A/N: Wanna know what's better than a kick-ass beta? Two of them! Plummy and Happymelt are the dream-team of pre-reading/editing/hand-holding/co-obsessing over Rob's body language. Thank you doesn't even cover it.
If you're into soundtracks, "She's lost control" by Joy Division, especially for the second part of this chapter.
Stephenie Meyer owns.
o o o
Of course, Bella did not move to Forks; she went back to Phoenix just as she always knew she would—went back to school armed with a vague determination that things would be different, that she would hold on to that sense of confident detachment, of easygoing acceptance that had come to dominate her summer.
As the plane circled on the red-hot tarmac, she told herself that she would try to shape the course of her life more forcefully, more individually, standing up for herself, finding her own path.
But thoughts and decisions that had seemed crystal-clear and inevitable in the vibrant, fragrant North-Western mornings dulled and faded quickly under the combined assault of dry heat and expectations, and it only took a week for the old, well-rehearsed routine to set in again: school, practice, homework, sleep... and again and again and again.
Her mother was gone a lot that winter, wrapped up in functions and cocktails and benefits and conventions. Bella saw her more often on the pages of the local newspapers than she did in the flesh and marvelled at how fresh, radiant and put together Renee looked in those pictures—the beautiful Mrs Phil Dwyer, as she was often described—almost as if she had been waiting all her life to find this stage, this role, these designer clothes and shoes. Bella was sure her mother had never smiled that much or that big when she herself had been a kid, and her happiness at her contentment was tinged with something ugly and bitter.
If Renee had been around more, she might perhaps have noticed a restlessness in her daughter, a sense of dissatisfaction hanging over her head, the way her wide, beautiful shoulders sagged when she sat down and her eyes lost focus when no one was looking at her. She might perhaps have realized that Bella yearned for something she couldn't even place; she might have given her the words and the tools to understand herself, and perhaps she might have helped her navigate these confusing emotions with a little more serenity.
As it was, Bella was left to her own devices and trod along the path she had found herself on by choice or chance. She studied hard. She swam with her usual determination and single-mindedness, deriving, if not exactly joy, at least a measure of satisfaction from her improvements and successes and some sense of identity from her athletic endeavors.
Everyone knew she was on the swim team, and that simple fact defined and resolved her high school status. Not exactly a loner, but not one of the popular crowd, either; and because it was assumed, in part correctly, that swimming filled all of her spare time, no invitations to parties or shopping trips ever materialised. Her teammates, with their strange mix of forced camaraderie and anxious competitiveness, served as poor substitutes for the friends she had left behind in Washington. Unconsciously, she accepted that this was just the way things were—friendship and fun relegated to wet summers far away from home.
Bella had grown up hearing herself defined as a tomboy and, in truth, had never felt particularly delicate or girly; tutus and tiaras had never appealed to her; she had never stolen her mother's nail polish growing up.
Funny then, painfully ironic even, that just as she started to feel the stirrings of a desire to explore this side of herself, it became almost impossible for her to do it. For her hair, which had always been frizzy, was now unmanageable due to the constant assault of chlorine and daily drying; her skin, naturally pale and delicate, needed the heaviest of lotions to soothe it after being in water so long; and changing once or twice a day in a crowded, noisy locker room made the planning of carefully coordinated outfits an impossibility.
So Bella cut her hair short, wore sweats and trainers, and gave the makeup aisle at CVS wide-berth.
Most days she was okay with this, too busy and focused on what needed to be done to distract herself with what couldn't be; and yet she looked with envy and admiration at her classmates, at their long, carefully straightened hair and their colourful eye shadow, and the way they flirted and held hands with lanky boys in the corridors, and sometimes wondered how her life might have turned out if she'd listened to her mother and chose Saturday morning ballet instead of swimming.
o o o
Winter passed in a blur of hard work and weekend meets, of early nights and early mornings.
Bella chatted to Seth and Edward occasionally, whenever they appeared online at the same time as her, which was rarely, and their conversations were always the same; complaints about homework from Seth, with regular requests for her to help him out since the curriculum in Arizona seemed to be a few weeks ahead of Washington; links to obscure songs and videos and bizarre Wikipedia entries from Edward, usually without explanation or context and no follow-up discussion, which left her confused for days; and succinct updates on her life which she increasingly felt self-conscious about giving because of the sheer repetitiveness.
Bella envied their apparently buoyant social life, as evidenced by the numerous pictures that appeared on Sunday afternoon or Monday night, of parties and games and carefree crowds. By contrast, Bella felt the pictures with her name tagged to them were always the same and never flattering: her face smothered and constricted by a tight swim cap and goggles; or red and scrunched up, barely surfacing from the water as she looked intently at an out-of-sight board for her time to come up; or sleeping, exhausted, on the bus going home after a gruelling away meet.
Seth teased her occasionally about the boys in these pictures—"You like them big, Bells!"— and his implication made her heart drop every time, as did his one time joke that she lived her life semi-naked—"You're like the little mermaid or some shit."
He was so, so far from the truth, and she thought that if he could imagine just how sterile her interaction with those boys were, just how unattractive her skimpy clothes made her feel, he would like her a little bit less.
All she longed for was to wear long, soft clothes, and be just normal, a terrestrial creature, if only for a while.
o o o
The following summer, as she turned sixteen, Bella found out with some relief that the Forks swimming pool was closed for renovations—and so, despite her promise to her coach that she would keep up regular training, she gratefully abandoned that plan, resolving to worry about her physical fitness in September.
Charlie had taken up a new hobby, one that surprised Bella at first but then filled her with delight. His kitchen burst with every and any gadget imaginable, and every night her father experimented with something new and exotic, and occasionally just plain odd.
"Dad…," Bella had asked the first evening, confronted with a cheese soufflé with a side of fennel gratin, "what happened to you?"
"You know," Charlie shrugged, his eyes dancing with self-deprecating humor, "long winter nights and all that. I got bored of sitting by myself eating frozen burgers in front of the TV."
"So now you're not by yourself anymore?" Bella teased him, hopeful.
He ruffled her hair affectionately before setting the dish on the table. "Well, I don't eat frozen burgers anymore, that's for sure."
They ate together every night in a kitchen that was messy and too warm, celebrating culinary successes and laughing at the infrequent failures. Words came easily and freely, and Bella marvelled at the unlikely avenue on which her father had found his way back to her.
o o o
The phone had rung on her first evening in Forks, and Charlie had not picked up.
"It's for you Bells".
"How do you know?" she asked as she ran to pick up.
"I know." And of course he was right.
Although she was nostalgic of the days when the boys used to show up at the top of her driveway within hours of her arriving, Bella was excited to be close to her friends again, thrilled to hear their voices and soon see them in person.
"Yo Bells!" Seth's yelled in the telephone. "Whassup, dude?"
Bella laughed.
"I didn't know you'd joined a gang."
She heard Edward snicker in the background.
"Am I on speaker?" she asked, wondering what her voice sounded like, amplified, at the other end. "Hi Edward!"
"Hey." His voice was low, a bit distant. She imagined them in their room and longed to be there with them.
"Listen up," Seth again, urgent, insistent, "mom is teaching us how to drive! Wanna join in?"
Bella smiled. She had hoped to get some lessons from Charlie, but this was so much better.
"Sure!"
"'Kay then. We'll pick you up tomorrow at ten. Be there! Night Bells!"
She heard him scramble away, whistling something, then the door open and close behind him.
"Night Bella." Edward's voice was the last she heard before the line went dead.
o o o
As promised, Esme and the boys were outside her house the next morning, honking enthusiastically, the old Volvo with scratched sides and a dented fender back into service. Bella burst out of the house with a wide grin, jumping down the steps, and fell into Esme's embrace gratefully. Edward was at the wheel, and he smiled at her from under his long hair. Seth slid in the back next to her, bumping a fist on her shoulder playfully.
And just like that they were gone, a daily routine settling easily, marked by morning lessons, noisy lunches at the Cullens', long afternoons of wandering around and talking about nothing.
o o o
Towards the end of the summer, Bella thought, for a few days, that she might be in love with Edward. He was, after all, everything a girl should dream of: tall, handsome, moody.
He was familiar enough not to be threatening, yet had developed, over the years, an aura of mystery that his twin brother lacked. He wore strange, odd-looking clothes—a pair of Carlisle's old jeans, a sweater in a weird brown color he'd found in a vintage shop in Seattle the previous spring. He listened to the coolest music. She didn't know any other teenager who knew Joy Division (Hell, she hadn't even known who Joy Division was before Google had enlightened her.), and he'd let his hair grow to a messy, unflattering length that marked him out as a willing outcast.
It was so easy to talk to Seth, to banter loosely and tease him about his girlfriends, real or imaginary, and to be teased back and giggle and hit him and just hang out. But Edward always kept himself a bit apart from them, his guitar never out of sight, his fingers constantly trying out tunes and melodies or scribbling lyrics on the palm of his left hand.
Edward would look at them and say nothing, his gaze inscrutable, his hands deep in his pockets; and in those moments Bella felt anxious and insecure about their friendship and wondered whether it meant that it was not a friendship at all, but something deeper and murkier.
In her clearer moments, alone at night in her childhood purple room, while she fought to identify and address the strange stirrings deep within her, as her body seemed to vibrate with an intense, unknown energy that had no focus point and no way to spend itself, Bella knew that, more than anything, she wanted to love Edward.
She wanted to love.
She wanted love.
She did not dare ask herself the question of whether or not what she felt for Edward was indeed love.
It was Seth who gave her the answer one Sunday afternoon as they were playing cards in their room, and his unfailing cheerfulness kept meeting with obstinate silence from both his brooding brother and his scowling friend.
"Dudes, you two are just the same."
Bella and Edward's heads had snapped back to him, a mirroring puzzled look on their faces.
"I mean, look at you. Edward is basically the dude version of Bella, right? You're both so quiet and shit. So reserved. Like you don't want or need anyone else to know what's going on in your heads."
It was like an epiphany, and Seth felt inspired to continue his unusually eloquent monologue.
"Okay, so you...," he pointed at Bella, "are all sporty and no-nonsense, while he...," Seth kicked his brother's leg," is Mr. Emo rock star. But apart from that, you could be fucking twins."
Then he got up, laughing at his unintended joke, unaware of the sudden realization he had inspired in Bella. She saw then that deep down she and Edward were more soul-siblings than soulmates. Her attraction to him was purely rational, purely intellectual. She wanted to be in love with him, which really was only a poor substitute for the real thing.
A pang of loss accompanied her realization.
o o o
Jasper had been home briefly at the beginning of the summer, just before Bella's arrival. He only had a week's break between the end of college and the beginning of law school—an accelerated, two year degree, one of the few in the country, suggested by one of the partners at the law firm where he'd kept working through the winter. They had agreed to partial tuition reimbursement, which was almost unheard of for the small, aggressively ambitious firm.
"Come on, Cullen. What are you waiting for?" It was so rare for James to find an intern worthy of his attention, of his consideration, and now Jasper's hesitation annoyed him. "Why waste three years when you can be on your way in two? You know you have a job here the moment you graduate. You were born to be a lawyer."
Jasper finally accepted the offer as if it had, indeed, been his predetermined destiny. Nothing happened by chance, after all. This was his opportunity, and he was going to take it.
o o o
"So soon?" his father had asked on hearing the news. "Are you sure? Why not try something else first, just to see? Law school will still be there in a year's time."
If James's pushiness had given him pause for thought, Carlisle's caution, which he perceived as a lack of faith, a desire to hold him back, irritated him for the opposite reason.
"Dad. I'm sure. And I've got funding. So…" He'd let the sentence trail, hating that he felt defensive about something he should have every right to feel proud of.
It was perhaps because of this strangely vulnerable state that he hadn't been able to resist his mother's plea that he come to Forks for just a few days.
"Come home, to rest. Let me spoil you a bit." Esme's voice had been soft and warm, yet strangely, irresistibly commanding.
The few days he spent in Forks were long enough to confuse and worry his parents - to alarm them at the new hardness in his words and at the way he seemed so withdrawn and aloof; yet not long enough to give them a glimpse into what the reason might be. He reassured them that all was good—that yes, he was still sure, that he was doing well and enjoying it. Yes, California was the place for him. No, there were no problems. All was good.
When Esme had asked him, hesitantly, timidly, whether he had met someone special, Jasper had shrugged, his body going tense, then limp, as if briefly electrified. Esme had thought she'd been on to something and had waited for her son to open up to her—she was ready; she was willing; she would listen to all his troubles.
But Jasper had simply turned towards her and smiled - a rare glimpse into his softer, untarnished self, his blue eyes full of an almost forgotten childish affection.
"Come on Mom, you know there can never be anyone else. I'm a mama's boy through and through."
o o o
Carlisle went to bed early that night, and the twins were out at some party, so he found himself alone with Esme. It had been years since they'd been alone together, and it was surprisingly difficult for both of them. Esme sensed his discomfort, but she felt out of her depth when trying to soothe her adult son, not quite grasping what it was that had made him grow so distant, almost cold, so unlike the enthusiastic and shy seventeen year old she remembered. It felt to her that all these years of college and hard work had only served to make him wearier, his vitality withering away as the list of his achievements grew more and more impressive.
As she looked at him now, an aura of dissatisfaction tainted his beautiful face, and her heart ached at her incapacity to reach out to him.
"Shall we watch a movie, darling?" she suggested, gently.
Jasper shrugged.
"Sure, why not."
"Angela lent me this amazing Chinese movie, you know the kind your dad refuses to watch because they're too arty-farty" Esme said, as she switched on the TV.
"Whatever, Mom.' Then, because she looked slightly hurt by his dismissive tone, "Art house Chinese movie sounds great."
They sat in silence on the couch as impossibly sensual images of a couple's doomed love affair flickered on the screen-a man and a woman living in the same house, strangers, their paths repeatedly crossing in smoky alleys and dark corridors. Melancholy music punctuated and a growing, tangible attraction that was never consummated, and yet seemed to consume them entirely.
Jasper soon became aware of his mother crying softly besides him and held out his hand without thinking; she grabbed it gratefully and held it tight, willing her touch to melt the ice that seemed to have enveloped her son's heart, intuiting that a fiery storm was raging in his head and soul, awakened by the story he'd just watched.
The moment of intimacy dissolved with the closing credit, and Jasper stood up, kissed her lightly on the cheek and walked out of the room.
"I'm going to bed. Good night."
o o o
For how to tell his mother the truth? How to explain to her that yes, yes, there was someone, and she was special, but not in the way she expected—not in a way that could ever be shared?
Maria had turned his world upside down, from the very first time he had seen her, just weeks before-more beautiful and exotic than anyone before her, tall, sinewy and regal, exuding charisma and self-confidence. Hesitant at first, he had found the nerve to speak to her at the end of a work-related function in a swanky downtown bar only thanks to a large dose of Dutch courage. It wasn't until she was alone that he'd made his way to her, sitting down at her table with a confidence that cost him every ounce of self-belief.
He had been looking at her from a distance for hours.
"May I?" His voice had been low and steady as he slid himself on the red sofa next to her, and she had turned her head, resting her cheek on a slender, beautiful wrist, red manicured nails framing her high cheekbones. Her eyebrow had arched, daring him to expose himself.
She was alone that night, and they'd got talking, and nothing more at first. Talk, talk, talk—she seemed never to want to stop. She had an opinion about everything: art, history, current affairs. Jasper had never met anyone like her, so outspoken and fearless, her accent betraying her foreign origins, her choice of words confirming her intelligence and top-class education.
He nodded, mesmerized by her voice and her smell and the way she came closer and closer, her hair falling in front of her face, shielding her, shielding them from the rest of the world.
He had been surprised and flattered when, at the end of that evening, after the bar had emptied around them and they found themselves surrounded by vacant chairs and abandoned glasses, she'd asked him for his number and told him she'd be in touch.
They had met again-in different, smaller bars in neighbourhoods he'd never set foot in-late at night on odd weekday evenings of her choice. Jasper had managed to catch snippets of her life—her age, somewhere past thirty; her profession, something to do with money and art; her relationship status, not completely unencumbered.
His days in Forks had been almost entirely consumed by thoughts of Maria, of how to get in touch, of when he would see her again, of why she didn't pick up her phone, why she wouldn't give him an email address, why she never called him back.
The distance his parents had witnessed was not imaginary, his restlessness profound and uncontainable.
Back in California, he called Maria for days—her cell phone always switched off, the automated message driving him insane, the absence of voicemail beyond the limits of what he thought he could endure.
He had given up hope of ever seeing her again, wondering if she'd been real at all, resigned that she had been just an early-summer night's dream, when his phone rang a little after one in the morning on a Wednesday night.
"Miss me, cowboy?" Her voice was sultry and smoky, and Jasper groaned under his breath, desire shooting through him like a painful bolt of electricity.
"Fuck. Maria. Where have you been?"
"Where do you live? Gimme your address," she demanded, cutting preliminaries, commanding and so decisive all of a sudden.
She appeared at his door thirty minutes later, her skin more tanned than he remembered it, her hair shorter, framing her face in soft glossy waves; smelling of expensive perfume and cigarettes.
He let her in, willing the trembling in his hands to subside.
"I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of being good," she whispered in his ear as she pushed him against the wall and pressed her body against him, making him shiver and stiffen.
"Let's be bad. Let's be really, really bad."
Jasper had tried to kiss her then, and she laughed, pushing him away, biting his neck in an almost painful way as she deflected him. He touched her everywhere, clumsily, desperately. She pushed him on the sofa and didn't even bother removing her clothes before climbing onto him, rubbing herself all over his groin; her skirt rode up and Jasper gasped, finding her naked underneath.
She laughed, a throaty laugh that left him breathless.
"Panties are for little girls, don't you think? And I ain't no little girl. So fuck me hard, cowboy, don't hold back."
Jasper felt a blind rage course through him at her taunting words, and he pulled his pants down angrily, sliding into her almost violently, willing to hurt her, but finding no resistance in her wet, wanting heat. He thrust as hard as he could, and she rode him wildly, hungrily, stealing an orgasm from him before he could even understand what was happening.
After it was all done, she stood and went to the bathroom to clean herself up. Jasper lay spent on the sofa, sweaty, an arm against his eyes, disorientated and empty, finding none of the triumph he thought he would feel, confused at the sense of shame and guilt that had descended over him.
When Maria re-emerged, she kissed him briefly on the lips before heading to the door.
"That was lovely. Let's do it again."
She was gone before he could reply, the loud purring of her expensive car resonating on the quiet street.
o o o
They did it again. Sporadically at first, then more frequently, then again only once in a while-Maria's calls dictating the rhyme and reason of their meetings. Sometimes they would fuck quickly, standing up in his hallway, or on his sofa, or in her car once or twice. But other times she'd stay behind after they'd made love in his bed and kept him awake with long rants on politics and female oppression and how it was all, inexorably, turning to shit.
Jasper had no idea what she was talking about. No idea whatsoever as to what they were doing together. No idea as to what his feelings were-lust, certainly, but he couldn't believe it could be so all consuming, so debilitating; possessiveness, perhaps, towards a woman who was so hell bent on giving away nothing of herself; jealousy, for sure, since there was almost certainly someone else, somewhere, in the bright light of day, who called her his own and laid claims to her body and soul; but sometimes, sometimes he wondered whether there was more.
Increasingly isolated, through the following fall and winter, incapable of holding on to friendships or relationships outside his all consuming obsession for Maria, Jasper wondered whether this hurt, this pain, this constant humiliating defeat against his self-control and dignity was what people called love.
Was he in love with Maria? Was this it? Was this heartache? Did she feel anything for him, outside her hunger for his body?
Jasper had no idea. Incapable of discussing his relationship with anyone—"You better not tell your friends about me, I'm not your girlfriend"-—he tortured himself with questions he didn't really want to find an answer to.
There was nothing romantic about what they did together—no dinners, no dates, no movies, no weekends away.
No declarations of loyalty, or devotion, or even friendship.
Sometimes she'd be with him for only minutes, before her phone—her damned, hated phone—pulled her away and back towards her life, her real life, where he didn't belong.
But sometimes he caught her staring, late at night, after he had dozed off, and when she saw he was awake, she gave him the gentlest of kisses and whispered foreign words in his hair: "Jasper... que guapo... cariño..." in a voice that was tinged with regret and nostalgia and a sweetness so alien it made him shiver and hope despite himself.
o o o
A/N: Thanks to Sadtomato for allowing me to use her brilliant line about what Rob would tweet if he had an account.
Thank you all for your patience in waiting for this update. And for reading. And for leaving me lovely reviews that I then feel terribly guilty about because I never manage to reply :(
I feel a bit pretentious doing recs in my A/N, but I have read a few very good stories recently, so if you are interested, just pm me/ review and I'll hit you with some suggestions... deal?
