A/N: This is my contribution for the Fandom Fights Tsunami cause. :) A GIGANTIC thank you goes out to everyone who put this cause together, contributed whether by writing, banner making, or beta'ing, and especially to everyone who donated.
Thank you to my beta, Cookie Monster n' Elmo! You are simply amazing. :)
Title: Where I Grew Up
Penname: Babygirl49392
Pairing: Jasper/Alice
Rating: M for Adult Language, Underage Drinking, and Drunk Driving.
Summary: Everyone has a home, a place they were raised, where all their childhood memories are filled and consumed. But that isn't necessarily where you grow up. Ask me where I'm from or was raised, and I'll answer simply, without hesitation, Wichita Falls, Texas. Ask me where I grew up, well, that brings about an entirely different set of answers. WARNING: Have tissues handy as the will mostly likely be needed.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything or anyone publicly recognizable. Stephanie Meyer owns all things Twilight. I do own this plot and story however. And no copyright infringement is intended.
Banner: Made by the beautiful and amazing TwistedInMasen aka TwistedIn_! :) (link on profile)
Where I Grew Up
Driving down the familiar roads, I feel everything come back like a movie reel in my mind. I can see all the big moments of my life. And the closer the car brings me to our overall final destination, the more I'm flooded with them and the more detailed ones start becoming more and more apparent. With a sigh and glance to the petite woman sleeping in the passenger seat, I allow the more painful memories to take over.
As the car comes closer and closer to the cemetery, a memory rushes in that I haven't thought about in years, and suddenly, I'm nine years old and standing next to his grave in the pounding rain again.
I look around the small church filled to the gills with people to pay their respects to my family for our loss. And I can't fully understand everything that's being said. All I know for certain is that I'll never get to see, listen to, talk to, play with, or do anything with my grandpa again.
Sitting snugly between my parents, each of them griping one of my hands, I can't help but feel like it's a gesture meant for me but really is just to comfort them. Like they want to show they are strong for me, but they actually need my strength right now.
After everyone has said their peace about my grandpa, we file out of the side doors behind his casket, and into the waiting limo, something that I'm still so excited about. I tried to go through the sunroof on the ride from our house earlier, but Dad stopped me with one look. And since then, I've kept my excitement hidden the best I can.
Just minutes later the driver pulls the car to a stop, next to a big tent filled with chairs. As the door opens, Dad slides out and reaches to help Mom. I follow and this time, as we take our seats in the front, Dad pulls Mom down in the chair directly next to him.
Seconds after we're seated, everyone else starts walking up and filing in behind us, and rain starts to fall softly. The reverend starts with a prayer and rounds out the service quickly as the rain steadily picks up.
With the final prayer, I stand with my parents and we walk up to the casket, immediately getting soaked through. Dad hands both Mom and me a rose before grabbing one for him and we each drop them as they slowly lower the casket into the ground. We take a step back as others walk by to do the same.
With one final look at the casket, I turn my head to my parents and see Mom clenching to Dad's coat, tears streaming steadily down her rosy cheeks mixing with the cool summer raindrops, Dad trying to keep up with wiping them away and soothing her pain.
In that moment, I tug on my coat looking down at my tie, not wanting to intrude on their moment, but feeling like I could do more to help her too. Seeing Mom cry, when I never have before, unleashes feelings I've never felt. Suddenly, I feel a couple years older, almost as if I can literally feel a small piece of my youthful innocence die.
I turn back to the grave, as the workers work to fill it as quickly as the weather was allowing them, and I watch as the rain, mud, and grass coat my boots until Dad calls to me to go to the car.
As the white and yellow lines start to come back to focus, I shake off the memory. That was the first time I'd truly experienced sadness and saw my parents as just people, not the invincible humans that all kids believe them to be at that age.
I release a sigh and feel a small squeeze on my hand. Keeping my eyes on the road, I bring her hand up to my lips and place a soft kiss on her knuckles, before resting our hands back on the console and gently rub my thumb across her knuckles and start to hum along with the song on the radio. Trying not to pay any mind to the fact that we are now driving right by that cemetery I stood in so long ago.
~*~WIGU~*~
Another thirty minutes passes and we're driving through the center of the small town where I was raised. With the rustle of movement beside me, I glance over and briefly meet her soft blue eyes and give her the smile she loves so much. With a small intake of breath and soft clearing of her throat, she speaks the first words spoken in hours.
"Babe, can we stop somewhere soon. I have to pee." With a chuckle, I bring her hand up and lay a soft kiss there again before I see the last gas station just up the road and nod to her. She releases my hand with a brief squeeze before starting to get her purse together.
After filling up with gas and getting more snacks, and her relieving her smashed bladder, we're back on the road. And from all the times riding down, and later driving, these roads, I know that we'll be pulling up to our destination in less than thirty minutes.
We continue driving in comfortable silence, her munching on her jerky and me humming with the radio again. About fifteen minutes in, we come to the last turn off, and I take a sudden deep breath with a sharp gasp as the memory floods my mind, one that I repressed so much I hadn't even thought about it much since that week immediately following the accident.
With only one week till graduation, all of us seniors were already done and free. So, even with it being a Tuesday, we all got together out at J&R Ranch for the first of a summer filled with last hoorays and getting shitfaced trashed parties. With the local band jamming in the background, coolers filled to the brim throughout the field, and everyone we ever knew and grew up with, we danced, played drinking games, and just had a rowdy time with no one but the cows around to hear for miles.
As the night wound down around two a.m. with people passing out in the beds of trucks, guys taking girls into the cabs, and others content to sleep on the grass, I walk off a ways from everyone to relieve myself. Feeling better in seconds, I dig my keys out of my pocket.
I minutely think that I should just take after my classmates and sleep out here, but after a very bad prank, varsity team initiation of sorts, my sophomore year, I've driven the short, barely ten minute, drive home after all of these field 'gatherings'. So, I'm not really concerned about it, I know the way better than the back of my hand, and trust muscle memory to take over.
However, that night, I didn't count for the loose calf in the road. As my eyes adjusted and fully took the scene in, I jerk the wheel to barely miss hitting it. I remember not knowing what was up from down, just that my truck was door over hood for longer than I would have ever thought possible; only stopping once it crunched into the tree right along the fence line.
Minutes later, with my equilibrium back, I crawl out of the shattered window. Turning to access the damage, I fall to my knees at the sight before me.
My truck is not just dinged and dented; it is practically crushed as if having gone through the crusher at the junkyard. Instantly sobered up at the sight, I take in how it's even possible that I'm alive, let alone moving right now.
I stay there, by my truck, until the sun starts rising over the horizon, just thinking about my life thus far and how I've truly always lived recklessly and without really taking any responsibility.
Without a second thought, I rise to my feet and start the walk to the Williams' house.
I look to my right and can just start to see the top of the Williams' barn. And shortly after, we're driving right past where my truck rested that night. I look to the fence, and now after all the years I've been gone, you would never know that that part of the fence was newer than the rest.
After having explained what happened to Mr. Williams that morning, I spent the summer helping him out on his ranch and most importantly fixing the fence that I damaged. I learned a lot from him and by working alongside him.
Thinking on that summer, I can honestly say that I wouldn't have chosen the path that I took in college without that experience. While the rest of my fellow graduates were drinking and partying it up over those months, I was finally being responsible for my actions and thinking ahead about how I wanted my life to be.
After more research than I know I ever did in school up to that point in my life, I knew with 110% certainty what I wanted to spend my life doing.
~*~WIGU~*~
A brief ten minutes later, I turn into the drive of the home I remember so perfectly. Bringing the car to a stop out front, I turn the ignition off and stare up at my childhood home. It looks identical at first glance, but upon closer examination, I can tell the roof has been replaced in recent years and the windows look to have been updated. And even though the colors are the same, the paint looks to only be maybe a year old as well. Well, you can't ever say that Dad doesn't take upkeep of his possessions seriously.
Even though the outside has changes and updates, just like I'm sure certain things inside do as well, I can name a number of things, off the top of my head alone, that I know for a fact have never changed, and never will. The pantry door being one of them, seeing as that's where Mom always measured all of us as we grew, I know that she'd never let Dad, or anyone else for that matter, near it.
Thinking about that door, brings a smile to my face, and I look at the woman beside me. She's watching me, not with curiosity or concern, but with understanding. I still have no idea what I ever did to deserve her being in my life, but I will never take her for granted or question her place by my side. Well, again that is. I'll never do that again.
Looking at her, I take in the softness of her expression. How she understands this is hard for me, but she's here and that makes it better, makes it possible for me to get through this. Looking into her eyes right now, I can hardly believe that they are able to hold so much hurt and anger as they had that night a few short months ago.
It had been the toughest day I've ever had at work. I didn't want to talk about it, but I knew that I should. Deciding that it could wait till the next morning, I walked through the door to be greeted with silence. I turn and look to the driveway, double checking that I did see her car there; I close the door and go searching for her.
After looking throughout the downstairs, I head up to our bedroom. I don't see her as I walk in the room, but I can hear her. And it sounds like she's crying. I walk to the closed bathroom door, and knock softly, calling to her. "Ali?" Receiving no answer, just more sniffling, I knock again, and call to her louder. "Ali? Baby, you ok?"
She swings the door open so fast that I'm startled and stumble back on reflex. I watch her face, her expression switching from distress, to sadness, to anger, and settling on pure fury in just seconds. Not knowing what could possibly be wrong, or what I could have done, I quickly step back and carefully take the precautions to protect the goods from anything that might be coming.
"This is all your fucking fault!" She screams the words at me. And I'm at a complete loss as to what I could have done to get her this upset and riled up. "How… how could you have let this happen! I did my part in the precautions, was it too much to ask you do yours too?" She looks to me, waiting for an answer, but right as I open my mouth to say something, she cuts me off. "Yes, of course it was. You're a guy! It's too much to ask anything of you!"
"Hey now, that is completely uncalled for Ali! Especially when I have no fucking clue what the hell I did wrong!" I know that I really shouldn't be yelling back at her at this moment. I also know that I should just let her scream and yell at me until she calms down and can tell me what this is all about calmly. I know this. But do I listen? Of course not. After the day I've had, I'm already on edge and ready to just blow. It doesn't matter who is on the receiving end. And right now, my tense and tired body and mind are screaming that coming home to her instantly screaming and accusing at me is reason enough to blow everything up at her. Not caring about what the consequences may be.
It's nothing but a full out screaming match for hours. And I can honestly say that I have no idea what's been said, screamed, yelled. All I know for sure is that none of it has been anything pretty. And now, finally, after close to three hours of yelling, crying, screaming on both of our parts, there is silence. And it's deadly.
I know I'm the last to have said anything. And I try hard to remember what I had yelled at her but all my mind is currently registering is that for the first time during this whole fight, or ever even, she threw something at me before stomping off into the bedroom and slamming the door.
I bend down and pick it up; a white stick with a blue cap, nothing special. Except that it means everything. And without even flipping it over, I know that whatever shows on the other side, is what started this whole shitfest of an evening.
Flipping it over, my breath leaves my body in an audible whoosh sound. And though, I already knew once I truly recognized what it was, just simply because of her reaction to me just being home, I'm still unsteady on my feet at seeing that small blue plus sign. I stumble and fall onto the couch.
In the second that I sit down, I feel nauseous and tuck my head between my knees, the entire fight playing out in my head. After a couple minutes, I hear her stomping around, and then her steps falling down the stairs, followed by the distinct sound of luggage wheels trailing behind her.
I look up to her, and in the moment of meeting her eyes, the last thing I yelled at her comes back full force. "You know what! If you're so unhappy here, then why don't you just LEAVE! I know that I'll be happier and better off to not have to come home to this ever again!" My heart constricts in my chest, and all I can hear is my blood rushing through my veins. I watch her head straight to the door. And my breathing becomes shallow.
I know that we both said a ton of things we didn't mean tonight, but I can't imagine actually saying anything like that to her and meaning it. Ever. She's my world. And this baby… this baby just brings that much more happiness to this world, my world, our world. That she is now leaving.
I notice that she hesitates at the door, with it open, her bags sitting right outside; she turns back to me, tears streaming out her beautiful blue eyes. I close my eyes tightly before standing. I open them again, and meet hers with new determination.
In the moment that my mind, heart, and body comprehend that she's leaving, taking my, our, child with her, and I'll never see her again, or even get to meet my son or daughter, our son or daughter, my resolve builds tenfold.
It's another one of those times for me to grow up. Just like that day in the cemetery and the night of my pointless accident. I have to choose between becoming a man and staying a boy. While the boy reasons to let her go, the man argues that she's worth it; love is worth it, and to hold on to it tightly. The boy insisting on pushing her away and the man wanting so badly to pull her as close as possible.
I walk over to her, our eyes forever locked, and hand her the test back. A fresh wave of tears stream down her face and she collapses into my chest. I encircle her in my arms, pulling her to me tightly, and vow to never let go and to never come that close again.
And I haven't been that selfish and stubborn since. We agreed on some mediating, just to help us better improve our communication. Over the past five months, we've improved in every way imaginable and couldn't be happier or more at peace with each other.
Sure, it hasn't been complete smooth sailing, every relationship has work. But since that first fight, we've been able to be reasonable and actually listen to each other rather than just screaming and not getting anywhere.
I smile at her, and reach for the door handle getting out of the car; I walk to her side and help her as well. Once she's standing before me, nestled between the car and my body, I grip her hand bringing it to my lips, placing a soft kiss on her knuckles, before resting our hands on her now protruding stomach.
We both gasp as we feel a swift kick within her belly. I look to our joined hands before meeting her gaze again. We smile at each other and with a sweet kiss; I know that we're going to be ok.
A/N: Love it? Hate it? Please let me know your thoughts. :)