit of that" he vented. It made it easier. At least now I had something to say that would actually make it out my mouth.

"Self involved as you are I suppose you would see it that way, It would have been too much to think time would provide you an opportunity for introspection, that maybe the mistakes weren't all mine, that you might consider looking a little closer to home for the source of my leaving, I guess you haven't changed either" I exclaimed, and I meant it.

I wasn't merely trying to deflect the criticism by blaming him but the fact remains he had a decade to think over everything and he was drawing naive conclusions that revealed no sense of self awareness.

His eyes weren't stoic anymore. So emotive were they in fact that the array of thoughts seemed to be brimming over.

"Then tell me Alice how would you put it? What have you done with this copious amount of time? Reflected and become enlightened, some shrink been telling you 'you need to love yourself' and inadvertently making me the monster have they? The fact is I gave you everything, I gave myself, and you didn't even give me a goodbye. So forgive me if I don't have the same air of objectivity when assessing the past, I guess I just gave more of a damn" he spat.

I was silent at that, I had to take it in, could he actually think that I was able to look back on that time with nonchalance, as if my ability to acknowledge my mistakes as well as his own showed me to be less effected by what happened, he deduced that my empathy for him was actually apathy for us.

"I'm stunned but completely not surprised. Why should I assume that you would take my behaviour any other way, yes your right I can be more objective, but not because I don't care! Not because remembering the past and examining my part in it is any less painful for me than it is for you, but because I cared about you enough once that I didn't want to make you into the monster, because despite the pain I refused to look at the time spent with you as a mistake, that I would take the pain as penance for being fortunate enough to experience what most people will spent a lifetime searching for, if only briefly. Because I can't hate you just to make it easier, even though you made it tempting. Trust me revealing in your resentment was the cop out and it doesn't make your pain more valid than mine" I fumed, turning again but this time he didn't get in my way.

I reached the door and turned around slightly, denying myself a dramatic exit. In a voice that was smaller, younger, one I hadn't heard in a while I said "And for what it's worth Jasper…I really loved you." And with that I turned and left before I could see his face.

So thoughts? Hope you liked it, update soon.