When You Love Someone

Chapter One

Disclaimer: I OWN NOTHING.

Jasper

None of us wanted to start school again, so when Emmett suggested we ditch our first day of high school in our new home of Brunswick, Maine, I was quick to spread the bad feelings around so everyone would agree with him. No one knew I had made them feel that way.

No one knew Alice had told me to.

Why she gave me the order I could never guess. All I knew was that she made a HUGE show of being pissed off, saying she had picked out the perfect outfit for the school day and was not about to miss the chance to wear it just because of our laziness. So she had stormed out the next day, gone to the first day of school and come back later quiet as a church mouse.

She hasn't said a single word.

For five days.

Carlisle diagnosed her behavior as passive aggressive, but he doesn't know her the way I do. I know that she is brewing, ticking like a clock under the surface. Something is not right…at least not right in her world. Which means something isn't right in my world either. That's why I have been hovering over her all day. She can't shake me no matter how hard she tries, and that, really, is the part that kills me: the fact that she's trying.

"Why can't you go talk Edward into visiting us like I asked?" she accuses me in exasperation as I follow her into the kitchen of all places. She's opening drawers and cabinets like she's looking for something, yet she manages to keep an unhappy glare on me all the while.

"I did call him," I tell her. "He says he'll stop by on his way to Alaska. I already told you this, Sugar Lips."

Usually my nicknames for her make her giggle, but this evening she is in no mood. This evening she scowls, wrenches open the refrigerator, and shoves a plastic bag of freshly cleaned leaves at me.

"At least make yourself useful," she tells me confused expression.

"Alice…?"

"It's for the salad."

"What salad?"

"The one I need to complement my chicken Alfredo," she says and, as she speaks, pours chopped chicken –already grilled –into a pan already sizzling with butter.

When did she buy this food? When had she prepped it? I mean, the leaves are already washed and dried, and the chicken has been previously seasoned and grilled. And then there is, of course, the big question: what do vampires need with food?

"Jasper," she sort of hisses my name. "Help me or leave, but don't stare at me. Not like that."

"What have you done?"

My question deflates her. She leans across the marble counter she handpicked with Esme mere weeks ago and puts her hands to her face trying to hide from me. I can feel the tension roiling off of her to crash into me, and it doesn't feel good. I feel sick, like everything inside of me is rising in my throat, pushing against my body, begging to burst out.

"I found someone," Alice finally says. She's looking at me through her fingers like she's afraid to face me.

"Who? What?"

"I found a…a girl, and I invited her to dinner tonight."

"Did you invite her to dinner," I ask, making a distinction, "or did you invite her for dinner?"

"Jasper," there she goes hissing my name again. She gets up from the counter and pushes past me to grab the garlic she made only God knows when. How did a house of six vampires not smell any of this stuff cooking? I swear, sometimes Alice scares me. She is the only one who really, truly can.

But I have bigger worries right now.

"Why are you just now telling me about this?"

"I don't know!" But she says it sarcastically, as if the answer is obvious and I am just stupid for not figuring it out. "Maybe I didn't tell you –any of you –because I knew you would all act like this! A freak out."

"This isn't like you," I squint, trying to make some sense of the irrational way my adorable wife is behaving. "You know it's a bad idea to spring a human on a bunch of vampires, yet you're doing it anyway? Alice," I touch her arm to keep her from moving, "don't you remember what happened the last time I was in a house with a human?"

"Oh, Jasper," she finally looks at me, and her eyes are tinted red as if she was crying, and maybe she would be crying right now, if she could. She throws her arms around me fiercely and buries her head deep in my chest.

"You don't know how long I have carried this around with me," she whispers. "You don't know how long I have known and had to wait for the right time."

"The right time for what? Alice, you're not making any sense…" and now I'm catching the revelation. Could it be? No way. Alice wouldn't…yes, she would.

"Alice, is this about Bella?"

Like an alarm has gone off, Alice moves away from me faster than I can blink. She's on the opposite side of the kitchen now, chopping garlic cloves, and I know I've hit a nerve, struck the nail right on the head.

"My God, Alice."

"I know."

"We agreed to stay out of this."

"I know! I know!"

"It's bad enough you want to see her, but to bring Edward here to see her too? That's sick, Sweetie. You know how bad he's been since we…since I…"

Christ. Fifteen years later and I still can't bear to remember the night I attacked Bella, my almost sister. That is how I think of her, the one way none of the others would ever imagine I love her. I love Bella as my Almost Sister and not a day has gone by that I haven't wished, for all my tough talk of staying away, that I could see her again. If nothing else, I wish I could apologize. I have already apologized to Edward…several times, in fact...and he says he forgives me but he hasn't really looked at me since that day. Despite myself, I'm wondering if maybe Alice doesn't have the right idea after all. Sure it's been a while, but maybe simply seeing Bella and knowing she's okay will be enough to pull Edward out of his hatred of me and back into his long life.

Eternity is an awfully long time to be depressed.

"Bella isn't coming," Alice pops my bubble and at the same time sends me spiraling on a new roller coaster of questions.

"She's not?" I frown at a complete loss. "Then who is?"

"Oh, Jasper," she sighs and turns away from me to stare out the window at the gathering twilight, at the twisting driveway where our guest will emerge at any moment. "I can't see the end of this. I keep trying so hard. I've been trying for weeks to see the end of this, but I can't. I'm afraid we've made a terrible, terrible mistake."

"Doing what?"

"Leaving Bella," she nods firmly. I can see the expression on her face mirrored by the window. "It was a mistake. That I can see. That I see clearer than ever."