Legna is endlessly patient with my stories and me. We're pretty sure we don't deserve her.
I still don't own anything you recognize.
In Which a Lot Happens in Sixty-Seven Days
Helen and I flew to California with Jasper on Wednesday. David had an end-of-year board meeting for the Hale Group and Jasper insisted he stay and not worry about rescheduling. Carlisle pulled some strings and was able to get Jasper a spot in La Mer, the La Jolla rehab center he'd been to in high school, starting Thursday morning. Jasper was enrolling in a sixty-day program. Although there would be an evaluation at the end of the first thirty, I knew he'd stay the whole time, regardless of whether or not they felt he was ready to leave. He was taking this very seriously.
Early Monday morning, after seeing Jasper and accepting Emmett's keys, I had managed to make it home from the hospital and through a ridiculously hot shower before passing out in the living room. I slept on the couch so that I'd be close to the door in case Emmett stopped by for the Jeep without calling; it had nothing to do with how empty my bed was. When I woke up just before 9:30, I was thoroughly achy and stiff.
Three painkillers and twenty-four ounces of coffee later, I called Angela on my way to Jasper's. I left her a brief message about what had happened and told her I wouldn't be in class all week.
At Jasper's, Emmett greeted me with a hug. He told me Rose was still at the hospital as he walked me back to the living room before I went to gather some of Jasper's clothes. A plastic tarp had been secured over the broken was door and was doing an admirable job of keeping out the steadily falling rain. He joked that the next time he needed to lift a car off someone, he'd give me a call.
I was back at the hospital in time for visiting hours to start. Helen's and David's voices were low murmurs through Jasper's slightly open door and I decided to wait in a chair down the hall to give them some privacy. My back felt better if I stretched it, so I was curled over my knees, half-asleep, when Helen found me fifteen minutes later.
"Bella?"
I quickly got to my feet, ignoring the dull ache in my body, and hugged her. She clung to me a few seconds more than I expected and I realized how difficult this must be for her and David. As we walked slowly back to Jasper's room, Helen confirmed they had arrived thirty minutes earlier.
"How was your flight?"
"Long," she said. The type of worry I imagined to be unique to mothers defined the emotions on her face.
I nodded, not sure whether she wanted comfort, commiseration, or something I couldn't provide.
She pushed Jasper's door open so that we could step in. This time, I didn't force myself to pause; what had seemed a chasm when I entered the room much earlier this morning, I crossed in a few quick steps.
"Babe," I breathed, leaning into Jasper.
He met me halfway, his lips soft on mine, and I wasn't even embarrassed that we were kissing in front of his parents. I pulled away, licking my lips. He tasted... different. Fruity.
"Rose." He held up a tube of Chapstick. I giggled, relieved that, aside from the mechanical bed and his sexy hospital gown, it felt normal to be with him. All the way over from his house, I had been worried we would feel awkward. Or that maybe some of the anger I had been feeling last night would resurface now that I wasn't so tired. But it didn't.
Jasper looked much better now than he had when I'd left him. The dark circles under his eyes had faded significantly. I could smell soap although he hadn't shaved or washed his hair – because of the bandage, I guessed. His skin was much less sallow, his blue eyes clear. My heart did a happy dance.
"I stopped by the house and grabbed a few things. Your favorite t-shirts. Track pants." I heaved the duffel onto the bed and winced at the painful twinges that ran up my spine.
"You okay?" Jasper frowned.
"Just a little sore." My words hung in the room as Jasper's face flashed understanding. How much did he know?
David coughed quietly and then spoke up. "We heard what you did, Bella."
I glanced away from Jasper and was alarmed to see that both David and Helen looked emotional. I would have a hard time holding myself together if everyone around me fell apart.
"We spoke to Carlisle," David continued after clearing his throat. "He gave us the general idea."
"Oh, I..." Had Carlisle told them everything?
"Emmett and Carlisle think they put together a pretty good idea about what happened," Jasper said, watching me. "But do you want to fill in the missing pieces?" He squeezed my hand.
"I..." I looked at Jasper, trying to ask him silently how much I should tell. He shrugged. All of it.
I scooted my ass up onto the bed next to Jasper and he pulled me back against his legs.
I was about to start when the door swung open and Rose walked in balancing three coffees. She hesitated when she saw me but then moved to distribute the drinks to her parents.
"I would have gotten another, Bella, if I'd known you were here," she said apologetically. I blinked a little at her words. She had been gracious as I was leaving early this morning, but I honestly hadn't expected it to carry into our daytime interactions.
"Bella was just getting ready to tell us about last night," Helen said.
Rose took a seat on the couch and Helen joined her.
I tried to keep it as to the point and non-descriptive as I could, for the sake of the Hales and myself. No one wants to hear about his child being covered in his own vomit, regardless of what he says.
As I spoke, Jasper rubbed my back, kneading the muscles that were so tight. When I got to the particularly uncomfortable part about cleaning the drugs up from the room, Jasper asked what I knew he would.
"What did you do with them?"
The few hours of sleep I had managed on my couch had brought the entire night into crystal clarity; I knew a tattoo of the night's events would live in my memory forever, and I was able to quote to him exactly what Emmett had said to me: "Don't worry about it." I didn't mention Emmett's involvement. If Emmett wanted to share his part in it, that was his choice. I couldn't tell from Rose's reaction if he had told her what he had done. I had a feeling this might be something that would live and die between Emmett and me. Jasper opened his mouth to speak but I kept talking and didn't give him the chance.
The Hales were as affected as I had anticipated. Helen leaked silent tears through most of it. David held himself together better but kept clearing his throat quietly. Even Rose got a little watery. She didn't flinch when I talked about the door and I thought I heard her hum something about a spare key.
I ended the story with the ambulance's arrival. It was likely Rose and Emmett had covered it from there.
As soon as I held up my hands to signal the end of the account, Helen was pulling me into a hug.
"Who knows what would have happened without you, Bella," she murmured.
"Anyone else would have done the same thing."
"No, anyone else would have seen the dark house and gone home," she said, pulling back.
"I would have assumed Emmett just forgot, and stomped off," Rose added.
"I almost did that." The attention was making me uncomfortable. If anything, I had overreacted and just happened to be right.
Jasper had been silent since asking me about the drugs. When I turned to him, he was staring at the far wall, his face tight. Arms crossed over his chest, hands no longer on my back, his posture carried last night's anger.
"Jasper, what's-"
He raised his hand. "Now it's my turn."
He started talking. I watched, mouth open and heart aching, as he went over the past year and a half. I heard Helen gasp when Jasper mentioned getting high at work a couple of times the summer of last year. The decline in his relationship with Alice, his increased feelings of insignificance... I caught a look of guilt on David's face when Jasper mentioned that a lot of it had started around the time he had taken the CPA exam. Instead of being proud of the accomplishment, he had felt that he was just getting further away from his true passion, and he felt even worse because he had no idea what that was; he only knew that it wasn't accounting.
I was positive Jasper had never spoken about this with anyone. Not Alice, not Emmett, not Edward. Rose looked as surprised and heartsick as I felt. I couldn't help but feel that maybe Alice was right – maybe this scare would be what it took to change things, including his relationship with his sister.
Much as I had done, Jasper only gave us an overview, but it was enough for all of us to see that this hadn't just happened overnight or over the Thanksgiving holiday.
"We've all missed this for so long..." Helen said quietly. I understood the sadness in her voice because I felt it, too.
Jasper shook his head. "No, Mom. I'm just good at hiding it. It's time to change that." With that, he pulled me into his arms and buried his face in my hair.
There were more conversations to be had, but it was a start. I hoped that in rehab he'd be able to get the rest of it out so that he could finally move on and start healing.
. . . . . . . .
Thursday morning, Jasper checked into La Mer. The facility looked like a combination between a school and a Bed & Breakfast. The woman who met us at the front door of the main house, Lyla Benham, introduced herself as the Admissions Officer, and walked us around the "campus" so that Helen and I could see where Jasper would be spending his time for the next sixty days.
There was one other patient checking in at the same time, so we all sat together for a brief orientation. Lyla described the general theories behind their treatment programs. In addition to one-on-one counseling, Jasper would be spending at least ten hours a week in group therapy. They also had an MFA on staff who worked with the patients in alternative healing methods. I poked Jasper's leg and smiled at him when Lyla said the patients would be expected to be involved with various fine arts; painting, music, and writing were all options.
"Maybe I can sneak Sally in next time I'm here," I whispered.
There were also physical components to the treatment, including yoga and Tai Chi, because the strengthening of body was just as important as the strengthening of mind.
Lyla spoke specifically to Helen and me, as well as the parents of the other guy – Brady – when she started talking about their Family Program. Family sessions were conducted each Saturday. She encouraged us to visit as frequently as feasible – along with any other important family members – so that we could take part. She told us that the patients who had the best long-term success had the strongest familial support. I started making tentative plans in my head to talk to my advisor at school. I wasn't sure I would be able to balance visiting Jasper several times with my current class load.
Because we were with the other family, Lyla didn't get into specifics about Jasper's treatment, although she did mention that La Mer was one of the country's leading experts in co-occurring disorders treatment. She explained that a number of patients had more than one concurrent problem – an eating disorder plus mania, for example – and La Mer was equipped to treat these cases in a specialized manner. She didn't spell it out, but I knew this meant they would treat Jasper's depression and chemical dependencies simultaneously and in the context of one another.
Lyla gave Helen and me, and Brady's parents, copies of the visiting hours schedules. Jasper would be able to see visitors Fridays for a two-hour period during lunch, and Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Family sessions usually ran Saturday afternoons from 2:00 to 5:00. Because Jasper and Brady were so new, they wouldn't have family sessions this coming weekend, but we were welcome to stay for tomorrow's visiting hours.
I knew Lyla was certainly a master of marketing, but she still did an excellent job convincing me that Jasper was in the right place. I wasn't sure how Jasper or Helen felt, but when we left Lyla's office, I was optimistic that in sixty days, Jasper and the rest of us would have the tools we would need to make sure that something like Sunday night never happened again.
. . . . . . . .
Helen and I stuck around for visiting hours on both Friday and Saturday before flying back to Seattle on Sunday. We took some time getting to know the surrounding area. I had found out from Lyla what sort of things Jasper would be allowed to have and started planning regular care packages. Helen had been here when Jasper was in rehab the first time, almost seven years ago, but she admitted to me, regret clear in her voice, that she and David hadn't put in nearly the effort they could have to make sure that Jasper was truly okay. They hadn't attended any family sessions and had only come down to check Jasper in and out. She said they'd never really had any idea how bad it had been, and when Jasper came back – all smiles and good humor – they had stuck their heads in the sand.
It made me sad to hear that, but there was no going back there now. Worrying about shoulda, woulda, couldas wouldn't get anyone anywhere – we would only get lost in our own regrets, myself included. I should have made him talk about the drugs. I would have been more insistent that he find a new therapist. I could have driven him to Carlisle, myself. In the end, it did us no good to look back. Jasper hadn't wanted our help then and he did now. We could only move forward and hope that this time around, we could all give Jasper the support he needed.
. . . . . . . .
The day after returning from California, I had coffee with Angela in the morning before classes. I had called her the previous week and told her everything that had happened Sunday and Monday, but I needed new advice now.
On the flight back from California, Helen and I had put together a tentative schedule for attending family sessions over the next two months. We still had to get Rose on board, but our idea was that I would attend the first one, the following weekend, with Rose. David and Helen would join me for one the day after Christmas. Lyla had told us that visiting hours would be extended on Christmas Day so that families could have dinner together at La Mer if they chose. We weren't going to go to California every weekend he was there, but we planned to go more weekends than not.
I knew that all of the traveling would negatively impact my studies and possibly my upcoming May graduation. I was hesitant to do anything that would risk my degree, but after talking it out with Angela and looking at it from all possible angles, I knew that my commitment to Jasper and his recovery were more immediate than my degree. I wasn't throwing my life away or even putting it on hold; I was only slowing it down a bit.
I spoke to my Masters advisor, Dr. Crampton, that afternoon. When I explained to her my circumstances and concerns about my workload for the next couple of months, she helped me draft the paperwork I would need to drop two of my classes, cut back on my student teaching hours, and lengthen my time in the program by six months to a year.
Before I left her office, Dr. Crampton gave me a card for a UW support group for friends and family members of addicts. She said it didn't operate by quite the same principles as Narcotics Anonymous – which Lyla had recommended – but it was similar. Dr. Crampton didn't offer information about why she had the card, but she was very kind and told me I could talk to her any time I wanted.
It took a few days, but the school approved my requests for modifications to my schedule and program. The ramifications would be widespread. I would likely need to put off getting a full-time job until a year later than I had planned, although I could substitute teach until I found something permanent. My immediate concern was my finances, but Angela had made a suggestion that made sense.
Aside from the help I had accepted from Charlie when I bought my house, I had been as independent as possible. The idea of turning to Renée and Phil for help was unappealing, regardless of Renée's regular reminders that it was available. Angela brought it up hesitantly, knowing I'd balk, and then pointed out the benefits.
But before I could, in good conscience, ask Renée for help, I would have to explain to her everything that was happening with Jasper. I was cautiously optimistic about her acceptance; she had grown to adore Jasper during the short amount of time she had spent with him. It wasn't a parent's dream to have her only child dating a drug addict, but Renée was forgiving by nature. I hoped she would be okay with it because not having her approval would be painful; she lived too far away for me to risk distancing her in any other way.
Unfortunately, I knew the delay in my graduation also meant that I would also have to tell Charlie, sooner rather than later. I could fudge about it, but frankly, I didn't want to propagate any more secrets or lies. I wanted to be open with everyone so that we could all move on. Images of Charlie and his shotgun swirled around my head whenever I thought of that conversation. I would have to skimp on the details when I spoke to him and hope he believed that Jasper had changed for the better.
. . . . . . . .
Emmett never told me what he did with the heroin and I never asked.
The closest we got to discussing it was when he showed up at my door on a random night a couple of weeks after Jasper left. It didn't escape my notice that it would have been Tex-Mex Tuesday and, when I opened the door to find Emmett, I wondered if he was coming over to cheer me up.
But the only thing he had in his hand was a newspaper that he handed to me as soon as I had shut the door behind him.
"What's this?"
"Just open it." His voice was tight and I opened the paper warily. He was fiddling with the end of his tie and clearly on edge.
Emmett had folded the paper to the appropriate page. I opened it to reveal, in medium-sized letters across the top of the Local page, a headline that read: Local Drug Ring Infiltrated; Three Dealers Arrested. There were three mug shots to accompany the article and I immediately recognized the middle of the three photos.
I had only met him once and the parking lot had been poorly lit, but the second photo was clearly of Jasper's "friend" Jim. The caption identified him as James Robison of Ravenna. I skimmed the article and saw why Emmett was freaking out.
"I recognize this guy, Bella," he tapped Jim's picture, "and I'm guessing that by the look on your face, you do, too."
"How-"
"I went to Jasper's gym with him a few times. This guy was there, talking to J. He never introduced me."
"We ran into him one night when we were out to dinner," I murmured as I finished the article. "But you don't have to worry, Emmett."
"Why not? It says they found this guy's client list and it won't take long to decrypt. You know Jasper's going to be on it. Recently."
"He didn't use his real name."
"What?"
"Jasper didn't give this guy his real name." I shook the paper. "When we saw him, he called Jasper 'Whit.'"
"From Whitlock," Emmett breathed.
I nodded.
"Oh, thank fucking god," Emmett said, grabbing me up in a suffocating hug. "Thank god he's a smart fucking son of a bitch."
I had to chuckle about the irony of that.
Emmett declined a beer and left a few minutes later, tie already loosened. We never spoke about it again.
. . . . . . . .
I spent the two weeks between leaving Jasper at La Mer and heading back for our first family session worrying about how the group therapy would go. Would it help Jasper for me to be there? If he was serious about continuing our relationship, and nothing made me think he wasn't, then hopefully my presence would be nothing but a benefit. But he'd been so closed with me before, all but refusing to talk about his problems even when it was really important... I wondered if he would be able to overcome that to speak in a group setting.
Rose and I were both tense and snappish during the flight to California and I quickly regretted succumbing to Helen's insistence that we share a hotel room. I knew that I was nervous about how the session would go – and was anxious about flying – but I had no idea what was up Rose's ass. The bitchier she got, the less I was inclined to ask her about it. The closer we drew to La Jolla, the more evident it was that any improvement to our relationship that had shown itself during those couple of days in the hospital was short-lived.
Our flight landed Thursday night and I busied myself Friday morning with gathering some small things that I knew Jasper would like: books, magazines, a North Shore Lifeguard t-shirt that I found in a hole-in-the-wall tourist shop. Friday's visiting hours went okay – Jasper introduced us to some of the friends he had made and they did most of the talking while Rose and I listened from opposite sides of Jasper.
Saturday's visiting hours were a little rockier. Rose grew visibly tense every time I spoke, and her voice was starting to grate on my nerves like none I had ever known. I finally stopped speaking in an attempt to keep Rose from exploding, but we were in rare form by the time we got to the family session at 2:00. Neither of us was doing a good job concealing our irritation. On top of my annoyance with Rose, I was frustrated with myself for making this harder on Jasper. He had been so hopeful, on the flight to California two weeks ago, that Rose and I would be able to get along now.
Dr. Waitt, one of La Mer's therapists, was in charge of the family sessions. He led the group to a patio behind one of the main houses on the campus. The patio edged the shore, so the crash of ocean waves created a very pleasant and calming background to the conversations. I could see why Dr. Waitt liked to hold the sessions out there.
The first session was a family/group session. Rose and I joined Jasper and two of his fellow patients: Brady, the twenty-year-old from San Diego who had checked in the same day as Jasper; and Sam, a thirty-year-old from Los Angeles. Brady's mom and dad were there for him, and Sam had his father and girlfriend. The ten of us made an interesting group.
It was quickly clear that Rose and I were going to have a problem. A big one.
After basic introductions, Brady's family went first. Brady's mom was talking about how she had been feeling about Brady's problems during the last year when I heard Rose snort under her breath. I turned incredulous eyes to her. She shrugged. What?
When she did it again a minute later, I couldn't help myself. I leaned in until my nose was pressed just above her ear. "Would you cut it the fuck out?" I couldn't believe she was being so rude in front of these complete strangers. And, while they were strangers, they were people with whom we shared something, even if indirectly. They deserved our respect.
She subtly flipped me off. I narrowed my eyes at her.
When it was time for Sam's girlfriend to speak and she broke into tears almost immediately, Rose laughed. Actually fucking laughed. It wasn't loud but even the sound of the surf couldn't cover it.
I didn't look at Jasper, knowing he'd be embarrassed, and grabbed her arm, intending to drag her back into the house if she couldn't fucking quiet down. Before I could say anything, Sam's father spoke up. "What the hell is your problem, blondie?" Rose and I halted, mouths frozen open, and turned to stare at him. I swore I could feel Rose's blood heating under my fingers. She shot out of her seat and started toward him. I threw my arms around her waist to hold her back. She immediately stopped moving and turned on me. I didn't loosen my hold and by the time she turned, I was basically hugging her. At that point, we were directly in the middle of the circle of chairs. I could see Dr. Waitt over Rose's shoulder and wasn't particularly shocked to see he was taking notes. I was sure we were providing a textbook example of classic girlfriend-sister rivalry but I couldn't believe we were doing it in public.
"Get your goddamn hands off me, Bella," Rose growled.
"Not until you settle your ass down or get the hell out of here. Think of someone other than yourself for once."
I heard a chair leg scrape behind us and caught Dr. Waitt holding up his hand.
"He was rude!" She tried to point to Sam's father but my arms were holding hers down.
"He was rude? You fucking laughed!"
She struggled against me and I finally let her go before she scraped me with her talons.
"It seems that you two might have some unresolved issues," Dr. Waitt spoke up.
"No shit," we said simultaneously, glaring at each other.
"Would you like to try to work them out? Family discord has proven to be a significant source of anxiety for patients with all manners of challenges," he said, his pen poised over his notepad.
"Fuck no." Again, we chimed it together. I heard a snicker behind us and turned to see Brady give Jasper a look. What that was about? Dr. Waitt was energetically writing on his notepad.
"Do you think you could try to be polite for eighteen seconds?" I tried to keep my voice even, staring at Rose again.
"This whole thing is ridiculous."
"Jesus, Rosalie, then why the hell did you bother to come all the way down here?"
She shrugged and avoided looking behind me, where Jasper was sitting.
"Jasper, are they always like this?" Dr. Waitt asked.
"Actually, this is an improvement. Usually, Rose glares and Bella avoids. Yelling is a step up."
This time we focused our glowers on Jasper. He shrugged and leaned back in his chair. "What? It's true. You two are a fucking mess. It's a good thing we're missing Christmas."
I frowned about that. I was miserable that Jasper wouldn't be home for Christmas and, in turn, he was just happy that he wouldn't have to deal with Rose-Bella ugliness. My ire toward Rose morphed into irritation with myself.
"What would trying to work it out entail?" I asked Dr. Waitt.
"Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me." Rose huffed, lips pressed together tightly.
"Give it a chance, blondie." I returned to my seat and tapped my foot until Rose came back to hers.
I wasn't any happier about it than Rose, but the last thing Jasper needed was the two of us going at each other like fucking cobras. If our truce would help him, then that was what I would do. Rosalie Hale and I would be BFFs by the time Jasper was out of there. I turned to her with a huge smile.
"You have such pretty hair. Can I braid it?"
. . . . . . . .
In addition to worrying about the group sessions, I had spent much time during the past couple of weeks wondering and worrying about Jasper. We were able to talk on the phone occasionally, but not long enough for me to get a good sense of how he was doing. How was he faring? Was he feeling all right? Was he purging all of the poison – literal and figurative – that had been eating away at him? Was he talking to his therapists? He had been so hesitant to speak to anyone for the past couple of years – was he able to open up? He had started to talk about things before he left – both in the hospital room with his parents, and a couple of other times over the following couple of days – but we still hadn't gotten into the really deep-seated issues that were at the root of everything.
After the embarrassing blow-up and subsequent focus on Rose and myself and similar family dynamics during the first family session, I wasn't sure if I would get to hear Jasper talk at all about his issues during the trip. But after the family session, Dr. Waitt pulled Jasper and me aside as we were walking back to one of the common areas.
Because I was coming from such a distance and Jasper was adamant from the beginning of his treatment that I would continue to be an integral part of his life, Dr. Waitt wanted to have a session with the two of us before Rose and I flew home. He wanted to involve me more deeply in the process to assure I would be a healthy part of Jasper's recovery, therapy, and support system, and not a distraction or unnecessary stress. It was then – the two of us in a room with a stranger – that we finally broke down some of the walls that I hadn't realized had been between us.
"Where would you like to start?" Dr. Waitt said, as we settled into matching chairs across from him, early Sunday morning. The three chairs were pulled together to form a small triangle; Dr. Waitt's desk was situated against one of the walls, out of the way.
Dr. Waitt and Jasper both looked at me expectantly.
"Honestly?" I asked, looking from one man to the other.
"Yes, Bella, this won't work if you're not honest," Dr. Waitt answered.
I blew out a breath and started speaking to Dr. Waitt. "I-"
"To Jasper," he gently redirected me.
Oh.
I turned a little bit in my seat so I was facing Jasper full-on. "I..." I wasn't sure how to phrase my words without sounding accusatory.
Jasper smiled reassuringly. "It's okay, babe. Just spit out. I'm not going to be mad."
"Okay." I tried again. "Why wouldn't you talk to me? When you were so unhappy?"
Jasper nodded immediately, apparently anticipating my question. Maybe this had already come up in one of his other meetings. "Honestly?"
I flicked his knee with my middle finger in response.
"I was afraid if you knew what I was really thinking, if I gave you a look into what was going on in my head, you'd decide that you couldn't – or wouldn't – want to handle it." He sighed and cracked his knuckles. "I was afraid I'd lose you if you knew what I was really like."
"Oh, Jasper," I exhaled. "I do know what you're really like. And I know that those thoughts you have, that you're not good enough, that you're alone, I know they're real, but..." I didn't know how to convince him that it didn't matter without invalidating what he felt. I looked at Dr. Waitt for help. Maybe it was good he was here for this.
Dr. Waitt nodded. "Those feelings Jasper has are intensified by the depression, which makes it harder for Jasper to just shake them off. He's more inclined to dwell on them until they've become so significant that they overwhelm him. Does that sound right, Jasper?"
"Yeah," he nodded.
I picked up Jasper's hand, hoping that it was okay to do that during the session, and wove my fingers through his. "You can always, always talk to me about anything. I will never think it's stupid or insignificant and I will never judge you. I will just listen or try to help if you want me to."
Dr. Waitt proceeded from there to step in and talk to both of us about how we could communicate so that neither of us would feel threatened – so that Jasper could express himself without worrying unnecessarily about my reaction, and so that I could talk to Jasper without wondering if he might close in on himself or push me away.
At the end of the hour, we had only just touched on some of the issues before us, but it was a comforting and reassuring start. Even including the nightmare that was my relationship with Rose, I considered the weekend to be a step in the right direction.
. . . . . . . .
Helen, David, and I spent Christmas in California with Jasper. The week between Christmas and New Year's, I investigated the campus support group Dr. Crampton had recommended. The UW website I found for the group said they met on Monday nights, regardless of school holidays.
I felt uncomfortable walking into the first meeting. There were only seven people there, aside from me. I sat near the back of the small room, hoping to stay under the radar and just observe, but the leader asked me to come forward and sit with everyone else. He was so nice about it that I didn't feel I could refuse without coming across as a bitch. He introduced himself as Nick and explained that they asked any attendants to share at least his or her name and basic reasons for attending the meeting. He said I could share my full story when I felt ready.
I decided I could handle that much. I introduced myself and told them that my boyfriend was currently in rehab.
I was the only new member at the meeting so there were no new stories shared; the meeting was made up mostly of "this is how my girlfriend is doing this week" type conversations. Even though it was obvious they had all known each other for awhile and were obviously privy to details about one another's lives, everyone made me feel a part of the group immediately. A girl sitting next to me, who couldn't have been more than eighteen, whispered names to me as each person spoke.
The meeting only lasted an hour. Afterward, I stopped the girl to thank her for her friendliness.
"I remember what it was like my first week here," she said. "I was already a huge mess about my sister and then trying to talk to random people about everything on top of that? It sucked, big time. If not for Eli," she nodded to a tall guy who looked about my age, "I never would have come back." She stuck out her hand. "I'm Tab – Tabitha – by the way."
I shook Tab's hand and, taking a leap of faith I wasn't sure I had, asked her if she wanted to get coffee. When she gave me the brightest smile I'd ever seen, I knew I hadn't made a mistake.
I started attending the meetings weekly and by my third week with the group, I was talking freely about Jasper and our issues. I brought up some of the problems he had finally discussed with me over the past month, including his worry that his indecision about his future and long-term career plans made him seem weak and unworthy of being in a relationship with someone he considered to be strong and driven.
Another one of the girls, Beth, said that her boyfriend – who had changed majors four times in two and a half years – had similar problems. He was so worried about disappointing everyone around him that he tried to center his life around whatever he thought would please everyone else: his parents, Beth, his advisor. After a recent week-long coke binge had landed him in the hospital, he had started seeing a counselor; Beth said his self-confidence was returning. It gave me hope that if Jasper could just accept himself, he would realize that no one cared what he did as long as he was happy. I needed him to understand that I would never think any less of him for wanting to enjoy what he was doing.
I developed friendships with some of the folks in group, in addition to Tab; during a non-holiday week, there were usually fourteen people. I even brought Emmett with me a couple of times. Unsurprisingly, he fit in well with everyone. He made friends easily and alternately had people in tears of laughter or sadness with some of his stories about Jasper through the years.
We tried once or twice to get Rose to come with us but she was having none of it. She and I were getting along much better since our blowout at La Mer. She had finally admitted that most of her hostility toward Jasper's problems and me in general stemmed from two things. She was jealous of the ease with which I connected emotionally with Jasper in a way she never had, and she felt that if she had been a better sister, she would have been able to prevent some of what he had gone through.
The parallels in our feelings of fault were unquestionable. When I shared with her that I felt the same way, it went a long way to bridging the gap between us. But we still had a lot of work to do and Emmett and I didn't push her to join us.
Between the family and private sessions at La Mer and the group meetings on campus, I was starting to feel like I had a handle on Jasper's illnesses and coping with them. We had a long way to go in terms of rebuilding trust and doing what we could to alleviate the possibility of a future relapse, but I knew we could all handle it. Together.
La Mer is based on existing facilities, although I took some liberties with specifics.
I love you all something hard. Thanks for loving this Jasper and Bella.
If you are über-bored, I have submitted an entry (Inksper, of course) for the Tattward & Inkella contest - "Love Letter."
Chapter 22 on Wednesday. See you then :)