Jasper's POV cont.

The second we heard the shower running, the yelling started.

Alice looked more vicious than I'd ever seen her before. She jumped in front of Edward and shook her finger at him. "Did you tell Bella you were tired of pretending to be human? How could you tell her you didn't love her? I knew there was a reason you didn't want us to say good-bye to her or for me to see her future, but Edward, how could you do that to her?"

Fury flashed in his black eyes. "I was trying to protect her from your husband! Trying to keep her safe! Keep her human! A concept which apparently is lost on all of you."

"Alice," Carlisle said. "Edward had his reasons for leaving. The decisions he makes are not yours, they are his. And as his, he does not have to explain them to you. We've already had this discussion at length; must we go through it again?"

"When his decisions cause my sister to think I abandoned her, yes! I told you, I told all of you what would happen if we left, but none of you would listen!"

"Edward's right, Alice. This is Jasper's fault. If he'd just stayed with us, none of this would be happening in the first place!" Emmett said.

"I've already apologized for what I've done! I don't know what else I can do. I only wanted to help her, that's why I went to check on her in the first place."

"I told you to stay away from her! I specifically told you to stay away from her, Jasper. I promised her a clean break. I promised her it would be like we never existed. Why did you insist on going back? You know how little control you have! How could you have risked it? How could you be so stupid? You could have killed her!" Edward roared, jumping on me causing the bed to knock into the wall and the frame of the house to shake.

I struggled to push him off of me. "Damn it, Edward. I know I could have killed her. Don't you think I know that? I made a mistake."

Emmett grabbed one of his arms and pulled him back.

"Edward, outside now!" Carlisle commanded, his normally smooth face contorted with anger.

"No! I won't leave this house until he does. I don't want him near Bella."

"That is not your choice, Edward. Now go outside peacefully, or I'll allow Emmett to take you out by force."

I took a few deep breaths and quickly calmed the room.

"I've had quite enough arguing for one day," Esme said in an unusually harsh voice. "Jasper has already apologized. There's nothing more he can do. Edward, do as your father said and go outside until you can conduct yourself like the gentleman I know you are. Emmett, go with him. Alice, why don't you come with me and let's see if we can get the guest room ready for Bella? When she's finished, we will all go out and hunt, but I do not want to hear one more raised voice. Do I make myself clear? That girl is going through enough without being scared to death by you."

Edward glared at me once more and stalked out of the room. He slammed the front door so hard; the entire house seemed to shake.

"Drama queen," Emmett muttered. He rolled his eyes and followed Edward outside. Esme and Alice went upstairs to see about the room, leaving Carlisle and I alone.

I could not stay still; I felt like a caged animal stuck in this room when every instinct in my body was telling me to go to her, but how could I? I saw the way she reacted when she saw my red eyes. If that wasn't enough, I felt her fear. She was terrified of me. But she had allowed me to comfort her, and she had allowed me to pull her in my arms, allowed me to touch her. Had Edward not attempted to touch her; she may still be in my arms. I wanted her to be. More than I'd ever wanted anything else. It felt so right. I felt so complete when she was near me.

"Don't worry," Carlisle said, breaking into my inner turmoil. "All is not lost yet."

I sighed. "It seems like it is. You saw how she reacted to my presence."

"Yes, I did. She pulled away from every single person in this room but you. You will have to be patient, son. She'll need time to adjust. She'll come to you when she is ready, I'm sure."

"I hope so," I said, running my hands through my hair. "I just don't see how she can forgive me. After all I've done, all I've taken from her, how can she?"

Carlisle patted my shoulder before heading to the door. "It is in her nature to be forgiving, Jasper. In September, she forgave you immediately, explicitly, and without any hesitation. I do not for see this being any different. Come on, let's head downstairs and wait. You should probably keep a wide berth from Edward. You know this is going to be a difficult time for him. He may have left, but he did it for the right reasons. He really does love her, but he is young in so many ways. He did what he did because he truly felt he was doing the right thing. There was no malice in his decision, only love."

I nodded and followed Carlisle downstairs. He was right. I knew Edward loved her, even now, his love – and anguish – was suffocating. It made what I did even worse. He called himself selfish, a monster. But I wasn't any better! I was hurting every single person in my family – in my life. Was there no end to the lengths I was willing to go to obtain what I wanted?

A hand struck me on the back of my head and I spun around to discover Rosalie standing behind me with a scowl on her usually beautiful face.

"Could you please contain your emotions? It's bad enough to have Edward throw his little pity parties, but your pity parties effect everyone, so if you don't mind; please try to have a bit of self-control – as hard as that may be."

"Well, I'm so sorry my emotional distress is inconveniencing you, Rosalie. God forbid, I think of myself instead of you. I mean, how selfish can I be?" I spat out.

"You don't want me to answer that, my darling brother. The result of your selfishness is upstairs right now sobbing because of you, and all you are doing is sitting around feeling sorry for yourself. If you love her as much as you claim, why are you down here when she is up there?"

I wanted to make some biting remark back to her, but she was right. She was absolutely right, so instead I headed for the stairs. I did love her, and I wanted her to know that. Or at the very least comfort her as I had before.

"She's in my bedroom," Rosalie said softly. "Do not hurt her, or the next time I put my hands on you, I'll be pulling off a piece of you."

I walked quickly to her bedroom, but the door was ajar and no Bella could be seen in either her room or her bathroom.

"Bella?" I called, coming back into the hallway

I walked down the hall to mine and Alice's room and found her in my bed.

"Can I come in?" I asked her. Her back was towards me, facing the wall, her dark hair still wet from the shower.

She shrugged. "It's your room," she reminded me. "So, I guess you can come in if you want."

I walked in and sat on the edge of the bed. She was less than a foot in front of me, but no words would come to me. What should I say to her? What could I say to her?

"Why were you in my room that night, Jasper?" she asked as if it was the easiest question in the world to answer. Like she was asking me if it was Monday.

"It's… complicated," I started. She shot up, the anger rolling off of her in waves.
"It's complicated?" she repeated. "I'm sure I can handle it now that I am a vampire. That's part of the change right? Superior brain capacity?"

"Bella, that's not what I meant at all," I said and ran my fingers through my hair. "It's just… if I tell you this. You're not going to like it."

"You're right, I might not. But I deserve to know! I deserve to have the opportunity to like or dislike something. I'm not as incapable as you or your family would like to believe. I don't need anyone making my decisions for me, and I don't need anyone deciding what's best for me! Your brother has already done enough of that for everyone!" she took a shaky breath. "You owe me this, Jasper. So, please, just tell me why you were in my room that night? Why?"

"You're right. I do owe you that and so much more – more than I can probably ever repay – and I promise I will give you the answers you deserve," I said but she cut me off.

"Don't promise me anything," she whispered.

I sighed and cursed Edward mentally. How could he put such doubt in her head? "I will tell you, Bella. That is a promise I will keep, but let's hunt first. Then, we can go for a walk and talk away from everyone else."

"Fine," she muttered. "Let's go make this whole vampire thing official."

I chuckled lightly, glad that she seemed to be taking it a bit better than earlier. "Yeah, well, the initiation ceremony is tomorrow. Think you can handle it?"

"Depends on what it entails. I'm sure I'm already more than qualified," she quipped. "I am friends with a pack of werewolves and a coven of vampires… don't know what else I need to do!"

Bella's POV

I watched Jasper suspiciously as we walked downstairs and outside. Something was going on, but he wasn't telling me. I wanted desperately to just curl into a ball and forget everything and everyone. To pretend this day had never happened. But I couldn't. As much as I'd tried to deny it and ignore it, I knew I had to hunt. It would be easier to hide, though, than to deal with the aftermath of what I can only explain as a severe lack of judgment.

Once we arrived outside, I noticed how scattered everyone was. Emmett and Rosalie were standing together. Carlisle was standing with Edward. Esme was standing with Alice. An entire family divided. And I was the reason for it.

Jasper turned towards me with a ferocious look on his face. "Don't you dare feel guilty. You have done nothing wrong. If this family is falling apart, it is my doing. Not yours."

I nodded and watched as six pairs of eyes stared at me.

Jasper sighed. "I'm sorry. It's just I don't want you to feel guilty," he said grabbing my hand.

"Let's just get this over with," I muttered and walked into the woods ahead of everyone else. Jasper walked beside me, and for the first time I realized exactly how fast I was walking. Much faster than a human could walk. Every few seconds I would look at him out of the corner of my eye only to find him looking away as I looked at him. He was clearly nervous, but I had no idea why.

Hunting was… well, I don't think there are any words to really describe it properly. I never understood what Edward meant before, but now I can totally see what he never wanted me to watch him. Hunting basically consisted of the family leading me in the vicinity of animals and once I caught the scent of the deer, I was completely lost. Not lost in the technical sense, but lost in that the only thing on my mind was blood. Apparently my squeamish nature to blood did not carry over; by the time I was back to normal, I had drained three deer and was nearly as thirsty as I had been to start out with. I was so furious that the burning was still there I wanted to knock over a tree, and probably would have if Jasper hadn't calmed me down. After my second emotional outburst of the day, everyone but Jasper and I headed back to the house.

I was "hiding" behind a tree when Jasper crouched down next to me.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked.

Talk about what? How I thoughtlessly killed three deer? How I wanted to kill more? How I felt out of control? How rude I was being to everyone? "Not particularly."

"Everyone's first time hunting goes like that, Bella."

"I don't really want to talk about it, Jasper. In fact, I want to forget it happened, and the fact that it's going to happen over and over again."

We sat there in silence for several minutes. I looked into the woods fascinated by my new vision. It really was brilliant. This had to be what Dorothy felt like when she arrived in Oz. The longer the silence went on, the guiltier I felt. Something told me this was not my guilt, but Jasper's. I looked over at him. He was staring at the ground, a piece of his hair in his face. I reached over and brushed it away.

"It was just as much my fault as it was yours, Jasper."

He opened his mouth to speak, but I held up my hand and continued to speak. "You warned me not to get closer, but I didn't listen. It's not like I didn't know the risk I was taking. I did. Edward told me countless times, but I just didn't care."

He sighed. "But it was my weakness, my inability to stay away from you that caused all of that. You would have never had to make the decision if not for me."

"Which brings me back to my original question. Why were you in my room that night?"

He sighed again and ran his fingers through his blonde hair. "Bella, the other night when I came through your window, it wasn't the first time."

I did not expect that. "Really?" I asked.

"No," he said. "I've been watching after you since September."

Whoa. Definitely didn't see that coming. "Why?" I asked.

"At first, it was because I felt guilty for what happened, for not having enough self-control, for causing Edward to leave you. I wanted to do what I could to help you."

I sighed and pulled him closer. "Jasper, don't feel guilty for Edward leaving. I

don't blame you for that and you shouldn't blame yourself. Edward left because he doesn't love me anymore, not because of that. I forgave you a long time ago. Wait, I thought you went away to college – to Dartmouth."

"I don't deserve your forgiveness, but I'll take it. As for college, I decided to wait a year – to make sure you were all right."

My mouth gaped open. "You… put off college to watch over me because you felt guilty for Edward's stupidity?"

He sighed. "At first, but then… Bella, somewhere along the line…" he trailed off.

His amber eyes looked at me with such intensity it took my breath away.

"Bella," he started again, pushing my hair away from my face and pressing his lips gently to mine. "I think – no, I'm empathic, so I know – I'm in love with you."