The Hardest Lessons—Outtake # 2 (Chapter 10)
A/N: I know, this has been a long time coming. I've been uber busy. In fact, I should really be doing a report on a psychological assessment of one of my students (no, the student isn't in any danger, it's hypothetical) but instead I'm writing this. Priorities!
I did things a little differently this time because, to be honest, I don't like simply re-writing the chapter but in Jasper's voice. So... lemme know if you likey.
"I know you can feel it, too. Don't hide you liar, some kind of thunder inside."—"Liar" by Dragonette
He was on a rollercoaster, surely.
The last time he had felt emotions flipping around like this he had been dragged to a high school dance in Maine by Alice and he spent the evening trying not to drown in teenage emotions or slaughter the whole gym just to get some peace.
The problem this time was that the emotions were his own.
Angry, guilty, sad, angry, guilty, sad. Again and again and again. It was all he felt these days. Especially now.
Bella had asked him why he had blamed her for all of his troubles that night in Alaska. Why?
Because he was a prick.
A large part of him knew that, acknowledged it, welcomed it even. He had no qualms about pissing people off because he could hold his own in a fight if need be and to be honest it was often the most entertaining part of his existence.
Wasn't that just pathetic? He got off on irritating people. What did that say about him? Probably nothing good.
Why had he blamed her? Because at the time, it was easier than blaming himself. He'd never thought of himself as a coward but he had to admit, if only to himself, that he had been being a coward for four and a half years when it came to one silly, clumsy human being and her role in his life.
When he met her, she had been a young girl falling in love for the first time. She was a child then, tripping over herself and blushing furiously when Edward swooped in to save the day. She hadn't known what she was getting into, not really, not until it was too late. And by that time, she was blinded by her affections for Edward to see the truth in his words when he called himself a monster.
They were all monsters, in some way or another. It was always inside of them. That animal with incredible strength and agility, the one that hunted for its survival and, when threatened, would fight to the death.
And now he had made her one too.
Enter guilt.
It was always easier to just be angry as opposed to being sorry or remorseful and he had been trying so damn hard to cling to that anger, no matter how misplaced he knew it was. She made it hard for him, with her logical arguments and her raw emotions. Then again, she also made it easier on him when she threw Alice in his face.
Of course, she hadn't done that in a while. The last time she had done that, he had ripped her throat open.
Take a seat, guilt, you're going to be here a while.
Those first few days after her change had been the worst. When he had told her that she would never bear a child the pain that radiated from her had been so strong it had taken his breath away. But did she cry? Scream? No. The only outward sign that she had even heard him was the one hand that gently found its way to her flat and barren stomach. When she told him that he should have just let her die? Words could not possibly express how fucking foul he felt.
Enter sadness.
But sad had never suited him very well and out of Bella's pain came anger, she lashed out at him and so he attacked right back. They danced around each other in that same sick cycle until he thought he just might explode from it.
But she never stopped surprising him.
When he had left Forks he had left behind a naive, silly girl but he had found a strong and confident young woman a mere four years later. She challenged him at every turn; Christ, she could make a man lose his marbles quite easily but he found that he enjoyed it. She called him out on his shit and wasn't afraid to make him angry. At the same time, she'd make him laugh at the oddest moments and he'd think to himself that if only they could be like that all the time, they could be happy as companions in their eternity.
Hence, the rollercoaster.
So when he found himself sitting next to her, his emotions flip-flopping around, as she reached out and grabbed his hand he added a new emotion to the list.
Affection.
It was there, he could feel it, flowing out of her and into him. Perhaps she didn't realize it, or maybe it was a cause of the moment but whatever the case, it was there.
She cared about him. He had ended her life in a fit of childish rage and she cared.
Helloooo, guilt.
"Talk to me, Jasper," she said, squeezing his hand and gently stroking her thumb over the bumps of his knuckles, "Say something, anything. Hell, yell at me if you want."
He nearly smiled. Hadn't she recently told him she wasn't going to take anymore of his verbal abuse?
"What about the verbal punching bag speech?" he asked her, staring at their hands. They were so different, the two of them. He had hands that were permanently scarred by life with Maria. Hers were small and smooth, unblemished except for the one crescent bite that was the only indication of her entanglement with vampires before she was turned.
She didn't answer him, keeping quiet in the way that only a vampire can as he continues to stare and compare the two of them. So many differences, yet so many similarities. Slowly, he shifted his hand under hers so that their palms touched and he could weave his fingers between hers.
"No one's touched me like this in years."
It was the truth. No one had touched him simply because they wanted to since before her horrible 18th birthday party—he hadn't let them. Peter had slapped him on the back in greeting when he fled to Austin, Texas right after leaving Forks and Alice behind but it wasn't the same thing. Sure, women who had no idea who they were trying to flirt with had touched him but it wasn't like this. He always allowed their advances because it gave him the perfect excuse to ask them to join him outside, to "go back to their place", a place they never arrived at. But this, this was completely and utterly different.
Of course, the last time he had tried that it had failed utterly. He had left Bella at the house and ran like a mad man into the nearest town with memories of Alice chasing him the whole way. He found a victim and lured her outside easily but when it all boiled down to the main event he found himself thinking about Bella, about how angry and disappointed she would be when she saw him with fresh red eyes. It hurt, for some reason that he didn't understand and he reacted like he always did to pain.
He got angry, because how dare she pass judgment on him when she wasn't even there? He snapped the girl's neck before he drained her dry, all the while picturing Bella's face.
He knew then, as he had hidden her body where it wouldn't be found for some months, that he would never be able to feed this way again without picturing her disappointed face.
His cell phone chose that moment to start vibrating in his pocket and he was forced to relinquish her hand. As soon as he did the steady flow of her emotions dimmed to a light trickle and he found that he missed it. It had been so long since someone gave two shits about him and he felt justified in being a little greedy for it. Concentrating his gift on her, as he pulled out the phone, he forced his way into her emotions, feeling the calm, the affection and the curiosity that swam within her.
He recognized the number on the display but he had no inclination to talk to Emmett at that moment in time. Unfortunately, Emmett had other ideas. As he had feared, it hadn't been a conversation that he had overtly enjoyed; in fact, it had just served to make him angry once again. Anger was a familiar emotion for him; he felt it almost all the time, even when it wasn't his.
"Do you really want to live with someone who's angry at you? Who hates you? Do you want to feel that every day?"
Bella's words flashed through his mind as he listened to Emmett berating him for not caring enough about Bella's welfare to help in the search for her. He hadn't really given her one, but the answer was simple:
No. He didn't want to live like that anymore.
But it was a hard habit to break and when he ended the conversation with Emmett his emotions were running on high through his body, hot and furious.
"What the fuck do we do now?" he had demanded of her, as if she had all the answers.
Instead of snapping back at him she had reached out again, just like she had before, with her calm hands and wise words about touch and human need and that little shred of humanity left inside them that he sometimes lost sight of.
"So, what do we do now?" he asked again, calmer now, surrounded by her calm.
She gave him the oddest look, a little smile pulling at the side of her mouth before it lit in her eyes and exploded into a full out grin.
"Braid our hair and have a pillow fight in our underwear?"
He looked at her like she was crazy and the smile became impossibly wider, her eyes dancing with a happiness he didn't understand.
But that was okay, because he liked it when those eyes looked at him that way.
A/N: So, did that give you what you wanted? A little insight into his mind, his feelings, where he's coming from?
Oh, there is a new poll up on my profile. I'm trying something new with this one. Instead of having you guys pick a chapter for me to write from JPOV I've give you the option of select scenes that have never been written. Check it out and vote! It will stay up until Ch 22 is posted!