A/N
I no own, so you no sue.
Title is from "Ballerina" by Leona Naess. Gorgeous song.
There will probably be more chapters. Maybe. I just had to write something with this song, and now that it is out of my system, who knows.


My Dearest Jasper,

I apologize that this is the best I could do, and I am certain you know why I am doing this. I thought I could talk to you in person, but I feel it will be easier this way, for both of us. I want you to know, Jasper, that my love for you is immeasurable. However, I cannot lie to myself any longer. I know what has been going on between you and Edward. I am glad that you have found someone to love, and I hope that I can do the same. Please, do not worry about me; leave me in peace. Your secret is safe with me.

Be happy,

Alice

Alice gave the glistening ink a moment to dry before folding the pallid paper into thirds and stuffing it into a small, rectangular envelope. This letter was as much as she could manage. To talk to Jasper, to see his face would be unbearable right now. She knew that she would be tempted to reach for him, to graze her fingers across his marble cheek, and doing so would weaken her resolve. She used her heartache (even in the beginning it had never been a stabbing pain like she expected, but a deep ache that tightened her throat, and would have prickled her eyes, but never escaped them, had she not lost her tears and humanity nearly a hundred years before) and her anger to strengthen her decision to get away.

Alice remembered when she first met Jasper. It was in a small, half-empty Pennsylvanian diner. She had seen him coming, of course, and knew how their life together would be. She knew they would meet in Pennsylvania. She knew he would give up the substance that caused his eyes to take on that ruby glint. She knew he would make her happy. Alice knew so much from her visions. They comforted her, not always with their content, but with the fact that they belonged to her, made her who she was, even when the envisioned events were not good ones. Sometimes, though, the visions did involve something positive, and those visions always made Alice happy, of course, as these of Jasper did.

Alice sat contentedly in the diner, waiting for the tall, handsome vampire to walk into her life. She had no way of knowing, even with her gifts, that Jasper would be the one to shatter her heart into a million icy shards. The first time Jasper looked into Alice's eyes and apologized in that heavy Texan brogue of his would not be the last time he did so. When he said it later, though, Texan brogue slightly lighter and with no evidence of a ma'am in sight, it would be not for something as innocent as keeping Alice waiting, but for something she was not sure she could ever forgive.

Sitting at the desk in her room, mind back in the present, Alice wondered if there was something in Jasper's eyes she should have seen when she first met him. Maybe she missed some sort of clue that could have spared her these feelings. On the other hand, maybe this was her destiny, to fall in love as a tightrope walker falls into the empty air below, neither to be caught before they hit the ground and were destroyed.