Jasper's hand moves down Alice's back, stroking the soft skin in smooth motions. "Do you ever wonder where we're going to end up after graduation?" he asks.
She nuzzles his neck, nodding. "I'll love you forever and ever."
"And I'll do the same," he tells her.
She kisses his cheek.
His body feels heavy with an abundance of warmth and contentment. If he could live in this moment forever, he would.
"I hope I get the research assistant position next quarter," he says with an exhale.
"Mhm. You will," she replies.
It's difficult to tell if she's simply being encouraging or if she actually has some basis for her statement.
While he's known of her clairvoyant abilities for as long as he's known her, he still doesn't fully understand them. They're a regular topic of conversation, and she often mentions things in passing that should or would occur, but their existence continues to perplex him at times.
"So when you see the future, you mentioned previously that you have dreams or things just 'pop up'," he begins. "How do you know they're visions rather than a regular dream or passing thought?"
Alice pulls the bed comforter up higher over them both so that she's covered up to her neck in the fluffy, white bedding. "It feels different. It's more real," she answers. "It's like a memory that hasn't happened yet."
"When did you first figure out you had them?"
She presses her lips together, thinking. "They've happened as far back as I can remember. I don't recall a first."
"Do you still see things about me?" he asks.
She grins. "All the time. More than anyone else."
"Good or bad things?"
"Very good things."
He doesn't know what he was expecting to feel by hearing her say that. Relief? Happiness?
It feels like sometimes she knows him better than he knows her.
She's fallen in sync with his life so easily, and he's still not sure where he fits into hers aside from just being there to complicate things.
Without relying on her visions as a guide, he wonders where she sees them going.
Jasper is more than content to stick with her regardless of what happens, but he wants to know if he's living up to her expectations.
"Long-term, what do you want out of our relationship?" he asks. "Like what do you want from me?"
"What do you mean what do I want from you?" She giggles.
He tries to rephrase the question. "What do you want most to happen going forward?"
Alice suddenly goes tense in his arms.
"Is something wrong?" he asks. He wonders if that question was too much.
"Oh..." she sits up, looking uneasy. "Oh, no. I think Bella's in trouble."
"Again? You saw something?"
She reaches for her phone and starts to dial Bella's number, but doesn't. "Yeah, I need to check on her. I don't think she has her phone."
"What did you see?"
"She's on the road driving very, very fast." Alice flinches. "She's riding a motorcycle. She's going to lose control and hit the guardrail. She'll die before help gets there."
Alice gets up from the bed and starts getting dressed, wriggling back into her dark brown trousers and ivory sweater at a hurried pace. She rushes into her closet and grabs a burgundy crossbody bag that she's been wearing frequently the past few weeks.
"Do you know where?"
"No, but it looks like it's near downtown. If I head over to her apartment now, maybe I can catch her before it happens. I hope she's home."
"And if she's not?"
"I'll ask Angela and Jessica if Bella told either of them where she's going. I doubt she would tell them where she's going, but it's worth a shot," she answers. "Do you want to stay here or should I drop you off back at your apartment?"
Jasper picks his things up from the floor, pulling on his jeans and navy t-shirt. "I can go with."
She might need his help, and, if the worst does happen and she doesn't make it in time, he doesn't want her to have to be alone.
Alice starts to pick up the heels she had been wearing earlier, but sets them back down and grabs a pair of stylish sneakers instead. "No, no, you need to prepare for your interview tomorrow morning. We can meet for lunch after you're finished."
"I can—"
"She's just on the other side of town. It's not far." She hands him his jacket with a shake of her head. "Come on, I'll drive you home."
She isn't giving him much of a choice, but she's right, he should go home and study the interview questions. They were supposed to be running through them together earlier that afternoon, but they'd gotten preoccupied with other things.
"It might not even be happening tonight," she tells him. "I'll just stop by to make sure. It's more of a preventative measure."
Reluctantly, Jasper puts his jacket back on and follows her out to the car.
...
Bella rereads Jacob's text message he sent her last Tuesday.
I'm not feeling well, sorry. I think I'll stay home. Let's raincheck this weekend.
Her reply—I hope you feel better soon. Did you catch a cold? —and a follow up message the next day—How's it going? Still under the weather?—are still left on read as of now, Saturday afternoon.
She's been in nearly constant communication with him for the past two months. He's never ignored her calls or messages before. It's rare that she doesn't hear from him for more than a day.
She worries that it's more severe than she'd originally thought, and wonders if Billy needs help around the house. The idea of Jacob sick and miserable in bed makes her feel terrible.
Maybe she could ask Charlie to run him by some chicken noodle soup. Or she could surprise him and bring it herself. Even if Jacob's totally out of it, Charlie would at least be happy to see her back home.
Huddled up in her room under the thick lilac quilt her dad bought her as a Christmas gift, she dials Billy's cellphone.
"Hey, Bella," Billy answers with a gruff but friendly voice.
"Hi! Jacob said he wasn't feeling well earlier this week and I wanted to check up on him. He hasn't been answering his texts," she says.
"Not feeling well?" Jacob's dad sounds confused. "Oh, yeah, he had a fever for a couple days, but he's fine now. He isn't in Seattle?"
"No, he told me he was staying home this weekend."
"Hm..." There's a long pause. "I must have been mistaken. I'm sure he'll answer your text soon. He's fine as far as I know. Maybe he's over at Emily's house with the rest of the boys."
"Oh, okay. Thanks. I'll let you go, then." Bella hangs up after a short goodbye, anxiety and insecurity bubbling up in her stomach.
Jacob lied to her. She doesn't understand why.
She dials his number and it goes straight to voice mail. She starts to leave a message—*Hey, Jake, it's Bella—but her phone dies before she has a chance to finish it.
Without thinking, she grabs her keys and jacket. She heads downstairs, out the front of the building, and to her truck across the street.
She'll check Leah's place. She's dropped Jacob off there once before, so she's fairly certain she remembers the street.
Her keys turn in the ignition and the engine makes a pitiful screech, failing to start. She tries again. It sputters and fails.
"Seriously? Now you decide to die?" she huffs exasperatedly.
She grabs her bike helmet off the floor of the passenger's side, gets out of the Chevy, and slams the door. If her truck won't work, then she'll just take the motorcycle.
She feels like she's gotten enough practice in to get to Leah's place. It's only about fifteen minutes to get to Beacon Hill. She'll have to take I-5, but traffic is relatively calm this time of night and she feels like she has a good enough grasp on the bike to figure out how to keep up.
Climbing onto the motorcycle, she starts the engine and rolls toward the freeway entrance.
Halfway into the drive, it starts to rain.
By the time she arrives, she's feeling clammy and gross. The bad thing about motorcycles is that you don't get the benefits of being enclosed in a heated, dry space.
She parks near the driveway next to a car she recognizes to be Jacob's Rabbit. The feeling of betrayal burns in her chest.
Prying the helmet back off her head, she shakes her hair out as she walks to the door, trying to comb it down with her fingers so it's less wild looking.
Leah's roommate, a brunette girl with glasses and big, sparkling teeth answers the door. "Hi."
"Hi, is Jacob here?" Bella asks out of breath.
Leah pushes her roommate out from the doorway and gives Bella a wary look. "What are you doing here?"
Her previously long, silky brunette hair has been chopped bluntly at her shoulders, and she looks a lot less cheerful than Bella remembers her being back in La Push. The childish roundness of her face is gone, making her high cheekbones and full lips stand out.
"Hi, Leah! Haven't seen you in a while. How are you?"
"Could be better," Leah says dryly. "Apparently people think they can just show up uninvited to my house."
"Sorry, I'm looking for Jacob."
"He's not here, and if he was, he wouldn't want to see you now anyway." Leah shuts the door in her face, making Bella jump back in surprise.
She stands there in shock for a moment, wondering if she'll come back and change her mind. After several minutes, however, that doesn't seem to be the case.
Bella sits down on the door step, not knowing what else to do but wait.
...
Emmett pours himself another glass of beer from the pitcher and looks around the small, overpriced and underwhelming bar that Tanya, Kate, and Irina selected for their girl's night out.
Emmett doesn't normally tag along to their Saturday night soirees, but with Rosalie out of town, Carlisle and Esme busy with baby preparations, and Edward in Italy, he has no other alternatives.
All of his other friends are still being boring and dumb, and he doesn't want to stay in being boring and dumb, too.
"I can't believe Carlisle's going to be a dad," Tanya says excitedly. "Are things getting busy around there lately, Em?"
"Not really," he says, taking a gulp from his drink. "I hope they're cool parents. It's gonna be a bummer if they stop throwing parties and doing fun stuff."
Tanya shakes her head. "They'll still be them. Just with a baby."
"True," Kate agrees. "The first few months will be rough, though. Looking after a newborn is a lot of work."
"Poor Carlisle gets so little sleep as is," Irina remarks.
It's been a maybe a half hour tops and Emmett is already sick of this bar. There isn't even a DJ, just some weird indie musician singing bad folk covers in the corner.
"Can we go someplace with shuffleboard or boardgames or something?" he asks. "Or like to someplace with decent music?"
"I like the sangria here, though," Tanya says, rejecting his request.
Kate nods. "Yeah, me too. We went out dancing last weekend, so I want to take it easy tonight. I'm trying not to black out this time."
"But I'm bored," he complains.
"You're the one who asked to come out with us because you don't have friends," Kate shoots back.
He sighs. "Fair enough."
Emmett's somehow managed to catch them on the one weekend of their lives when they don't want to go out on a bender, getting into fights with bouncers and dancing on bars.
"So I think I've met someone," Irina says, waggling her brows dramatically. "He's a university professor and he's from Paris."
"I saw the pictures on your Snapchat," Kate says. "He's not bad. Especially considering the last guy you dated..."
Irina rolls her eyes. "Can you stop talking about him already?"
"He kept getting us confused and we don't even look alike!" Kate says, ignoring her sister's request. "How do you forget what your girlfriend looks like?!"
"Which is why I dumped him and got a new boyfriend." Irina shrugs, sipping her drink. She grabs her phone off the table and taps the screen a few times. "Here, do you recognize him, Em?"
He takes it and look at the picture of Irina and an average-sized man with dark hair. He doesn't look familiar. "Nah, Alice might know him though. She's the French major."
"You're right. Where is she anyway? I tried texting her earlier and she never answered."
"Probably spending time with her boyfriend," Tanya speculates. "That's what I would be doing if I weren't still single. I went on five different dates last week and they all sucked."
"But didn't you just get a raise at work?" Irina asks.
"Money won't keep me warm at night!"
Kate laughs. "Buy an electric blanket."
The trio of women call over a server to get another pitcher of sangria and Emmett checks his phone, hoping that something is happening.
There's a few snapchats from Carlisle making dorky doctor jokes while he sits around on his lunch break.
Alice texted him asking to give Jasper a ride to some interview tomorrow. Sure, he replies.
"Is Rosalie working?" Tanya asks, stirring her cocktail with a fruit skewer garnish.
"Nah, she's out of town. She had to fly home for the weekend," Emmett replies. "She said she'll come next time."
She said she would be testifying at a hearing sometime in the afternoon, but he hasn't heard from her yet tonight.
He figures she went to grab dinner with friends or something, but sends her a gif of a waving otter anyway. She'll talk to him when she's less busy.
When he looks up, Tanya is gone from the table. He thinks she went to the restroom until he spots her a few tables down flirting up a storm with a table of tech nerds.
"And she's off," Irina says, already turned around in her seat to unabashedly observe the interaction. "Who wants to bet on which of them she comes back with?"
"Twenty bucks on blue Patagonia jacket," Kate guesses. "Or the one with the beard. She's been into that lately."
Emmett laughs. "The one in the red plaid, for sure."
They each throw a twenty on the table and wait for the winner to be declared.
...
It's pitch dark.
Bella, in her rain-soaked clothes, is getting cold.
She stares at Jacob's car parked on the curb with bottled up resentment and frustration. Tears burn her eyes.
Putting her helmet back onto her damp hair, she gets up and walks back to her motorcycle. She revs it once, twice, just to make a point to anyone listening.
Before she feels too stupid about being ditched by yet another one of her supposed friends, she starts down the road.
She blearily reads through the street signs, looking for the on ramp to get back north.
She can't help but let out a sob. It shakes her, and the bike wobbles under her unsteadily. She feels her adrenaline spike, and waits for the divine sound of that voice she used to know so well.
But she doesn't hear Edward. The only thing she hears is the traffic around her, the slosh of rain, and the sound of her teeth chattering in her mouth.
Going a little faster, testing her luck, she changes lanes and passes a black Subaru.
Nothing.
She doesn't understand why he isn't coming. Even her own delusions are leaving her. The Edward she's kept alive in her head doesn't even care about her now.
Cars honk at her as she moves another lane left, picking up momentum. The speedometer reads 90 mph.
She just wants to hear him again. She feels so small. So insignificant.
Brights flash behind her, startling her.
The car gives a short beep before changing lanes and coming up on her right.
"Bella!"
She glances over and sees Jacob's car with the window rolled down. She can't see him well, but she hears him. For a moment, she thinks this must be her imagination trying to give her some sort of emotional anchor, but he sounds too lifelike to be a memory.
"Hey! Bella!" he shouts again. "Pull over!"
He leads them toward the next exit, landing them several blocks still south from her apartment.
When he gets out of his car, she almost doesn't recognize him. The long, black hair she's seen him with for years is chopped down so short that it stands up in fluffy spikes.
"What happened to your hair?" she asks.
He ruffles the top of his hair with his hand. "Ah, yeah, it was getting in the way."
She loved his hair. It was prettier than hers could ever be. "It was...beautiful..."
"What?" His brows furrow and he makes a very un-Jacob-like expression. "Bella, have you totally lost it? What are you doing speeding around at night by yourself? We agreed you would only take the motorcycle out off road."
"My truck wouldn't start," she explains. "And you said you were staying in La Push. You said you were sick."
"I was. I wasn't feeling well, but I got better, and then...a lot happened. I've been busy."
"With what?"
"Remember what I was saying about the guys and Sam?" He gives her an uncertain glance. "Well, he offered me a job."
"Once you're graduated?"
His face remains humorless. That doesn't seem to be the case. "It's a really good offer, Bella."
"So you're not moving to Seattle."
"I don't know." He sighs. "I didn't realize how well he was paying them for helping run his stupid little office, and...and...maybe it's a better plan. I don't know."
"I was hoping you would move closer. I like hanging out with you. You're so...good."
This time when he leans down, she doesn't pull away. She can't. She's glued to the spot she's standing in.
His lips are warm and soft as he kisses her.
A pit forms in her stomach. This isn't right.
She shoves him away. "Jacob, what are you doing?"
"I like you. I thought you wanted—"
"No!"
She shivers, remembering how cold she is still. He quickly pulls off his jacket and drapes it over her shoulders.
"I'll give you a ride back home," he offers. "Leave the bike here. I'll pick it up in the morning."
