A/N - Thanks for the reviews letting me know that the original posting of this chapter had some technical difficulties! Hopefully I got them all fixed and you can enjoy the chapter.
I rolled over and slammed my hand down on the alarm clock next to my bed as it blared what had to be the most annoying sound in the world. It was 6:30 a.m., and it was time to get ready for my first day of classes.
"Isabella! Happy first day of sophomore year!" My way-too-chipper roommate yelled from the kitchen. I had changed my mind. My alarm clock was surely the second most annoying sound in the world next to Macy yelling this early in the morning.
"Macy, I'm going to need a solid twenty minutes before you're allowed to talk to me if you're in this good of a mood on the first Monday of school," I grumbled as I made my way into our shared bathroom. I knew she had already been on a morning run and was surely sipping her coffee and finishing up some reading for classes in the kitchen. I teased her often, but I knew that I wouldn't be nearly as good of a student if I didn't have her to motivate me when I was down. Especially last year when I was still feeling much of the sting from them leaving.
I quickly washed my hair and body and jumped out of the shower to go throw on my classic pair of jeans and a t-shirt combo before daring to make my entrance into the kitchen.
"Alright, you may speak," I smiled at my best friend as I grabbed bread to make some toast for breakfast. Macy grinned at me from behind her coffee cup, her long, blonde hair pulled into a braid that fell down her back.
"Where's your first class of the day?" She asked me. We never had classes together because we were in completely different programs, she was in nursing and I was in English, but our campus was relatively small, so we were often able to at least walk to class together.
"Wilson, yours?" I answered as I began to munch on my toast.
"Right next door, thank god." That would make it possible to have our traditional coffee break together right after our first class. "Ready when you are, Bells," she said as she set her cup in the sink and headed for the door.
We chatted about which classes we were excited for and which ones we were dreading as we drove to campus, and when it was time to go our separate ways about five minutes before class started I was in a much better mood than when I woke up. My mood didn't last very long, however, when I saw a head of blonde curls sitting about three rows from the front of the lecture hall. It couldn't be. I had to be imagining things, right? I slowly began to move toward the farthest seat away from the man when the air conditioning in the room kicked on. It was like déjà vu as I felt the light breeze tickle the hair around my neck and make its way down to him. Jasper. I knew it was him when I saw him stiffen at my scent and turn around so achingly slow it seemed like he was moving in slow made eye contact just as the professor stepped in front of the whiteboard and began to speak. I swallowed loudly and sat down in the nearest seat to me, promising myself I would pay attention to the lecture and deal with this situation after class.
It didn't work as I'd hoped and I found myself imagining what he would say to me, if anything at all, as soon as the clock hit 9:50 a.m. I was so busy imagining the different scenarios that I almost missed our professor dismissing us until class on Wednesday. I slowly gathered my things and put them into my backpack one by one, giving Jasper the opportunity to approach me if he wished. Of course, I was out of practice with being aware of someone so smooth and quiet and visibly jumped when I looked up to see him standing in front of my desk.
"Hello, Bella. It's good to see you," he spoke quietly, but I could easily hear his soothing, southern drawl as he addressed me.
"H-hi, Jasper." I stuttered as I stood up and swung my bag up onto my shoulder, "It's… good to see you too." I hesitated. Was it good to see him? The Cullens hurt me so much when they left. It wasn't just Edward, but all of them held an important place in my heart and they left me without much of an explanation. Of course, Jasper probably knew exactly what I was going through in that moment because of his ability to sense what I was feeling. I noted that he wasn't attempting to manipulate my emotions, which I heavily appreciated.
"I'm sorry if I startled you. Can I make it up to you by buying you a coffee? It would be nice to catch up." I nodded, speechless, and walked beside Jasper to the coffee shop a few buildings away from the one our class was held in. Macy was the last thing on my mind until I saw her sitting at one of the tables in the coffee shop, giving me an obnoxiously obvious wink when she saw me with what, to her, would probably be one of the most attractive people she had ever seen. This snapped me out of my daze as I looked up at the barista to order.
"Jasper you really don't need to buy that for me," I protested. "I'm a big girl with my own money." I'll admit, I was feeling a bit bitter that he felt the need to buy something for me after they walked out of my life, but what I said was not any less true because of it.
"Of course, I know that Bella. If you'd rather buy it yourself, I won't push it." He slipped his card back into his wallet and gave me a small smile. I was more than surprised at his answer given Edward's aversion to letting me do or buy anything on my own when we were together.
"Thank you," I replied as I took my coffee from the counter and made sure to sit far enough away from Macy that she couldn't hear our impending conversation. "So… what brings you to Oregon State? Are all of you playing college student this time around?" I tried to sound casual, but I knew I was failing as my heart rate picked up and my anxiety spiked waiting for his response.
Jasper sighed, "Actually, I am here alone. I haven't been in contact with the Cullens in the last year and a half." I was shocked by this news, which I'm sure showed on my face as I looked up from sipping on my iced caramel latte.
"Oh…I'm sorry, Jasper. If you want to talk about what happened I'm all ears." My mind was running a million miles an hour trying to decide if I thought that he left them, or they left him. I wanted to believe that he left them because the alternative could only mean that they were angry at him for what happened on my birthday which was pretty much anyone else's fault but his.
"There really isn't much to tell, if I'm being honest," he started. "I truly felt that my family had zero faith in my abilities to live the 'vegetarian' lifestyle, and I decided that if they thought I was going to mess up all the time, I probably had bigger chances of doing just that." He raised his hands in a motion that said, 'what can you do?' and shrugged his shoulders. I wanted to ask about Alice, as I remembered how in love they had seemed when I spent time with the family, but Jasper beat me to it before I could do so. "Alice was hiding something from me, though I'm not sure what, and when I voiced my concerns she all but encouraged me to go," he offered a small smile, "we were growing apart anyway, and I just knew it was time for me to leave." That's when he looked up and saw the anger and hurt in my eyes.
"They shouldn't have treated you that way, Jasper." I said, angry. I couldn't tell if I was angry for him, or if it was the feelings left over from feeling abandoned by the family, but I knew that Jasper could feel it and that I needed to get it under control.
"It's alright, Darlin', it hurt at first, but it was the right thing for me. Alice and I loved each other, but we weren't mates. I wouldn't be surprised if we became friends at some point in the future." I balked. I had no idea that Alice and Jasper weren't mates. Now that I was thinking about it, I didn't even know what it meant to be somebody's mate.
"Alright, well, what are your plans now?" I asked quickly before I could give myself a headache thinking about it.
"I'm going to be studying literature. I've studied a lot of things over the years, but I've never really touched the English side of things. Figured it was time to give it a shot." Jasper winked at me as he made his last statement. True to myself, my cheeks began to turn red as I suddenly became very interested in my drink. Jasper and I continued to make small talk until I noticed that I only had a few minutes to make it to my next class. Impulsively, I rattled off my phone number to Jasper and told him that we could finish catching up another time, knowing he'd remember it without needing to write it down. He left me with a genuine smile on my face as I nearly ran to my next class. I was amazed at how well I was taking having a run-in with a Cullen after what I went through the year after they left. I chalked it up to the fact that I was never very close with Jasper, but somehow I knew that it was more than that as I found myself wondering when I would be receiving a phone call from the southern vampire that had all but waltzed back into my life.