21

"Hey." Looking over my shoulder, I saw Jasper standing on the bottom step. "Up kind of early, aren't you?"

I shrugged my shoulders and turned back to the bookshelf. Truth be told, I hadn't been to sleep yet. How could I when the man who had tried to rape me was out free? For all I knew, he was hiding in the bushes, just waiting for another chance to rape me. A shudder rippled through me and I automatically looked toward the window, almost expecting him to be peering in like a fucking creeper.

"He's not there."

I turned back to Jasper. "I know."

"Do you?" he asked, stepping off the stair and walking over to where me and taking the book out of my hand, tossing it into the box at my feet. "Where'd you get the boxes?"

"In the garage," I murmured. "Figured I'd get a head start on packing this place up. The sooner we're packed, the sooner we can leave."

Jasper nodded and leaned against the shelf, angling his body toward me. "It's okay to be pissed. You know that, right?"

"Doesn't help," I groused. "He came after me, Jasper. He made sure we were alone, and then he locked the door, and he grabbed my arm, and he touched me, and he called me names. He would have . . . he would have raped me if you hadn't stopped him," I whimpered. "How can they just let him go?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "I've asking myself the same thing."

"They blame me," I cried, turning and laying my head on his chest. "They think Gabriel Varner's attack is my fault. They think I'm a whore, they think I'm a slut, and every other vulgar word used to describe me over the last three weeks. And why? Because I fell in love with Carlisle, because he and I have sex."

"But it's not your fault," he whispered, wrapping his arms around me. "Nothing that has happened over the last few weeks is your fault."

"Isn't it?" I griped, pulling away from him and reaching for one of the books. However, Jasper grabbed my hand and led me over to the couch. With a sigh, I sat down on the couch. "It feels like every time we step out of this house, someone is in our faces. My mom, my classmates, Dr. Gerandy, Gabriel Varner," I cried, bringing my hand up to my chest. "I've known these people since I was tiny, yet they stand there and call me a whore."

"That doesn't make it your fault," he said, reaching over and covering my hand. "It makes them narrow-minded, Bella."

I shook my head. "I just . . . I just want to leave here. I want to move to San Francisco and forget this place ever existed."

"You and me both," he scoffed, releasing my hand.

I looked up at him. "How do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Handle them staring at you, talking about you? You and Edward were kicked out of your house, for fuck sake!" I exclaimed.

Jasper smiled. "I've always known I was gay. It's just something I've known, something I had accepted about myself. But I grew up in Texas, and people in Texas, not all of them but a lot of them, don't accept homosexuality. My father being one of them. He'd say, 'Ain't no faggot ever gonna come into my house.'"

He paused. "I didn't want to hide who I am, Bella, but my dad . . . He was mean son-of-a-bitch. I told you that he was a drunk, like your mom, but what I didn't tell you was that he was bitter and angry about how his life turned out, how my mom left after I was born, how my older sister got knocked up her senior year in high school and was left to raise her son on her own. He blamed himself for failing her, for letting her follow in his footsteps because he and my mom wouldn't have gotten married if she hadn't gotten pregnant with my sister, something he made painfully clear to her entire life. And he blamed me for not being the son he wanted. I wasn't athletic. You know, I loved school. I was a nerd, and that was okay with me. But boys in Texas were expected to play football, and I didn't. That made me an outcast, a freak. I couldn't wait to get out of there, to find someplace where I could just be me. Just Jasper. Not Maggie's wimpy little brother, not the pathetic son of Jackson Whitlock, the town mechanic."

Jasper paused once more, blowing out a heavy breath. "And even though I knew I was gay, I didn't tell anyone. I knew better than to, better than to think they'd be understanding. But then, just before my senior year, I met this guy from another school about half an hour away. We, um, we kind of started talking and, I don't know, things just kind of . . . shifted. I thought I was in love with him."

"Thought?" I asked.

He nodded. "We'd been talking for a couple of months when . . . when he and I . . ." Jasper waved his hand in front of him, clearly uncomfortable.

"Slept together?"

Once more, he nodded and I almost laughed when his cheeks turned red. "I wasn't prepared for what it'd feel like. Not just physically, either, but emotionally. He started ignoring my calls, and I realized that I'd been used. I was humiliated and hurt, and just . . . ready to . . . end everything."

I gasped. "You thought about killing yourself?"

"I did," he admitted, shifting his eyes up to mine. "I didn't have someone like Alice to talk to, or Emmett and Rose to fight for me. I was alone, Bella, and there were all these feelings inside of me, feelings I couldn't share with anyone. I didn't know how to handle it, so I started drinking. Stole anything I could get from my dad's liquor cabinet. I just wanted to dull the pain, to make it hurt less."

"Did it help?" I asked.

"For a while," he admitted. "Made it more tolerable, I guess. But like all things, it didn't last."

"What happened?"

"A couple months before graduation, I went to a party. The first party I'd ever been to. My dad had been all over my ass, so I was already in a bad mood. I felt so out of place, so fucking awkward because these were people that I'd known since kindergarten, yet they didn't know me. Not the real me. Anyway, I had a few drinks, or maybe more than a few, and somehow found myself alone in the kitchen with the quarterback of the football team," he murmured. "I don't remember making the decision to kiss him, but I did. He freaked out and pushed me away, calling me a faggot. Everyone at the party came rushing into the kitchen as his fist found my eye. It was only after two lineman pulled him off me that he told them I'd kissed him. Everyone looked at me like . . . like I was scum. I ran out of there before anyone else could hit me.

"I couldn't go home because my dad was there, and I didn't have any friends. I just got in my truck and drove. I didn't care that I was drunk, that I was upset, that I'd just humiliated myself. I just drove. I found myself parked on this long bridge overlooking a ravine. It was like every memory of my dad yelling at me for not being like other boys, every time I found myself on the verge of telling him that I was gay, just for him to make some homophobic comment hit me like a ton of bricks. I wanted to press my foot down on the gas pedal and drive off the side, but I couldn't. I just couldn't.

"Eventually, I went home. My dad was passed out in the living room, and Maggie was off with one of her loser boyfriends. I locked myself in my bedroom and cried. For the first time in months, I allowed myself to cry. By the time my dad dragged himself off the couch, I'd put my mask on and pretended that nothing was wrong.

"School was . . . horrible. The kids made fun of me, they called me queer and faggot, left threatening notes in my locker, dumped rotten food in my backpack. I tried to ignore it because I knew fighting back wasn't going to help. I thought I could make until graduation and then leave everyone and everything behind."

"But you couldn't, could you?" I asked.

He shook his head. "A week before graduation my dad came home roaring drunk and pissed as hell. He said . . . he said the father of the boy I'd kissed came to his shop and told my father that because of his 'faggot son,' he was taking his business elsewhere. I had never seen my father so enraged. He grabbed the front of my shirt and slammed me against the wall. I could smell the scotch on his breath. Maggie walked in just as my father asked me if it was true, if I was gay." Jasper brought his hand up to his mouth, though I could see the way his lips trembled and his chin wobbled. "I was so tired of hiding, of not being honest with him, or with myself. I said yes. The look of disappointment in his eyes . . . it haunts me till this day. He released his hold on my shirt and took a big step away from me, and he told me to leave. To pack my shit and get out of his house. Maggie just stood there with this look of confusion on her face, and my nephew was crying. He was only eighteen months old. For a minute, I just stood there because I never thought he'd tell me to leave. Hit me? Sure. But not kick me out. He looked up at me and there were tears in his eyes, Bella. My father was crying as he pointed a finger at the door and told me to leave."

A tear slipped down his face, but he was quick to wipe it away. "I walked into my room and packed as much as I could, and I left. I didn't have anywhere to go, of course. I'd closed myself off to everyone. I lived in my truck, tried to get through the last few days of school. Maggie gave me some money she'd been saving, and said that she would talk to Dad, that she would get him to let me come home. But he wouldn't. Once I had my diploma, I left Texas. I'd been accepted at the University of Illinois, so I headed that way. I found work in as a dishwasher in a small diner, lived in my car until the dorms opened. I'd gotten a full scholarship, so I didn't have to worry about paying for school, just for my expenses. Classes started, and I went through the motions of having my shit together, but I didn't. I was a mess, Bella. I was angry and bitter."

"So what changed?" I asked. "I mean, you're not that person now."

Jasper smiled. "I met Edward. It was just before Christmas, and seeing as I didn't have any place to go, I wasn't exactly excited about the holiday. I'd picked up a second job in a coffee shop, and he came in to study for finals. I tried to ignore his lame flirting."

"Um, my flirting was not lame," Edward scoffed and we both turned our attention to the stairs where we found him and Carlisle. It was clear on both of their faces that they'd heard everything Jasper had told me. "And you couldn't ignore me, babe."

"No, I couldn't," Jasper murmured, his cheeks once again turning pink and he looked back over me. "After letting my guard down in high school and having it slap me in the face, I was determined to focus on my studies." Pausing, he shook his head. "How could I be sure that he wouldn't use me, too, you know?"

I nodded.

"For months, I did everything I could to ignore him. I wasn't interested in dating, but everyday Edward came in to the coffee shop, and he'd smile at me, ask me how I was, ask me about my classes. I'd see him on campus and he'd wave at me, or come talk to me. And it scared me because I found myself looking forward to seeing him, looking forward to being near him. One night, just before spring break, I was closing the coffee shop, or trying to at least. There were these two frat guys who refused to leave. One of them grabbed my arm and pushed me against the wall. He put this hand on my hip, and leaned toward me, but before he could kiss me, Edward pulled him off me."

"Because nobody touches what's mine, and, babe, you were mine from the moment I saw you in that apron," Edward said, moving over and sitting on the couch next to Jasper. He wrapped his arm around Jasper's waist, but looked at me and Carlisle, who'd settled on the couch beside me. "See, Bella, what's he's not telling you is that he saved me. He gave me a reason to smile and laugh. I found myself standing in front of this gorgeous man, and there were all these feelings stirring up inside me. Unlike him, I didn't know I was gay. I'd never been attracted to girls, but I didn't think anything of it because in my family, school was all that mattered. My father had clear expectations of me. I was to be the best of the best. There was no room for second place, not with my father. And when I didn't get into Harvard or Yale or Stanford, he told me I was a waste of eighteen years of his life.

"It hurt, because I idolized my father. I wanted to be him, but I knew I would never measure up to his expectations. So, I went to school and I took twice as many classes as I should, and I threw myself into my studies. I got the grades, but my father didn't care. He refused to look at me, refuse to acknowledge what I'd done. When I walked into that coffee shop and saw him standing behind the counter, something . . . changed inside of me. It scared me, but I couldn't stay away. Every time I saw him, my heart would race. I made up excuses to see him, to talk to him, and I admitted to myself that I was gay and I wanted him. No, I needed him. He'd become everything to me. That night, I was determined to talk to him, like really talk to him. Because I was a stalker," he laughed, "I knew his scheduled, knew he was closing, so I thought it would be a good time. Nobody would be around, there wouldn't be any pressure to, I don't know, be perfect. Not with him, anyway. When I walked into the coffee shop, and I saw that motherfucker touching him, trying to kiss him, I was enraged. But it was the look of fear and disgust on Jasper's face that hit me the most. So I pulled the asshole off of him and told him and his friend to get the fuck out. The minute the door was shut, Jasper was on his knees, gasping for air and crying."

"I was scared," Jasper admitted, leaning his head on Edward's shoulder.

"Me, too, babe," Edward whispered before looking back at me. "I didn't know what to do. Do I hold him? If I did, would he think I was like those jerks?"

"Never," Jasper murmured. "When he stood up for me, I lost it. All the control I'd built up, the wall I'd put up around my heart. I couldn't stop crying. He knelt down next to me, and placed his hand on my shoulder, and said —"

"Got any coffee," Edward grimaced, causing me and Carlisle to laugh. "It wasn't my finest moment."

"No, but it was what I needed," Jasper said, smiling. "I made him his favorite coffee, and we talked. For hours, we just sat there and talked. I'd never felt so . . . comfortable with anyone the way I was with him. I hadn't realized that we'd been there all night until the morning crew came in." Jasper snorted. "Needless to say I lost that job."

"It was a shit job, anyway," Edward said, turning and kissing his head. "You were better than that place."

"Hmm," Jasper hummed, his eyes closing.

"So you started seeing each other?" I asked.

"No," Edward replied, and I frowned. "It's not that I didn't want to, but I hadn't really come to grips with who I was as a person, and I cared too much about Jasper to start a relationship with him when I couldn't even admit to my family that I was gay. So, I went home over spring break. As usual, my father ignored me, and my mother just . . . Well, she wouldn't do anything that went against what my father said. For the first few nights, I struggled with being there, with not being with Jasper. And I couldn't take it anymore, I climbed out of my bed, and I packed my stuff, and I . . ." He laughed, though I could tell he didn't find his thoughts funny. "I walked into my parents' bedroom, and said, 'I'm gay.' For, what felt like an eternity, neither of them said a word. Then my father shook his head and said, 'Why doesn't that surprise me? You never did anything else right. Why should this be any different?' And I just stood there waiting for the hurt to come, but it didn't. My father's words didn't hurt me anymore. I didn't understand it at the time, but I know now that his opinion of me is what held me back from being the best Edward I could be. So I just left. I went back to Chicago, and went straight to Jasper's dorm room. It was three in the morning, but I didn't care. I needed to talk to him."

"When I found him in my doorway, I wasn't sure what to think," Jasper said. "I mean, I knew I liked him, but could I trust him? Like really trust him?"

"In hindsight, I realize that showing up at three in the morning was not a smart thing to do," Edward groused.

"But it was sweet," Jasper teased before looking over at me. "Edward convinced me to go get some coffee, so I got dressed and we headed over to one of the twenty-four hour diners just off campus. He told me everything, about his parents, how he'd felt pressured to make his father proud. I don't know, I felt so confused, because he was opening a part of himself to me, and there I was keeping so much inside, but I wasn't sure I could trust him. I'd put myself out there before just to get hurt, so I told him that I wasn't ready for more than just a friendship."

"Oh," I mumbled with a frown. "But, clearly that didn't last long, right? I can see how much you love each other."

"Longer than I wanted." Edward sighed. "But Jasper was right. I wasn't ready for more. I had admitted that I was gay, that I had feelings for Jasper, but I had no idea what that meant, how to proceed. I needed to learn who I was, who I wanted to be, so we became friends."

"For a while at least." Jasper smiled. "Edward stayed in Chicago over the summer. We both got jobs working for the school's maintenance department, and we decided to get an apartment off campus together. And for a few months, we were friends, roommates, but I wanted more. I wanted so much more."

"Me, too, babe," Edward whispered.

"So how'd you get from being friends to being lovers?" I asked.

Jasper and Edward shared a look before Jasper began to tell me their story. "One night, just before the fall semester started, a huge storm rolled in. Now, as a Texas boy, I'd seen my fair share of storms. Wind, hail, tornados, but this one was . . . a thousand times worse. I was reading when this bolt of lightning flashed through the sky followed by the loudest thunder I'd ever heard. A moment later, the lights when out. It pitch black. I tried to find my way into the kitchen to get a flashlight, maybe light a couple of candles, but before I could reach the end of the hallway, a pair of arms grabbed me and pinned me against the wall. I wasn't scared, though I probably should have been. I knew it was Edward. There's this . . . feeling that comes over me when he's near. He brought one of his hands up to my face and placed the other on my hip, and he leaned in so close that I could almost feel his lips on mine. He said —"

"I'm tired of fighting this. I need you, Jas. You're the love of my life. Please, let me kiss you." Edward smiled. "He said yes, and I kissed him. And everything made sense, everything was right."

"And now, you're being chased out of your home," I groused.

"Or maybe we're finally finding where our home is," Edward pointed out.

"How can you be so . . . calm about this?" I asked. "They evicted you! They fired Jasper, they all but fired you, Edward. Why aren't you pissed?"

"Oh, I'm plenty pissed, Bella," he scoffed. "But I learned a long time ago that not everyone is going to be understanding. When we moved here, Jasper and I knew that we couldn't flaunt our personal lives, that we needed to be cautious."

"But you shouldn't have to be," I argued. "So you're gay? Big fucking deal!"

"You're right, and it should be that easy, but it's not. People suck. They let hate and fear dictate their actions," Jasper said.

I shook my head. "It shouldn't, though."

"No, it shouldn't," Carlisle agreed, leaning his head against mine and sliding his arm around my waist. Grabbing it, I pulled it up between my breasts, placing the palm of his hand against my lips. Tears flooded my eyes, and though I tried to keep them from falling, they spilled down my cheeks. "Isabella," he whispered.

"I'm terrified," I cried. "He's . . . he's free. Free to hurt me, free to . . ." I shuddered. "Why is my word not enough?"

"I don't know," Carlisle whispered, and I was vaguely aware of Edward and Jasper leaving us alone. "I wish I did, baby, but I don't. I do know that I'm going to do everything I can to keep you safe. We're going to pack up this house and we're leaving, and we're never looking back."

"Promise?" I murmured, turning and looking at him. "I can't lose you, Carlisle. I love you so much. Promise me that when we leave here, that everything will be better."

"I promise that everything will be better than this, that I will never leave you, that I will never stop loving you. You, Me, the boys — we're a family, Isabella."

Overcome by my emotions, I wrapped my arms around him and let him hold me while I cried once again. And more than anything, I hoped that he was right, that somehow San Francisco would be better than Forks.

So, this chapter did not go as I planned, lol. Jasper and Edward just kind of took over and hit me right on the feels with their stories. Anywho, thanks for the reviews. Each and every one of them touches my heart. We still have three chapters until this part of their story is complete.