Readers! Thanks for the love. I'm sorry I keep cliffying you. It really isn't anything personal. I write how it comes to me. Again, I would like to remind you all that I AM NOT FINISHED WITH THIS STORY. I am not abandoning it. These chapters are a little difficult since lately I've actually been relatively happy and I don't like to dwell in the negative angst. But that doesn't mean I'm done! Just sit back and be patient, my loves. All will be well.

The song for this chapter is 9 Crimes by Damien Rice. It's pretty great. I had a few different songs for this picked out but I liked this one the most.

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Chapter Twenty One: 9 Crimes

BPOV:

I could hear breathing. The slow and methodic inhaling of several people and the gentle exhale as the air rushed out of their lungs and into the open air. The air was filled with individual scents. Things I had never noticed before. I could smell all of the ingredients in the plaster and paint on the wall, the weave of the carpet. I struggled to remember what was going on. My mind felt faster but as I tried to recall the events that had brought me to this point, it felt foggy, like I couldn't see the memories clearly.

I remembered the pain. It had seemed like it would never end. Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, it had flared to horrific, unimaginable proportions. Finally the pain had ended and now I was here, breathing in the stale air and trying to remember what it was that I had forgotten. It was important, vitally important. I could feel the significance of it in my bones, but I couldn't place what exactly it was. It had something to do with why I was laying on this bed, listening to the wind blowing through the window in the kitchen two floors down. I wondered if this is what Edward heard.

Edward.

And just like that, it all came rushing back to me. Edward getting angry and attacking me. Someone pulling him off of me and Carlisle rushing in, trying to save me. Edward. I would kill him! I would rip his head off and burn it piece by piece with my bare hands. How could he? How could he take away my options like this, my choices? Didn't he understand that I was over him, that he didn't have any say in my life anymore? When Jasper found out…

Jasper.

"Jasper." The word wasn't scratchy like I thought it would be. My throat felt like it had been scraped with hot coals but that word escaped with all the finesse and beauty of the most practiced symphony. My eyes flew open but I didn't waste time thinking about the individual fibers of the carpet or the plaster on the wall. My eyes sought out the members of my new family but when I failed to see Jasper's face amongst them, I was on my feet.

"Where is he," I demanded. Rose and Emmett exchanged a heavy look and I focused on them. "Rose, where is he?" She shifted uncomfortably in front of me.

"We've been trying to get a hold of him but he won't answer his phone. I don't know where he's gone." I didn't waste time. One second I was staring Rose down and the next I was out the front door and running. I ran, waiting for the familiar burn in my legs and lungs but it never came. I felt sobs pulling at my chest as I pushed myself as far as I could go, pushing to get home –to Jasper –so that I could apologize, beg him to take me back, to never leave me again. He had to be there. He couldn't be gone. He couldn't have left me for good.

This couldn't be the end.

JPOV

I was an idiot.

How could I have done that? How could I have left Bella, walked away like she meant nothing to me? I'd hurt her beyond a reasonable doubt. And yet, I'd come here, to our cabin, the place we'd been calling home for the brief time we'd been together, hoping, waiting for her to come find me so that I could apologize. I couldn't go back. I couldn't be like Edward and just hurt the poor girl and expect her to take me back. She'd had enough of people hurting her. She deserved better. And yet here I sat, like I had for the past two days, waiting for her to walk through the doors, to tell me that it wasn't hopeless, that we could still be together. I couldn't let this be the end. She had to come.

But she wasn't.

It only took a little over half a day to get from Forks to our cabin. She'd had plenty of time to get here. But she'd hadn't. She hadn't even called. Oh sure, I'd had countless calls from everyone else but I didn't want to listen to them while they berated me. Nothing they could say could possibly compare to what I was already saying about myself. All I wanted was to hear Bella's voice telling me that this wasn't going to be the end of us.

But she hadn't called.

And she hadn't come.

I pulled at my hair and stood up, taking a final look at everything before I shut the door and took off running, seeking refuge from the only people I had left.

BPOV

I burst through the door, Jasper's name falling from my lips as I sped through the house, searching for him desperately. I moved from room to room, his scent filling my head. But he wasn't there. And why would he be? He'd been so disgusted with me when he left that he hadn't even been able to look at me. He'd made it abundantly clear that what I had done was beyond forgiveness. And he was right. I had made that promise to Alice, yes, but the beautiful thing about Jasper and I's relationship was how honest we were with each other. There were no lies, no side conversations at a decibel below my former hearing. We'd loved each other enough to want to spend eternity together.

But now...

I slunk down against the wall and began to sob, again noticing the missing tears that usually accompanied such grief. I pulled my knees to my chest and rested my forehead on them, calling out Jasper's name in broken moans. He was gone. He wasn't coming back.

And now I had an eternity to lament the loss.