Disclaimer: Everything Twilight related belongs to SM, like usually.
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... It took a couple of minutes before my brain at last started to draw the connections and everything fell into place and the panic started to close in on me.
JPOV
The silence between us stretched and stretched but like the damn coward I was, I kept my eyes clenched shut tightly. I couldn't bring myself to open them and see the hurt and pain I felt reflected in his beautiful emerald eyes. His hands had stilled on my face, not moving another inch since he connected the pieces and came to understand what I was trying to tell him.
Alyssa was pregnant, a result from our one night stand that wasn't supposed to mean anything more. When Alyssa told me about it, three months ago, my reaction was similar to Edward's. To say that I was shell shocked would be the understatement of the year and I could only start to guess what Edward was thinking right now.
"Jas," Edward said quietly, his fingers moving over my cheekbones. "Look at me, please."
Taking a couple of deep breaths I steeled myself for what he had to say. Thoughts of him, yelling at me for ruining everything or him telling me to get out of his bed, house and life, ran through my mind before I slowly opened my eyes.
There was the pain I expected to see but also softness and vulnerability which took me by surprise and the total lack of anger surprised me even more. My throat felt constricted and made it hard for me to talk, yet I tried, "I'm so truly sorry, I can't even start to tell you how much."
"Shh," Edward shushed me. "I know that you certainly didn't plan this. Your emotions are all over the place and I think we should talk about this rationally. Sop apologizing, it's not needed."
What the…? I could feel my eyes widen at his words, who the hell was this guy in front of me and what did he do to my Edward, temper tantrums and all? His calm demeanor was such a new thing to me, I simply couldn't believe it and a part of me was still waiting for his outburst.
"I've been waiting months for you to come back, Jasper. I came to accept my feelings while you were away and I'm not going to back out now," he continued upon my silence. "We can talk this out and make it work."
I sighed. "I'm afraid we can't," I told him in the calmest voice I could muster. Instantly a look of hurt crossed his face, he had misunderstood me. "It's not because of a lack of feelings, I promise you that and hope you believe me. It's just…"
"What the fuck am I supposed to think then Jasper? Obviously calmness and understanding isn't what you want to hear. Neither that I want this between us to work out," he said, his voice raising in volume and taking a menacing calm tone. "So tell me, what do you want to hear?"
I had to choose my words carefully now that he showed the first signs of his anger spiking, that is if I didn't want him to leash out on me. "She is pregnant with my child, Edward. It is my responsibility and I don't plan on leaving her to deal alone with all of this mess. The only reason I'm here right now and not in Spain is that I wanted to tell my family and friends in person."
"She's going to live here then?" he asked and something I couldn't identify clouded his eyes.
"Do I really have to spell it out for you? You are smarter than that," I replied.
"I was just hoping that I interpreted it wrong," he mumbled, sounding utterly defeated.
And how I wished he was. I never even dared to let myself hope that he'd ever return my feelings and now that he did, I had this whole mess. I'd never felt this hopeless, not even when he had introduced me to his first girlfriend so many years ago.
When I decided to accept my internship I couldn't have made up all those changes. Initially I thought that maybe some distance to Edward would help me, show me how I could finally make my own life, eventually find love with someone else. But I had been kidding myself, with every day away from him I felt worse, missing little things about him the most.
I had missed the wonder in his eyes whenever he heard a new piece of music that touched him, the way he was pissed off all morning when he didn't have his lucky charms or the small little gestures that made him my best friend, like always in worrying over my unhealthy eating habits, feeding me when I forgot about it again or doing something to embarrass himself just to take off unwanted attention of me.
For the first time in my life I had done something without Edward and my life had been missing a piece so essential. I had taken his presence granted for such a long time and even if I knew there wasn't another option I didn't look forward to more time without him. I just hoped that my little son or daughter would take most of my attention, so that I wouldn't have time to think about home.
A shuddering breath right in front of me brought me out of my musing. Edward's eyes started to redden around the edges and his breaths were shaky. Knowing him for so long, I knew that he was fighting the tears and it was breaking my heart. It was okay if I hurt in the process of it all, but I couldn't handle hurting him along the way.
Pulling him close to me, I wrapped my arms around him and felt his face pressing against the crook of my neck. His arms snaked around my waist and by now I was hyper aware of our naked bodies, thankfully my body seemed to possess enough tact though not to react to it. Humming softly to him it didn't take long before I felt the moisture on my neck.
"I know it must seem like I'm repeating myself," I murmured, fighting my own tears now. "But I'm so very sorry for causing this whole mess."
"Don't be silly," Edward's muffled voice rang out, his warm breath tickling against the sensitive skin of my neck. "You didn't plan this and I won't hold it against you."
"I don't deserve that much understanding," I muttered. If I was honest, I had no clue how to fix this or if there was even a chance to fix it.
Edward loosened his hold around me and sat back a bit, so he could look at me. His eyes holding a dangerous glint and his voice rough as he answered, "It's as much my fault as yours. I was the one who took years to realize what you meant to me other than being my best friend. I don't want us to waste the time we have left with arguing and blaming each other. Let's make it count, alright?"
By the end of his statement his voice softened and I didn't have it in me anymore to argue. I was almost a hundred percent sure that it would make everything so much worse if we got this close now and had to say good bye in a couple of weeks.
"Are you sure about this?" I didn't even have an ounce of strength left to fight him on this, how could I? It was after all what I wished to happen for years.
"I've never been surer," he vowed, pulling me close with a hand on my neck to kiss me quickly before he continued, "I want to make this work no matter how many obstacles are thrown in our way. For example I could move to Spain with you."
"Don't be silly. You don't even speak a word Spanish. First of all you have to finish your education and then we can see how we will work this out."
Studying me carefully, he replied, "You'd tell me if you didn't want me there right? You aren't just making up excuses?"
"God Edward, how do these absurd thoughts even enter your mind?" I wondered out loud, he had changed a lot in the past year and I'll be damned if I'd knew where these insecurities suddenly came from. He had always been the more confident out of the two of us. Never caring what anybody else thought. This cocky attitude of his had been starring in so many of my fantasies and now I couldn't even see anything left of it.
"Well…," he hedged.
Lifting his chin up so I could see his eyes, I saw how tired he looked, his eyes were already starting to drop. "You are tired," I concluded, it had been a tiring evening after all. "You should catch some sleep. Don't think though this discussion is over, I still want to know what happened to my ever confident, arrogant Edward. I'll remind you about it once you had enough sleep."
"Okay," he answered, settling back into my arms. "Will you stay a little longer?"
"Whatever you want, my darlin'." And how could I deny him? Running my fingers absently through his hair, I started to hum a random melody again and drifted off into my memories. I could still remember how our mothers used to hum us in bed every so often when we were younger. It has always effectively lulled us to sleep and I hoped it would work tonight, too.
And I was right, it didn't take long until Edward's breathing evened out, the evening's activities must've taken a lot out of him and no matter how tired I felt myself, there was no chance of falling asleep anytime soon. Too many things went through my head, not giving me a second of peace. It had been like that since I knew about Alyssa's pregnancy, though I knew how to cope with it.
I watched the beautiful, sleeping man in my arms in awe till I was satisfied that he wouldn't wake up again anytime soon. Carefully I pried his hands from my waist and extracted myself to slip out of bed. I wandered back to the living room where I found my boxers and slipped them on before I went on search for a piece of paper and a pen.
When I sat down on the couch my gaze fell down on the scrapbook Edward had given me. It was the most precious thing I had ever been given, I had been telling him the truth about this. Again I picked it up and thumbed through it. The small book was bound in black leather, with thick pages that were filled with music notes on every page.
Edward had invested so much time in this and even without being able to read notes I knew for sure that these were small parts of his compositions. He had basically put a part of himself on paper for me, combining it with pictures that held some of the best memories of our lives.
Apart from the picture us with our dads on the beach, I liked the picture of Edward and me sitting on his porch the most. I could still remember the day so clearly, we both were seventeen and I had already come out to him. We sat on the stairs of the porch, with the sun setting behind us, his hand lay on my tight and I could still recall how he told me that there was no reason to be afraid of our parent's reaction. Seeing it now, it almost looked like we were about to kiss, though in reality we just didn't want anybody to overhear us and were whispering quietly to each other.
Another picture showed us on our first vacation without our parents. It had been a present from our parents after we received hour high school diplomas, a trip to Italy with a tourist group. The picture showed Edward and me sitting in front of the Trevi Fountain in Rome at night. Someone of our group had snapped while we were in engrossed in our talk, both smiling widely at each other, while the fountain's lights shone brightly behind us. I could still recall how we stood there with our backs to the fountain and threw coins into it. Neither of us really believing in the in the legend, yet it was a very fond memory.
The last picture in the scrapbook was taken maybe two months before I went to Spain. I had just gotten the news about my internship and we were locked in a hug and Edward had been congratulating me. The words he whispered into my ear back then still echoed in my mind: "It will only strengthen our friendship, Jas. Only twelve short months and everything will be normal again, like you've never been gone." Neither of us would have believed it if someone had told us what those months would bring.
And for the umpteenth time tonight the tears sprang to my eyes, weren't we some crybabies today? Silently laughing to myself I wondered when I, or even Edward for the matter, had cried for the last time to such an extent.
Not wanting to delve into another dark topic today, I banned the question from my head. I gently laid the scrapbook down next to me and grabbed the pen and paper instead to start writing a note for Edward. I didn't want him to freak out when he woke up and I was gone, but I needed some time to clear my head and I couldn't do it here in his house, for obvious reasons.
I started to collect my clothes, which were spread all over the living room, and put them on. Making as few noises as possible I tiptoed back into the bedroom, set his alarm for 11 am and placed the note on the empty side of the bed. I didn't want him to face Alice's wrath if he wasn't on time for lunch. One more time I looked at his sleeping form and was overcome by the pleasant tingling in my body. He had truly captured me, body and soul.
I made sure all the windows and doors were locked before I finally made my way home in a trans-like state. The rain was still pouring down and in the short walk from the car to my house I got completely drenched. My clothes clung to me and water dripped into my eyes, by tomorrow I probably would be sick as hell although I couldn't bring myself to really care.
Various thoughts ran through my mind, not allowing me a minute rest. Would I be selling my house or keep I for when I was visiting? It was only a small three room house however it had been my personal haven for about 5 years now.
Would I be able to visit often enough to keep the bond between Edward and me as strong as it currently was? I already knew that Alyssa outright denied to move to the states. She didn't do so to do get on my nerves; in fact she told me that she would understand if I didn't want to move to Spain. She simply wanted to have her family around for what, no doubt, would be a difficult time in both our lives. Who was I kidding, Alyssa and I were both scared shitless and if it soothed her to have her family around to help out, I could understand her completely.
Why did I have to make a cluster fuck out of everything? Exactly, because I had shown one moment of weakness. And now there wasn't a fucking thing I could do about it, no amount of whining and moaning about it could make it go away.
Time was probably the only thing now that could bring us any kind of solution. I had to focus on settling everything here in the states, so I could take care of my unborn baby and its mother. The problems between Edward and I would hopefully solve themselves, given enough time. He was so convinced we could make it work, maybe I just had to trust him on this, like I had done all my life.
Walking to the kitchen I found a bottle of vodka, unscrewed it and drank straight from it. Why bother with a glass if I intended to finish it off anyways? I wanted to take the edge of my thoughts badly, I needed some rest to think clear again.
As it turns out, I should have thought about this a little better. Before the alcohol took the edge off it made everything worse. Sitting in my dark living room, in my wetter than wet clothes, I had my very own pity party.
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AN:
There it is, first JPOV.
I hope you guys like it, let me know either way. Good or bad, any feedback is welcome :o)
I hope it doesn't seem too glum, my grandma went to hospital last night and I've been writing to keep my mind from thinking of it. I hope not too much of it seeped into the chapter.
The next chapter should be up by the end of the coming week latest. My schedules a bit tight this week but I try to post as fast as possible :o).
Anyway, before I start to ramble that's about it!
Love,
Sanny
P.S.: This still isn't beta'd, so don't chop my head off for my mistakes :o). Anyone interested in beta reading for this story? Please let me know!
