A/N: Chapter 11!
Thank you to those who read and reviewed, it means a lot. I wasn't sure about this part of the storyline…but it's too late to change it now, so I hope you like it.
Though it's one day early, happy birthday to an amazing friend, idealskeptic. You know if I could, I'd be right there to wish you happy birthday in person.
Disclaimer: If I owned Twilight, I wouldn't be messing around with this website, or putting up with its numerous errors.
Chapter 11 - Proof in Evidence
June 14th 2009
Alice POV
I opened my eyes slowly. My dreams had been filled with Jasper. I pushed away the pillow I'd been clutching and sat up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. Jasper wasn't here, he never had been. It was just a dream; but even my subconscious had thought about getting caught. I'd told him about it…
The truth was I still had to face it all. I'd been caught outside after lights out, and though the punishment wasn't necessarily going to be severe on its own, it was all Esme would need to file my expulsion.
Curling my arms around my legs, I closed my eyes. The fear and anxiety in my stomach was like a constant ache, one I knew wouldn't go away. The girls showed signs of life around me as they began to sit up in bed.
I didn't know what to do as I felt them all turn their gaze onto me. What could I tell them? What could I say? The words could barely form in my throat, and when they questioned me on it, I was unable to articulate the words beyond the five that uttered from my lips.
"I'm going to be expelled…"
The four of them stared at me, not one being able to respond. Until, finally, Jessica hesitantly broke the silence.
"This was what you wanted, though, right?"
I slowly turned to look at her, still not being able to answer. I felt my eyes water, and I closed them, shaking my head. I had wanted it, for weeks I'd yearned to go home. But now that I'd most certainly gotten my wish, I didn't want it to be granted.
My mattress dipped, and I opened my eyes just in time to see Bella raising her arms to embrace me. I held onto her tightly, pressing my face against her shoulder.
"I'm sorry," she whispered so that only I could hear. From the tone of her voice, I could tell that she was crying, too.
I didn't accompany them down to breakfast. The thought of eating something turned my stomach. I couldn't possibly eat, not when I was already full of this sense of impending trepidation.
None of them wanted to leave me; they even offered to skip breakfast, too. But I made them go without me, the thought of them being here when Esme came to find me, and having to watch me walk away was something I didn't want them to see.
My thoughts drifted to Jasper as I walked through the empty corridors. Was he eating his breakfast by now? Was he even awake? He wouldn't know I'd been caught out of bed last night. He was still pleasantly oblivious to it, and maybe he was sitting, waiting for me to show up at his door.
I couldn't bear to think of him, not when I knew I'd be leaving in a couple of days. It hurt to know I wouldn't get to spend more time with him, even if it was only going to be for another month.
I was just walking down a corridor which led towards the changing rooms when I heard someone calling my name. Turning around, I faltered when I saw Kate standing just behind me. She stared at me for a moment, her gaze unwavering.
"Mrs Platt wants to see you in her office, immediately," she told me, the tone in her voice as clipped as it had been ever since the pictures surfaced. Unlike all the other times, hearing the way she spoke to me didn't amuse me. It just made me feel even worse.
"Okay." I nodded, retracing my steps. As I passed her, I stopped, turning to look at her. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry about the pictures."
She didn't say anything; I didn't expect her to. I kept walking, knowing I had to go to Esme's office. What was the point of putting it off? The inevitable was going to happen, no matter how long I took.
As I walked, it felt as though I was walking to my jail sentence. The dread in my stomach was getting stronger, making me heavy on my feet. When I finally arrived at Esme's office, I took a deep, shuddering breath, before knocking once, twice, and waiting for a response.
When she told me to come in, I opened the door with a shaking hand and stepped inside. She looked up when I closed the door behind me, and for a moment, neither of us said a word as I hovered by the doorway.
"Take a seat, Alice."
Swallowed over the lump in my throat, I stepped further into the room, going to take a seat opposite her.
"We both know why you're in here, don't we?"
As I stared down at my lap, I nodded. She sounded disappointed, and I couldn't meet her eye because of it.
She sighed, moving some papers on her desk. "Why did you do it, Alice? Out of everything, this is the only one I really, just cannot understand."
I didn't respond to her, not really knowing what to say. In all honesty, I was finding it hard to understand why she was making such a big deal out of it. I knew what it meant, paired with everything else. But, like I'd thought earlier, being caught out of bed wasn't a big thing when dealt with singularly. What was there for her to understand?
I'd stayed out when I was supposed to be in my room.
"The pictures, stealing my keys, even the rebellious behaviour…I've seen various forms of this throughout my career," she went on. "But defacing school property; it's a new low."
My head shot up then as her words registered in my mind. Defacingschoolproperty? Whatthefuckissheonabout?
"What?"
She looked at me for a long moment before standing up, walking around to my side of the table and dropping a picture into my lap. I picked it up and stared, not quite believing what I was seeing. It was of a wall, somewhere in the school, with the words Ihatethisschool painted across it in red paint.
I didn't have a clue which part of the school this was taken from, but I finally knew what Esme was insinuating.
"I didn't do this," I told her firmly, putting the photo back on the table. She turned around from where she was standing at the window, and merely stared at me. I didn't know what to say, once again. However, this time, it wasn't from confusion. It was because the way she was looking at me, was as if she didn't believe me.
She walked back to her desk, reaching for something behind it. When she placed a paint spray can on the table, I eyed it cautiously, before turning to meet her impassive stare.
"Have you seen this before?"
I shook my head quickly, but determinedly. "I've never seen it before in my life. I swear to you, I did not do this."
Something flashed across her eyes as she pursed her lips. When she spoke again, he voice was tighter, concise, even.
"Even after everything you've done, I had respect for you because you didn't lie to me. You owned up to it," she said, looking me directly in the eye. The way she was staring at me was a little disconcerting, but I refused to look away, to look guilty for something I didn't do. "But this, I don't get."
"I'm not lying," I said through gritted teeth. This hadn't been what I'd been expecting, this wasn't my crime. Esme didn't respond, and it aggravated me even more. "Listen to me, for fuck sake! I'm notlying, I didn'tdothis!"
Esme slammed her hand down on the table, making the paint can rattle. "Why does the evidence all point towards you, then, Alice? Why was this spray paint can in your room, if you didn't do it? I want to believe you, I really do, but I am finding it very hard to do that!"
I was completely speechless as I realised what that meant. The spray can, the one used to write on the walls, was found in our room. Myroom. I couldn't comprehend how, or why; I didn't know what to say, and I realised, belatedly, that my silence made it look as if I'd just proved her right.
"I haven't even touched the thing, so I don't know how it got into my room," I told her, trying to keep my voice calm and not allowing it to waver from my resentment towards this setup. "I would never do something like that."
She seemed to gain some composure as she took a deep breath. "So, who would do it? Who else hates this school?"
I pursed my lips, wishing she would listen to me and believe what I was saying. In the back of my mind, I couldn't blame her, not really. From an outside point of view, I could clearly see the evidence did point towards me. All my previous endeavours to be expelled, being caught outside after lights out the same night, and now, somehow, the key piece of evidence being found in my room.
Except, I didn't actually do it, and after everything, I didn't want this to be the thing to finally send me home.
"I don't know who else would do this," I replied tersely. "And I've already toldyou that I don't hate this school. Whatever I've done in the past, it was never anything to do with this place. I just wanted to go home."
I noticed how I'd spoken the latter comment in past tense almost straight away. But, either Esme didn't notice it as I had, or she was disregarding it.
"Well, it looks as if you're finally going to get your own way," Esme said, the disappointment back in her voice, stronger than before.
The chair screeched across the floor as I abruptly stood up. "No! I'm not the one to blame here – I wasn't even there!"
Esme's eyebrows rose and she sat forward in her chair. "Does this mean to say you were in your room the whole night?"
I swallowed heavily, knowing that, even though this was a question I could answer, the words were still hard to form.
"No, but, that's wha-"
"So, if you weren't in your room, which I know for a fact that you weren't, where were you? What were you doing?"
My response caught in my throat, and I choked on it, not knowing what to tell her. Iwaswithyourson. But the words were trapped, like a prisoner at the tip of my tongue. I wanted to tell her, I wanted to prove my innocence, yet at the same time, I didn't want to get Jasper into trouble, nor did I want to lie to her by making something up.
After a moment of complete silence, Esme shook her head and sighed. "I'm sorry, Alice, but if you can't prove to me you weren't there, then I have no choice but to believe you were the one to blame. I've contacted your father; he's on the next flight out. We'll determine what happens next once he's here."
No matter how hard I tried to hold them back, my eyes filled with tears. She stared at me for a moment, looking torn by her decision. I was tearing at the seams, I could feel it; I knew I wouldn't be able to hold myself together for much longer, so I turned away, quickly going for the door.
Once I was outside, I fell back against the wall, bursting into tears.
Howcanthisbehappeningtome?
I couldn't believe it. This morning, I'd assumed I was going home for being caught out of bed. But now…this was a whole new level, and it felt ten times worse to know it was for something I didn't commit.
Knowing I had to get away from the office, I started moving. There was a physical pain inside my chest that wouldn't go away. I needed my father, I needed Emmett; I needed someone to hold me together.
As I rounded the corner, I nearly bumped into two people. When I saw who it was, I couldn't believe the day would get any worse. Nettie and Lucy took a step back and stared at me, slightly bewildered.
"What are you staring at?" I snapped, not even trying to wipe the tears from my face. "Have you never seen a girl cry before?"
They shared a quick, hesitant glance, but it was Nettie that spoke, "What happened?"
At first, I wasn't going to tell them. They were friends with Maria, they'd probably bitched about me endlessly with her. So what was the point of me wasting my time with them? They most probably shared her opinion of me; anyway, they were her shadows, after all.
But as they waited for me to respond, I decided against a snarky response, choosing, instead, to answer them truthfully.
"You know the 'Ihatethisschool' graffiti? I've been blamed for it," I told them, my voice trembling with the emotions coursing through me. "I'm most definitely going to be expelled for this, and I didn't even do it. So you can run back to Maria and tell her that she got her wish."
"Maria?" Lucy frowned, and then looked back at Nettie with a confusing expression on her face. "But…I thought this was what you wanted? I thought you wanted to leave?"
At their words, I cried harder, being unable to really stop myself. It shouldn't have surprised me they knew I wanted to leave. Obviously it wasn't just my four roommates who knew of my master plan to be expelled.
"Do I look like I'm happy about this?" I demanded, not only my voice shaking, but my body as well. Things were happening too quickly; they were overwhelming me completely. Neither of them said a word in response, so I took a step back, suddenly wanting to be away from their inquisitive stare.
I ran, leaving them with nothing to do but watch me run away. Once I'd gotten around the second corner, I collapsed against the wall, sliding to the floor. Curling into myself, I rested my head against my knees and cried. By now the word would have spread about the graffiti, and I was certain either Nettie or Lucy would let someone know what was going on.
I wasn't sure how long I sat there, but, after a while, I stopped crying. My face felt blotchy, swollen, and my eyes hurt as if I was tired, but I knew it was more than that. I knew I had to get up before someone found me. I knew I had to go find my roommates, to tell them what happened. I knew I needed to find Jasper.
But I did none of those. My time here was rapidly decreasing; in some sense, I should have gone to find them already, to spend what little time I had left with them. However, after what Esme told me, what I was being accused of, I wanted to be all alone, to wallow in all the stupid things I'd done previous to this.
I spoke too soon.
"Alice?"
The voice was cautious, but unmistakably Jasper. I looked up from my knees, watching as his eyes widened in shock. He repeated my name, urgently, this time, and ran forward, falling down in the space beside me.
Once he was seated, he pulled me into his lap, so similarly to the night before. The action in itself made things better and worse, all at the same time, and soon enough, I found myself crying into his sweater.
"I'm sorry, Alice, I'm so, so sorry," he whispered, holding onto me tightly, his voice full of guilt. "This is my entire fault."
I pulled back slightly, only enough so I could see his face. He was looking down at me, the guilt in his voice being reflected on his face, too, the strongest point being his eyes. When he met my gaze, I shook my head slowly.
"This isn't your fault," I told him hoarsely, trying to stop the shuddering of my breath as I spoke.
He mirrored my response. "How can you say that? I saw your roommates at breakfast. They told me what happened last night – about you getting caught. If I hadn't have made you break the rules, you would have been in your room the whole night."
"I didn't exactly protest much about breaking the rules." I sniffled, resting my head against his chest once again, not wanting to look at him as spoke again. "It's not that, not really, at least. Someone sprayed graffiti on a wall last night."
Before I could say anything, I felt him nod. "Yeah, I heard something about that. I think it was someone from my school, you know, in protest for ending the prom early."
I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing it was that simple. "Esme doesn't think so," I whispered. As the words left my lips, he tensed beneath me.
"She thinks it was…you?" His voice was quiet, disbelieving. "But…they have no proof that it was you! I don't get it. Just because you were caught out, they straight away thought it was you? That's bullshit, you were with m-"
"Jasper…" A sob forced its way up my throat as I said his name; the action stopping him midsentence. "Someone found the spray paint can in my room."
For once, he didn't have anything to say, and we sat in absolute silence as tears streamed down my cheeks. Finally, he drew in a juddering breath.
"But…how?"
I shook my head, rubbing my eyes with the sleeve of my top. "I don't know; I've never seen it before today. Whoever did it, maybe they put it in my room, thinking it wouldn't matter because I would be leaving the school soon, anyway…I just don't know, and I probably won't..."
Jasper shifted and then pulled me to my feet. My legs felt unsteady, but as Jasper took my hand, I gripped it, grounding myself. A moment later, he tugged on my hand, signalling for me to follow him.
"Where are we going?" I asked him, using my free hand to wipe away the tears from my cheeks.
He paused in his movement, looking back over his shoulder. "We're going to see my mum, and then I'm going to tell her where you really were last night."
A/N: *hides* Things are just getting from bad to worse for Alice, aren't they? Do you think Esme was justified for accusing Alice of the crime? Should Alice have told her she was with Jasper?
From my POV as the author, Esme must have put a lot of thought into it before she sent someone to look for Alice. When it comes to whether or not Alice should have told her she was with Jasper, I'm not so sure. Yes and no.
You'll see more about that in the next chapter.
Hope my readers are all enjoying the festive season :)
