Me without You

Chapter 4

Day One

-Jasper POV-

"Mr Whitlock?" The teacher called across the room. I looked up sharply at the use of my old name. I guess if I'd never met Alice, I would never had had a reason to change my name. I wouldn't have pretended to be Rosalie's brother; Jasper Hale. I never would have met the Cullens. I swallowed down that thought. A life without Carlisle and Esme, Edward and Emmett and Rose. A life without Alice. "Mr Whitlock, are you listening?"

"Yes." I replied, not trusting myself to say more than that.

"What did I just say?" He asked

"You said 'Mr Whitlock, are you listening?'." I said

"Don't get smart with me!" The teacher snapped as there was a murmur of laughter from the people around me. "Need I remind you that you're already on your last warning, Mr Whitlock?"

Hmm...that was interesting. If I had wanted to blend in at this school, why had I done whatever it was that had gotten me those warnings? Attracted attention to myself by misbehaving?

"You don't need to remind me." I said

"Good." He said, glaring at me, "Pay attention!"

He went back to talking about Trigonometry and I went back to ignoring him. Someone next to me nudged my elbow and I turned to see a boy with jet black spiked hair and stormy grey-blue eyes. "Don't go getting suspended again Jasper. I need you here to help me with Shannon."

"What?" I asked. Who was this guy? How did he know me? Who was Shannon? Why did he need my help with her? What was even happening right now?

"Shannon, remember?" He said, "The girl I've been in love with since third grade?"

"I didn't even know you in third grade." I said, confident that I couldn't have known him - unless third grade now taught kids that easily looked old enough to buy alcohol.

"Not the point." The boy said, "You've known me for...almost three years? And in those three years, how much progress have I made with Shannon?"

"Not much?" I guessed

"None!" He said, "None, Jasper! You promised you'd help me, so don't make any plans to get yourself expelled any time soon!"

"Right. Sure." I said. I had no such plans. I did, however, plan on finding out who the hell this was, and what the hell he was talking about. "Hey, what-"

"Mr Whitlock, Mr Cross!" The teacher yelled across the classroom, "Would you be kind enough to stop talking during my lesson? Or do I need to send you to the principle?"

"That won't be necessary Mr Jetsom." The boy next to me said smoothly. The teacher - Mr Jetsom - turned back to the board with a 'humph'. I sat in silence for the rest of the lesson, staring at the desk. Half an hour passed before the bell rang out shrilly, signalling the end of the lesson and the end of the school day. I followed the boy who had sat next to me out of the room, assuming we were friends of some kind. He had said I'd known him for almost three years, so I guessed we knew each other pretty well. I wasn't the kind of person who made friends with humans, and yet here I was. I thought about what Meredith had told me about my control. It was true; I hardly felt any thirst around these humans. But how was it possible that my control was better in this life? Alice helped me with my control, all of the Cullen's did. Could it be that depriving myself of human blood, and only feeding from animals actually made my control worse? It was certainly looking that way. Meredith had said I hunted before and after school, and I was fine for the rest of the day.

"Hey, Liam! Jasper! Wait up!" A girl called, running up behind us. She was quite tall, with mousy hair and freckles on her cheeks. The boy - Liam, presumably - smiled as the girl jumped onto his back and wrapped her legs around his waste. He made a big deal of prying her off of him, smiling all the while. Their exchange reminded me of Alice and myself, joking and messing around. But I had thought Liam didn't have a relationship. I thought he was busy pining after whoever the hell Shannon was. I suppose it could be possible that this girl was just great friends with Liam. I know that I thought of Alice as my best friend, as well as my wife.

"Get off, Shannon!" Liam said mock-annoyed.

Wait. Back up. This was Shannon? This was the girl that Liam had been in love with since the third grade? And he said he'd made no progress with her?

"Where are you guys headed?" Shannon asked, sliding off of Liam's back and walking in between him and me.

"Friday night means hitting the gym." Liam reminded her

"Oooh, can I come?" Shannon asked

"Want to check out my rock hard abs whilst I'm working out?" Liam teased

"Rock hard abs?" Shannon asked, "You wish. I want to see you cry like a little girl."

That was when it hit me. It was so obvious that it almost made me laugh. Liam had been well and truly friend-zoned. Poor guy. And he was in love with this chick? Really, poor guy.

"Whaddya think, Jasper?" Liam asked me, "Should we let Shannon come with us?"

Shannon was looking at me with a slight pout and an eyelash flutter. The look reminded me of the way Alice looked at me whenever she wanted something. "Pleeeeease Jasper?" She asked, dragging out the 'e' for as long as her breath would let her.

"Sure, if you want." I said. I stiffened as Shannon threw her arms around my neck in thanks, but then relaxed. Even this close contact wasn't making my thirst uncontrollable. In fact, I was completely fine with it. Back in the other world even Bella - whom I was used to, and knew I would never hurt - would have driven me crazy with this kind of proximity. Things were just getting stranger and stranger by the minute.

"Did you leave your gym stuff at home?" Liam asked me

"Hu?" I asked

"I remind you every week to bring it to school, and every week you leave it at home." He said. Vampires had perfect memory, which meant there must be a reason I always left it at home. Either way, I didn't have it on me right now so I must have 'forgotten' it again. Liam rolled his eyes, "We'll meet you there?"

"Sure." I said and he was gone before I realised my mistake; I had no idea where the gym was. Or where 'home' was for that matter. And even if I could find home, what did I usually wear to the gym? This was going to be harder than I thought. I looked out across the parking lot. Did I have a car? Probably, but which one? I fished in my school bag - which had been next to my desk when I arrived in the classroom - and found a keyring with three keys attached. One was large and gold and looked like a house key, another was small and silver and looked like something used to open a locked cabinet or box. The third key was unmistakably the key to a jaguar. I scanned the parking lot full of pick ups and inconspicuous Fords and Volkswagens. A shiny orange jaguar convertible was by far the most expensive car there. Way to blend in Jasper.

I unlocked the car and slipped inside. I turned on the engine and pulled out of the parking lot even though I had no idea where to go after that. I began circling the block, hoping that inspiration would strike. It wasn't so much that the gentle lullaby voice startled me, it was just that I hadn't expected Meredith to come back. Even though she'd said she would, a part of me had feared that I'd be stuck here forever. "Your house is in the opposite direction."

I whirled the car around in a very illegal U-turn and started down the other side of the road. "Some help would have been useful before you decided to just leave me there to figure things out for myself."

"Make a left here." Meredith told me, "I can't be here all the time telling you the ins and outs of this life."

"Why does there have to be a 'this life'?" I asked

"Take the next right, then the second exit on the roundabout." Meredith said, "I'm sure I've already told you this Jasper. You need to truly understand your relationship with Alice and it's significance."

"It hasn't done any good so far." I said, "All I know is that I want Alice back. I miss her. I don't understand why you're putting me through this."

"You make it sound like a punishment, Jasper." Meredith said

"It feels like a punishment." I said, slowing for a red light.

"You've done nothing wrong." Meredith assured me, "This isn't to punish you. It's to help you - and everyone else in this world!"

I slapped my hands against the steering wheel. "Dammit, why us?"

"The fact that you have to ask shows that you haven't learnt enough here yet." She told me. The light turned green but I didn't move, causing the cars behind to honk and overtake angrily. I held Meredith's gaze for a moment, but she told me no more. "Apartment 4B. Your address is programmed into the GPS, think of checking that? So is the gym. But you don't make the excuse of forgetting your clothes every week just to nip home. You need to hunt."

Before I could reply she had faded away into nothing. Damn angel. Why couldn't she just be a vampire or a werewolf or a human? That I would have been able to deal with...but this? This I had no idea how to handle. I knew nothing about angels or what they brought with them. I didn't have any knowledge of alternative universes or whatever the hell I'd been thrown into. More honks from behind me pulled me out of my thoughts. I looked up my home address in the GPS and headed that way. I thought about Meredith's words. You don't make the excuse of forgetting your clothes every week just to nip home. There was something I needed to do, but I hadn't done it in so many years now. Since meeting Alice, I'd never intentionally hunted a human. I'd had slip ups, yes, but I'd always planned on feeding from animals. But what did I do now?

You need to hunt.

Would I be able to handle living off of animal blood in this life? If I had to go to school every day and face all those humans? Meredith had said that I got by because I fed from human blood before and after school. What would happen if I were to stop that? If I were to live off animal blood? Could I risk it when I was about to go and socialize with humans straight after?

I pulled up outside the block of apartments that I apparently lived in. I stared out of the windshield at the building for a few counts before finally plucking up the courage to leave the car and make my way inside. The security was poor and I found that the front door didn't even lock. I walked through the lobby and up the stairs to apartment 4B. I had always thought of stairs as safer than elevators, for unknown reasons.

I used the gold key from my keychain to open the door and stepped into my apartment. It was furnished lightly, but it had character all the same. There were a lot of books, which was no surprise. I'd always enjoyed reading, both as a human and as a vampire. I went through to the bedroom and saw a gym bag lying on the bed, presumably so I could quickly grab my gym clothes and go hunting so I could get to the gym without taking a suspiciously long time.

I took the gym bag and made my way back down to the car, where I sat for several minutes. Would I do this? Could I do this? Could I really throw away decades of careful practice in making me vegetarian by hunting a human? Meredith hadn't seemed so bothered about it. She had made it sound like I couldn't not do it, if I wanted to keep control at school, that is. But what would Alice think? She was always so understanding when I slipped up - she never got mad, she never told me that I'd done wrong or that I had failed. She always said it was okay, we'd work on it. It doesn't matter, we all do it sometimes. But I knew that wasn't really the truth. She'd learned to hide her emotions well, but anyone could see the faint glimmer of sadness in her eyes. I could always feel the disappointment. Not so much in me because I'd done wrong, but because I knew that there was always a part of her that hoped that would be it now. That would be the last time. It never was. And each time, she had to learn that all our efforts had been pointless. It had happened again, Jasper's lost control. I don't know why she ever put up with me. I don't know why she didn't just leave me. When I come home with blood on my hands and crimson in my eyes...how can she stay with me? How can she even face me?

But she always does. She always smiles, and she always acts like it never happened. I knew that if I hunted a human now, she wouldn't hold it against me. When she found out she'd smile reassuringly and say, "Don't worry about it, Jazz. It happens to all of us, right? We'll work on it." She'd always forgive me. But I didn't want her to have to forgive me in the first place. I didn't want to give her a reason to have to forgive me. I wanted to be the man she wanted me to be - the man she deserved.

I rested my head against the steering wheel. What was I supposed to do now? My mind was telling me to live up to Alice's expectations - to the expectations of all the Cullen's. I knew that it would be the right thing to do. It was what I wanted. I didn't want to kill innocent humans. My body was telling me to listen to my vampire instincts. I needed that blood. That human blood. Otherwise, how would I control myself at school? Without Alice there to help me, I wouldn't be able to stop myself from killing everyone in sight. I needed the human blood to keep my control, or else even more people would end up dead.

On that last thought, I pulled out of the driveway and headed downtown. This was something I just had to do. I could beg forgiveness later, when the time came. Alice would always forgive me, as long as I could forgive myself...

~o.O.o~

After the hunt, the venom in my eyes had burned through the contacts I'd been wearing. Luckily, I found spare pairs in the gym bag and put fresh ones in. I hadn't looked at the man I'd killed. It was better that way. If I didn't put a face to the pain I felt through my gift, then it wouldn't be so bad. The pain was awful - I'd almost forgotten what I felt when I killed a human. But it was good - I deserved that pain. It was a sharp reminder that this was wrong. With a capital 'W'.

As soon as I could, I was going to sort myself out. I would not keep hurting innocent humans this way. But for now, whilst I was still getting used to this new life, it was better to just do what I normally did. And that, apparently, was to feed off of human blood.

I checked my reflection in the sun visor - mostly for traces of red eyes or blood on my lips - before swinging out of the car and heading towards the gym doors. I found my membership card in the gym bag and flashed it at the receptionist, who smiled and let me in. I got changed and headed into the main gym. I found Liam on weights, showing off to Shannon. She was watching him with obvious admiration. Maybe not so friend-zoned after all. I wondered if either one of them knew how much the other loved them or lusted after them. I certainly knew, and it made me feel sick as I compared them to Alice and myself.

"Jasper! You took your time!" Liam said.

"I couldn't remember where I put my membership card." I lied smoothly. I'd probably taken longer than usual to hunt, because the whole time I was having a moral battle in my mind.

"Liam's super strong, isn't he Jasper?" Shannon asked.

"He's the wrong person to be asking." Liam said, "I'm pretty sure Jasper could lift a two-tonne truck if he put his mind to it."

Shannon raised an eyebrow, "Stronger than Liam?"

I laughed lightly, "I would say so, yes."

"I sense a bet coming on!" Shannon said excitedly.

"Hell no, Jasper would win hands down!" Liam said

"Scared, Liam?" Shannon asked.

"No." Liam scoffed.

"I tell you what, whichever one of you wins - I'll buy you a pizza, right?" Shannon said. I was about to tell her that the whole point of a bet was that the loser lost something, not the bystander, but I had an idea.

"Sure. Sounds good." I said. Shannon had basically just offered a date. Although, I suspected that if I were to win it would be a more friendly affair. If Liam were to win, however, it may just blossom into something more.

"Wait! I'll go get a coin to toss to see who goes first!" Shannon said, and then she disappeared.

"She's gunna think I'm a wimp! Dude, you've gotta-" Liam began.

"Let you win." I interrupted, "I know."

Liam smiled at me gratefully, "I owe you."

"I know." I said again.

"Tell you what, next time you set your sights on a girl, I'll help you out, alright?" Liam asked.

"I don't think that'll happen any time soon." I said.

"Hmm. I've been meaning to talk to you about that." Liam said, "It's been a hell of a long time since you've had a girl in your life."

A thought occurred to me. If I'd never met Alice, would I have ever had a girlfriend? If I had human friends, there wasn't a reason not to have a human girlfriend, was there? I'd never even imagined it - I was forever faithful to Alice - but everything seemed to be backwards in this life. "How long?"

"Well...your last girlfriend would have been Katie." Liam said, "And that was about 5 months ago now?"

It physically hurt. I'd had another girlfriend? How could that even be possible? I knew that I hadn't met Alice in this strange messed up life, but until now some part of me had still kind of thought that we were destined to be together. Like, I wouldn't have any girlfriend until I did eventually meet her. Which was stupid, obviously. Even in real life, I'd had girlfriends before meeting Alice. It was crazy to expect me to live centuries and never have a girlfriend. But it still felt wrong.

"Okay, ready?" Shannon asked, bouncing back. "Liam, heads or tails?"

"Heads." Liam said.

"Okay, heads it's Liam; tails it's Jasper." Shannon said. She flipped the coin up and at a lightning speed that neither of the humans saw, my hand flashed out and turned the coin so that it had to land on heads. I needed Liam to go first, so that I would know how little I needed to lift to let him win. "Heads! Liam, you go first!"

The competition didn't last very long, and Shannon squealed and clapped her hands in congratulations when she declared that Liam had won. I'd said that I was heading home and subtly suggested that they go and get that pizza now. So, they'd driven off to go on their first date - even if neither of them knew it yet - and I'd headed back to the apartment.

Meredith was waiting for me when I got back, sat down on the sofa flicking through the TV channels. I had to do a double take. What had happened to the posh, mysterious, angelic creature that she'd first been? Now, she looked like a teenager. Except for, you know, the glow that surrounded her. "Hi Jasper."

"Hi?" It came out as a question, but Meredith didn't comment.

"That was a nice thing you did back there, letting Liam win." She said. I stared at her. Of course she knew - she was an angel, she knew everything. I shrugged.

"They're obviously both in love with each other, and if they didn't go on a date soon they never would." I said.

"You're settling into this new life quite well, I think." Meredith said, standing up and turning to face me.

"I don't intend to stay long enough to settle in." I said, but Meredith only laughed.

"You have to stay until the lesson has been learned." She said. I didn't bother starting another argument by asking 'why?'.

"Couldn't you just tell me what I need to do?" I tried.

"It doesn't really work like that." Meredith said

"Of course it doesn't." I said. I sounded like a brat, but I wasn't feeling too co-operative right now. I wanted to get home to Alice, where I was sure of everything going on in my world. I didn't want to be in this place where everything was different and confusing. "Is there anything I should know about this life?"

"Not anything that you can't figure out on your own." Meredith said. Then she considered for a moment. "You may want to stay away from a girl called Maya Darren."

"Why?" I asked

"I can't say." Meredith said, "Just take the advice, Jasper."

The advice had only confused me further, and I scowled. "This sucks."

Meredith laughed, "Sorry. There's not much I can do about that." I rolled my eyes. I was sure there was a lot of things she could do if she really wanted. "No I can't!" And of course, she could read my thoughts. This was more annoying than being around Edward. At least he attempted to give us some privacy. "I'm not trying to invade your privacy!"

"Stop answering my thoughts then." I snapped

"Fine. I'll leave." She said

"No, wait!" I said, but she was already gone. Stupid angel.

I turned back to the apartment that would be my home for the foreseeable future. Everything about it screamed Jasper - the carefully organised possessions, the piles of books, the clothes hung neatly in the closet. But it was missing one crucial thing; Alice. I missed her quirky little ornaments, the fresh flowers she picked from the forest, the splashes of colour, and the messy pile of shoes in the bottom of her wardrobe. The whole place was considerably Alice lacking.

Tonight was going to be a long night.


A/N: Maaaaaassive thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, and to everyone who favourited or followed :) :) :) Sorry I took a while to update, but real life has been super busy :/

Hope you liked the chapter - let me know in a review :)