"Auntie Alice?" I asked timidly. "Where's Uncle Jazzy?" Aunt Alice looked up from the book she was reading and greeted me with a smile.
"He went hunting, Nessie." She told me.
"Didn't you go together the other day?" I wondered.
"Well, yes." She replied hesitantly. "We did."
It was just as well. If Uncle Jasper wouldn't talk to me, maybe Aunt Alice would. I joined her on the bed.
"Is Uncle Jazzy mad at me?" I asked.
Aunt Alice looked at me thoughtfully. "What do you think?"
"He said he wasn't." I mumbled, my eyes on my feet. "But he was mad, and upset, and snappish."
"But not at you." Aunt Alice persisted.
"Lydia?" I asked. Had he been mad at her?
Aunt Alice sighed. "No." She closed her book and set it aside. "He wasn't mad at her, or Carlisle either, for that matter."
I frowned. "Then who was he mad at?"
"Frustrated would be more accurate." Aunt Alice replied absently. "But he was upset with himself, Nessie."
I was shocked. "But why?"
"Because it's harder for Jasper to be around blood than it is for the rest of us. It's harder for him not to lose control."
I stared at her. "I know she smelled good. It was very distracting. But-"
"But for Jasper it was almost painful to resist." The was she said almost made me think that maybe it actually had been painful for him. "That's why he went hunting."
"But why is it hard?" I asked her. It wasn't that hard for me, or Aunt Alice, or Mom, and Grandpa worked in the hospital and had no problems with it at all.
Aunt Alice smiled at me somewhat sadly. "To understand that, you need to know about Jasper's past."
"Do you think I'm ready?" I asked, excited. Dad had insisted on waiting to tell me certain things, like how Uncle Jasper and Aunt Rosie and Aunt Alice had become vampires.
Aunt Alice nodded, but her eyes were grim. "It's not a nice story." She warned me. "But I think you need to hear it now. You can talk to him when he gets back."
"But you're sure he wasn't mad at me?" I asked again. I wanted to be sure, especially if I was going to be asking about his past.
Alice laughed. "I'm not sure it's even possible for him to be mad at you, Nessie." I laughed along with her, though I still wasn't sure.
Diclaimer: Twilight does not belong to me, nor am I under the delusion that it does.