Twilight belongs to Stephanie Meyer.


Chapter 4 (JPOV)

It's almost 8 AM before I make it back to the house and the others are already getting ready to leave.

I scale the wall to my window and peel off the soaked, shredded jeans clinging to my legs. I pick a caterpillar out of my hair and place it on the windowsill. The shirt was long gone somewhere in the forest but a couple of threads are lodged in the indentation of my collarbone.

Everyone is in the living room so I can hear the whispers they're trying to muffle.

Edward's still whining about calling Esme. He's just saying that I might be doing it again. He doesn't think I am but just for the sake of saying it, because someone should, not that he really thinks that's the case, he's saying that maybe I've fucked up again.

"Alice, stop blocking me," he complains.

"Aw, come on squirt," says Emmett, "Leave her alone, no one owes you the inner workings of their mind."

I roll my eyes as I step into the scalding shower. Steams rises higher and higher as I soap up my cold muscles and sluice off the bugs and dirt and leaves and sap that are practically begging to become a permanent part of my undead abs.

Not today, little fuckers. The worst part about the Pacific-Northwest is the goddamn sap. Give me a clean, hot desert any day.

I hear a scuffle and the loud scraping and squealing of vampire flesh, along with Edward saying, "Let go! Let me go!" Trademark sounds of an Emmett-delivered Edward-noogie.

Edward can be little shit, but he's the baby of us and we all love the dumb kid. He can't help being reborn into immortality with the soul of an eighty-year-old woman. I can always tell when he's running up the stairs because his footsteps remind me the most of the granny from The Beverly Hillbillies. I shouldn't have let him get to me like that, he's always saying some dumb shit like that to everyone. Last week it was berating Emmett about his "lack of intellectual curiosity" when he saw him reading a comic book.

"Jasper? Sorry for what I said yesterday. I just think you'd be happier if you went out more or tried to meet someone or did anything other than sit in your stuffy office all day."

He sounds slightly strangled; probably in a headlock still.

"Well, leave me the fuck alone about it. I'm here, I'm going to that shitty school with y'all. You need to stay in your lane and worry about making sure your bonnet covers all of your hair."

They don't fully understand the tightrope I'm walking, being back here with them. How much I still doubt myself and how far I've come. Only Rosalie has the slightest inkling of what my life used to be like, how absolutely demonic I was.

For just about the 100th time, I ask myself why the hell I even came back at all.

It took me about eight hours of running to finally get all the chinks in my shield patched up. It's the only way I can be around anyone. I've learned that the tough way. You try feeling the bloodlust (and regular lust, and anger, and irritation, and everything else) of a coven full of vampires along with your own. Add that to a few hundred hormonal teenagers and we'd be doing an epic clean up the size of a whole town and probably get a death sentence out of it, too. I was bred for shit like that but if I hadn't figured my shit out, I'd've been burnt to a crisp somewhere in Mexico years back.

It's bad for everyone in the path of my projection, too, no mistake. My goal for the past decade has been making a two-way mirror of a sort, a perfect one. I control what I feel and who feels what I want them to feel. I am not at the mercy of every two-bit PMSing teenager who steps in the woods to have a meltdown. Yesterday was me gettin' sloppy. I was in a bad mood, was all.

I dry off and get dressed with some blue jeans and a white thermal, then pull on my black boots before racing down to the garage and hopping in the Volvo with my family.

"Do you think I could get away with being a cult leader?" asks Alice, turning onto the 101 toward the high school.

Rose laughs, "I mean, I think you'd be a good one, for sure, but it kind of seems incompatible with the whole keep the secret, get burned alive if you don't thing, don't you think?"

"Maybe. I think I could pull it off, though. Especially if I kept myself clothed in secrecy and only made appearances on special occasions," she mused.

"I'd join your cult," says Edward, "I could keep track of all the human's thoughts and make sure they were staying loyal."

Emmett flicks his ear, "Sounds like the perfect job for you, kid. By the way, you call Esme last night? How many fishies have they saved?"

"Emmett," he hisses, whipping his head around to the backseat, "They don't save "fishies", you ignoramus. They are engaged in the extremely noble effort of saving corals from bleaching. You know this."

I tune out the conversation as Edward updates everyone on Esme and Carlisle's latest Great Barrier Reef expedition. They go every year to work on the restoration and conservation efforts. They've probably done as much to save the damn thing as the whole country by this point, and that's not even counting donations.

This is why you come back, I say to myself. For the crazy mother fucking vampires obsessed with conservation and saving the god-blessed sea turtles.

The rest of the drive is spent running through my brick wall again and again, making sure I'm in control. That's the image I decided on when I first starting working on it. It was easier to manage and work on when I had a concrete image. When I do lose control, the bricks start crumbling and falling out, so part of the reorientation is a literal visualization of mortaring the damn thing back together. Some of the bricks have never fallen down. I think of those being all moss-covered, slightly smoothed with age. They're the ones I'm most proud of.

"Oh, here, you'll need these today," says Alice as we walk across the half-full parking lot through the rain.

I take what she's handing me and look at it.

"Seriously?"

"What?" she asks innocently, smoothing one of her short, spiky locks to a point between two fingers, "You need a notebook and something to write with or you'll look weird. I know it's been a while since you went to school with us but that's still the same. If you remembered to bring your own, you wouldn't be at my mercy, but here we are!"

I roll my eyes, "Yeah, but did you have to get one with fuckin' dogs on it? Dogs with angel wings? Angel dogs sitting on fluffy goddamn clouds?"

Rosalie and Emmett snicker behind me.

"You better watch your language, bro," says Emmett, "You're a bad influence. They'll throw you in the pokey for that around here."

We walk into the school and go down the hall. I can almost feel the pulsing blood-warm air around me, perfumed by so, so many beating hearts propelled through the vents with a supervised institution HVAC system, burning me up inside, searing my tongue and throat and lungs.

"Fuck this pen," I mutter, pulling the glittery pink feathers off the cap and throwing them in the first trash can I see. I feel irrationally angry at it, a surging mean snake curling around my guts.

"Jasper, you're supposed to go see the front desk lady as it is your first day."

"Fuck. off.," I snap at Edward.

"But that's what you're supposed to do."

I'm about five seconds from ripping this little asshole's tongue out of his mouth, freezing it into a block of ice, and shooting it into space. My fingers twitch very slightly.

Rosalie steps in front of Edward and grabs his cheeks. Alice covers her smile with her hands and Emmett leans against a locker, grinning.

"Repeat after me. I will stop bugging Jasper so he doesn't tear off my nose and hide it in Kansas again," she whispers, low enough that only we can hear.

"I will shtop bwugging Jashper…" he says with Rosalie's hands still squeezing his cheeks together.

"Aw, come on, Rose," I laugh, trying to sound normal, forcing myself to tamp down the nasty edge to it, "It was Idaho."

Edward pulls himself out of her grip and stalks off, hissing over his shoulder at vampire volume, "Emmett, Rosalie went bear hunting in 2011 when you were gone and she lied when she told you she just ate a deer with Alice."

"Little bitch…"

He's apparently so menacing that the children in the hall sort of… melt away as he passes through. They do the same for us but it's hilarious to see Edward have the same effect.

I see Emmett point with both fingers to his eyes, then at Rosalie, who, to her credit, only looks a little worried.

"Hey," I nudge Emmett on the arm as we sit down in our first class, "Don't tell me Edward's finally mastered his intimidation technique."

"Oh, he loves it," Emmett says, chuckling.

"You're going to give him a run for his money on being the top broody teen boy for all the boys and girls to wet themselves over," Rosalie quips as the teacher calls the class to attention.

Edward being the youngest out of all of us when he was turned (and younger than most vamps are), he doesn't have the same edge as the rest of us. Carlisle also has a theory that his baby face is also a part of his gift, how his mind-reading allows him total control over potential victims and his face just drags 'em in, but I think he just says that to make Edward feel better about himself.

Edward giving a shit at all is ridiculous. Humans are background noise, part of the set, nothing I ever take note of as individuals, they're basically carriers of blood and emotional noise. They don't have any influence or weight, they're humans.

The classroom is boring and warm and absolutely full of blood. I can feel the pulse of 25 heartbeats moving through me like a living thing. For a second I'm just floating, floating, caressed by the honey, cream, salt, blissful burning.

Only a second, though, before I stop breathing and snap back to the present. If I felt anyone else's bloodlust right now, I'd be a fucking goner. And it would be incredible.

Having these thoughts, being tempted like this, is just part of being a vampire. If we want to live any kind of normal life, not skulking around, leaving victims in our wake, shunned by our weakness to dark and fitful existence, we have to have some control. Otherwise, it's a lonely, sad life or state-sanctioned execution fast as greased lightning if you fuck up.

Where it gets a little crazy is trying to curb your nature completely, not drink from humans ever. I don't have any particular compunction against it other than the fact it makes me go insane. An insane Jasper is a wild Jasper, and a wild Jasper does do absolutely fucked up shit that gets him noticed by the Volturi. Jasper likes to live, even if some people don't think what he does is truly living… Jasper—

"Jasper? Jasper? Rosalie, is your brother okay?" the teacher looks at me, all concerned-like, pale blonde eyebrows knit together on her wrinkly face.

I rub my temples with one hand and frown, "Sorry, headache."

"As I was saying, Jasper is our newest addition to the senior class so everyone, please make him feel welcome."

Several of the bravest girls smile and blush at me, looking as if they'd be more than happy to welcome me all the way home. I can feel the echoes of hope, and lust, and nervousness butting up against my wall. I want to growl at them a little and get that idea out of their stupid little heads but settle for a blank stare that causes some smiles to falter and all to turn around in their seats again.

It's only been 45 minutes and I'm already wanting to be at home or, better, running through the forest, away from the pressure weighing down on me.

Rosalie looks over at me and tilts her head at me with a questioning look.

I nod slightly, signaling that I'm fine and not about to lose it.

The next few classes are about the same, nervous kids, hormones in the air, blood, lust, blood lust, fantasies that I get rid of. I'm going to kill Alice for the dog folder. Exactly ten girls have whispered to their friends some version of, "OMG, he's sooo cute! And the little doggy folder! Aww, I bet he had a horrible childhood. I can fix him..."

By the time lunch comes around, I'm feeling like a live wire. I head out of the building and go out to the trees for a spell to get centered. I'm losing perspective on why I'm even here at all.

I waste a couple of trees by throwing boulders at them, exploding them into matchsticks and making birds go flying. It makes me feel marginally better. I remind myself that interacting with the humans on a daily basis is the best way to desensitize myself, that I've lost a lot of practice and am slipping, that's why I came back, that's why I'm doing this dumb charade. That my family are freaks and this is the way they've chosen to live their life. That it makes them happy when I do this, that it gives meaning to life. All the stupid shit we tell ourselves to get through the day.

I'm back at the school by the time the others are walking into the cafeteria for the last few minutes.

Edward tosses us pieces of fruit when he comes back from the line. I hold the apple up the my mouth and take a bite, quickly stashing it in my hand and shoving it in my bag in a practiced move. Fuckin' nasty.

"Moist towelette?" asks Edward, holding a pack to me.

I grab it from him and wipe the sticky juice off of my fingers. Apple smells pretty good, but I've always liked orange and pear more. Fruit tends to smell nice. The more processed human food is, the worse it stinks. Don't even get me started on burritos.

I sit there while the others talk, maintaining my wall, moving my shoulders up and down, not breathing at all. So many bodies in here and I know my limits, at least for the first day.

"Uh oh," says Edward, "incoming."

"Ooh," Emmett says, "A brave one."

"Hm, it's for you, Jasper," says Alice, "He wants to interview you and the other new student for the first paper this year."

"No fuckin' way!"

Bad decision. The flames erupt in my throat with the breath I took. I glare at Alice for making me speak.

"No, you should do it. It'll be great practice for you and will help cement the story. I can see it fixing something that might go wrong if you don't do it."

I don't breathe anymore, just glare at all of them. Rosalie crosses her arms and Emmett just shrugs. They put way too much stock in Alice's visions. The only person who can check her is Edward and he just goes along with all of her manipulations. She's a god damn puppet master in Tinkerbell's body. "Fix something", huh?

"H-hi, I'm Eric. I'm on the school paper and I wanted to see if you would be interested in doing an interview? It would be short and wouldn't take up much time. I can get you out of class for a period, though?"

His beady little eyes are fixed on me and he gulps nervously, brushing some black hair behind his ear.

I blink, narrowing my eyes and getting ready to tell him to fuck off back to the land of beady-eyed children.

"He'd just love to!" says Alice, "Just tell him when and where and he'll be there."

"Oh, ha-ha, t-thank you, really nice, a-appreciate you, thanks," the kid stutters.

His eyes swing to my left and land on Edward before widening. We all sit there a minute as the human just stands there, absolutely transfixed.

I'm about to take a breath and tell the kid there's no way I'm doing this dumb shit when Alice opens her tiny, annoying mouth again.

"Yep, just let him know when and where!"

She grabs my wrist in an iron grip and drags me away from the table. Edward is the last to follow, leaving the human standing there looking slightly dazed with a moronic look on his face.

"Alice," I hiss, "Do you remember the very important discussion we had five years ago about boundaries?"

"Nope!"

She walks away down the hall, dumb ass fluffy skirt bouncing, leaving me to grind the pencil in my pocket to dust in a worthless effort to relieve my irritation. Doesn't hold a candle to tree wrecking.

I'm relieved when school ends and we're all piled in the Volvo on the way home. Edward's chattering away about some human in his biology class and Emmett's teasing him about it. The strain of the day is burying me, and I just want to be alone.

"Alice, let me out," I mutter a few miles before she's about to exit.

They all know better than to push me at this point, and no one says anything when I get out of the car and stride quickly into the trees.

I run several miles into the brush until I find a good place to stop. I slowly start to breathe in the scents of the forest: clear cool water, musty dirt and loam, spicy insects, a kaleidoscope of different sap smells, all citrus and clean, dirty and unappealing animal blood. Now I let my wall down, little by little, until I feel unburdened, free.

It's such a fucking relief to just be, not worrying about walking the tightrope. My life with the Cullens always swings so far from extreme to extreme, so hard to balance. My life has always been like this, to tell it true. The more I try to have a normal life, as normal as can be, the normal I've chosen, the more sacrifices I make, the more painful everything becomes. The alternative is worse, being one of those night-skulkers, never feeling like I belong somewhere, am someone.

The forest holds me for hours as I bask in the lightness of letting go all the barriers, doing my own brand of fucked up vampire meditation. I move through it aimlessly, walking and running, staying clear of any humans.

Somewhere in the distance I can feel some faint strains of pain and anguish entwined with dull acceptance, some pleasure, some cold. I already know where its coming from and I'm running almost before I realize. It's a bad idea. A bad, bad idea.

I haven't let myself think about it since I shook off the breakdown I had, but it felt good. That girl's fucking heartbreak mixed with that delicate twinge of hope felt like innocence, like nothing in my jaded life. Something was there that I wanted more of, wanted to pick apart and devour. Not just the blood, though that was sweet, but some undefinable urge, some longing.

I stop running before I get close so I'm not overtaken again. I only let my wall down a little, just enough to get a taste. Something about her pain is poetry, something about how she feels is so different, the way it ebbs and flows. It's like standing in the middle of a circle of people and basking in their differing climates. Utterly perplexing that she feels so much.

And what happens when she's happy? I wonder. How would the myriad ways of joy manifest in her? How would it feel to feel that, mirrored in my own heart.

Tentatively, I focus on projecting calm toward her and feel the answering quieting of the anxiety and pain. I wait a few minutes until the delicate calm moves into heavier sleep and move closer to the house. Her scent is soaked in the moss and ferns where she stood yesterday. I sit down crosslegged on the forest floor and close my eyes, letting it wash over me in waves, breathing deeply all the way down to my lungs.

Pear and orange-blossom, bergamot and salt. Oak moss and apple.

I pick up a scent-soaked piece of moss and slip it into my pocket before running back home.


OMG I can't believe people are following my story, it made my day :') sorry if the formatting is weird, I've never posted on ffn before. It keeps destroying all of my italics, let me know if y'all have any tips.

I didn't intend to put as much humor into this as I have been but I'm just making myself laugh with Edward's characterization and can't help it. I'm not really editing this at all and just writing off the cuff during free time.

Let me know if y'all are reading anything good, I need new stories! J/B or E/B preferred but I'll read anything if it's good, my thirst for fanfic can never be quenched.

Thanks for the reviews, I loved reading them!

jeoliverio - "what is up with Bella, why is she bashing herself?"

Thanks for the review! Bella doesn't have healthy coping skills and isn't well (yet). We'll learn more about her behavior and life before Forks as the story continues.