Alice was not… Alice.
When Carlisle told us about the accident – he'd come home hours after he was supposed to – I was surprised to feel the cold lump in my chest thump with pain. Why I should have such a reaction, I wasn't sure, but there it was.
At school, I was flooded with the strength of the student body's immense and multiplied reaction to her plight. Sympathy. Pity. Worry. Confusion. Curiosity and fear. The shock of the wave made me stumbled on the pavement – an action that received strange looks from my siblings.
And then I felt Alice. So stressed and sad and frightened like a caged animal stolen away from her solace and locked behind steel bars simply to be gawked at by obnoxious twelve year olds and prodding toddlers. The temptation was so fresh and striking to take that pain away from her it took a solid kick from Edward and Emmet to keep my business where it belonged.
"It's life," Edward had said. "Bad things are always going to happen. Let her learn how to deal with them now rather than later."
Strangely, Bella was as uncomfortable as I, mentioning her English period where she sat next to the girl and the terse conversation that had passed. Constantly, we found our eyes drifting over to look at the crowded table where buried within was Alice – bald under her black knit and red with embarrassment.
My throat burned in reminiscence of her scent. She had been gone so long, I worried if I could stand the smell and not hurt her.
That worry plastered to the forefront of my mind when Mr. Banner gave me the task of educating Alice in all she had missed so far. And though, my throat clenched, the fires roared, I nodded in affirmative and led the girl to the back of the room.
It was strange. Her sorrow hung like a curtain, hiding the radiance she had so recently embraced. And when the emotion began piling so high I could see the evidence of emerging tears, I threw out all the tranquility I could to stop it. Why? I couldn't be sure. All I knew was I didn't regret it.
Even stranger, I couldn't feel it – the raging need to suck her dry. It was there but almost muffled somehow. It was as if I had been so concerned for her that I could not think of myself and my own pain. Instead, it was replaced by her own.
Now, long after school hours were gone, I lay in my room and mulled over my response. Because I was not near, Alice would have begun to feel the effects wear off. She would be sad again. And while I debated sprinting to Chief Swan's house – everyone knew where she was staying – Edward's words rang in my mind: it's life; let her learn how to deal with it.
"Jasper?" Bella's inquisitive voice came at the other side of my door. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine."
Esme said from downstairs, "Come down with the family, honey."
I chuckled at her word choice: family. We were in many aspects just that. To the vampire world, we were like humans dressing up in rabbit costumes – ignoring what we really are. Where other vampires had loose, friendly bonds (minus the bonds between mates), this coven decided upon strength and stability in the confines of our stone hearts. Everything we did, it seemed, was to replicate human lives in every way possible.
When I first came upon the Cullens, they had been in the middle of a move between a remote city in Quebec and Sherman, Vermont. Coming from a hostile background, their sincerity refused to wrap around my head. It hadn't made sense. But Carlisle had been willing to take the time to explain his philosophy. And, as I'm sure most vampires have done, I thought it was the most idiotic and unnecessary thing in the world. Now, perhaps, I would amend that thought and say my pride was swelling. All those years of emotional torment and to find the answer was so simple.
Needless to say, I had not stuck around. And a decade later, when it seemed the world was about to crush me between its forefingers, I had made a choice. And that choice changed the course of my existence.
Down in the living room, Esme and Carlisle were snuggled up in the love seat. My 'mother' beamed a beautiful smile when she saw no hint of depression lingering in my expression. Emmet grinned with amusement when I sat near Bella and Edward on the carpet rather than on the other end of his and Rosalie's tangled legs sprawled out on the couch.
The living room was thick with an array of happy emotions. My family was basking in some quality time, arms tight around their respective mates.
I was happy for them – any way to ease the ache of eternity was welcomed. But it was times like now where a pang hit me. I had none of that – no one could ever love such a monster as I. And though my 'sisters' and 'mother' have tried their hardest to persuade me otherwise, I know it's true. With the things I've done, it would be a curse to love me.
Edward shifted around Bella to more fully see me, saying, "I saw what happened during Biology. Care to explain?"
You're bringing that up now?
"Yes, it's a situation that could possibly hurt us all."
Rosalie jerked upright, pushing Emmet's arms away. "What did you do?"
"Nothing," I assured her.
Edward rolled his eyes. "I would come outright and say it, but I don't understand it either."
"Understand what?" Rosalie nearly growled.
Emmet pulled her back against his chest. He murmured soft words, asking for patience. If it had been anyone but Emmet, my sister would have hurled him across the room.
"He helped the Brandon girl today," Edward confessed.
Bella smiled. "Good. I was worried about her."
Edward gaped. "Bella? This isn't a good thing. He's attracted to her blood!"
"Like we aren't to every mortal we come across." His mate sighed.
Our 'mother' and 'father' stayed silent through the prologue, watching me with wary golden eyes. Confusion perfumed them, but they waited for me to fully explain.
Edward shook his head. "No, love, it's more than that. He had to leave us that entire month because of it."
"I'm not going to leave again."
"I don't want to leave at all!" Rosalie exclaimed. "Do you not hear what Edward is telling you, Jasper? If you become anymore associated with that girl, we will all have to pay when you slip up."
"Rose, baby, we don't know that," Emmet attempted to say, his eyes throwing me sympathy.
But Rosalie wasn't having that. "You're right. We don't know. That makes it all the more likely he will kill the girl."
"Let's be reasonable." The sound of Carlisle's even, calm voice paused my sister's tantrum and silently demanded the attention of our ears. "We all take a risk in living the way we do – going to school, living within proximity, interacting – but we do it together. Jasper won't hurt the Brandon girl because he has us to help him through it."
Swept aside, negativity replaced the tranquility, and I found myself floating in its wreckage. Rosalie shot daggers at me, Emmet the only thing holding her back from tackling me. There was a steeled resolve hammered into the rocks of her eyes. She would fight to have her way.
Bella leaned away from Edward to put a smooth hand on my shoulder. "Carlisle is right; we're a family. We'll help you."
Edward's frown twisted up into a sneer. "Help with what? We shouldn't intervene. The girl is hardly the first to loose her parents at a young age, even at this high school. Jasper's been confronted with depressed teenagers mulling after an abusive morning, enduring rude and obtrusive others, and lagging behind during court disputes – he's never had the urge to fix their emotions then. Why now?"
At this, Esme sat up straighter. "This girl is different?"
I suppressed a sigh. "No, Esme. She's not… special."
"Then why'd you bother?" Rosalie snapped.
I shrugged. "Her pain was crippling. I couldn't help it."
"In any case," Bella began – her voice engulfing Edward's as he tried to comment, "It was just one instance. Are we really getting so worked up over that?"
"Better to be prepared than be sorry," Rosalie muttered into Emmet's embrace.
While the others attempted to settle their alarm and anger to a simmer, Rosalie's words replayed in my mind, and I wondered: why? Edward was right; I had always ignored the others inflicted with depression. Was Esme so insightful? Was Alice… special? My mother had asked this with such hope and wonder…; I knew she wished it with all her immortal heart.
But she had to be wrong.
Alice was human through and through. Where was place for me in her life that spanned a sixty-forth of a millimeter in comparison to my infinite kilometers? There was none. It was unnatural. And, putting aside all the Volturi's laws and basic commonsense, there was no 'special' for me; I had no mate the way Edward, Carlisle, and Emmet had theirs. I was alone, and that was the price I paid for the life I'd lived. My love was gone, taken by a murderous woman who had stopped at nothing to twist my will into matching hers.
I swallowed back the fiery chords in my throat and said, "If it worries you for me to have interaction with the human, then I will respect your concerns and stay away from the girl."
Bella frowned. "Don't worry about us, Jasper. You've done nothing wrong." Deep in the weaves of her voice, I heard the timbre of remembrance – of a time when she wished she could have felt numb to the world.
The room fell silent. It wasn't long, however, until Rosaline's festering emotions got the better of her, and she escaped from the room, Emmet trailing behind. Carlisle and Esme offered comforting smiles and left as well, claiming there was some work that needed to be done down at the hospital.
Bella and Edward stayed, frozen in the same position: wrapped in each other's arms.
Edward squeezed her hand. "Bella, love, we have to keep in mind what is best for the family as a whole. Jasper is not near as practiced as the rest of us. And I have seen the girl's mind: the more he interacts with her – even on lofty, friendly terms –the more she will crave to have him open up to her. It's her social nature. She'll want to figure him out."
"Jasper could make her feel the opposite."
"But will he?"
I fought back a growl. "I am right here and can speak for myself."
The couple frowned at me – a little child caught playing in the street. They emitted a mesh of negative and positive pity that crawled slowly down my stone back.
I leveled with my brother, conveying a flow of understanding that softened the crook of his brow. "Edward, I know what path you're leading to, but I assure you this isn't the same situation."
But Edward tried to fight the synthetic emotion. "She's human, Jasper. She has a whole life ahead of her that she deserves to experience. You may not mean to now, but who can say what the future will bring?"
Bella stiffened suddenly, realization punching her in the gut. She turned to her mate with a look of confusion and hurt. "How dare you." She pushed away from him and jumped to her feet. "Do you truly regret it?" If vampires could cry, tears would be welling up in her big, golden eyes. "Do you wish to change it?" Her voice cracked like a nutshell hurtling towards the barren earth.
Edward sighed. "Bella…."
"Don't Bella me!" And without another word, she fled from the house. By the door, one of Esme's vases tried to follow her and wobbled over the edge. It shattered, the high pitched sound resonating through the air like a ghost in her wake.
Pain tumbled down Edward's expression – usually so collected and curtained in a frame of pride and arrogance. He pressed his face into his palms and groaned.
"Perhaps you should have explained everything to her," I said. Though I felt a smidge of contempt for playing the situation the way I had, I still felt guilty for muckraking the sensitive topic.
Edward's voice became low – dark in his address to me. "As well you should." He looked up, brows pulled sharply together over topaz eyes that glinted with anger. His mouth was twisted in a sneer, lips pulled back far enough to reveal the whites of his back teeth. "Whether or not I've said anything to her is far from your business, Jasper. I was trying to give you a fair warning. If you get too involved with the Brandon girl, you will live to regret it."
A/N: Sorry for the slow pace. You must be thinking, "Hey, it's been eleven chapters and Alice and Jasper have only had one real conversation – kinda. I made some tweaks to the plot to fix the lack of romance. Really, it's my fav genre to write believe it or not, lol. The fun thing about writing this is I'm taking canon things and twisting them in some different light (i.e. the car crash in chpt. Something)
Motivation button… I would love anyone who reviewed this :-)
