[the fuck up's fix-it]

Jasper takes off his glasses, then puts them back on. Takes them off again. Back on. Fusses with the way his curls lay across his forehead. Better with or without the glasses?

Alice isn't a fan of the frames. She thinks other frames would look better on him, and she's probably right, but he doesn't have an appointment with his ophthalmologist for another few weeks and he can't stand contacts. And so, because he needs to see if he wants to study, he settles the glasses back on the bridge of his nose, only a little reluctant.

Alice doesn't care that much about his glasses. She wouldn't like him - miraculously, now, because she's a much better person than anyone on the planet - if that we true.

He's just nervous, is the thing. There is a study room in one of the campus libraries that he has reserved for them because they are having a study date - a study date, as in a real date. He's very lucky, he knows, and that's why he's nervous.

He's fucked up so much already, he doesn't want to mess up anymore. He wants to take it slow, of course, and he thinks he's doing well earning back her trust because she's at least granted him this. His stomach is knotted up with nerves, anyway, so much so that he doesn't even bat an eye at Riley and Bree's heavy make-out session on Jasper's bed. He reaches around them, tugs his messenger bag from under Bree's head, and double-checks that he has his wallet because he has the sense that he'll be sexiled for the rest of the night.

Maybe Alice will let him take her to dinner. That would be nice.

Jasper gets to the library first and takes painstaking time setting everything up. He feels it would be too pushy to sit directly beside her, so he makes sure the chairs are on opposite sides of the single table in the sound-proofed room. He takes out his books and his notes, then opens up the bottles of water and the sweet strawberry-flavored gummy rings he's noticed she likes to snack on, and then he waits for Alice to arrive, trying not to be too obvious about the way he stares out the square windows built into the walls.

It's a good thing he is watching for her because his heart lodges into his throat when he spots her tiny frame and her bright, round eyes through the window. She looks like a sunrise, to him.

(He's been so stupid. But no more. Who could be better than the sun?)

"Hey, sorry I'm late," she says breathlessly as she enters the room.

Jasper stands up and rushes to pull out her chair for her. "You're not late," he says reassuringly. "Here, have some water. Were you running?"

Alice giggles then takes a sip gratefully. "I ran a little bit. I got caught up listening to one of the a cappella groups - they were doing Unchained Melody - and then when I realized the time, I just booked it here."

A detail rises from the back of Jasper's mind, the kind of thing he probably read and remembered without realizing it. "There's a concert in a few weeks. We could go, if you want," he offers, and then hastens to add, "Because a cappella is nice to listen to! If you're into it, I mean."

"That would be nice," Alice tells him. She puts down the water and notices the strawberry snack. "Oh! Are these for me?"

Jasper nods, shyly, and goes back to his own seat now that she's sitting down.

Alice smiles at him so sweetly it almost hurts. She takes one of the strawberry gummies, then asks, "What are you studying?"

"Hamilton," he answers.

Her brows knit. "The musical?"

"The person." He pauses, feeling his face heat marginally. "But also the musical, for reference on some finer details. Early American history has a lot of details that can be overlooked..."

"So you do appreciate the arts," Alice teases. She flips through one of her texts, which looks like some kind of cross-sectional graphic design he can't get his head around. "Then I won't have to be embarrassed about what I'm studying. I'm afraid my major isn't as brainy as yours."

"You don't have to be embarrassed. Ever," he says hastily, firmly.

Alice's smile sweetens. "Will you quiz me, later?"

Jasper agrees. Of course he does. And then he does quiz her about two hours later, using the little notecards Alice has written out and color-coded in her bubbly handwriting, marveling over the scrunch of her concentrated expression. Somehow, though, one of her answers unravels into the homesick reminiscing of two Southern kids and they end up spending the next hour or so kindly arguing about which of their home states has the best food. Alice insists that Texas BBQ has nothing on Mississippi's blue crab or soul food, but they both agree that pecan pie is objectively the best kind of pie around.

Jasper is pleased. Alice seems happy around him, and his hope only grows.

It's only as they're packing up, the end of their reserved time coming to an end, that Jasper remembers he wanted to bring something up with her. Psyching himself up to toe at the conversation, he holds the door open for her so she can leave first, and insists on walking her back to her dorm because the season change is already making the sunset a little bit earlier and he wants to make sure she can get back safely. She's smiling enough that he feels like it's probably okay to talk about the subject on his mind.

Jasper clears his throat. "Do you maybe want to..."

"What is it?"

"Would it be okay if we - if you wanted to, that is - do you want to play with me, sometime? I've missed it."

Alice stops in her tracks and looks up at him, seeming to study him very intently. The campus lights flicker on and cast her lovely face in yellow light that makes the color of her eyes take on a warm, amber-like glow. She's so pretty. So nice and perfect.

A slow smile breaks out across her face. "Sure, Jasper. That would be fun. I'll text you when I'm online next."

"Thank you," he says fervently, and he absolutely means it.

"I'm glad you asked," she says as she starts walking. "I've missed playing the game, too. I didn't think I would, since it hasn't ever really been my thing. But when you room with a gamer long enough, you can kind of see the appeal. It's nice stress relief, right?"

Jasper agrees wholeheartedly and is content to listen to Alice ramble sweetly about whatever comes to her mind. That works well enough until they get to Robel Hall and Jasper is finally confronted with the source of his shame - namely, Bella Swan stepping right out of the dorm at the exact moment he and Alice arrive.

They all three freeze, and then two more girls - one light-haired, the other with dyed purple hair - come behind Bella, take stock of the situation, and shift into a defensive sort of stance Jasper recognizes from the ranch, when one of the mares is pissed at a stallion and about ready to knock him silly.

Jasper isn't a stallion in any sense of the word, but he has a sudden sympathy for the way they knicker and flick their tails in aggravation when the mares take on an attitude.

The two other girls trace a path between Jasper's red-face surprise, Alice's pinched expression, and Bella's uncomfortable shifting. And then the blonde one lifts an imperious brow and says, "So this is him? Hmph."

The purple-haired one sucks her teeth, unimpressed, and glares at him with fierce, dark, deep-set eyes that make him shiver in unease.

It all feels more than a little threatening, which is why Jasper, driven by the need to make things right and also the vague sense that if he doesn't tread right he might not be treading at all, speaks without thinking. "I want to apologize! To all of you!"

Dead silence. He shouldn't have said anything.

The three girls at the mouth of Robel Hall exchange a series of shrugs and skeptical glances. Bella's gaze then shifts to Alice, and Jasper watches as the two have some kind of silent communication, lips pursed and eyes widened and brows lifted for several long moments. They must reach some kind of conclusion because Alice turns to him with a bittersweet, worried sort of smile he never wants to see on her face again.

"I forgot my wallet upstairs," she says, which Jasper knows to be a blatant lie, as he'd seen the Hello Kitty wallet not fifteen minutes before. "I'll talk to you later, Jasper. Thanks for helping me study. Text me, okay?"

Jasper nods earnestly. "I will."

Alice goes up the steps, pauses by her roommates for another short-but-loud silent conversation, and then disappears inside the residence hall. This leaves Jasper alone and very much regretting the words that led him to this moment but -

But Jasper won't be a coward about this, not when he wants to live up to the decency Alice expects of him. And this is one thing he can do to maybe mitigate some of the damage he caused.

He can handle an apology.

Or he thought he could. Mostly, Jasper stumbles through all the reasons and ways he's been wrong, and his hope that he can treat Alice like the precious person she is. His apology ends with a final repudiation about his own stupidity. "I was dumb and a total asshole, I know. To Alice, but also to you, Bella. I...I guess I thought, since your life was so accessible online, that I knew you, and that it meant I deserved a chance. But I don't, in either case. And I definitely don't deserve Alice's forgiveness, but I want to do everything I can to be a man she can be proud of. So, I sincerely apologize to you all, and I hope you'll give me a chance to prove I can be better. I want to be better."

The blonde one clicks her tongue and looks away; the purple-haired one levels him with an unimpressed glare he'll take to his grave, it's that withering to the soul.

Bella, on the other hand, has tilted her head at him, studying him like he's something strange and foreign, an artifact that's been discovered. "It wasn't cool, what you did," she says, arms folded over her chest. "You really need to understand that persistence isn't a good thing in the Me Too Era."

Jasper winces. Yes, he'd been the exact scum of privileged white boys everywhere, hadn't he?

"But Alice forgives you, and she's giving you a chance," Bella continues. "If Alice can forgive you, so can I. At least you've learned your lesson, right? You're not going to do it again, are you?"

"No!" Jasper says immediately, shaking his head. "I'll never do something like that again. It's - well, shameful is a word for it - And to hurt Alice again, in any way, is just unthinkable -"

"Oh, so he does think," the purple-haired one snipes.

He deserves that and takes it with grace. "I'll be better," he says again.

The blonde one inhales deeply. "I don't like you," she says bluntly. "I probably won't ever like you. But as long as you stay good to Alice, I won't say anything."

"That's fine," Jasper says. It sounds more than fair. He might be kind of a fuck-up on the regular, but he can recognize the fact that, by hurting Alice, he'd also hurt her friends. This is only a small portion of the groveling he owes them all, but he hopes its a good start.

The purple-haired one snorts. "It's like stealing a kid's Halloween candy. I'm actually feeling a little mean."

"I'm not," the blonde one retorts.

Bella sighs, and Jasper is struck by the notion that, while Bella is still more than a little pretty, she also can't hold a flame to Alice's warmth and bubbly personality, or Alice's big eyes, or Alice's anything else. He'd been so blind before. Blind and stupid.

"Don't let Alice down," Bella tells him.

"I won't," he vows.

He'll never let Alice down again.


A/N: Update 2 of 3 this weekend. If Jasper's redemption hasn't happened now, it never will. I've done my best to reform him and I think he's grown as a character. Still a little immature, maybe, but people are like that sometimes. So, Jasper Whitlock: Reformed Incel. Done.

I am completely gutted by some of the news we got this week re: Breonna Taylor. It wasn't surprising, but it's still upsetting.

As always, be brutally honest, I can take it. Stay safe, stay inside, and stay healthy. Buckle in for a bumpy ride ahead.

~Rae