I do not own Twilight


The Road Not Taken

Chapter One

"Did you know that when I was five, my daddy taught me how to ride a bike?" she exclaimed in a hushed whisper, her voice low and raspy, her voice probably going undetected if he hadn't been a vampire.

The constant patter of the colder than ice rain fell upon the roof of the old beat up car as they sat in a blanket of almost silence. She could feel his eyes wandering over her in question and she held back everything she wanted to really say.

To tell him he was a fucking coward, to tell him that all of the things they'd built around themselves was a beautiful lie. A lie of a life they could never have. Not together. And the life he already had with his wife.

Maybe it was better to sit in the silence. Let the sounds around them drown out the sounds of things that were inevitable. Like the cold peninsular rain, the heartbreak, the pain.

It was all so vivid. So fresh. Like being able to touch the heart as it beat inside a chest, its raw power to give life and then to eventually take it away. Like all things, like gravity; what goes up must come down. To fall and shatter against the cold earth in an unbelievable mess of destruction.

"The last time you told me this story, the younger you was six years old." he drawled, his smirk present even though he could feel the tension rolling off her in waves.

She was unsure, hurt, and indecisive but most of all determined. She was determined to have her way, with his permission or not.

He was always so tapped into everything she felt, every single feeling that strobed through her veins. They were like one in the same.

"Yes, and the last time you interrupted me then as well," she snapped back angrily, sucking in her bottom lip almost immediately to calm herself back down.

She knew he was going to try and play it off, tell her that she was making a mistake, make her feel that this time would be the time he left his wife for her. Though he never did. And she suspected he never would.

Wrapping her arms around her torso she shook her head, building up some kind of internal courage to stand up to him finally. It was hard - perhaps the hardest thing she'd ever have to do.

Her hair slowly fell out from behind her ears and hung limply in front of her face, disparaging him from the view of her profile. He saw her shoot a glance in his direction out the corner of her eye and before he could tuck her hair back like he'd always done, she took the liberty in doing it herself.

He could feel her nervousness as she bit down on the corner of her mouth, her teeth pressing firmly into her pink plump lip, almost hard enough for it to pierce the skin.

"My daddy always said – make sure you live your life for no one. Make sure you do the things that make you happy, that make you smile."

She took a sharp breath and closed her eyes, picturing her father with his huge grin and his big brown eyes that were untouched by age. And death. Her daddy was wise and loving. Something any man would be hopeful to be. Something that any man would willingly be for those he loved. Except for the one beside her.

She wasn't happy anymore.

"But I make you smile, don't I?" he whispered as he brushed his cold fingertips down the flesh of her cheek, the warmth from her skin leaving him entranced and mesmerised as it always had.

He could feel the panic as it all but leaked from her pores to the surface, her body flinching and her face pulling back from his touch.

With a deep frown and an ample breath she shook her head and held her palm to her face, feeling the cool of his touch still linger there across her skin.

She shuddered laying the heat over the cool trails, thinking back to the times they'd spent, wrapped fully in the sensation of true fire meeting painfully beautiful ice. The hard lines of his chest, the ample fullness of her breasts, meshed tightly into a searing and intoxicating feeling. His hands as they rubbed across her skin, as they clamped down into her thighs and around her hips as they both whimpered and growled.

But this was no longer. Couldn't - be any longer. It had to stop and it had to stop now. It was already too much, too dangerous, too - familiar.

"I can feel your fear darling. Tell me – do I frighten you?" he asked feeling his undead heart sink to the bottom of his stomach.

He had an inkling on why she wanted to meet. Why she sounded desperate and urgent. Why her belongings were piled to the roof in the old beat up car her Alpha had given her. Why she was meeting him here, now.

"I can name many things that frighten me, leech. Sadly, you aren't one of them." Leah sighed as she bundled her fingers through her hair before letting the tresses fall once again to her shoulders.

"I should be scared of you. I should have never come to your home with the pack. I should have never looked... at you."

"Tell me – how do you look at me?" he asked, shuffling himself closer to her and resting his palm on the middle of the console between them while the other found the wheel in front of her lap. "Look at me and tell me," he whispered, his nose almost brushing her cheek as he breathed into her ear.

Closing her eyes and sighing as his icy breath hit her neck; she turned slowly towards him and looked him in the eyes. Even in the darkness she could see the golden hue soaking his orbs. They were the eyes of her mortal enemy. The eyes of the thing that made her different – that made her a monster.

"I look at you like you're the only thing that is worth living for in my life. That my whole universe revolves around you. Like – like I would die, for you," she whispered as she gave a quick glance down to his lips, unknown to herself that she'd done so.

"And you look at me like-"

She stopped mid-sentence as his lips came down against hers, roughly at first. His tongue had parted her lips quickly as she allowed it to delve inside her mouth longingly. He was attempting to ignite the fire inside her. Feed her. Fuel her. Fuel her with the power to love him, without question and without reason. Like she had the first time she'd laid eyes on him.

The back of his fingers brushed lovingly across the apple of her cheek before he pulled away and gave her a saddened half smile. He knew it was a losing battle. If anything could be said about Leah Clearwater it was that once she had her mind set, there was no turning back. No grey areas. And no in between.

"I look at you like i love you," he replied with finality, kissing her cheek before resting back in the chair.

Leah did believe it, but love wasn't enough. Not this time.

"I would give anything for you to look at me like you look at her. Like the moment we met, wasn't the moment you most regretted. Like the moment we met - I was it - for you," she explained, wiping her cheeks roughly with her palms.

"That's not true Leah! I do not regret you," he growled out, clamping her chin in his hard grip so she would look at him.

Her face was set in pain and her sight sat heavily out the windscreen, attempting to look anywhere but at him.

"No," she whispered, her eyes slowly moving across the inside of the car and back toward his own. "But you do regret... us."

Her eyes dropped again, this time not stopping at his lips, but falling down to her lap.

Silence once again filled the car as he dropped his grasp and pulled a frustrated hand through his blonde hair, leaving it messy and teased.

"So there is nothing I can do? Nothing that will make you stay?" he asked already reciting her question over and over again in his head. The same question she asked before they made love. The same question she'd always asked, hoping for the right answer though never seeming to attain it. He wanted to give it to her. He wanted it to be right. But he couldn't.

"Will you leave your wife?"

The deafening silence was a final answer.

The only answer.

The answer she'd known would be her ultimate betrayal. Love him all she wanted, he would never love her as much as he loved Alice.

"Write to me please. I would love to hear from you," he sighed as he reached for the handle of the door, letting his fingertips dance on the plastic before he popped it open softly. "Perhaps a call every now and then?"

"Sure Jasper. Every day," she muttered as she started the engine of the rust and primer covered rabbit she gotten from Jacob.

He knew she was lying. Not only to him, but to herself. She wouldn't call. She wouldn't write. She wouldn't ever see him again – not if she had a choice.

As soon as he was out of the car he turned around and peered into the car, taking one last look at her.

He knew she'd never cared about what she'd worn, though this time she looked dazzling. Her long hair was prim and proper, curled and ironed in all the right places. Her normally long toned legs were wrapped in dark wash jeans instead of the usual ragged cut-offs. Her shoulders held a beautiful silk blouse which dipped in all the right places and her make up – while scarce – was visible.

"I love you, Leah. Please stay in touch -" Before he could get another word in her hand changed the gears into drive and she gave him a side glance indicating for him to step away from the car.

"Okay," she nodded before he gently shafted the door closed and the car began to pull away.

Fighting back a sob, Leah pressed her lips into a firm line as she watched Jasper's frame slowly disappear from the rear view mirror. Her heart beat wildly in her chest as she watched the glimmer of sadness cross his face before he disappeared altogether into the thick forest greenery.

Her hands clenched tightly on to the steering wheel, hard enough to deter herself from turning the car back around and running after him, telling him she wanted him more than anything.

That was the old Leah. The old Leah that stood beside the blonde vampire, holding his hand tightly like he would slip away and she would fall into darkness forever. It was the old Leah that was hopeful to the future, that her dreams may come true and that he would realise she was the only one for him. That she could be everything he wanted. Needed.

But this was the new Leah. The one who took her own fate back. The one who wanted more from her life than the love of a man who had already given his heart to another. The new Leah who knew all things were inevitable.

Like the cold peninsular rain.

The heartbreak -

And especially the pain...