Jasper

I was waiting outside Drama the next day at school like I usually did on a Monday. Although, time slowly began to pass by. After about two minutes of extra waiting Alice sent me a text confirming my thoughts that she had missed the bus. That meant she was going to be ten minutes later than normal but she could still make it to the class.

I had wanted to give her a ride, but the night before she hadn't replied to my text asking her, which was odd but perhaps her phone had just died and she forgot to charge it… or something like that.

"Hey, Jasper!" A voice that didn't belong to Tania made itself know. It was Anna.

I gave her a smile. "Hi, Anna."

"You seem happy today. Waiting for T?" she asked.

"Yes." I replied. "Have you seen her?"

"Nay." She adjusted the strap on her bag. "Oh, by the way, I spoke to Mr Gates on Friday and he's gunna set us an essay today. Totally lame, right?"

"Uh…" I was about to try and think of a response to what she said, but then I spotted Tania walking towards me. Her hair messily waved around her face like she had angrily brushed it half an hour or so ago, and she was frowning. I could feel how irritated she was from there, and I wanted to blame it on the fact she missed the bus, except something told me that wasn't the reason why she was angry.

I watched her march up to me. "You're upset with me." Was all I could find myself saying, despite me wanting to ask her why.

"No shit, Sherlock." She glared up at me.

A strand of her hair moved across her face and for the first time I noticed it, and I wanted to hit myself for not noticing before. A horrible blue and purple bruise which she had attempted to hide with her hair covered part of her right cheek. I was taller than her though, so it had shown when she looked up.

I moved my hands from behind my back.

"Tania, what-,"

She cut me off. "I can't believe you, Jasper."

"Uh, oh." Anna mumbled, shrinking away into the class.

"What happened to you?" I asked her urgently.

"Oh, you mean this?" She pointed to the bruise. "You did. You did this." She ran a hand through her hair on that side, trying to cover it up again. "I can't believe you went behind my back and talked to David like that."

"Tania, I was only trying to help." I started, weakly.

"Help?" she scoffed. "Oh yeah, this helped me so much. Things were fine how they were, why did you have to go and mess it up like that?"

I didn't know what to say. "I thought I could get him off your back."

"You don't get do you?" Tears began to well up in her eyes. "We haven't known each other for long. Only a few months. But I've had to live with him for years! And I might not like him but my mum loves him and he makes her happy! Why don't you understand?"

"But he shouldn't-,"

"Why couldn't you just leave it alone?" A tear slid down her cheek.

I reached out to her, wanting to wipe it away. "Tania, I-,"

She pushed my hand away. "You know what? Don't bother, ok? Next time just butt out!" She began to walk away.

"Tania, wait! I'm sorry!" She ignored me. "Tania!"

I hardly paid attention to Craig and Jason walking past, sniggering. I started going after Tania. I had to explain to her. She had to understand what had really happened… I hadn't meant for her to get hurt at all. Everything wasn't going how I planned it at all.

"Tania!" I called her name again, jogging after her.

She whirled around. "Jasper, just leave me alone!" She cried, quickening her pace.

I stopped, thinking maybe I should just let her calm down. I could have done it myself, but that was just wrong. Besides, it looked like I had already done enough damage. She needed her space.

Miserably, I set back to going into the class behind Jason and Craig, who were glancing at me and trying to laugh discreetly. Great. I had upset Tania, and it was blatantly obvious David had hit her. I didn't even know what else he was going to do. Hit her more? Had he threatened her? My hands curled into fists. I couldn't bear watching her go through that. Just thinking about the bruise was angering me.

I probably shouldn't have gone to class.

When I got inside and sat down Anna gave me an awkward glance, shifting in her seat. I sat down next to her, keeping my distance from Craig and Jason. When Mr Gates started going through the register there was a horrible silence when he got to her name and Jason began to open his mouth.

I shot him a very dark look and as soon as he saw my expression he didn't say a word.

When he let us get to work, we went into another room for some privacy from the rest of the class and Amber was the one who bought her up, asking if we knew where she was because there had been so many days she hadn't turned up. Anna broke it to her in a hushed whisper, hoping that I wouldn't hear.

Craig and Jason simply laughed.

"That really didn't go well did it, dude?" Craig said as if he knew everything about women.

"Yeah, bro, maybe you should let us teach you a thing or two about girls?" Jason smiled.

Somehow, I wasn't really certain, but in the next second Jason's back slammed against the wall. He was no longer laughing, instead, he was clawing at the hand around his throat. My hand. "You don't know anything." I snarled.

"What are you doing?" cried Anna.

Craig was behind me, trying to pull me off but the pathetic human was too weak.

"You're an idiot, Jason, and I've wanted to do this for a long time." I growled, staring directly at his throat. He was squirming under my grip, choking for air.

Amber screamed.

Suddenly I realised what I was doing, what I was about to do. I unclasped my fingers from around his throat. Jason fell to the floor, coughing and trying to breathe. I just stood there, shocked at how quickly I had lost control like that. How easy it would have been for me to jeopardise everything. I hadn't killed a human in a long time, and I very nearly had. Everything that Esme and Carlisle had built up there would have been shattered.

And Tania. I would never see her again.

"I'm sorry." I choked out.

I looked around at the others. Anna was bent down to Jason on the floor, trying to help him up. Amber was staring at me, horrified , looking like she was about to throw up.

Craig looked at me and started helping Jason up with Anna. "You're crazy." He said. "Freak."

"I- I didn't mean to-," How could I even explain what had just happened?

There wasn't anything I could do. I snatched my bag from the floor and ran from the room. It was probably for the best.

I ran home. Tania would still be upset with me and I had no idea where she was, there wouldn't have been any point in trying to find her.

Alice met me halfway in the forest.

"Jasper, I'm so sorry." She said, sympathetically, heading towards me.

"Why didn't you warn me Alice?" I shouted at her.

"I wanted to but there wasn't enough time. I didn't see-,"

I began to pace, impatiently. "I don't even know where she is…"

"Jason isn't going to tell anybody. You pretty much scared all of them. It's ok." Alice tried to reassure me.

"Ok?" I repeated. "None of this is ok… I hurt her again, Alice. I just keep hurting her. And now Jason." I punched a tree, cracking the bark.

"Will you calm down?" she approached me. "You can fix this."

"Maybe I should just leave her alone." I muttered, trying not to listen to Alice's protests as I ran off into the woods.