It looks like I'm going to be busy for the next few weeks. I've already exhausted my supply of prewritten chapters, so updates are about to get choppy. As in, 2-3 weeks choppy. And, while the chapter is much shorter than anticipated, it's necessary. Enjoy!


Intox 53

Routines are easy. There is certainty in routine, a kind of safety net for when the rest of your life falls to shit. There is a false promise there - a believable one - that your routine is your safeguard. It is a refuge from the unknown. It is a haven from the storm. It is the easy, well-trodden path that does not run through mires or falter in the darkness.

Bella and I had a routine that had formed the cornerstone of our relationship since our first kiss. We quibbled over little things and, when push came to shove, she was always right. I overreacted. She pulled away. I pushed too hard. Our conversations strained. We fought. For twenty minutes it was the Cold War again, and then the issue was resolved. Done. Over. I kissed, she forgave, and we made up.

We worked well together. It was comfortable. Our habit of misunderstanding each other stretched back to the first time we met. I was fond of that history, the months we'd spent in denial, not realizing that we were on the same page. It made every moment dearer. It made her precious, a gemstone. She was the diamond. I was the rough. Our volatile differences came with the territory.


Chief Swan gave me the stink eye when he answered the door Monday and then disappeared upstairs – probably to get his gun. I turned left and found Bella in the kitchen fussing over breakfast. I kissed the corner of her mouth and took up perch on a clear section of countertop.

"I guess he heard the good news," I said.

She nodded. "Yesterday."

I ran a hand through my hair, once again reminded of how I'd turned her entire life to shit. There were other ways to handle the situation Thursday; I couldn't actually see any of them, but I knew they existed. It vexed me.

"I'm sorry, babe," I groaned.

"Keep apologizing. After twenty times I might just believe you," she said, scrunching her nose into an ornery grin, "babe."

I smiled. "I like the sound of that."

The smile quickly faded as her dad rounded the corner and eyeballed me. I hopped off the counter and took my seat with resignation. It was directly in his line of sight, a dangerous place to be today. Bella sat a mug of coffee next to me forcibly with a stubborn glare at her dad. I looked between them with a gulp.

They ate while the food on my plate grew cold. Bella nudged me under the table at least three times, but, even though I was holding the fork, I couldn't lift it. I couldn't smell the herbs. I couldn't see the scrambled eggs and toast. I was too busy watching myself in third person.

When Bella removed my untouched plate and stood to do dishes, the loose circuitry connected. I flashed back behind my eyes with a shake and looked up. Chief Swan was studying me, the lines on his face pronounced. He watched my fear bubble to the surface.

"It's not true," I said quietly, "whatever you heard."

He raised a wooly eyebrow. If my heart hadn't been beating its way up my throat, I might've smiled. Instead, I shook my head.

"I might've said something to Jessica that pissed her off," I said carefully. It was true. It might have angered her – or she might have been ecstatic that I finally taken notice.

My fingers tapped guitar chords on the wooden table as I waited for him to say something, but he was silent and Bella across the room. He grunted into his coffee, skeptical. My fingers missed a beat. Every muscle in my body stopped at once, caught in the tension. I pushed my chair back and headed for the front door.

Bella came after me after five minutes. She leaned against the railing and watched me smoke. I knocked my shoes together, trying to regain the tempo of the song as the smoke clouded above me.

"What's wrong?"

"I feel weird," I said, shrugging. The truth was that I wanted her like I'd never wanted anything before, but I couldn't have her – but everyone had already jumped to conclusions so what was the point in being reasonable? And what was reasonable in this situation? And when would my head stop spinning like a top?

"No shit." She squatted on her hams and felt my forehead. I slapped her hand away. Her eyes narrowed. She stood and folded her arms.

"Are you going talk to me?" she asked.

"No," I said decidedly, exhaling a cloud of acrid smoke. I couldn't look at her. The paint on the floorboards had cracked into an interesting pattern. An ant crawled through a crack, its antennae quivering.

"God, you're so grumplicated!" she growled.

Whatever the hell that meant. I squashed the ant. "Deal with it."

"I do," she snapped.

The door shut heavily, leaving me in silence. I hated that sound. It was all too much. The thunk of my shoes was too loud. My cigarette crackled as it burnt to ashes. I could hear the cough building in my lungs.

Bella walked past me with our backpacks. She threw them into the back of her truck and got into the cab. She rolled down the window and leaned out.

"I'm leaving now," she announced loudly.

I scrambled to my feet and hopped into the passenger's seat by the time she'd gotten to the stop sign. I slammed the door and fumbled for my seatbelt. She had the decency to keep her foot on the brake while I caught my breath.

"Damn it, Bella." My voice inflected up and trailed off in warning. I nearly choked on the dialect that slipped through.

"I wasn't going to leave you." She flicked on the turn signal and nearly popped the clutch as the car jerked into motion. Instinctively, I braced myself against the dashboard. She eased up on the gas.

"God forbid people get any ideas." I rolled my eyes and propped my feet up on her dash.

"Are you going to tell me what your problem is?"

"Your dad hates me," I grumbled. With good reason.

"Of course he does," she huffed. "The whole town knows you were groping me in the parking lot."

I dropped back in the seat and put my hands over my face. I wanted to whimper. It was true, of course. A cop had the instinct to weed out bullshit. Her dad knew that all rumors sprang from truth. I was such a monster.

"It won't happen again, Bella. I promise."

"Where have I heard that one before?" she said without looking at me.

I groaned and rubbed my eyes with the palms of my hands. She was right. I made that promise every time I fucked up. What was wrong with me?

"I'm serious, babe."

"What, you want to walk around holding hands now?" Brown eyes peeked at me through a haze of thick lashes as we turned into the lot.

"Fuck that," I said. It didn't seem appropriate.

The truck stopped. Bella flipped off the ignition and smiled at my grimace. She wanted to know what I actually meant. I waved and gestured trying to explain. We debated on our public image, trying to find something that worked, before she made an executive decision that we should be ourselves. You'd think we were a miniature PR firm in a tiny orange office.

When we finally got out of the truck, I was the first one out. I hopped over the hood of the truck and opened her door. She stepped down and patted the bulky truck affectionately, waiting for me while I fetched our bags.

"You better not have hurt my truck, Hale."

"No, ma'am," I drawled.

"Have I ever told you that you're adorable when you're being so you?" We ignored the halls lined with gawkers and rubberneckers, insulated in a bubble of our creating. It was convenient.

I slung an arm over her shoulder and smirked. "Not as much as you should."

She chuckled and then, for good measure, elbowed me in the ribs. The impact was laughable.

It was like bumping into a stuffed animal. I feigned pain to satisfy her bloodlust, but she saw through it.

"You're such a faker," she cried.

"Men can't fake it, honey," I said quietly as we stopped at her classroom. Her eyes widened faster than the inevitable blush could bloom on her face. I maintained a serious expression; dissolving into snickers would ruin the joke.

She seemed frozen in spot. I kissed her knuckles with a gentlemanly bow, and the roses on her cheeks blossomed. I smiled and pushed her toward the door. She could beat me up all she wanted at lunch, but right now we both had classes to get to.


Bella came in late but sat with us automatically at lunch as if she'd never sat elsewhere. I looked up from my homework with a grin as she scooted her chair closer toward me. She smiled slowly, seemingly intent on drawing out my breath and leaving me in limbo. It was difficult to breathe when she smiled like that.

While she talked to my siblings, I picked at her fries and read over the Latin translation due as our final exam in four weeks. We'd received advance copies a week ago so there would be enough time to complete the project. My brain sizzled over the words. It was hard to see through all the smoke. I watched myself watch the paper, and gradually the colors faded from the world. Four weeks wasn't enough time.

I was losing focus. After the movie finished in Biology, Mr. Banner quizzed us over the content. I didn't hear him the first time he asked me. The rhythm in my head was too loud. Bella nudged me back to awareness with a questioning look, and I passed the question off to her when he repeated himself. I couldn't remember the movie.

She already knew I was spacey, and I almost preferred that to what she'd think if she could see inside my head. My mind was a cacophony of noise; it was fifty songs outperforming each other all at once and trying to push me out. It was a jumble of audible chaos expanding to the far reaches of my consciousness. There wasn't room for me inside my skull.

For the rest of the day, I avoided Bella like jury duty. It was a difficult task because we were magnetic. I could sense her approach a minute before she turned the corner and, if luck would have it, she would notice that I skipped class and come find me. I knew the first place she would look was my abandoned hallway. I didn't understand why I told her about it when I liked my alone time.

I'd never felt more sober in my life but, ironically, if I went near her, she would think I was high. I couldn't think straight, which was a sure sign of trouble. By the time I slid into Carlisle's sedan I could hardly walk straight. Someone else might consider that funny.

Carlisle accepted my silence in response to his conversation during the drive. The noise was eating me alive, shredding down my skin and sinew so that the nerves lay exposed against sun-bleached bones. My guts twisted, fighting the corrosion. My heart beat like a broken metronome, keeping tune to a song I would never play properly. I felt lightheaded. Air wasn't hitting my evaporating bloodstream fast enough. I couldn't breathe.

The gentle touch of a hand on my shoulder seared through my nerves. I flinched into the door, nearly panicking when the shoulder strap restrained me. Carlisle caught my shoulder and pressed me back with a hand me against my chest before I could struggle my way out of the metal coffin. The doctor in him was unflappable, a pool of unreserved calm contained in blue eyes. I counted the fingers he held up for me until my lungs flexed in sync with his pattern. One, pause, two, pause, three, one...

I coughed out a lungful of stale air and blinked furiously. Daylight had never been so blinding. Rustling fabrics had never sounded so deafening. I sat immobilized while he unclipped my seatbelt.

"How are you feeling?"

Like shit, thanks for noticing. I felt like a frayed rope twisting in the breeze, an unraveling strand of yarn that would soon be nothing. I felt anxious. I felt overheated. I felt confused at where the fuck that had just come from. I hadn't seen it until impact.

Please let me go home. Please, for the love of God, don't make me go in there. Don't make me talk. It hurts my head. Please... please.

"Fine," I answered with an unconvincing attempt to shrug off his concern. "I'm fine, totally fine."

He took me at my word and made me go to my appointment. Shit, he even walked me in and shook hands with the doctor. They talked, I sat, and then Carlisle left. Andalano immediately plopped down into his chair and looked me over.

"You don't look good."

"How perceptive," I sniffed. "It's good to know you don't get paid for looking pretty."

"Maybe you're not as sick as I thought," he chortled. "You going to tell me what's on your mind?"

My fingers tapped. "No."

We sat in silence, combating by eye contact rather than swords. His steady gaze was unnerving, and I didn't have the capacity to stare him down. I looked away.

"C'mon," he coaxed, "I know you've got something rattling away up there. Most people do at times."

I rubbed my eyes. I had nothing to complain about except things that happened to everyone all the time. What was I going to do, bitch and moan about how well my life was going? That I was weak? That I felt what a billion other people on the planet felt daily, and I couldn't deal with it?

"It's nothing," I murmured.

"I know that it's nothing," he said, "but with you it's everything. You're bottling it up; just tell me before the lid blows."

"You don't-"

"-know anything about you?" he said, finishing my sentence. "I know enough to know that you aren't "fine" - unless you use the word as an acronym."

My face soured. I knew what he was talking about. Anyone would after hearing it so many times, and I didn't need for him to spell him out.

"It's nothing I can't deal with," I amended dismissively. Jasper Hale didn't get stressed. He got angry, he got high, but never stressed. Avoiding the uncomfortable was his job; he walked at the edge of recklessness and insanity. He was good at what he did.

"You're not a persona. You're a person, and people need a break sometimes. People get stressed and anxious and worn out to the point that they just need a break, so maybe for today you stop being Jasper Hale and just be yourself."

I swallowed, and the sensation hit me. Hard. My lungs, though filled to capacity, felt empty. The room shifted, but I stayed rooted in place. Pain constricted my chest. I gasped in a deep breath and fought panic for control over my racing pulse. Holy fuck. I was having a heart attack.

Andalano crossed the distance between us in an instant. One blink and he was kneeling in front of me speaking with the ease of a professional bullshitter. Doom stretched across the horizon of my mind, an infinite failure, and he was telling me to talk back. I grabbed his arm in a vice grip.

Carlisle. I want Carlisle! I couldn't breathe. No-care-ever, self-repressing Jasper had blinked out of existence at the hint of discomfort. What a bastard. I shook my head, but it only made the dizziness worse.

"Talk it out," he said, nodding encouragingly. "Speak, ramble, and acknowledge it."

I can't, I screamed at him silently. My throat was too tight, but my glare made up for it. His assured response made me question my sanity.

"Yes, you can." He hardly cringed when my grip tightened.

I implored him with watering eyes. I can't, I can't talk, I can't get better – can't love – can't think – can't do without fucking it all up.

He held up his fingers, and I nodded. Together, we counted out the sequence one breath at a time. My lungs moved mechanically, so I knew I was breathing, but the air dissolved before entering my bloodstream. It hurt. I punctuated each pause to fill the void.

One…

What was there to say?

Two…

Someone had heaped ten courses of "too much" on my plate. I had an appetite but no silverware; I was unprepared.

Three…

For the first time in years I wanted to succeed, and I knew I wouldn't. I wanted things I couldn't have and didn't deserve to anyway. It was a sickening, poisonous knowledge that was corroding me from the inside out.

One…

I was overwhelmed by myself. It was like-

Two…

-realizing upon approach that the mole hill is actually a mountain. And you were the one that built it.

Three.

What the fuck was so mysterious about that?

My grip on the doctor loosened as the panic subsided. I closed my eyes, taking small sips of air, as he got to his feet and called Carlisle back in. I wanted to adopt a cavalier attitude, to shrug and ignore what had felt like an eternity but been, in actuality, five minutes. My body and brain felt as if I had run a marathon while taking the SAT, though. I rested my head in trembling hands and waited.

Carlisle felt my clammy forehead and checked me over quickly before turning, his hand resting on my shoulder. I felt like a bookend; they talked about me as if I weren't in the room, quizzing each other back and forth about my behavior and medication.

"Has he been taking his medicine regularly?" the shrink asked.

I nodded wearily as Carlisle confirmed, ruling out withdrawal. I knew better than to be that stupid. Not taking antipsychotics could be a bitch and a half.

"It's not the meds," I murmured. "It's me."

No one heard me. They slid into medical jargon, suddenly discussing milligrams and chemicals so fast that even my translation couldn't keep up. When they started talking side effects and interactions, I got suspicious. Once my brain caught up, I got pissed.

"No. No, no, no, no," I said, shaking my head vigorously. "Fuck no." I looked between them in disbelief. They wanted to fiddle with my pills, and I took that very seriously. I wanted my pills. I liked my pills. I needed my pills.

"Jasper-"

I stood quickly to confront him. "Carlisle, I'm an adult. I've got a say, and I say don't fuck with my prescription!"

My knees shook. I grabbed the desk and stood my ground against their illogic. If you took Moody Jasper and added pills you arrived at Contented Jasper, who was a cooperative and polite and Better Jasper in disguise. It was all on account of chemistry that I was even functioning like a semi-normal human being. How could they not see that?

Carlisle looked ready to fight, but Andalano waved him to a seat. I returned to my seat, too, and listened – mostly – as we all discussed my panic attacks. Carlisle stayed quiet while Andalano coached me on breathing techniques, which were similar to the ones I never used for my temper. The good doctor asked us about the frequency of the attacks. I answered properly; I'd had two… today. Carlisle's answer, however, was off by at least ten.

I'd had enough of wasted time. I needed to study, to translate, to practice, to read and to sleep all at once. God, how did people do it? I excused myself from their social mixer so they could talk properly about me behind my back and walked outside. The sky hung thick with gray clouds, and I frowned at the late hour.

My fingers dialed without looking and, as predicted, Bella answered enthusiastically. I didn't want to do this, but I was a terrible multi-tasker with too many tasks to handle. Bella made my head spin, and that was the problem. I didn't need any more spinning today.

I took a deep breath and spit it out all at once. "Hey, babe, I'm not feeling so hot. I think I'm just going to go to bed."

"Are you okay?" Her chipper tone changed instantly. My lips twitched at her concern.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I replied, brushing off her concern.

She snorted in disbelief and responded in an equally careless attitude. I saw through it immediately. We both did, and that's why we worked together.

"Well that's the ultimate euphemism," she said.

"You don't even want to know." I rubbed my eyes and groaned. "But we're back on schedule tomorrow?"

"Of course," she answered softly, as if understanding something unspoken. "See you then." She blew me a kiss, and then the line went silent.

I exhaled a deep breath. I could see straight again.


E/N: I think this chapter was important because it's an example of so many things Jasper thinks or says that are just plain wrong. I'll leave it up to you to decide what he's wrong about, though, because I'm cruel. =p

See you soon (hopefully)!

~Mandala M.