I saw Savages this week, so yeah. This is going to basically be a mashup of that storyline with Twilight characters. If you haven't seen that movie or read that book, this should all be a surprise to you. If you have, this is heavily influenced by it. This first chapter is a set up. Next chapter will be transitory. The subsequent chapters will get into their current timeline. Maryjane usage to follow.
When something's right, it's right. Ok? I want you to remember that while you listen to my story. I also want you to keep an open mind. Can you do that? Great.
The year I turned 17, my mom found lucky number four. Her fourth husband, Phil, I mean. I know, four marriages. A little excessive, I agree. Funny thing is, she was never married to my father. He was a an innocent victim of a teenaged rebellion, and I was the lifelong reminder of it. My grandparents took care of him, though. Not like, mafia movie 'took care of him' but they paid him well to get and stay out of her life. And mine, subsequently. In any other wealthy family, I might have been shunned. An embarrassment. But the Higgenbotham's are beyond that.
Our money is older than our country and there's more of it than any of us could possibly spend in a lifetime. So there was no fear of becoming outcasts over something as inconsequential as a bastard grandchild. I wasn't hidden from society or shipped off to some boarding school in Siberia. Quite the opposite, actually. I am the apple of my family's eye and always have been. I've never wanted for anything, never felt like I wasn't good enough. My main goal in life has typically been to avoid boredom. It sets in pretty hardcore when you realize that no matter what you do, you'll be taken care of. Nothing to strive for, no reason to work hard. Lots of room to become an entitled degenerate. That was never my style, though. Sure, I fuck around, but I keep the crayon inside the lines and haven't caused any real grief for my family.
Anyway, my mom married Phil in July and by January, we were relocating for his job. He was a surgeon and had a pretty great opportunity at a new hospital near a place called Port Angeles, in Washington state. I was a little pissed about moving away from California but eventually agreed to go. I could have stayed behind with Nana and Pop but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to try it. I mean, starting a new school where nobody knows you or has a prefabricated notion of who you are has it's appeal. Not that I didn't love my current school. I did. I just had gotten a little bored with the selection and didn't want to start round two's with any of the guys I'd already dated. Besides, I was already halfway through my junior year and thought a move would be good practice for when I started college. A trial run, if you will.
So that's how I ended up in Forks. A town with no private academies, much to my mother's chagrin. I convinced her that I would be fine in public school and used the house she wanted as incentive. In her defense, it was gorgeous. It was near the town, not more than 15 minutes or so, but it was also secluded. The driveway was a pain in the ass but once you got to the house, it was forgotten. It was huge and nearly all glass. Situated against a hillside, the front of it overlooked a waterfall that was breathtaking. It was also entirely too big for the three of us but my mother never let anything like practicality stop her before.
My first day at Forks High was clichéd in it's predictability. I felt like an exotic new exhibit at a tired old zoo. Everyone, even the teachers, stared like I was going to do a trick any second. It was uncomfortable, to say the least. Until I saw him.
I was sitting at an overcrowded lunch table, the kids around me tripping over themselves to best each other with a more exciting story. I was half listening, picking apart the stale roll that accompanied the 'meatloaf' that the cafeteria was serving that day. When I heard the grating of the metal doors pushing open, I glanced up to see a group of guys coming in. They were nice looking, clearly athletes of some kind. Football, basketball maybe. He was in the center of the group, listening as the tallest guy relayed something that was apparently hilarious. The others were cracking up but he just had a little half smile, half smirk on his face.
His dark green eyes grazed the room, stopping when they landed on mine. I held his stare, feeling my skin heat up as he didn't break it. He walked the whole way to the line, never looking away from my face. It was like the rest of the world faded away, the kids, the noise, all of it. When he disappeared into the line, I came back to my senses, noticing that the table was looking at me strangely.
"What?" I asked, shrugging and resuming my dissection of the roll.
"Ooh, sex-u-al," a little dark haired girl teased in a singsong voice. She turned out to be Alice, one of the few who stuck by my side through the rest of our high school career. I smirked, putting on an innocent face.
"Yeah he is," I shot back in a playful tone. She smiled as the rest of our table started back to their previous banter. I noticed that two of the girls there, Jessica and Lauren, didn't seem to be as lighthearted as they were before and I correctly assumed they had a thing for the guy I'd just shamelessly eyefucked. Sorry about their luck, but I had no intention of letting him go.
At the end of that lunch period, I trashed my tray and hurried through the crowd to catch up with him before he got through the doors. When I finally made it to his side, I slid my hand down his arm, intertwining our fingers when our hands met. He looked at me with a surprised yet still distinctly cocky look on his face.
"I'm Bella," I smiled, slowing my pace. He slowed his to match it and smirked just a little. "You can call me B."
"Nice to meet you, B. I'm Edward," he gripped my fingers a little tighter.
That was that. Our first kiss was after school that day and we slept together that weekend. Alice became my best friend, next to Edward, while pretty much every other girl was pissed to some degree. It didn't take long to figure out that Edward had previously been a 'love em and leave em' kind of guy and while no one was surprised that we had hooked up so quickly, they were shocked that we remained inseparable afterwards.
I couldn't get enough of him. I was infatuated, without a doubt. I wanted to be around him every waking moment, wondering what he was doing or thinking about when I wasn't with him. Hell, if I could have crawled into his skin, I probably would have. He felt the same way about me. We learned everything about each other more quickly than I could have even imagined. He came from pretty old money, his family owning most of the town. He was an only child, like myself, and had a doting mother and a military dad. His best friend was the son of his mother's best friend but lived out of state. Laguna, actually, as fate would have it. I asked his name but didn't recognize it, which wasn't a surprise. There are a lot of people there and though I'd spent my childhood in that city, I knew barely anyone outside my social circle. They saw each other at every holiday, though, and during spring and summer breaks. Either Edward's family would travel to California or their family would come to Forks. Edward played piano as a child and every sport you can think of as an adolescent. He was quiet, but in a sexy, mysterious kind of way. He had a pretty black and white view of the world and was dead set on joining the forces when we graduated. That scared the shit out of me, but it seemed like we had forever at the time.
I met Jasper in March of my junior year. Edward's family was planning to go to to Laguna for the break so of course, I went with them. He got to meet my grandparents, who loved him immediately. He was charming when he had to be, even if he sometimes seemed a little tense in formal situations. That was our first night there. The next morning, we headed to the beach at first light. Jasper met us there and I was enchanted. Though they were best friends, they could not have been more different if they tried. E kept his dark hair relatively short, his face was always clean-shaven, and he was pretty plain with his wardrobe. It was always expensive, but low-key. Dark t-shirts and designer jeans.
J was a California boy, through and through. His shoulder length blonde hair was in dreadlocks then, and he had it tied back with a loose rubberband. His face sported a little scruff and his outfit was a faded tie dyed shirt with ancient looking linen cargo shorts. His bright blue eyes twinkled against his sunkissed skin and he found virtually everything amusing. It was impossible not to smile in his presence. Seeing them together was amazing. They complemented each other perfectly and I had the time of my life that week.
I knew I felt it then and could see that he did, too. I felt guilty about it, but Edward seemed oblivious so I brushed it off as a passing crush. That summer, though, when Jasper's family moved to Forks for good, we slowly went head over heels for each other. It was confusing and I spent a lot of time those first few weeks being a colossal bitch, not knowing how to process my feelings. Edward approached me about it one night, taking me off guard although I really should have expected it. He was too perceptive, too in tune with me to miss something like that.
After a few hours going back and forth with him, the three of us sat down for an awkward conversation. Although, to be fair, it was only awkward for me. They were at ease, basically just offering the choice to me. If I wanted them both, I could have them. I asked for a few days to think about it because, honestly, it was too good to be true. I loved Edward more than literally anything in my life but I could already sense that I had the capacity to love Jasper with a matching intensity. He was like sunshine and summer days, you just felt good around him.
When I was reassured, repeatedly, that Edward was truly ok with it, I accepted the deal. Which was, basically, a polyamorous relationship. We would be faithful to each other; it was not ok for any of us to see anyone else. I had to Google polyamory and even ordered a few books through Amazon to understand the nuances of those relationships although in the end, none of it was necessary. It came as naturally as breathing to us.
Jasper, too, was an only child. His dad was a hippie, honestly that's the best way to put it. He did a lot of green work and was ridiculously laid back. His mom was a trust fund baby and worked with some consultant firm for fun. They had moved to Forks because his dad wanted to join up with a conservation program that was stationed in La Push.
Jasper and I sealed the deal a week after the agreement, and I was smitten. He was the exact opposite of Edward but in the best way. I was afraid that things would be strained after that but I was wrong. Being together was so natural, it seemed like we had known each other for years.
Going back to school in the fall was weird. We had become so accustomed to being alone over the summer that it was strange to worry about other people and their reactions to us. So, we played it cool in the beginning. Of course, it was a small town and an even smaller school, so the word got out. The guys seemed indifferent, the girls were livid. It was obvious that most of them were crippled with jealousy but they hid behind righteous facades, calling out my moral character. I laughed it off and became more flagrant with my public displays of affection with Jasper just to piss them off. My boys thought it was funny and never paid much attention to the whispers. We only had a year left.
That year was magnificent. Even with the silent confusion from our parents, none of which were sure of exactly what was going on between us but none of them able to bring themselves to ask. Alice stuck with me, even through her initial infatuation with Jasper and subsequent disappointment when she realized what was going on. She brushed it off and rolled with the punches, finally giving in to Emmett McCarty's advances. He was close friends with Edward and Jasper, so we all hung out a lot. We went to Homecoming and Prom, not wanting to miss out on any of the 'normal' experiences of high school. While I think we were probably the first to have 3 people in our pictures, they turned out great. My boys were so handsome, there was really no other way they could go. We played and had fun and generally said fuck it. Our families were above the scope of any real maliciousness so people talked but that was about it.
We decided to take a year after high school to just be with each other. We packed up our shit, said goodbye to the handful of people who actually mattered to us and moved back to Laguna the week after graduation. My grandparents bought us a house on the beach, which I went ape shit with decorating for the first month we were there. It had four bedrooms, one of which we turned into a chill spot. We each took one of the remaining and those were the only rooms I allowed the boys full reign over. They weren't too fussy about it, though, as long as I didn't get too girly. In the end, it was a laid-back beach house with lots of minimalist art and bright colors.
During those days of sunshine and love, we hatched our plan for the future. Jasper and I were California kids at heart and Edward was a strange mix of borderline OCD and a general don't give a fuck attitude. Those facts, combined with the typical easy access to ganja, meant that we toked up pretty often. Over the course of several late night smoke sessions, we had a brilliant idea. We would open dispensaries. Like with any great enterprise, it started out as a joke. Edward wouldn't let it go, though, and the more he brought it up, the more sense it made.
None of us had any real pressure on us as far as careers went. My parents were happy that I was happy. Jasper's folks were so laid-back, they would have gone for whatever he decided to do. Of course, anything green would have tickled his dad, which we thought was hilarious under the circumstances. It was clear that Edward's dad wanted him to join the forces, which was still his plan anyway.
The way he figured it, I could go to school for business to learn all the ins and outs of running one. Jasper could major in botany, gaining some insight to growing methods and whatnot. And Edward? Well, even in the most civilized times, a little brutality was always needed to grease the wheels. Plus, he had heard somewhere that the best smoke in the world was grown in Afghanistan. His plan was simple. Join up, do a tour or two, smuggle some seeds. We would all finish around the same time and be ready to get the party started.
It gave me knots in my stomach to imagine being away from either one of them, and even more so to think of Edward being in the middle of that shit but I knew he was going either way. I thought if we could all work toward a common goal, it would make the time go faster and keep us tied together, even when we were worlds apart. So it began.
We started the official planning around September of that year. Jasper was slower to take to the idea, but once he was on board, he wouldn't rest until we had the details ironed out so we let him take the lead. He researched schools, determined what our majors needed to be, even looked into the branch that Edward would need to be in to guarantee a tour to Afghanistan. It took him almost two weeks to get his shit together, but when he went over it with us, he had every detail figured out. Fuck, he even had the applications ready for us.
Edward's best bet was the Marines. We had kind of figured that, anyway, so it was no surprise. Jasper had learned that he could be deployed, depending on a few different circumstances, within a year. Average tours were 12-24 months, with a lot of factors playing into that as well. Edward's initial thought was that he'd do two to keep himself busy while Jasper and I finished school. I was not thrilled.
I was even more pissed when I learned that the schools Jasper had selected for us were 2,000 miles away from each other. Apparently, Texas A&M offered the nation's leading Plant Biology program. And he wanted me to go to Stanford. Fucking Stanford. I understood that it was a good school, but it was a little cliche and business was business. I could go to any school to learn the same shit and at least be with him. I told him as much when he sprang it on us. His response?
"I love you, too, baby and I'm not looking forward to being apart any more than you are. But it's the best, B. And it's our future. If we're gonna do this, we're gonna do it right."
I sighed in resignation when I saw Edward nod resolutely in agreement. Of course, I could have thrown a hissy fit and refused but he was right. If we were going to do this, if Edward was seriously going to risk his life over this, I sure as hell was going to give it everything I had. Acceptance was never a worry for any of us. We filled out the applications, got our letters and relaxed for the rest of that year.
I couldn't believe how in love I was. How perfect we were. How we somehow fit together and worked. I know it doesn't make any sense and that, logically, three people shouldn't be able to be equally in love. But we were. It was easy, natural. For as unorthodox as our situation was, we were actually pretty tame in the bedroom. Edward and Jasper weren't interested in any three way loving, although I did suggest it on more than one occasion. Both of them, in their own ways, were the pinnacle of sexiness in my eyes. The thought of them together was like a hormone overload for me. But it wasn't meant to be. Although I did, on a couple of occasions, wake up with E's body molded behind mine and Jasper's face tucked under my chin. We were young, we liked to drink. I might not have succeeded in getting them together, but I could seduce them into taking me together when their inhibitions were impeded.
That year, we lived and loved like crazy. Entire days were spent tangled on couches, talking about everything and nothing. We learned each other inside and out, for better or worse. Like how Jasper hated peanut butter, even the smell of it. He would bitch every time I smuggled it into the house. Otherwise, he was my easy going beach boy. Virtually nothing else bothered him, and I could talk him into just about anything. Edward drank milk like it was going out of style. Red cap, too. No clue how his body could use that much unadulterated calf food, but we had to keep the fridge stocked. He also changed his sheets twice a week and complained if I didn't do the same. It bothered him so much, though, that he would do it himself if I 'forgot'.
Which I did, frequently.
Edward would let me snuggle him but wasn't big on reciprocating. A relaxed spoon and the occasional arm around my waist while we slept composed the extent of his abilities. Jasper, on the other hand, was a cuddle machine. He was much more touchy and unconsciously had at least one hand in contact with my body at almost all times. Absently stroking my back, playing with my hair, a hand resting on my leg. I loved that about him. They realized that I needed a certain amount of quiet time to myself to read and would disappear for a few hours here and there to give it to me. They also learned pretty quickly to put the toilet paper and paper towels on the right way, which neither of them previously did. It drove me insane when it was upside down. We had to have three kinds of toothpaste in the house because no one would bend on their favorite brands, although they both used my shampoo if theirs ran out.
We grew stronger and closer and burned brighter in that time than I could have imagined. When summer began to wane, I started to panic. I realized I was being irrational and so did they, but I couldn't help it. I wanted to do everything together and even found myself in tears at the stupidest times. Once when I was watching them play volleyball with some guys on the beach. Once while Edward and I were having sex. A couple of times when I was snuggled under Jasper's chin, just after he'd fallen asleep. I was so afraid that something would change when we went out into the world and I didn't know how to talk myself off the ledge.
A week before we were set to leave, the boys returned from an extraordinarily long weed run with tattoos. They were so proud of themselves that day. I remember their faces, beaming, as they showed me their new ink.
Edward slid his tank top over his head and turned to show me the back of his shoulder. There, in a scrawling script that looked just like my handwriting, were the words 'My soul is in her hands.'
I can't lie, I got teary eyed the second I saw it. Full on crying came when Jasper loosened his shorts and revealed the same script riding the curve of his right hip bone with the words 'My heart is in her teeth.'
They explained that they had deliberated for weeks on what to get. Their decision was a combination of an Aristotle quote about one soul residing in two bodies as well as my inexplicable obsession with Jewel that summer, and the lyrics to one of the songs I had played repeatedly. The ink had it's intended effect; it made me feel more secure than words could. Over the next few days, I hunted down anything I could find that they had written and got some ink of my own. On the right side of my rib cage, Jasper's writing declared 'My soul is in his hands' and on the left, Edward's writing showed 'My heart is in his teeth.'
I realize how juvenile that seems but it meant the world to us.
A/N The Jewel song referenced is Near You Always, also the namesake for this story. And, in case you haven't heard, drugs are bad.