Chapter Fourteen

A Disgrace

The coal-haired girl tsked as she rummaged through Bella's dresser drawers. She pulled out jeans and t-shirts and piled them on the floor. Bella ignored her quiet commentary and flipped through an aged classical book, her favorite of Jane Eyre, reading her favorite lines, searching for her favorite scenes.

Despite the assaults against her wardrobe, she could see how she easily became friends with Alice. She was friendly and chipper, and at the same time, real. She knew that she missed her, but she couldn't feel the proper emotion that came with the memories. There was only void, a black abyss.

"Have you not kept any of the clothes that I gave you?"

"Why would you give me clothes?"

She spun holding a faded green shirt that had a pin-size hole in the seam of the shoulder. "This is why! This is a disgrace!"

From where she sat on her bed she inspected it. It was plain and comfortable, lovingly worn. "I see nothing wrong with it." She could see why her friend would though. Alice dressed like she should have been with the elite, not in a studio apartment with her. If she thought her friendship with Jasper seemed impossible she couldn't imagine having been her best friend. How did she manage without her self-esteem sinking?

"I gave that dog specific instructions and he failed me!"

Emmett laughed as he set up what appeared to be a curtain, one that could be found in a hospital. This one was made of black velvet, heavy drapes. "Give him a break, will you? He's done well considering. He hasn't turned our Bella here into lunch meat yet!"

"That's comforting," Bella muttered flipping a page.

"Give him a break? You tried to snap Jasper in half when you realized that there was no privacy here!"

"She's living with two men! It's inappropriate for a young lady... You haven't been sleeping -"

"Emmett!" She cut him off at his question directed at the young human.

Bella blushed furiously, lifting her book to hide her burning cheeks. She never had a big brother before, but she imagined then that if she had he would be a lot like Emmett. He had the right amount of protectiveness and annoyance.

"What do you want to do today," he asked her as he attached the last metal ring to her curtain.

Alice hissed, "she's going shopping with me. This mess is despicable." She held up shorts with frazzled hems and it sounded like a whimper escaped her lips and the question, "why."

She quickly tried to remedy her potential torturous thoughts. "Actually, Alice, I have to study. I have a lot of history to catch up on."

"Jasper's been around, I'm sure you're more than caught up on that particular subject."

"Well, there's math -"

"My specialty, we'll get done in no time."

Her fear intensified. She imagined being treated as a Barbie doll. In fact, she anticipated it being worse than that. At least Barbie got a reprieve when the brother tore off their heads and sent them on a homemade rocket.

"Science -"

"Bella, what have you been doing with your time if you have not been shopping or studying?"

Emmett plopped beside her not jostling the bed or her, his hands beneath his ruffled brown hair, his black boots next to her bare feet. Gently, he nudged her with them.

It was unsettling and amazing that someone as big as he was could be elegant. However, watching Alice flit around flawlessly made him look almost clunky.

"You may as well give it up," he advised, poking her shoulder with the tip of his finger. "She always gets her way."

Jasper strolled in then jerking his head so the sunshine fringe of his hair was flipped from his eyes. She admired that, that one simple motion as supper wafted from the plastic bags looped over his arms. She breathed in the saucy chicken wishing she was breathing him in instead.

He paused halfway towards them, tasting the atmosphere and glancing to each of them in turn. "What's wrong?"

Alice shook the clothes in her fist. "This! Look at this, Jasper! How could you let this happen?!"

"I'm sorry about the tragedy."

"Is Jake coming home," Bella asked before Alice threw the apparel down and threw herself at him, but her question nagged at her. She didn't know when her apartment had become Jake's home. He had a home, in La Push.

"No. He said that Sam still needs him. He's going to call tonight, to make sure we haven't -"

"Sucked me dry."

He laughed with her but his eyes tightened and he sat the four bags on the table. Her stomach grumbled embarrassingly, and of course, Emmett laughed.

"We're leaving immediately after you eat," Alice warned her as if she was heading off to the gallows, but that could have possibly been her mind constructing what she thought it was.

She decided that she would consume all the food and do so as slowly as possible.

***

Even in his absence of almost two days, Jacob's scent nearly dissipated. Jasmine overshadowed that of Alice's sunshine and Emmett's apple, and Jasper was on his brink. He became too dependent and he was paying the price. The most painful one at that other than giving in. He had to distance himself from Bella.

Once he set the food out he apologized and bolted out. At the quickest human pace he flipped up his hood, pulled on his gloves and kept his face low.

He looked suspicious going to the restaurant, people giving him more than a second glance, and he realized then that it was another perk of having the dog around. He did all the shopping, and more than that, he cooked, something Jasper hadn't done in centuries... He knew he should have waited in the drive-thru but that took longer, and he wanted to get home to her. Much good that did, he couldn't be with her without the stupid dog.

He walked straight into the small woods, a good yard in when he dropped in front of a birch. He lowered his head between his knees, his fists in his hair, and tried not to think of her delicious blood on his pallet. He wanted it. He couldn't allow himself to need it, because he needed her more. He needed her alive in some form or another.

He heard the soft rustling of the grass and the smell of apples. He didn't need to look up, or over at Emmett as he sat beside him to talk, as he had so many times in the past.

It was something not many knew, but he was one of the best people to talk to (aside from Alice). There was something they held in common: They both felt little remorse for their murderous actions, and they both cared for Bella - though they hadn't at the beginning. He saw her a any other human, Jasper saw her as a threat. She came to mean more. For Emmett it was at first gawky trip, for Jasper at first joy and compassion. It increased in a short measure of time, but in very different ways.

A long silence stretched in which he heard Bella and Alice leave, Bella griping and pleading most of the way. Departed from her pulse, safe with his overly-strong brother, under his breath, he briefly smiled at it.

"You know, I don't need any of your freaky abilities to know. How long have you been in love with her?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't yank my chain, bro. I see how you look at her. Tell me."

Jasper... He... Loved her... It was hard but it was true. Jasper was in love with the girl. He resisted that emotion for so long he was tired in a way he hadn't been since he fought his hunger for human blood. Hearing it, it made it more substantial. The rays of light falling on the part he kept asleep for so long woke him, but he was tired and sick of that darkness.

However... It wasn't the time. Not when Bella didn't know him the way she should, and not that it mattered. He could never be with her, his brother's love. Whatever was Edward's ridiculous excuse for leaving her it didn't give him any rights to her. He had to step aside, let fate take over. If it was meant to be, it would. For the first time, he had to believe that, because not having her at all... There was nothing like it. No pain would compare, and he had known pain. All one-hundred-and-forty-two years of it. That was why he was sitting in the fucking woods away as she ate, so he wouldn't eat her.

"Jazz?" He raised a thick dark brow at him.

That was something else not many knew about Emmett. He was observant, he simply kept it to himself. As interfering as he could be, he did not like causing serious trouble within his family.

"Maybe I always have. Staying in that hotel with her, her compassion, and love..." It overwhelmed him, not to mention included a lot of anxiety that she was also feeling, but it made him more compelled to protect her. And yet... "I almost killed her then. If Alice hadn't been there, hadn't stopped me and make me look at her... I can't count how many times at my jaws she's almost lost her life."

"Does it matter?"

"It wouldn't have - not to me, but to our family. It's all that matters now. To me."

"She's obviously alive, thanks to you. You helped her. Now, why don't you go after her? She feels the same way, I see how she looks at you. To her your the 'effin' sun."

Wistfully, he smiled, reliving the waves of adoration from her. A bath in petals, soft and caressing. He brought himself out of it for the reason why he couldn't... "Edward."

"What about him?"

"I can't take someone he loves. We both know he loves her, that it hasn't changed. He'll come back soon. I can't take her, I don't have the ethical right."

Emmett narrowed his eyes at him incredulously. "The right? The bastard left her! He left her alone in the woods. And you're worrying about taking her away?! He lost her and he'll have to deal with that loss."

"You don't care if she ended up with Alice, as long as she's one of us," he pointed out.

He laughed, a bark nearly as loud as Jacob's. "That too. But mostly I want her with someone that's going to treat her right. You'll love her, protect her, you'll be best for her. Edward doesn't know what he had, he's not mature. Maybe Esme's right and Carlisle changed him too early. All he thought about as a human was war. You've been through tons of wars. Tell me that what's keeping you from her is him. I will bury you here if you say it is."

Jasper thought of her silky hair. Her deep doe eyes. Her smile, laugh, heart, her gut-wrenching emotions. He thought of all the reasons he couldn't have her. "She will have her memory back, and..."

"And what, bro?"

"She'll remember that I tried to kill her." Her birthday, the cake, the presents, the cut, the blood, the burning, the glass, the fury and fear...

"Dude, she forgave you for that. That wouldn't change even if you snapped at her everyday."

"It's not that... I'll never know if she forgave me for Edward leaving."

"He would've left soon enough. She won't blame you for that either."

Of course she wouldn't. Not understanding Bella. It didn't change that he couldn't give her a fairytale. He wasn't a monster that could be saved by a kiss or a tear. There was no wishing on passing stars for his humanity.

"She wanted to be one of us, and we want her." He shrugged as if they were talking about another game he'd won. "Edward's not here to stop us this time."

"Now's not the time, Em. I want her to remember." I want her to know me for me. All of my secrets.

"It won't make a difference."

As well as Edward could read thoughts, Emmett knew his, and knew he wasn't simply talking about her memory. "It could. She did love Edward."

"She loves you. You love her. He left her. You won't. Don't let her go like he did."

The prospect of walking away from her emptied something inside of him. He couldn't entertain the thought of his life without her. "Never," he told him adamantly.

"Show her."

Her laugh, her heart, her smile, the way her hips moved, the way her hair fell, the way her eyes glittered, the way her hands felt in his, her warmth, her perfect lips. The blood, the burn. Her. Everything that was her, the image of her, a golden-eyed beauty.

He recalled Edward's return from home, his grave face, a permanent fixture upon him since Bella's birthday. He told them that they must leave, and while Esme dried sobbed into her hand, Rosalie packed, and Alice and Emmett yelled, Jasper stayed in the corner, barely tapping out his calming energy to the room.

Jasper knew what was right, and it was telling Bella the rest of his story, telling her that he wanted her. Emmett was right, he had to do something. He couldn't lose her before he had her. He wouldn't. She was his. She loved him, he knew she did, she loved him in a way she hadn't loved Edward. It wasn't particularly less, but the as powerful in a different way, and it was time that he accepted it. She carried more than Jasper's heart, she carried all of him. For the first time in his life, he felt safe, and it was only the power of irony that it would be a human.

"Don't tell her I said this," Jasper ordered, "but you may give better advice than Alice."

Emmett guffawed, "no, man, I won't tell. Scary monster, that one."