Chapter 7

The Sweet Hello

It became a nice part of her routine when Willow received the sweet hello from Jasper every morning in school. The chaste kiss to the cheek was enough to cause her cheeks to flush the first time he did it, hands coming to gently grasp onto her hips as he snuck it in. She'd given him a shy smile as she'd closed her locker door and turned towards him. 'Hello.'

'Hi.' Jasper was about a foot taller than her with Willow wearing her flats that day, Spring having sprung recently. 'Morning Scott.'

'Morning Jasper, Rosalie.' Scott shook his head good-naturedly as the quartet made their way to homeroom. 'Good weekend?'

The two boys fell into a conversation as she and Rosalie spoke. 'You manage to get the essay done?'

'When finals are done and I don't have to do another feminist reading for a god-awful book will be too early,' Willow sighed, fingers laced loosely with Jasper's. 'But yes, everything's printed and in a file in my bag. You?'

'Why is she so obsessed with it?'

She shrugged. 'There's gossip.'

Rosalie's eyes sparked. 'Do tell.'

'Apparently, her and Mr Daniels are splitting. It's why she's been constantly on about that reading and anti-men.'

'You know what happened?'

'One of the town's gossipers – Mrs Newton, her husband runs the Outfitter's Store going down to La Push and her son's Mike, the blond with all the spots that tried—'

'Ask me out the other week.' Rosalie sneered and Willow tried not to laugh. She had shut the boy right down before he'd even spoken to her. 'Yes. He seems to have moved on perfectly well after my shut down.'

'I think Jessica Stanley is thrilled.' Willow smiled, 'Bye Scott.'

'See ya in French.' He waved and Willow ducked under Jasper's arm as he held the door open for both her and Rosalie. The twins settled behind her and she spun to sit sideways on her seat. 'So did you two enjoy your camping trip?'

That previous Friday it had been a nice sunny day and Willow had woken to a text from Jasper saying that they were going on a camping trip for the weekend. She had been a bit curious but maybe Dr Cullen wanted the kids to have a Mental Health Day or something.

'Yeah.' Jasper nodded, 'We spent the weekend exploring Mount Rainier. What about you?'

Rosalie tossed her hair over her shoulder. 'You said that you were going to try and finish your art piece.'

'That's nearly done. I need Mr K to give it a look over. Also, Georgie and Derek split so we spent Saturday basically trying to cheer her up and none of us really got anything done.'

'What happened?'

'He cheated.'

'What an asshole.' Rosalie hissed, her eyes darkening.

'Mhm.' Willow nodded, peering around Rosalie to check if Georgie was coming. 'It was with a girl from Port Angeles, she didn't even know he had a girlfriend so when Gi found out, so did she so it obviously spread like wildfire.'

'She okay?' Jasper asked.

Willow shook her head. 'No.' a sigh heaved from her. 'I don't think she'll be for a while, but she'll get there. We offered to go egg his place and slash most of his tires, but she didn't let us, and his mother was heartbroken with him.'

'Why not all of them?' Jasper frowned as a smile lingered on his face as he felt her surge of protectiveness.

Rosalie tutted. 'He would get a full set free. You slash a majority and the person has to pay for all of them.'

Jasper raised an eyebrow at his twin as Willow gestured towards her. 'You know this how?'

'I read about it somewhere.'

Willow laughed a little and her phone buzzed. Glancing down she frowned a little at Georgie's text. Not coming in. get my notes for me?

Of course

'Georgie's not coming in.'

'I'll get her a copy of notes from German.' Rosalie nodded and Willow smiled.

'I'll give you her fax number and let her know. She has PE last period so she doesn't need anything for that. Luce could probably get her Chem notes…'

'Emmett's in that class – Mr Howards, right?' Rosalie asked and Willow nodded, 'I'll ask him to get them.'

'Cool okay. And she's ahead in her readings for her other classes so I'll send her a copy of Micro and that should be her set.' Jasper was watching her with his chin on the heel of his palm and she raised an eyebrow. 'Yes?'

'I'd've thought you would've been telling her to come in, s'all.'

Absently Willow pushed her glasses up as shrugged, light wash denim jacket righting itself on her shoulder. 'She was pretty shaken when she found out about Derek and she just needs time to gather herself. I can't fault her for that. Besides, we all tried to keep ahead in class for times like this. If she doesn't come in all week then I'll start bugging her.'

'Crawford! No sidekick?'

Her head shook as she snapped towards Mr Marcus, ponytail swishing, 'No, sir, Georgie isn't feeling well. Hopefully, she'll be back in the next couple of days.'

Mr Marcus hummed under his breath as he nodded, signing her off on the role. Once the role was called, Willow turned back to the twins. 'Have you seen the ever-so-attractive reminders for prom?'

Jasper's eyebrow went up as a half-grin spread across his face. 'You didn't do those?'

Rosalie smacked him gently as Willow gasped playfully at him. 'I will have you know that I would not have just spent ten minutes in WordArt and call it a day.' She tutted under her breath. 'I especially would not have used the camouflage italic set if I was printing in black and white because you can barely read it.'

'Who made them?' Rosalie asked as she moved into Jasper's seat and he moved beside her as the bell went for the first period.

'Ms Parker.'

'You are kidding.'

Willow shook her head lightly, a small amused smile on her lips as she got her books out. 'Nope. Why do you think I've basically been given the reins for set design and we have other people who do costume for the plays?'

Rosalie seemed to be taken aback by Ms Parker's lack of colour palette when it came to posters because she was quiet as Mr Marcus set out what they were doing that day. He had, over the school year, encouraged them to be self-sufficient when it came to their study. They had an essay and source analysis coming up next week so a lot of that class was outlining what they had to go back over. The bonus he enabled them to have was an A4 sheet of sources to involve within their essay that they would do either on the Monday class or Tuesday class as he usually split those up to enable them to have equal time.

At the end of class, Jasper handed her back her jacket as she tidied up. In the hallway, she accepted the kiss to the forehead as Alice came skipping down the hallway from whatever fae domain she came from and they split. 'It's annoying that Edward and I can't go to prom this year.'

Willow nudged her gently as they moved around some football players. 'You'll be going next year, don't worry. Besides, it's just a dance, Alice.'

'Aren't you excited though? Have you any idea what you want to wear? Jasper did ask you right?'

'Yes.' She stressed, looking towards the pixie who was holding her forearm. 'He did but it's not until after finals which I would like to get through first.'

'What about the others?' Alice danced into the theatre room, holding the door absently as Willow followed her in.

'We all decided last year if we had dates that it would be cool but if we didn't, we'd all end up going together.' She shrugged, swinging her bag down and getting her script out. They were doing Bertolt Brecht which she found herself enjoying. The two sat on the carpet as they waited for the others to come in. 'Considering at the current time, I'm the only one with a date, I don't know what we're doing. We had fun at Homecoming at least.'

Alice zoned out on her and Willow left her to it, pushing her glasses up as she went to the stick note marker to where her lines were. She'd realised that the smaller girl was prone to doing that – zoning out and staring at nothing before snapping back into the conversation. Willow just tried to take it in stride and hopefully, Alice appreciated it.

'Your skirt is cute, by the way.' Willow jumped as Alice piped up. 'Sorry.'

'No,' Willow waved off, 'you're okay. I zoned myself there. And thanks, I have bike shorts underneath.'

'Seriously?' Alice's eyes lit up. 'I'd've never have thought of that.'

'Georgie found it from somewhere. Your dress is cute too.'

The little floral number that she'd paired with a light cardigan and boots was bright in the darkroom. Alice went to speak when Ms Parker called everyone to attention. 'Right you lot. Like we did on Friday – find your partner and start blocking.'

'You reckon she's realised how bad her poster is?' Alice muttered to her as they went to one of the far corners. Willow snorted under her breathe.

'Probably not. I wonder what the committee thinks. I doubt Lucy is happy with it. Anyway…your line is first.'

'I have some Chem notes for Georgie.' Emmett swung into the seat beside her, and Willow took them with wiggling fingers, sliding them into the plastic sleeve.

'Thanks for this,' she grinned. 'How was it?'

'Eh – Howards threatened to throw a stool at someone.'

'Nice.' She nodded, putting Georgie's notes into her bag as she tucked a leg up under her.

'I hear we hate Derek Scofield now.'

'Yep.'

'Does she want me to break his legs?'

Willow smiled, patting his arm gently. 'Whilst Lucy would say yes to that, Gi would say no because then that would make her look bad and we're trying to limit that. You have PE after this though, right?'

'Yeah…'

'Great.' Her tilted to the side as she tucked her ruler along the side of the desk, whispering. 'So, if you want to spread a rumour that he has a small dick, well, you didn't hear it from me'

Emmett was all for it. 'Like how small?'

Willow looked at him. Blinked. 'I'll leave that up to you.'

'Nice.' He murmured, nodding. 'How goes the paper?' he huffed a laugh when Willow let her forehead hit the table.

'I hate this class.'

'Have you got your laptop with you?' She nodded. 'So, come over to the house and I'll go through it with you. Besides, Esme's been wanting to show you the garden anyway.'

'Oh, did she get the vegetable garden up okay?'

'Yeah, we helped her on Saturday, she'll want your opinion on it.'

'I'm sure it's perfect.' Willow shook her head, glasses being nudged up again. Mr Cunningham called the class to order once again and Willow stared up at the ceiling – trying to gather some fucks left to give with this stupid class. Her grade had improved with Emmett's help, therefore her GPA had increased which was good, but she still couldn't wait for this class to be done but also dreaded doing Stats and Macro next year.

'Pop Quiz!

A unanimous chorus of groans echoed throughout the classroom. 'Kill me…'

'I'd have to put up with Jazzy sulking so I'll have to go with 'nah' on that.'

'Curse you.' She muttered before grimacing to Mr Cunningham. 'Thank you, sir.'

Did he get off on this torture?

'Mister Cunningham is the devil.'

'What happened?' Rosalie asked as she flopped down in the seat beside her, moving since Georgie wasn't there. She sent the blonde a dark look.

'He gave us a pop quiz.'

'Oh fun. How'd you do?'

'Hopefully haven't ruined it.'

'With the amount of studying that Emmett says you've been doing I doubt you've done badly.'

'Shush.' Willow waved at her. 'You'll curse me. You never say you did well in a test because then you've cocked it up.'

'What is it like in your head?'

'You wouldn't want to know. It's all musicals and sci-fi with plant facts scattered in.'

Rosalie gave an elegant snort as she chucked a pen onto her desk beside her folder. 'You have had Jasper and Edward singing and humming all week.'

'Good.' She grinned brightly, flushing a little at the fact that her boyfriend was listening to her favourite musicals. 'I've been invited by Emmett to come over after school by the way. He wants to put me through more torture.'

'Oh, you'll really enjoy that.'

'I'm ecstatic.'

'Why can't we just get a good bit of material to read?' Willow huffed as she slumped down in s seat between Jasper and Lucy. Over the past few weeks, since she and Jasper had gotten together, her group of friends had basically adopted the Cullens into their circle. Lucy had her moments when she got a bit tongue-tied around Rosalie, but Willow couldn't blame her. The blonde was built like an Amazon. The school had taken that gossip and run with it. The lot of them didn't care.

Since they were kids, the four – Willow, Georgie, Scott and Lucy, that is – were an eclectic group. Scott played baseball in summer and autumn; he was even on the varsity team. Georgie was on the school paper and yearbook committee and Willow was basically in clubs that needed her eye for colour palettes. Alice had roped her in to do Prom. God only knows why. Anyway, Lucy was on the cheerleaders – as small as the team was in Forks, they did have one and Willow guessed they were good. Unfortunately, Forks seemed to fall into the 'small-town' stereotype. Everyone knew everyone's business and there were certain archetypes that apparently people needed to fit into. The four of them, yeah, they didn't really do that. Which meant that when they managed to get the new kids into their 'weird' group, well…Forks High was not happy.

'What are you reading now?'

'The fucking Crucible. Which, as a play on its own, is good. When you have to squeeze yet another set of feminist readings out of it and put the patriarchy down – which, when the relationship is between a minor and a man of like…forty, not difficult – it's very dull.' Willow ranted, gesturing and leaning over to pulled one of the trays that everyone basically shoved into the middle now. 'Why can't like Humanities talk to each other and create a cohesive,' her hand wiggled a cheese puff, 'thing?'

'Not a good day then?' Edward drawled and Willow stuck her tongue out.

'Oh, I know – it's because the Head of English hates Shakespeare.' Scott drawled and all the Cullens turned to look at him. 'You lot didn't know that? Yeah, Ms Daniels hates Shakespeare so no one's been able to do anything by him.'

'But…' Alice whispered, 'how?'

'Because she has no taste.' Rosalie stated, picking at her nails absently. 'In anything.'

Lucy used a fry to point. 'She's not wrong. I did notice that it was the bright pink and cream combo today.'

'Complete with spider lashes, yes.'

'Well,' the strawberry blonde patted her hand patronisingly, 'it's over for now.'

Willow flipped her the bird and settled back beside Jasper, fingers playing with his cardigan cuff. She didn't catch the soft, amused look he sent in her direction but the rest of them did. The others fell into a conversation as Willow leant into him subconsciously.

The two weren't into PDA – not in the way Rosalie and Emmett seemed to want to showcase as much as they could without getting in trouble. No, they were content with holding hands and just being close to one another when they were in public. She brought a knee up absently, an old scar from something catching in the light. Jasper ran his finger over it. 'What's that from?'

His words were quiet – just for them – and Willow cocked her head at it. 'I think I tripped when I was younger. I think we were playing Red Rover at recess and I didn't gain my footing on time and hit the gravel. I have one on my hand…where is it?' She untangled their hands and found the small scar on her right ring finger's first knuckle. 'No idea where that's from.'

She tilted her head up to look at him, the light casting a charming shadow over his features, sharpening his nose, his cheekbone, his jaw seeming almost like a razor's edge. 'How was your morning after History?'

'Alright, apparently not nearly as frustrating as yours was though.' He bumped their foreheads together and her smile, Jasper noticed, revealed a dimple.

'Oi, lovebirds!' Emmett crowed, throwing something that Jasper caught with his hand, handing the apple to Willow as his arm settled around her. 'You gonna get with the conversation?'

'Are you going to mind your own business?' he cocked his head and Willow's amusement clouded her slight embarrassment of being caught.

'I make things my business.'

'Betcha everyone just loves that.' Lucy drawled around a tomato.

The Cullens chorused. 'No.'

Willow giggled into Jasper's shoulder and enjoyed just being close to him. He smelt good too. Whatever he wore smelt amazing. The forest green was nice on him, made his hair seem more golden than usual and went well with his eyes too. She'd realised over the past few weeks that his eyes were the kind that changed various shades depending on his mood. They were an ochre shade that day, bright and teasing as he bantered back and forth with his siblings. Eating her apple she found herself wandering, people watching as everyone fell into their own conversation.

People watching was good for inspiration in her art. Poses were natural and people had their guard down around others that they enjoyed. The football teams were rowdy and loud as per usual, shoulders broadened by their lettermen jackets. The cheerleaders mingled with them, for once not in their uniforms as it was out of season, their figures musculature and strong as their ponytails swished this way and that as they talked.

Freshmen and sophomores were different, however. Freshmen, even now with the end of the school year approaching, still had that air of uncertainty. They still had that vibe of worrying about where they would fit in, what they would wear to show off to people. They also didn't know what antiperspirant which was just wonderful. Not.

Sophomores were the most annoying if she was honest. They'd been in High School a full year and acted like they owned the place as they knew everywhere to sit and that they had a right to sit in places that were automatically the upperclassmen's spots. That was not to say that they were all annoying as get out. There were a few she got along with – Edward and Alice notwithstanding – like Angela Webber who'd just recently joined the paper or Jessica Stanley who was apart of the Prom committee for her transcript. There were a few other boys like Ben Cheney who was in love with Angela or at least had a massive crush on her, and Chuck Carter that Willow didn't want to run in the other direction of. Those two was because they had sisters and mothers who told them that drowning themselves in Axe wasn't going to get them a girlfriend.

The bell going caused her to jump and snap back to the conversation. Pushing her glasses up, Willow heaved herself up off the seat as Jasper held out a hand.

Scott poked her. 'Where were you?'

'People watching.'

Lucy shoved them in the direction of the door. 'Well, c'mon Darwin, we have French to get to.'

'Oui, oui, baguette.' Scott drawled and Willow snorted as she went to Jasper for a hug goodbye.

His fingers laced on the small of her back, 'See you in Art.'

'Yeah.' She snuck a kiss to his collarbone and darted off to catch up with the other two. 'You ever think Ben and Angela'll get together?'

'If he gets some balls, maybe in the next year?' Scott offered as he held the door open for them.

'Is he still stuttering around Angela?'

Willow nodded, 'Yeah, goes all red and awkward too, I think he likes her a lot.'

'Aw,' Lucy cooed, 'baby teenage love. How cute?'

Scott snorted as he lounged back in his seat. 'Why don't you give him a nudge in that direction then, if you think it's so cute.'

Lucy gasped and hit him with the back of the hand on the bicep. 'Because, this type of thing has to happen naturally Scott, less it be even more confusing and awkward for the two little ducklings.'

''Sides I think Angela likes Eric Yorkie right now.'

'Ah.'

Whilst waiting for Mr Andrews to come in, Willow fired a text off to Dad about later after school and had just tucked it away when Mr Andrews came swanning into the classroom in all his baby pink and dove grey glory. 'Bonjour.'

'Bonjour Monsieur Andrews.' They all chorused like a swarm of zombies. Which pretty much summed up the entire lesson.

Mr Andrews had let them out earlier so she was already set up, music in her ears, when Jasper greeted her, kiss to the back of the head. 'Hi.'

'Hey, you.' She smiled absently, highlighting Katherine Johnson's face. She'd decided to do a ¾ portrait and was trying to decide whether or not she wanted to do a space background or like a chalkboard and equations one.

'What is it?'

'I can't decide what to do.' She muttered, eyes darting between the samples she had, 'Katherine Jenkins helped with NASA and getting their spaceman down safely and did the math for that, right?'

He hummed.

'So, I can either do a space background or a chalkboard with math on it. And I'm stuck.'

She turned to find him doing that leaning thing that had her brain sort of short-circuiting. Adding the pushed-up sleeves and Willow had to blink at him a few times as her brain kicked in apart from 'Oh, pretty boy'. She had a feeling Jasper had seen her face as he had a lazy grin on his face. 'Well…the green background would suit better with your colour palette and she didn't, unfortunately, go into space, she just did the math to get him down so having the nebula, whilst nice, wouldn't make sense with your concentration.'

'That's true. Alright, I'll go with the chalkboard even though that's not as fun.'

'Oh no.'

Sticking her tongue out, she turned back around and Jasper left her to it.

Heyo,

I thought I would give you all with another chapter because I don't think another update will be up for a while, a week or so if I'm honest. We're coming to the end of the semester in Uni and I have assignments due and a documentary (oh joy) to film and edit for the next few weeks, along with my Halloween costume that I got peer pressured into making from scratch which is nearly done, so I thought you all would enjoy this.

Shorter than usual I know, but sometimes the fillers just are.

Onto reviews -

I'm so fucking happy that you all think that Wisper is healthy because fuck unhealthy shit that was so mid-2000s, give me domesticity or death. I don't do well with angst, folks like I get anxious and uncomfy writing that shit so don't expect stuff to drag for chapters because no thank you, if I don't like to write, then I doubt y'all will want to read that shit.

To the guest that commented about The Major and AreaBlue on his time as a veteran - It was something that I had grown to be uncomfortable with in a lot of Jasper fics, whether OC or not, and I think with the current political climate, times have changed and we shouldn't be glorifying that shit anyway - regardless what SMeyer thinks that is what a fucking EMPATH would do. I've just written the chapter where she finds out his backstory and i can let y'all in for a slight spoiler - when Willow is in danger, the Major will come out. Especially in Eclipse but WISPER ARE HEALTHY, THEY WILL DO THIS THING CALLED COMMUNICATION AND FUCKING TALK ABOUT SHIT.

(For those who aren't exactly up to date on the Major thing - Jasper, i guess, has DID - Dissociative Identity Disorder - due to his time in the Wars and the Major is an alter he created to protect himself during the fights and stuff. They have another alter, in some fics and I can't decide whether I'm going to put them in here or not, for when like Post-Peter, the God of War but idk yet.)

Anyway,

Enjoy,

K x