When all sight you see is dark, no light and no darkness can scare you. When all your life you know of is lost, no loss is too heavy of a burden. When the only person you can trust is yourself, everyone else seems insignificant. No one to trust, no one to rely on. Just you and yourself all the way, alone, navigating through the cruel world.
He first came to me, when everyone else had lost all hope in connecting to me. Little did he know, I was not able to see him. Someone thought it would be funny to tell him that I was mute. It was not a lie. Technically it was, but I was never much of a talker anyway. I could remember the first time he entered the room, he smelt like a sterile hospital with a mix of musk. Like the smell of wet forest after a rainy day.
I could hear the sound of his hands whooshing signaling something to me. I let out a laugh. "You really think I am deaf don't you?" I questioned. I could hear a smile formed on his face as I smiled at him. "They always thought it's funny to tell the shrinks that I'm deaf. Just because I rarely listen to anyone. Especially the shrinks."
The man let out a laugh. "I am not a shrink." He said.
"You smell like one." I said matter-of-factly. Well he smelt like the doctors that had come to treat me before. And those who came to fix my brain.
"Do I stink that bad?" He quipped. Quickly, I shook my head. Okay, I may seem a little rude and have a strong façade, but really, I'm not that tough. "I'm Carlisle." He said introducing himself as he touched my hand.
It was magical. His touch was like a jolt of electric coursed beneath my skin. "Jocelyn." I spoke. I felt like I did not want to let go of his hand. Not ever. It was cold, unlike many other men. "You don't sound like any other doctor I have met."
"That's because the other doctors came to fix the unfixable. And I'm here to take you to my home." He spoke so fluidly and gentle. I was initially confused. Take me to his home as in adopting me or just for the holidays. It was then the familiar Fougère smell entered the room.
"Jasper." I said as I rose and stepped slowly towards him. He was so still that I almost could see him in the darkness. "Jasper. Say something." I spoke. I usually am quite good at guessing a position of the person just by their smell but Jasper is different. His smell is so strong that it radiates and fills the room almost entirely.
I could hear a smile cracking and my feet quickened their pace. "I'm right here, child." He spoke with his sweet, sultry voice. Right, like that helps a lot. I smirked at him. "Why is it that with everyone else you can find without them to even have to open their mouth, but it's different with me?"
I drew in a short breath sighing. "How do I put this?" I said in a question. "While other people's aura, color, smell or whatever you people with sight might say, stay put in one place, yours do not. It seems to flutter all across the room. So start bickering."
"So it's bickering now huh?" Jasper uttered with a little astonished tone. "You little goldie locks." He said as he scooped me up in his arms. "Oh, how I missed you." He said as he held me tightly. "I see you have met my father." He said. At once I pulled myself a little apart from him and pouted. He let out a little laugh.
As naïve as I was I was not going to fall for the family thing again. Not after he have done it a few dozen times. "I should have known." I said quietly. "You promised me." I uttered. "You promised me, no more shrinks. No more doctors."
"I did, didn't I?" He spoke softly as soft as his touch, and as gentle as the hands that were caressing my hair. I just nodded to him as to answer his rhetorical question. "You see, Carlisle is not just a doctor. He's my father."
"Oh, stop it Jasper." I winced. Never had I called him by his name if I was not annoyed or irritated by his acts. "Now put me down." I instructed. And never once had he ever listened to me. Well never directly.
He sighed. "Listen to me." He said as he lowered me to the ground as he himself knelt down. "Carlisle is my father. Maybe not biologically, but I live with him. I told him how special you are to me." He said. I felt like I could not listen to his lies anymore, I just turned my head straining my ears hoping I would not have to listen to him anymore. He was holding me but it was not tight. I had no problem in walking away from him. But where to? He was just going to catch back up to me. But somehow, I felt like my feet just could not move. Almost like they wanted to stay where they were.
"He's not lying." The doctor's voice was right behind me. Then I felt as if I was a caged bird. "We're not here to give you a treatment." He said again.
"Alice and I wanted to adopt you." Jasper started. As if everything around me shuts down, no sound, no smell and no vibration that I could even feel to pull me back down to where I was. "Josie, would you agree to it?" He questioned. There was caution in his voice.
What was he afraid of? The tremble in his voice suggested that he was scared. "You're trembling." I whispered as soon as I found my voice. "Why?" I questioned. I could not think of an answer nor an accurate question for that moment.
"I'm afraid you would say no." Jasper replied.
"No, I mean, why… me?" I asked.
"Because you are special." Jasper whispered. "You are too special to me. To Alice."
"No I'm not." I said, stepping back carefully not to bump into anything. "I'm just a blind girl that can remember someone by their smell. I know what colors are like because I read them up." I rambled.
"And you're a Brandon." Jasper said suddenly. "Jocelyn Brandon, you don't need to be a genius, you don't need to know colors, you don't need anything. As you're the descendent of my one true love."
It surprises me to even hear him say that. Why would it matter? Why should my name matter? How is Alice connected to me? Why now? "Why now?" The voice escaped from my mouth. It felt foreign. It felt weird. It did not feel like I was speaking. I could still feel him there but I could not hear anything from him.
A soft buzzing like song entered my ears. I knew that sound from my sleepless night. It was sort of a song; my very own lullaby. I felt as if every ounce of energy in me was drained just by standing up. I shook my head, I could feel tears streaming down my cheeks. The soft touch of a man's thumb wiped the tears on my cheeks away.
"I'm sorry if I hurt you. I… I… I…" Jasper stammered. All my life I knew him he had the most graceful manner in speaking, he never stammered. Not even when he was arraigned with the most atrocious of accusations.
"No." I turned away from him.
"Tell me, what have I done wrong? Why don't you want to be with me?" Jasper demanded.
I felt as if head was fuming with annoyance. Why could he not understand my defensiveness? It was not that I do not want to be with him. I was just that I hated to be attached to someone. I do not want to be a part of someone's life. Much less having a family who loves me.
"Why, little golden angel?" He questioned again. "Why won't you say yes?"
I tried not to hesitate on my answer, I tried to come up with a convincing answer but I could not. There was no reason. There was no answer I could give him.
"I know you cannot look at me, but I also know you see me. Not like anyone else, I know, but in your own way. But tell me why dear?" Patiently he questioned me yet again.
I took in a deep breath as I turn facing him. "I have no answer. I have no reason for not going with you. You are the only reason I am still here. You don't know the very least about me. You have no idea about anything at all." I spoke with much strength.
"What don't I know?" Jasper asked calmly. "What do I need to know?"
"What if I am not really a Brandon? Would you still like me like you do now? Would you love me as you do now for if I was no one to Alice? Would she?" I questioned him. My voice was a tad louder than I had expected it to be.
"Have I not let you see how much I love you? Have I not showed you how much I care?" Jasper said as his soft touch held me. "As for your name, it is merely a name. A descendent or not, you are my special little angel. You are my one reason for coming here. You showed me the purpose to live and to have a life." He spoke. I was lost for words as that is the only thing I was good at. I lost my voice as that was the only strength I have ever had. "Shall you be a pauper off the streets, if I have met you then; I would still and will always love you as I have." He uttered each word so meaningful and oh, so sweetly.
I had no other word in my head but to agree with him. I had no reason to say otherwise. "What should I do? What shall I say? What do I tell to Alice?" I asked as Jasper and Carlisle took me in their car towards the manor that I will spend the rest of my life in.
"There is a reason you were named after a Brandon. There was a story saying Brandon's have good sense of people's character just by meeting them. And some said they can foretell of what is to come." Jasper started as he began to tell the story of my life. That side that even I have never heard about. But those were just stories nonetheless.
"But when he who first met you saw the very life you possessed, he thought the name suit you well. It was not of his choice to leave you where you were, he left you for he thought you might be better off living with people that are more similar to what you are. Not some freaks who feed off blood, night and day." Jasper concluded.
At first I still could not understand what he was telling me about. But when we arrived at the manor, the smell of a man so familiar yet so foreign registered in my brain. The smell of fresh cut grass after a rainy day with a tinge of leathery smell mixed in them. "His name is Emmett." Jasper said.
I closed my eyes imagining his features. I took in his scent as I near him. "Why did you leave me?" I demanded. I could not find a reason for me asking the question nor could I find an excuse to be as rude as I was.
Jasper's familiar hands lay on both my shoulders. It was calming. Never had I felt so at ease before. My fear, the chaos in my mind seemed to slip away. It seemed like everything was fine. Everything was in their right place. I shook off his hands from my shoulders and every serenity, every speck of worry seeped back into my mind. I turned to face him.
A sense of wariness afloat in the air, thick with anticipation. "Where am I? Why am I here?" I questioned them. I could hear them breathe. I could smell them but I could not pin point their specific place. "Jasper. Please answer me." I pleaded.
"Josie, I need you to calm down." Jasper started as once again he laid his hands upon my shoulders. "Listen, I never meant to ever deceive you. I never told you the whole truth, but not all were lies as well. It's true that I have loved you and will always do till the end of my life. It's true that Alice is not related to you. But it is also true that you have never been forgotten. Never once our family forgets of who you are or where you are." He spoke so gracefully as if was rehearsed so many times before, but knowing it was from Jasper, I knew it was not just rehearsed and perfected but it came straight from his heart.
Emmett paced closer to me as I backed away into Jasper. I was not scared. I was just in denial. Why now? My brain demanded. A question that I thought had been answered but the answer does not suffice my brain. The superficial answer just would not suffice the answer that my brain demands.
Jasper held me tight in his arms. It was in his arms that I felt the safest. In his arms that I felt secured. But now, I just felt betrayed by the only person I had ever trusted in my life. "Promise you will not let go of me." I said quietly to Jasper as I buried my face in his chest. My whole body trembles as Carlisle and Emmett near me. I was never scared of anyone but this feeling I am feeling was so foreign even for me.
"Oh, my child. I will never let go of you if you so much as not will me to." Jasper whispered in my ears. I felt the footsteps of the men stopped. "Now tell me love, will you so much agree as to live with me if it was only Alice and I as your guardian?" He asked softly. A nod sufficed him. A gentle nod I gave that made him overwhelmed with joy.
As days came and go, never anyone questioned where I came from. Tales of who I was were then told to let me know of my origin. The savior, who gave me to the home, was no longer my enemy but now my friend and dear protector against all forces evil. For now I possessed the complete family that I could have ever asked for. Sisters I wished at night every waking moment of my sleep and brothers I know about but I have yet to meet. Most of all the parents that I had always asked god, of where he had hid them for many, many years.
A/N: Thank you to twilightwriter95 and Krista Barnett for beta reading this story for me… :)