AUTHOR'S NOTE: Yet another unexpected turn in the story! I'd say more but, well, it's just much more fun to read for yourselves. Thanks so much for the reviews, the love, and the people who come back for each and every chapter I churn out. Y'all are more than appreciated.
Stephenie Meyer's the genius, I'm just taking responsibility for original characters.
CHAPTER SONG: BURNIN' BRIDGES - JESSIE JAMES
"You've showed me so many things, but the best would be never ever roll over. Stand up for what I believe and eventually everyone will come back around. I ain't burnin' bridges, I'm trying to mend them. I apologize if I ever hurt your feelings. Got my own convictions and I've got to live them. I ain't burnin' bridges, that ain't my intentions. Always three sides to every story. There's yours and there's mine but we've been ignoring the truth it hides behind a clear disguise."
Chapter Ten:
There were only two days left of Christmas vacation and I was officially bored. For the first time in a very long time, I had absolutely no idea what to do with myself.
Everyone had gone out for a final hurrah before we all went our seperate ways again. Rosalie and Emmett had flights scheduled for the coming morning. They had to get back quickly if they wanted to be settled in time for their classes to resume. Jasper and his his girlfriend weren't leaving until the very last day of break, much to my distress.
Trying not to think about either of them, I sighed and tossed the remote I'd unconsciously picked up a few seconds ago back onto the intable beside the couch. I didn't want to watch TV. I didn't want to really do anything. After I came home from work, I just took a shower and changed clothes. That was as far as my thought process went.
As I slowly wandered through the first floor of the house, I remembered a book Carlisle had mentioned earlier in the day and decided to go upstairs and try to find it. He didn't really mind us going into his office, as long as we had an actual reason for being in there.
I liked to think borrowing a book he wanted me to read constituted as a viable reason. So I silently climbed the stairs and turned to the right once I was on the second floor landing. The doc's office door was shut, but not locked. No one was supposed to be in the room while he was gone, but he hadn't started actually locking up until Miranda appeared at Jasper's side. Not like I could really blame him.
I couldn't help staring at his door on my way to Carlisle's office. I had expected to find that door closed too, signaling his absence from the house. But it wasn't. The door was wide open and light spilled out into the otherwise darkened hallway.
Moving closer, I discreetly peeked my head inside and frowned instantly at what I saw. Jasper was alone in his room, staring dejectedly at something in his hands. I couldn't tell what it was from where I stood, but the curiosity was burning too brightly within my head for me to ignore.
Just as I reached the doorway, I overextended my knee and smacked it into the wood doorframe. I swore under my breath and flicked the offending object with my middle finger then froze in shock when Jasper looked up and suddenly met my eyes.
"Sorry." I muttered and started to back away from his open entryway. "I was just going to Carlisle's office for a book. I didn't know you stayed behind."
He nodded and looked back down at the object in his hands. "I just needed a break."
"Oh." I muttered and nodded, feeling rather dumb as I did so. Gesturing behind me, I braced my free hand on the doorway and slid my bare toes back against the carpet. "I'll...leave you alone then."
He didn't move a muscle or say anything until I turned and was almost out of his eyesight. But when he did speak, his choice of words caused my entire body to lock down.
"Do you remember the last night we spent together?"
Of course I remembered. Instantly, tears welled up in my eyes as that long-ago conversation flowed through my head. The night he'd told me that he couldn't wait any longer. I was frustrating him with my inability to open up and he just couldn't do anymore. He'd given up on me, just like I'd figured he would.
"We fought about some pretty stupid stuff." He laughed bitterly and turned his head sideways as I slowly walked into the room. "But I think that last fight was probably our dumbest to date."
"It didn't feel dumb to me at the time." I muttered and instinctively wrapped my arms across my chest. It felt weird to be in his room after such a long time. I glanced around and noticed a few of things I assumed to be Miranda's. Her clothes littered the floor in one corner, her cosmetics strewn out atop his dresser. It all made my stomach want to lurch violently, especially when I saw the indention I assumed to be Miranda's head on the pillow I always used when I slept in here.
"I know it didn't." He sighed and tossed whatever he'd been staring at when I found him, aside. He didn't look at me as he stood and turned his back to me, eyes on the object now laying on his bed. "I tried so hard to keep you with me. It never once occured to me that you wanted to be anywhere but where I was trying to keep you."
"Jasper." I sighed, feeling my heart break in my chest as I moved to the foot of his bed. There were so many memories of this room that I was momentarily speechless. So much had happened within these four walls, memories that I couldn't escape from now that I was here. "I wanted to be with you, I wanted it so badly that I thought of nothing else for a long time. I can't count how many nights I stayed awake, just...dreaming about what it would be like. But I didn't know how to let you stay where you were. My mind couldn't fathom why you wanted me."
"And now?" He asked and I looked up involuntarily at the sound of his voice. It carried the hint of something I hadn't heard in so long. It almost sounded as if he was...hopeful. Like he wanted me to have a specific answer to offer.
"What do you mean?" I asked, shifting uncertainly as he slowly moved closer to me, his hands hanging limply at his sides. Glancing around the room again, my shoulders tensed a little as my eyes met his again. "Jasper, where's Miranda? Why didn't you go with her and the others?"
"She went off on her own." He replied with a shrug of his shoulders. Suddenly, I couldn't believe what I was seeing or hearing. He had to care where his girlfriend had wandered off to. Granted, Forks wasn't large by any means and she didn't have anything to fear. But still! How could he sound so casual when discussing his girlfriend's whereabouts?
"And you needed a break." I repeated, using his words from earlier as he came to a stop beside me. I had no idea why I automatically assumed that Miranda had gone off with the others, or that he had been so willing to sacrifice her to people who didn't really like her all that much.
"You didn't answer my question." He muttered and shifted his weight from one foot to another, his eyes still on the checkered bedspread.
Swallowing thickly, I leaned my head back to look up at the ceiling. A ceiling I'd stared at so many dozen times before. But I'd never had to battle my thoughts or emotions the way I was now. This was my childhood best friend, suddenly wanting to have a deep and meaningful conversation with me. But he was no longer my best friend. He was someone's boyfriend. He belonged to someone who wasn't, and never could be me.
"It doesn't matter." I muttered thickly and turned suddenly to go. Jasper caught me though, his fingers easily forming a manacle around my wrist as he turned me back to face him. I gasped in surprise when my back suddenly collided with the wood of his open door.
"Yes it does!" His voice was so quiet, but filled with such conviction that I was momentarily stunned. I didn't know what to do, or how to react. What could I possibly say? What answer could I give that would satisfy his sudden thirst for revisiting the past?
"Why?!" I sputtered without warning, my body tensing against his as I prepared to jerk my wrist from his grasp. Idly, a dim part of my mind registered which arm he was holding when his fingers brushed over the last scar I'd inflicted on my own body. The night I'd tried to kill myself, only to be thwarfed by the guy standing in front of me. "Why does it matter now? Why, after so much time has passed? You moved on, Jasper. You've got a girlfriend and a whole new life in Seattle now. One that doesn't involve me. So why do you need these answers now? Why are you asking these questions at this point in time?"
"Because I want to know." He responded, his voice still thick with the emotions I'd heard a second ago. "I can't let it go, Baylee. I've tried, God knows I have. But I can't get past it, I can't wrap my head around what happened to us. So I moved on. I tried to block it out and convince myself that it wasn't important. That I needed to stop fixating on it and spending so much time trying to unravel the demise of what we had. Of what we could have had if...."
"If I hadn't been so stubborn." I finished his sentence quietly, without any infection. "I'm the reason we didn't work, Jasper." I sighed, letting my barriers down to the point where I felt completely naked standing in front of him. We'd been physically naked before, yeah. There were at least two other times when I had stood before him, with no clothes to hide my body from his eyes. But that was a cakewalk, nothing compared to the onslight of emotions I now felt. All because he had decided to dredge up the past and unleash it on me.
"I remember that night." I replied, my voice still soft after a few beats of silence. "I was afraid to let you in because I was afraid of you hurting me. I was just a scared little kid, dealing with things that my mind and heart just couldn't contend with. I wasn't strong enough this summer to let you in, to give you what you wanted. I wasn't strong enough to build a relationship with you, even though that's the one thing I've wanted since we were kids. I've never wanted someone the way I wanted you. That never changed or dwindled with time."
"Then why couldn't you just trust me?!" The feeling in his voice was stronger now than ever. "Why couldn't you just trust me when I told you that I wasn't going to hurt you? Why was that so hard for you to believe?"
"Look at me." I whispered then looked down in surprise when he let go of me and took a shaky step back. "Look at how I grew up, Jasper. Even the best intentions can turn into something earth-shattering. I didn't want to put you into that category, I didn't want to lose what we had. But look where we are now! I lost it anyway. We're never going to be able to be what we were, too much has happened. So why dwell on the past? Why agonize over something that's never going to be recaptured the same way again? Jasper, we can't go back."
"You're right." He sighed and looked down at his bare feet. I realized then how he was dressed; jeans with the waistband of his boxers peeking out above the denim and nothing else. I had been so lost in my thoughts that I didn't even notice his state of undress, or how my body was only marignally more adorned than his was. Suddenly the simple tank top and pajama pants I wore didn't conceal me the way I wanted them to. "We can't go back."
I nodded at his words, feeling a weird sense of numbness beginning to spread through my body. But when I looked up and saw the expression marring his features, my heart began to thump violently against my ribcage. I didn't know what to draw from that look, I had no idea what he was thinking or what he was wanting to happen next. Taking an uncertain step toward the door, I was stopped yet again.
Only this time, instead of grabbing my wrist, he lightly placed a hand on my hip. I stopped in surprise and looked up at him, my face naked and vulnerable to him.
"If we can't go back," He whispered and I winced at how thick and strained his voice sounded. "If we can't go back, then why is it that the only thing I can think to do is kiss you?"
My heart began to hammer even more violently within my body, but I couldn't will my frame to make the necessary movements that would remove me from his room. This was a dangerous subject we were encroaching on, it felt like my toes were on an invisible line that would be more than difficult to cross back over once all of this was said and done.
"I don't know what you want me to say." I whispered, feeling more than heartbroken as I watched the changes of his mood.
"I've wanted to do that since the moment I walked back into this house. It hit me so suddenly, when I saw you the first time after months of nothing. It hurt to hear the family talk about you, all the accomplishments and strides you've made since the beginning of the school year. And I wasn't part of that, I had nothing to do with the growths changing you into what you are now. I wasn't here, getting to see it all for myself. I didn't know how I would feel when I saw you again, knowing that we were going to have to interact because of the holiday. But I never, I never thought that I would be swept right back into the flurry of emotions I've carried since the moment I walked into your hospital room in Seattle. I even went back and revisited the hospital you were sent to, just so I could get some sort of perspective. I thought that, by having Miranda here and with me, I wouldn't feel the temptation I feared was waiting for me here."
"Is that why you've been so angry with me?" I muttered and nearly gasped aloud in shock when my mind made the connections I couldn't before now. It all suddenly made sense; his unwillingness to be alone with me, the fierce determination in his eyes not to meet my gaze. He was protecting himself the only way he knew how, by either being downright mean to me, or pretending I didn't exist at all. All so that he could stay safely in the bubble he'd encased himself in. The bubble that was his relationship with his classmate.
I felt him move before my mind registered the changes. I couldn't think, I couldn't even act when Jasper suddenly grabbed me and pulled my body flush against his. The only sound that passed my lips was a squeak of surprise just half a second before his mouth crashed violently onto mine. His arm felt like iron being wound around the small of my back, holding me defenseless against him.
The logical part of my brain told me to fight. This was wrong, we weren't supposed to be having this kind of moment. Even though there was no one else in the house, there was no telling when the others would start trickling in. Miranda wasn't with the rest of our family, so her return was even more unpredictable.
Even with all of that swirling through my head, I couldn't fight Jasper when he pulled me further into his room. I was dimly aware of the sound his door made when he slammed it into the frame then pressed me against it. I couldn't move, held securely between a slab of wood and his chest.
This was wrong. That was the only thing vibrating powerfully through my mind, but yet I found myself kissing him back, pressing my body painfully close to his. There was no distance between us, but yet I wanted to be closer. I wanted our bodies as close as humanly possible right then, the fire-like heat swirling through my body almost too painful to bear.
But I couldn't turn my thoughts off. I couldn't forget how far we'd come for this point to make any semblence of sense. This wasn't right. He didn't belong to me, he wasn't my boyfriend. I couldn't kiss him or make out with him any time I wanted. My body wasn't free to cave into his and do the one thing I'd fought against for almost a year.
The thing that surprised me the most, as Jasper's hands began to roam hungrily over the boundaries of cloth holding my breasts and sides hostage, wasn't his girlfriend. My new series of thoughts had nothing to do with our family, or the damage he was doing to his relationship. A dim part of my mind could have cared less what kind of hurt I inflicted on the tall blonde calling herself Jasper Hale's girlfriend.
No, none of that made me suddenly start to struggle against the powerful hold Jasper held me captive in. I could've cared less about all of that right then. I was getting what my body and heart had craved for years.
The one thought now slamming mercilessly around in my head was a simple word. One connotation that held so much more behind it. As I stood trapped against his bedroom door, with his tongue dueling mine mercilessly for room in my own mouth, I suddenly found myself thinking about a person I didn't want to think about. The same person I'd been fighting for little over a week now.
Damon Spencer was the one that inevitably made me push Jasper away. His breathing was labored, eyes wide and filled with unrequited desire as he stumbled back to look up at me.
"No." I whispered, the simple word feeling like lead being expelled from my mouth. It was all I could think to say right then, with my own chest heaving for needed oxygen. "We can't, Jasper."
"Why not?" He whispered, sounding almost angry as he stepped up to me again. I pushed his arm away when he tried to wind it back around my waist. I didn't know what to tell him, the last thing I wanted to do was hurt him.
But couldn't he see that this was hurting me? What good was it going to do, to follow through with all of this, to have sex in Jasper's bedroom when he was only going to go back to his girlfriend in the morning. I knew he would, and I knew how he would feel with the coming dawn.
He would hate himself for giving in and being with me the way he was supposed to be with his girlfriend. And I would hate myself. I'd never liked people who cheated on others. I didn't understand the whole concept. Why should two people be together when one wanted the gratification of another's body? Wasn't it just simpler to break up and go seperate ways in hopes of finding that happiness that wasn't in the original relationship? Granted, I didn't have very many romantic entanglements to my own name, but I wasn't about to wreck someone else's relationship. No matter how much I detested it, or thought the two involved were bad fits for each other.
Finally catching my breath, I used one hand to rake hair off my forehead while the other stayed in front of my body as a silent guard against any further advancement Jasper tried to make. It hurt to refuse him, to not let myself give in the way I would have in any other instance. But too much had changed. Too much time had passed, and there was someone else to consider in all this. As much as I detested the girl, I didn't want to hurt her in ways similar to my own sources of pain.
Instead of mentioning his girlfriend, instead of reminding him that I wasn't the person he'd chosen to start something with, I went for the most painful thing I could ever say to him. The most painful thing I could ever select to pass my own lips.
"Because you didn't want me."